Dube >> Dunn, again no need for Jones. Tanev and Andersson are both top 4 dmen and we can easily bring back Stone for that 3rd pair for league min

If trading for Reinhart just keep him on the wing, he's better there.

Gaudreau - Monahan - Reinhart
Tkachuk - Lindholm - Mangiapane
Pelletier - Backlund - Dube
Lucic - Gawdin - Ritchie

Hanifin - Andersson
Valimaki - Tanev (like when Tanev played with Hughes)
Mackey - Stone

Dunn > Dube and St. Louis is pretty set at center.

That’s not nearly enough for Reinhart. Buffalo needs a forward not more defensemen.

Dunn is overrated and only good offensively, Dube has top 6 potential

era

You may right, but Reinhart has leverage for whatever team he plays for next season. He could just take a 5.2m qualifying offer this season and be a UFA next season. Teams aren't giving a great amount unless he is signed.

Throw-ins do not make a Monahan-for-Jones trade any less egregiously unwanted by the Jackets.

But this is practically the exact same team as this past year.
How do they possibly get better?

I mean if you consider Rienhart and Ritchie to be abput the same and injured vs healthy Monahan to be similar you are right. Also Calgary was definitely trending upward the last quarter of the season. After Sutter's system was implemented they were by nearly every metric a top 10 team. Small sample size but not small enough to overlook it.

If anything Dunn is only good defensively and just racks up points on the PP while if you're playing Dube in your top six your team is probably not very good. He's young but like those are not great early returns.



They don't! Not without taking a step back first. I don't really buy all the "Tkachuk wants out" rumors but regardless of his status Calgary management needs to rebuild this team. I get he was hurt this year but Monahan has been in three years of decline. Backlund is in his thirties, Lucic is in his thirties, Giordano is in his late thirties, Tanev is in his thirties, Markstrom is in his thirties. And like, some of those players are still good- we've jumped the shark on how bad Lucic really is, Giordano is still insanely good, Tanev was great this year, Markstrom is only a year removed from a Vezina-caliber season and Backlund is still underrated- but Calgary needs to be in the playoffs every year to maximize those older guys and they're not.

It's tough for any fanbase to hear and it's certainly not exciting but the way to make the team better is to sell everyone over 25 and try to get top picks while these next few drafts are loaded with high end talent. Start this season with selling Gaudreau and Giordano if you can and Tanev while his value is high if you can(yes, even though they just signed him, because he could turn back into a pumpkin at any point). If you want to really make noise sell Monahan and Lindholm too, though they have some term left so it might make sense to keep them for a bit. A lot of people might think that's an extreme path but like, if you keep Gaudreau and rebuild for the next three years suddenly he's 31 and probably in decline and just eating away usable cap space for you.

The new core is Hanifin (great) Tkachuk (great, borderline elite) Mangiapane (great) Andersson (less great) and Dube (maybe fine who knows he's only 22). And then guys like Wolf and Zary too assuming they pan out. And then hopefully you can add Bedard or Wright, or literally any young high end talent, to that pile and have a really special team down the road.

I definitely don't think it's impossible to make moves to make the team better next year, but like if we're talking sustained success that's the way you gotta go.

Dunn plays incredibly sheltered minutes vs 3rd and 4th lines, he is not particularly good defensively. Dube is young and looks very promising, he is a power forward that provides loads of forecheck with lots of speed. Yeah his stats this year weren't great but he was always deployed on the wing of our shutdown lines.

Calgary definitely isnt rebuilding and the severely underperformed this year

You are absolutely right about Dunn's sheltered minutes previously in his career and Dube's numbers this year being worse than normal. However, those stats on Dube and Dunn are the aggregate from the last three years and Dunn did not play sheltered minutes this year (#172 among all skaters in quality of competition versus #600+ in QOC in previous years from Evolving-Hockey). To put that in perspective, Rasmus Andersson was #160 in QOC among all skaters this year. Krug/Parayko/Scandella/Gunnarsson were all hurt at various parts of the year, so Dunn played a ton of top four minutes and did fine. Obviously not the toughest minutes, but certainly not sheltered.

People think he's not good defensively because he's not out there hitting people or breaking up passes- things that Dunn is not good at that we traditionally associate with being "good" defensive plays. But if you are good at getting and keeping possession of the puck when you're on the ice, which Dunn is extremely good at, then you're not going to be allowing tons of shot quality against while you're on the ice, which is, at its core, what you want from your defense. That's why he's good defensively.

Definitely not trying to argue that Dunn isn't overrated because maybe he is, but I think his reputation as an "offense only" guys is a bit unearned, at least at even strength and his defense doesn't get enough credit. He's been solid there, and he still scores on the PP.

I know they aren't rebuilding and probably aren't going to, I'm just saying they should. They might be able to make the playoffs in a similarly weak division next year (provided they get that third spot behind Vegas and Edmonton, they might have trouble getting a wild card spot otherwise with the Central going back to normal) but it's hard to picture a sustained window of success when so many of the guys they're relying on heavily are in their thirties (Markstrom, Giordano, Backlund) the guys in their prime are consistently underperforming (Monahan, Gaudreau), and they only have a handful of young guys who have thus far made a big impact (Hanifin and Tkachuk).