Quoting: JohnPance
This team is excellent, however to be honest I would rather have Alex Goligoski than Yandle. While Yandle is undoubtedly one of the best passing defenseman in the NHL, his defense is severely lacking. Now this can be made up for if he is with a defensive stalwart like McLRath but it may not. Also Goligoski will be considerbly cheaper (approx 5.5 million) also will have championship experience from Pitt and now Dallas making a run. In addition, I drop Kreider down to 3rd line because Buchenevich is useless outside the top 6, I believe if he is in the bottom 6 he can turn into a Yakupov and eventually leave to Russia. He is our best asset in 10 years and we need to put him the greatest position to prosper while learning defense, him with Stepan makes the most sense.
I prefer Yandle. I think he's better defensively than Goligoski is. Goligoski's rel. CA60 (relative Corsi against per 60 mins) was positive while Yandle's was negative in 5v5. Overall, they had similar rel. CF% numbers, which means that Goligoski provided a larger offensive jump for the Stars than Yandle did for the Rangers. Yandle is better defensively than a lot of people give him credit for. His errors are very obvious when they happen, but 98% of the time he's playing things right and just makes the play look pedestrian. But would I pass up Goligoski at $5.5m for 5 years? Nah. He's a good signing.
As for the playoff experience issue, Goligoski played 2 games in Pitt's SC run. He had a total of 20:44 TOI in that entire run. And right now Goligoski has 29 games of playoff experience to Yandle's 51. Keep in mind, Yandle went to the WCF from the Coyotes in 2012 and to the ECF with us last year.
If Kreider is going to be a third liner, then he needs to be moved instead of signed for $4.5m with term. But I do agree that having Buchnevich on the 3rd line doesn't make sense. I just had him there to list off what our depth chart looks like. Maybe this means moving Kreider/Miller so that the guy who is left plays on the second line with Buchnevich. Or maybe it means moving Nash although I think that would really weaken us on the wing.
Quoting: JohnPance
Also, what about don't spend on Brodziak and Stalberg and pick up Dale Weise? Big, gritty, can score?
Yeah, I'd be fine with him. He's certainly serviceable and would probably be fairly cheap.