Replacement just stop the. "This team had a crisis lack of experience at center".
Letetsu is a vet.
Letestu is brand new here and not established. Pretty much as a rule, unless you're someone like Chris Pronger, when you come to a new team you're feeling out your own way. You don't have the leadership at that point, in that new dressing room to be providing leadership to a rookie kid. What Roy did here with Yak was very atypical, ballsy, even and he took on a key leadership role immediately. Most incoming players don't do that, especially right out of training camp.
RNH is no longer a rookie and experienced.
Still doesn't hold his own, needs help, could use sheltering, and still quite young. Again I've made the argument that Nuge has been poorly coached at the NHL level in general and compounded by having several different coaches. This is not a fully developed vet centers by any means.
Lander has played a lot of pro games and had a break out season last year.
Very little NHL experience. Still hasn't found his form outside of Nelson. That was the only coach we've had that had faith in him. The kid needs a lot of help and reassurance. Will he get that? Break out season? He didn't play here close to half the season. Its limited sample. Any Sample of Lander before that was "OMG, why did we draft this guy. Suddenly a good 10-15 games in 40 games played and he's can't miss. Break out year. serious you guys have forgot what one looks like.
What do you want us to do get 2 vet centers and push RNH and McDavid down cause "experience".
You need that balance to grow the kids into the game. No team tries to go with 3 top centers with a combined 5 yrs nhl experience. (due to lockout/injuries its even less than that here)
Vets for the sake of vets doesn't help a team. There are no quality vets that would help us that were available in ufa or ones available in trade that wouldn't be costly to trade for.
The positions they find themselves in here Drai and Lander are probably not going to add to a whole lot here. That writing is on the wall. Topsix is spoken for if either retain their positions they are on the outside looking in indefinitely. May as well be vets in those positions who would be more accomplished and experienced in their NHL roles. You know, like Gordon, one of the very few Oilers that wasn't getting owned last years.
The strangest think is that the Connor McDavid pick should have resulted in the team feeling that they needed to trade Lander, Drai, or both because they were obviously expendable here and trade them while their still of some value. Instead we trade an accomplished Vet Center, let another one walk, and retain Drai and Lander for bottom line work for which they are poorly suited. Which is going to diminish any trade value period and two years time neither of these guys will be here. If you been around this team long enough you know how it goes here. No planning. No sense.
"nuge is the perfect guy to lean on" You're kidding me. nuge doesn't know 25cents about what it takes to win at this level, doesn't even hold his own on shifts, when recently seen was still not strong enough to compete, and the net result of having him play so high up on this team for years has been year after year of resounding poor team performances.
Theres a common wisdom that a team will go as far as your top two centers can take you. But McDavid is a very lean rookie, Nuge is a lean young Center, and neither, at present, are anywhere close to being of size, experience, stature, to compete with top Centers in the tough WC.
Sometimes its going to be funny, sometimes its going to be flat out sad.