Oh boy here I go again analyzing this train wreck.

OK, I'll be fair and say that I love adding Nieto and Donato. I believe Donato will likely become a nice middle six forward in SJ. An offense minded player like him is gonna do well in their system, I'm pretty confident about that. I like adding Nieto because I believe he adds more offense than Sorensen while being a very good PKer.

Now we start with the parts I hate. I hate not having a 3C. I hate getting Dubnyk who's a very subpar goalie at this point in time so he doesn't help Jones much. And the Labanc contract is just bad.
The x-factors for them are:
-one of the goalies NEEDS to bounce back is a MAJOR way. Probably both tbh
-someone needs to step up in their bottom six and provide secondary scoring

If these two things don't happen, they'll again be in the bottom 5 of the league.

Here's how I'd build their lineup:
Donato-Couture-Meier
Kane-Hertl-Labanc
Sorensen-Gregor-Nieto
Marleau-Kellman-Noesen
Ferraro-Karlsson
Simek-Burns
Vlasic-Merkley

Jones
Dubnyk

@yikes
@papishark
@RawZuccSauce420

I agree on most fronts but another Factor is Karlsson. If you get a healthy Karlsson you arent finishing bottom, just ask Ottawa.

Spot ****ing on. It’s just frustrating because it feels like with the 3C and goalie situations, they’re just throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks. We knew these would be problem areas for the team, and to solve them Wilson went with the ‘make very small changes and hope there are big improvements’ method. Which is stupid. With that being said, it’s not impossible that someone steps up and plays well at 3C or that one of the slices of Swiss cheese play well in net. But I don’t have my hopes up.

I agree very much so. Good analysis @KakkoForMauriceRichardAward

I think X factors gotta include Karlsson and maybe not an X factor but an important factor is Merkley and if he comes in to even half of what we expect from his as sharks fans it’ll be exciting.

I once again wish we rebuilt/ committed to rebuilding especially with the division we’re in but I do see room for optimism.

I wish we signed Soderberg or Wallmark tho but we’ll see how camp goes because our camp/ roster building will be fun to watch this year. A lot of questions to be answered.