Agreed on seeing Drury called up over Smith playing wing, that's for sure!

Where did you see that Aho and Jarvis are in protocol now?

Never mind I found it.

With Pesce and ADA coming back, at this point, we should scratch Smith and bring up one of our prospects, most likely being Drury. For Smith, we need him to stay healthy so if crap hits the fan again, Canes can be at least partially ready. With Aho out, I think it is time to give KK top 6 minutes and play him on the top line to give him that experience. We will need as much scoring as we can in the next few games without Aho, and KK needs to produce a bit more than his current pace.

We play 7D because Bear still has side effects from sitting on his butt for 10 days. Now Pesce and TDA are coming back too.

I say either call up Leivo, CJ Smith or Poturalski from Chicago. All three are on a tear. Drury is good but he needs 15+ minutes a night not, 8.

Svech-JK-Necas
Lorentz-Tro-Turbo
Nino-Staal-Fast
Stepan-Leivo/Poturalski/CJ Smith

Slavin-Cole
Skjei-Chatfield
Pesce-TDA
Bear

Smith the extra.

Leivo is the smart solution, having already played with the big team this year. Noesen is another one that will likely come up ahead of Poturalski or CJ Smith. Pots isn't coming up, or we would have seen him by now. This is his 2nd stint in the organization, and he's struggled to make the jump.

Cole is a natural lefty, and you want to play him on his offside?

Slavin - Bear
Skjei - Pesce
Cole - DeAngelo
Chatfield

Makes more sense in terms of deployment and usage. Bear was getting extra rest during games because he was sick with a non-covid illness. It's well documented how that went around the dressing room.

We keep the top 2 pairs on D as they have been until Bear, Pesce and/or TDA are ready to play 20 minutes a night.

Unfortunately I don’t think the Canes will have that luxury against the Wild. I mean, Slavin is already playing about 30 minutes a night, and most of that time is against the other teams top guns. With the Wild being so good this, our dcore is going to have to step it up. Canes are also going to have to find more offense without Aho. I think it is safe to say that the Canes did so well on this road trip so far because Aho was carrying most of the scoring burden. It shows how much we miss him when he isn’t in the lineup. Plus, what better way to get people back up to speed than to throw them into the fire.

Joking aside, I would think that Smith gets scratched as the extra d and Noesen and Leivo get called up on the wings to flank Stepan. For the game against the Wild, I would think that the pairings go back to what they were at the beginning of the season:
Slavin Bear
Skjei Pesce
Cole DeAngelo

Personally, I like B. Smith, but we really need him to stay completely healthy this year so that the canes have someone to fall back on if stuff hits the fan again. Plus, I would much rather have natural forwards playing forward. It really depends on if the call ups can get there in time or not.

this didnt age well