The fact Marincin is back is a real wake up call. Every team in the league passed on him for free, he simply has critical holes in his game that aren't NHL caliber. What is instructive-instead of routinely saying what an idiot Babcock is- actually look at Carrick's play, then the fact Polak, and now Marincin, get consideration, becomes clearer. I mean it's easy to blame the coach, but Carrick can't play PK, he can't move a feather from the front of the net and he loses battles constantly on the wall. Sure he makes a nice pass, rush, here and there, but he's been absolutely god awful in our end and that's why we have AHL Marincin back in instead. The whole situation boils down to some pretty simple realities, Carrick isn't a 6th D man, nor are the other two, but here we sit. Nothing has changed, we need another D man. We have the room, the assets, Lou will get us a depth D, these guys understand what is happening.
As an aside, I'm starting to think we need a top 4 D, Gardiner is a mess a lot of the times, the maddening inconsistency on our top 4 is deadly. I'd consider moving beyond Jake at this point.