It's going to be interesting to see who gets to play an who is out if (god willing) all possible forwards end up healthy.
I count 8 guys as locks to play every night, and 10 guys as "maybes", some more maybe than others.
Locks: Hall, Perron, Gagner, RNH, Gordon, Hemsky, Eberle, Yakupov
Maybe: *Arcobello, Acton, Jones, Smyth, Pitlick, Eager, Joensuu, Lander, Hamilton, Gazdic
Out of the maybes: It is hard to include Arcobello on this list but I feel that with Gagner back his future is in jeopardy with the "big club". Joensuu should be playing every night IF he can manage to stay healthy. Jones has really started to play himself back into the mix this past week. Pitlick looks like he at least deserves a spot with the Oilers. Smyth has been at least much improved over last year. Acton has been better than I expected, not a world-beater, but effective enough as a 4C, plus it never hurts to have an extra center in the mix. Gazdic should probably stay as well. If we're keeping 14 forwards, I guess Lander, Hamilton and Eager would be the obvious three of these 18 to send down, although despite his lack of production as an NHL player thus far, I am impressed with what I've seen from Lander as far as defensive fundamentals. Eager has also looked better than last year. Hamilton was ok in his short time, but probably not a great option. And one more still has to go.
So with those three sent down, plus one more, I'm interested to see who would play primarily as the 9-12 forwards on most nights. I know that this may never be the situation, as there alwas appear to be 1 or 2 (or 6) guys injured, but it's still interesting.
The forward group at least looks OK. The bottom 6 at least is better than it has been in a while. Maybe a trade involving one of the higher end guys should be made to address the fact that we have a shortage of legitmate top 4 D. In my eyes, Petry is the only one of our d-men that could play in the top 4 of an average NHL team. Belov is slowly working his way there as well, but this needs to get addressed in one way or another.
I've hard Stauffer saying that the Rangers are likely to sign Girardi in the not so distant future, with his impending UFA status. Maybe we wait for them to sign him and make the Rangers a dynamite offer to get him. With the lack of quality on D for this team, a move needs to be made. IMO it would be more than worthwhile to sacrifice some offense in order to grab a quality D-man that could help stabilize this team. Nurse is on the way, same for probably at least one or two of our other prospects, but this team needs a solid veteran like Girardi who is at worst a #3 and more-so a #2.
What do people think it would take to get Girardi? He sure would help with a lot of what is wrong with this team.
