This is such a weird team lol. On paper they're weak ish but they are an absolute juggernaut or so it seems.

Now, they likely lost Brassard and they lost Toews while losing Boychuk to LTIRetirement. That last thing is actually good considering he was a pylon.

They resigned Pulock and with Barzal back they'll be all set.

The x-factor for them will be to keep their strong defensive structure intact. If they do their goaltending will be elite once again and their offense won't have to do much.

I have to say this tho: for the love of god, play Dobson important minutes, Trotz.

I think Wahlstrom will make their team. Speaking of which, here's how I'd build the team:

Lee-Barzal-Bailey
Beauvillier-Nelson-Eberle
Timashov-Pageau-Wahlstrom
Johnston-Cizikas-Clutterbuck

Leddy-Pulock
Pelech-Dobson
Aho-Mayfield

Varlamov
Sorokin

@AndrewLadd
@Isles777
@ForsbergForVezina

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Bailey and Lee have a lot of chemistry, but those two don't mesh well with Barzal. I would go with beauvillier-barzal-eberle, lee-nelson -Bailey

Leddy is awful, I would not play him on the top pair. Everything else I agree with

If lou/trotz actually give wahlstrom/dobson the minutes they deserve, I'm confident they'll finish 3rd or 4th in their division. If they give leddy and mayfield an increased role and play komarov/brassard on the the 3rd line , it will be tough to make the playoffs.

Basically everything Isles777 said. Pelech will be with Pulock, Leddy with Mayfield and Greene with Dobson (should be Aho instead of Greene but management has shown no desire to give him another shot).

I'm a little biased, so I have a brighter outlook on this team than some, but I do truly think this is a situation where what you see on paper is nowhere near the reality of the situation. This is still a team with the potential to shut down any team in the league any given night and still score enough to win. My fear is that with all the interdivisional games is that someone will figure them out and we'll struggle at the end of the year again, but it's tough to say. I'm putting them 4th in the eastern division or whatever it's called, behind PHI, NYR and WSH

Yeah I pretty much agree w Isles777 too. I thibk the dcore should instead look like: Pelech-Pulock (amazing shutdown pair), Leddy-Dobson and Aho-Mayfield (which kinda recreates the Toews-Mayfield pair they ran. Wahlly better make it, we need his shot. I also j wanna say, I rly hope they don’t make any TDL moves this year, we need our picks, damnit