InjuredChoker
Registered User
They are going to have to do it at some point, I would have preferred just rolling Bigras and Zadorov this year to put them in a better position to hit the ground running next year but they got caught up in the short term. It's not an experiment, they are the future. It's possible one or both just won't work out but we don't know that until they try it. And if they don't we have a whole lot more problems anyway. Zadorov whenever he was here got near 20 minutes at least so I don't think they are going to ease him in on a third pair or anything. I could see them stick Bigras with that to start. I'll be completely shocked if Bigras and Zadorov are both in the top 4 to start the season, the hope is they can end up there. I know there's ways to do it but I'm saying realistically what's going to happen. I don't know how you distribute EJ, Beauch and Barrie then because I agree Roy doesn't see Barrie with EJ holding down that sort of role. They are going to use a crutch of some sort, of its not Beauch next year I don't know. If Holden is still here, which I assume he will be, I wouldn't be shocked to me see something like
Holden-EJ
Zadorov-Beauch
Bigras-Barrie
Then they don't have to play the third pair 10 minutes a game, they can be fed more minutes and when they are down they can play Barrie more like they do anyway but I could see them cut his 5v5 minutes down.
even though he wouldn't be traditional 3rd pair guy, i can't see avs paying barrie around 6 mil to pay on 3rd pairing.
in arbitration he would get less but i don't think that's the route they should be going with.