Honestly, 'Some Veteran' might be an upgrade over Matt Martin on the wing.

Matt Martin is on the Islanders, is that a chirp directed at Matt Martin? Considering you appear to be a Caps fan, I figured you'd love Matt Martin? He's essentially the same player as Tom Wilson without the benefit of ever playing with stars.

Carrick on the first pairing? I really hope he actually has the potential.

I'm actually not a huge Tom WIlson fan. I'd agree that Wilson benefited greatly from playing on the first line and definitely didn't warrant his contract. I was trying to make a playful comment, but clearly you love some Matt Martin.

I'm not sure if he can handle the top pair but he's been one of the better defensive guys whenever he's played. When paired with Dermott they have insane possession numbers, and I like him better with Rielly than Hainsey.

I have trouble not chirping Tom Wilson where I can get it in. LOL I don't think Matt Martin hurts you if he's your 4th line winger, he can skate and hit and doesn't really cost you a lot of bad goals. Generally you can just find better players who can add more to the team than guys like that can.

True. In limited minutes a guy like him could be useful in certain situations. Better than some 4th line guys around the league.

If he's fast enough to create havoc on the forecheck than he's not terrible. But if you put faster, more skilled guys there then it creates a big matchup advantage, TO can run 4 lines of offensive power and Martin takes away from that so that's why he couldn't play for them any more. The same will happen for Wilson sooner rather than later I think. You can't have a 4th liner making 5+, even a 3rd line winger at 5+ is a pretty bad situation.

Yeah, I understand Wilson's benefit in certain situations and he helps open up some ice for Kuznetsov and Ovechkin. However, I agree - at his core he's a bottom 6 guy. I was probably in the minority of Caps, fans but I loathed the contract they gave him. I was honestly thinking they'd give him 4 mill which is still probably too much. Too late now, lol.

GM's in this league are consistent, most of them make the same mistakes year after year. They watched Fernando Pisani get a big contract after that Oilers run to the finals and he was a bottom 6 guy who had a big playoffs and then went back to being a bottom 6 guy. Wilson is just another one of those guys. Gets rewarded for a small sample size and then goes back to the medium.

If Zaitsev rebounds to this 4.5m form. I'd rather him him instead of 1.5, Carrick. Cap is going to be tight, but if the Leafs are happy with the rather inexpensive and young defence, that could be the lineup.

While I was resigning guys, I was having trouble getting under the cap so Zaitsev was a casualty. I think the drop off between Carrick and Zaitsev is much less than the drop off between Kapanen and who ever his replacement is. So I kept him and moved out Zaitsev. I agree with you though, I think Zaitsev is a quality defender who had a bad year last year due to injury and illness.