rktkt66
Joined: Jun. 2018
Posts: 939
Likes: 601
The defense pairings will be a hot topic all summer leading to training camp - at least, the bottom 2 pairings since Samuelsson-Dahlin looked perfect together last season. Granato loves Jokiharju so it's hard to see him drop to the 3rd pair ice time but, at same token, Power will get tested by other teams as a rookie they try to be physical on (like happened with Dahlin as a rookie) so having a physical partner like Lyubushkin to defend him has some logic. Leafs were hesitant to use Lyubushkin in top 4 role so it seems he'd be just as good a partner for the smaller, faster Bryson on 3rd pairing. Defensively, Bryson showed a lot more signs of needing someone to cover for his play than Power did.
Rest of the lineup looks realistic and what will likely happen (though I suspect, given his great showing at World Championships, Cozens may slot at LW rather than RW and, with his defensive awareness, be a better linemate for Krebs-Quinn. A 3rd line of Peterka-Mittelstadt-Olofsson looks good to me.
Depending on how camp goes, I do think we'll see UPL up fairly quick in NHL. Signing Anderson to be his mentor does no good when UPL is in Rochester; by Christmas, it could well be UPL-Comrie in the regular rotation and Anderson only filling in as spot duty (if he's healthy then).