Quoting: Birtle34
Taxi squad system, I would 100 percent do this and have the 10 healthy dman to start over the usual 8, what is the story with the ahl and that level are they mirroring nhl season. If it’s taxi squad for the season, I would prefer the scenario of giving samberg and heinola as much ice as they can handle and not overly worry about the competition they are facing. Any dman other than morrissey, pionk, samberg, and heinola, I dont see on the squad 3 or 4 years out, possibly demelo. But I like the idea to situate samberg and heinola somewhere and leave them there and give them the best chance to have a strong confident year and see them in september. I might move hamonic right up to top 4 and play him with pionk, and other 6 guys battle for bottom pair minutes and special team scraps. I’m biased towards a poolman/niku battle on rhd and not sure on sbisa/forbert, but another bias on beaulieu, so possibly not sold on adding much more than a hamonic if it’s cheap and willing to play lhd with pionk
I read a piece in the Free Press a little while ago about Niku, he's stayed in Winnipeg, has been training and is now close to 200 lbs, will be interesting to see how he does now with another 15-20 lbs of weight/muscle on his frame, if he can defend better now maybe he can still be an option for the Jets if Maurice gives him a chance.
My thought with these signings is they're legit NHL dmen that I think have more top 4 potential then most of the guys the Jets currently have, if one of Pionk or Morrissey get injured I'd trust one of Hutton, Hamonic or Koekkoek stepping up more then Beaulieu, Poolman or Forbort though I do think they're decent players to have, sounds like Edmonton has signed Koekkoek though so can scratch him off the list.
I really think the AHL is the best place for Samberg especially after the cap accident he was in and sliding Heinola's ELC another year would be very beneficial for the Jets in the long term plus the kid is tiny, let him stay at home and grow for another year before bringing him over, that's what I think they should do but I'm sure they'll bring him back over to North America, if they slide his ELC another year Heinola's contract will expire the same year as Wheeler and Schiefeles deals do which could be good timing, Heinola needing a raise and $14M worth of cap space opening up....
In the end I think unless there's a Laine or Roslovic trade(I hope neither are traded!!) I think Chevy's done with this lineup and what we see is what we get.
Thanks for the feedback and Merry Christmas!!