Edited Feb. 13, 2019 at 12:38 a.m.
Quoting: DevilsAdvocate
Completely disagree with a couple of your points here.
First off Lovejoy, I don't see any need to trade Ben as he is a consistent and always reliable d-man that fits well in our top 4. I say we resign him to another short term deal, at frankly, whatever cost he wants.
The other point you mentioned is Zacha. I think Pavel has had more than enough time to prove himself, and he simply just has not done that. He's barely noticeable when he plays, and you will rarely catch him getting any sort of scoring chance. Also, he is the last thing we need near ANY of our powerplay units.
Lastly, I believe that Cory has simply lost his touch. I say we trade him for just about anything we can get at this point, and just count our losses.
I couldn't disagree more with your first two points.
Ben Lovejoy is nowhere near a "consistent and always reliable d-man" unless you mean consistently subpar. Lovejoy's plus/minus doesn't reflect how many goals he costs us. If he fits "well in our top four" it's because our top four is among the worst in the entire NHL. He is constantly giving up unforced turnovers, screening our goalies, and he's awful at boxing out players in front of our net - he's usually the one getting boxed out. Not to mention he cannot make a breakout pass. He either passes to his d-partner to make a pass or ices it (every single time). He's not mobile and other teams players blow by him rather often.
On the other hand, Zacha has been in the NHL for what will soon be two and a half years and I don't think two and a half years in the NHL (21 years old) is enough time to "prove yourself" as an legit NHLer nor is it enough time to reach anywhere near ones full potential. Not everyone is going to be like McDavid, Matthews, Eichel etc... and score 20-30-40 goals a year that early into their career especially when playing on a roster as bad as ours. Some examples off the top of my head are M. Backlund and W. Karlsson. Backlund didn't start averaging 0.5 points before game until his fourth NHL season and before that he had only 46 points in his first 137 games/first three seasons (.33 points per game). William Karlsson also took 4 years to have a breakout season; he only had 48 points in his first 180 games/first three seasons (.26 points per game) (!!!)... and now look at him. Zacha (66 points in his first 190 GP for .34 points per game) has the tools to be a middle six guy, he just needs to use them more.
Your point about Cory is fair, and although I'm being a little optimistic, I personally think and hope that he's not completely dried up. He had pretty severe hip surgery in the summer and didn't have an offseason of training and conditioning to get back in game shape. I don't know if you've ever had hip surgery but... you can't walk, and thats gonna make it pretty easy to get out of game shape to the standard of a pro athlete.
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