Quoting: sensibleguy
Definitely a lot of 3rd line forwards and bottom pair defencemen on this team, lol
Yeah but it's not bad thing for a few reasons :
1) it's not clear for fans yet but eventually people are going to talk more about top-9 than top-6. The more and more analysts will talk about it on TV, the faster the transition will be made. You want guys like Danault, Pageau, Brown, Formenton on your 3rd line. They often make the difference in the playoffs as great teams have similar very good top-6 groups
2) We are just getting out of a scorched earth rebuild. 100% roster turnover and our GM is barely able to acquire talent outside of drafting or prospects acquired in the firesale
3) Connor Brown has been producing good 2nd line numbers the last 3 seasons but ideally he'd be on the 3rd line because the goal is to better than our rival teams, not just being able to keep up with them
Clear Top-6 forwards : Stutzle, Batherson, Norris, Tkachuk
In between : Brown, Joseph
Remains to be seen : Formenton, Pinto, Greig
Clear Bot-6 forwards : White, Kelly, Kastelic, Watson, Gambrell
Don't forget the incoming 7th OA pick and the forward prospects with potential (Jarventie, Sokolov, Ostapchuk, Boucher (? lol), etc.)
For the defense, yes it's a bad thing because there's only 2 clear Top-4 D-men so far (Chabot and Zub). You need 4, Sanderson will be one too.