Quoting: Caerii
Defense is the definition of "fine" when healthy, but as when Kulikov and Merrill have to play up the lineup it's very clearly not fine. Goligoski is very weak as a #4. Spurgeon has been disappointing for the responsibility that has been thrust upon him.
It's not a Cup run defense. It's going to get shredded in the playoffs, and Talbot is an average backup goalie, so he's not going to win you any games.
Scoring depth is good, but when is it going to dry up? Foligno and Hartman on pace for 50-60 points isn't sustainable, and I'm not sure how much the scoring is going to improve from the top guys. Fiala has zero support and Kaprizov/Zuccarello are pretty close to topped out.
I see the d-corps, when healthy, as a 1 x 1D (low end), 2 x 4D, 2 x 5D, 1 x pressbox quality d-man. Brodin can carry one of the 4D and make an okay top pair; that is ideally a great 2nd pair. Kulikov should be able to carry Addison (he should be on the every day roster) as a 3rd pair. It just leaves the 2nd pair as very weak overall; it's more like 3rd pair "A" and 3rd pair "B" (the 5v5 ToI reflects this so far this year).
Foligno is down from his 5v5 /60 pace from the last 2 seasons (1.7p/60 this year, 2.3 p/60 last 2 seasons combined). The PP points are helping to bloating his stats. I think the PP points will drop off a little (7.2p/60 now to around 5.0 p/60). So he shouldn't really fall off much from where he is now overall.
Hartman is riding a very hot streak. 20g and 40-50p overall is where I see him ended the season.
It's not just those 2 with the depth scoring. Every FWD (except Greenaway) with any amount of playing time has chipped in a couple of goals here and there. All of those players should be able to maintain similar output for the rest of the season (except Pitlick)