Well the issue is we don't have anything in the bottom 6 that is complimentary and in the top 6 there isn't much to spread around to make it work. I mean are we thinking McCann should be the LW in the top 6? How would that work, how has that looked in the past (not great in terms of consistency).
If you have a strong RW (which we don't, I love my boy Rust and I have a lot of faith in Kappy being a bloke that will produce like Rust did last season, but the strong legit top 6 winger we have are Guentzel and Zucker), you might be able to split as it would then suggest we have 4 wingers that are serious legit top 6 wingers, but the truth of the matter is we have 2 LW's that are and 2 RW's that need to prove it on a more consistent basis.
This is why I wanted Blueger to be the 3c, then the team spends money on a proper top 9 winger to remedy that, but as usual, JR is a narrow minded moron and Sullivan chooses to never think outside of the box with his usage of Guentzel.
So what we are realistically looking at in the top 6 is:
Guentzel, Crosby, Kapanen
Zucker, Malkin, Rust
You look at that and you know that the 3rd and 4th line are just never going to produce because if they consider Jankowski a player that can distribute and produce, they are going to be in for a shock because McCann is a shooter and I don't know enough about Jankowski's game to suggest he will fill those gaps in any shape or form. What I do know is that Blueger is a more balanced player offensively in that same bottom 6 role and he's shown the ability to be a fantastic shutdown center.
Then you look at the rest - Rodrigues, Tanev, Aston-Reese, Sceviour, and Lafferty and it's not good.
What are we realistically looking at for production there?
Tanev 25-30 if we are lucky?
Rodrigues 15-20 if we are lucky?
ZAR 15-25 if we are lucky?
And so forth.
I still think it was highly unncessary to go after Jankowski and Ceci, that cap could have allowed this team to sign a decent top 9 winger and then move Rodrigues to 4C like I had originally spoken about before was traded in the Kappy trade, then rolled Blueger in the 3c spot. Because we know Blueger-Tanev works, you then need a LW and I just didn't know if McCann is good enough as a winger to be there but if ZAR worked, it was compelling enough to see how McCann-Blueger-Tanev could look which then means you maybe sign a better 4th line winger.
For me, I would have liked adding Granlund, he also plays W/C.
McCann, Blueger, Granlund
Tanev, Rodrigues, Lafferty/Sceviour
It would then be one of those - Would Granlund have taken 2-2.5m for 1yr? Should the team have just moved out Sceviour and kept Lafferty and another from WBS as the option (my choice vs keeping Sceviour) and then boosted that to 3-3.5m/1yr for Granlund.
That's where I am at with this.
The way Sullivan has used the bottom 6 and how JR has tried to fix it has just exacerbated this into the the massive black hole it's become, it's put so much pressure on the top 6 to perform and you can't really pull anything away from the top 6, are we screwing Malkin yet again with a McCann & Rust duo on his wings?