Everything is good besides goaltending try to get it from a team that has a starter as a backup like CBJ with Korpisalo and Merzilikins or the Rangers with Georgiev and Shesterkin

The D still sucks. Your likely not getting Ovi out of Washington. Our goal tending is weak now.

The deepest part of MTL's prospect pool is defence. "Pipe Dream". Allen and Bernier > Price.

D is the deepest part of our prospect pool but prospects aren't making the team better when they are still just prospects. Price-Allen is the BEST option and Price-Bernier would be second best Allen-Bernier is just awful.

On Defense:
No, but if you get the forward core in place then everything else will align itself... Harris, Norlinder, and Brook only have one year before they will get a shot in the NHL. With the right coaches in place developing Romanov he should be a top 4 D easily next year, if he was given the opportunity to play powerplay all season he would be further along. Guhle and Struble will be coming next. MTL can always add a D at any time as well... it doesn't all have to happen at once.

On Goalies:
Based on opinion errrr? Currently, Bernier has the highest GSAx of the three goalies with 1.8. Allen is 2nd with -1.3. Price is the worst with a -8.11. Price has only had one solid season in the least 4 or 5 years.

Using simpler stats, Bernier has a .914 playing for DET while Price has a .901 playing for a playoff team. No excuses.

My point about the D is IF your signing Ovi at 11 Mil for 4 years you are wasting 2 developing the prospects and by then Ovi is likely looking to retire. In the mean time the D is not good enough to compete for the cup, so why bother with Ovi? Spend 11 mil on someone that fits with our current needs and timeline.

As for the Goalies, Price is still one of the best in the league and I would say that 70-90% of the goals given up in the last 4 or 5 years are a direct result of our D's utter lack of clearing the front of the net or lack of speed on the back end. Our D has been extremely bad at giving up odd man rushes and incapable of clearing the front of the net (even Weber). Weber is not physical enough anymore to move guys away from the goalies, he isn't quick enough on his skates to win puck battles, and this year our D has looked the best when Weber was out of the lineup. Price has given up some bad goals but how many times has his D made bad plays in front of him first? That frustrates goalies and causes them to try to do more on their own. Look at Allen a couple of games ago, He miss played the puck behind the net because our D had been too slow moving the puck up ice all game so he tried force a play and turned it over.

Wasting two years? No. Edmundson - Petry are a top pairing in the NHL. Romanov should be a top 4 D, one of Chiarot of Weber could play top 4, however it would be more ideal if they were together on the 3rd pair.... but this is a playoff team so they can add a partner for Romanov at the TDL. The rest of the prospect will be there in year 2. It sounds like you don't want Ovi - the greatest goal scorer to have ever played the game.

And no... you are wrong about Price. GSAx is goals saved above expected which means it takes shot quality into consideration. Price has been a total dud in this regard the last 4 or 5 years. All the other top goalies in the league do not have this issue.

Go look for yourself, do some research instead of giving me your analysis based of your eye test.

https://evolving-hockey.com/stats/goalie_standard/?_inputs_&std_gl_str=%22All%22&std_gl_adj=%22Score%20%26%20Venue%22&std_gl_fa=%2250%22&std_gl_info=%22No%22&std_gl_range=%22Seasons%22&std_gl_table=%22On-Ice%22&std_gl_span=%22Regular%22&std_gl_group=%22Team%2C%20Season%22&std_gl_dft_yr=%22All%22&std_gl_players=null&std_gl_team=%22All%22&std_gl_age1=%2217%22&std_gl_age2=%2250%22

A good example of how well this stat works is Grubauer. Bernier has a higher GSAx than him even though Bernier has a 2.9 GAA / .914 sv% vs Grubauer's 2 GAA / .920 sv%. To put it simply, Grubauer is a slightly above average goalie on a really good team, while Bernier is a slightly above average goalie on a really bad team.

Price is just a bad goalie, or rather a goalie with such terrible consistency that he is a bad goalie. Maybe he can win you a playoff series, but he can't get you to the playoffs so who cares.

Your first line says it all, the fact that you think Edmundson is a top pairing D man is hilarious. Edmundson is propped up by Petry just like every other LHD we have.

The thing you need to understand when using stats is that they can be used to prove anything. Stats are subjective! They are easily altered to prove any narrative. Its the reason that many scouts rely more on their own eye tests than the stats of prospects. See link.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.makeuseof.com/tag/prove-anything-statistics-using-spurious-correlations-weird-wonderful-web/amp/

Yeah Ovechkin isn't happening, And Bernier will cost a minimum 2x$3.5M perhaps even closer to $4.0M to sign. Not no cheap 2x2 even backups aren't cheap anymore.