Quoting: delneggs
I agree Hunt is not a top 6 guy, but I love his heart and his game. He is a great 3rd or 4th line grinder and he is cheap. He is playing top 6 because of the hole there, but IMO they would be better off throwing Chytil in there and letting Goodrow center the 3rd line. At some point, either Laffy or Kreider will have to move to RW because Laffy playing on the 3rd line is not a long term situation. He needs to start getting top 6 minutes and PP time. Ideally, If Laffy could adapt to RW, that would be a fix, because he's not going to replace either Kreider or Panarin on LW any time soon.
Im not sure if you remember, but at the beginning of the year the experiment was LAF, Zib Kreider on the top line. They tried LAF and Kreider on the RW and neither one was able to adapt well to it. You gotta remember when you play your whole life on the LW, being asked to switch to RW is a big change. First off your stick. Youre now taking passes on your backhand rather than forehand. Essentially everything that you learned to do, you have to do it backwards now. Its not easy, especially at an NHL level.
The same goes for Chytil, Im pretty sure hes a natural LW however we cant accomodate that, we have way too many. This past game, Chytil was switched to LW on the 3rd line, LAF moved up to 2nd, Goodrow 3C. Chytil had a horrible game. Unfortunately the kid has tunnel vision. Hes terrible at reading plays and feeling his teammates around him. He takes low quality shots just for the sake of taking them. Ive seen it in Chytil for a while, some are just now seeing what Ive seen. We need to move on.
Goodrow could be a great 3C if the 3rd line was a checking line, however if youre playing LAF and Gauthier as the wingers on the 3rd line, its not a checking line. I think the proper move, if they want to use Goodrow as the 3C is to put Kreider and Hunt there. Move LAF and Gauthier with Zib at even strength.
LAF, Zib, Gauthier
Panarin, Strome, Kakko
Kreider, Goodrow, Hunt
Id like to see how that works for a game or 2.