Then add a sweetener. Give up a pick or a b level prospect if you have to. There was absolutely no reason to return to Smith. There’s always an excuse for this franchise when other teams manage to make things work.
Agreed they should have not gone back to Smith but what other options were there? We tried on 3 goalies and they didn’t want to play ball or in Markstrom case wanted a ridiculous contract that this fan base would have lost it over. Besides the biggest issue as it has been for the 20 years is Defense we can’t seem to sign anyone or trade for anyone that doesn’t either have baggage or is past their expiry date.
i love Roli for his 2006 playoff performance but other than that, i remember him being pretty underwhelming/average
Why not give Yams a chance with topline? There are zero direct scoring plays involving Yama or Drai yet this season. There were zero in the play ins, its uncanny. They just don't connect with each other. I can't find the last time an EV scoring play involved either Yama or Drai getting the first assist on the others goal. I'm checking back to last season.
I mean Drai and Ennis even connected twice in the play ins on goals, and Drai only had Ennis for 2 of the games.
This is no knock on Drai, or Yama, they just cannot connect on a scoring play without an intermediary. I mean, they can potentially, but its bizarre how its gone.
Game before last Drai setup Yama 5 times around the net. Nothing cashed. Late in game McD slides one pass across to Yama and its a goal. Its kind of hilarious. Must be something wrong with the Drai sauce passes..
I think Yama has the most chemistry with RNH.
Yes, lets also not forget Holland went hard after Markstrom despite having Koskinen and no cap space.
I would love if Tips tried this for tomorrow. We seem to be better at this than him.
He cannot play on a checking line, you are right. he doesn't have the wheels for it at all. He is miscast. If Dave gets his head out of his a** and improvises a little, they could turn things around a little.
You can only have one goalie on the ice at a time. If you substitute in a goalie for Kostco that isn’t any better then you aren’t gaining any benefit to the team for a $4M+ cap hit...no matter how you slice it.
I don't think its his wheels stopping him from being a good checker it's the sporadic loss of defensive awareness, he just zones out for little periods of time not keeping ideal positioning for himself and losing track of people he should be checking. Speed would only make it easier to recover from his lapses in focus, it wouldn't correct the central issue at play.
And they would still be an improvement on what we are putting out their most nights.
