Barzal isn’t playing wing smh

No lets make an important distinction. You dont want barzal to play wing probably bc you think he'll be worse there but that doesnt mean he wont. I cannot see any way they give 32yo kadri 7×7 unless they want to play him with barzal. Otherwise it doesnt make sense and tbh their skill sets complement each other extremely well. That means one of them is moving to w and if thats true id bet it will be barzy, bc kadri isnt signing here to play W. Barzal has struggled in terms of point production and maybe he is willing to try something new (we've all seen the giroux comparisons recently).
Truth be told id probably rather him at C as well but in the event we do sign kadri this is most probably going to happen.

I would assume the guy moving to wing would be Nelson. Otherwise I expect Pageau to be traded.

Maybe Isles try a Lee-Barzal-Nelson line combination. Nelson and Lee played some wing with Strome if I recall correctly.

Yeah id say 0 chance JGP goes and why would they move nelson to W. That doesnt help the fact that 2 C cant play the same line. They wont sign kadri to be a 2C, they already have a top 2C. Theyll sign him to be a top line F and play with barzal. And that means that one of barzal or kadri and not nelson moves to W. I really dont mean this in a condescending way but you seem to have a hard time seperating what you want to happen from what is most likely to happen.

See my last post. One thing to add though about nelson on the W, thatvwas already tried and didmt end very well. Barzy on the other hand never played W so maybe it works out better for him.

No I get what ur saying. I’m just saying that Barzal didn’t even play wing in juniors. I don’t c a world where he would be remotely interested in switching positions so they could bring in 32 year old Nazim Kadri

I remember the Lee-Nelson-Strome line being ok but it’s been a long time. Either way I don’t c Barzal as a winger and I doubt he’s willing to do it. Nelson might be ok with moving to wing with Barzal cause he may score a **** ton of goals doing it.

First of all maybe he is kevin kurz of the athletic addressed this in his mailbag yesterday and while the athletic isnt great for evaluating players beat writers do have a much better sense than us fans of what players are thinking/feeling about certain topics/ideas.
Second, maybe it has nothing to do with kadri? Maybe barzal is interested in a move to W bc the production hasnt been there and with his contract expiring next summer another 65 point season isnt going to get him paid what he thinks hes worth? And maybe he hasnt been able to make that switch bc they needed him at C?
Theres a lot more depth to this conversation than barzy isnt moving to accomodate 32yo kadri without any basis for saying that other than personal opinion. Its not like he came out and said that.
Regardless if we do end up signing kadri management already knows who is moving to W and has already had the player ok that switch. There are legit criticisms to be had of this front office but i just cant believe theyd be that short sighted.

I absolutely believe Lou would be that short sighted lol.

That take screams denial so you could be right. Lou hasnt been the best but the idea that he would give 50m dollars to a player who has no spot to play is absolutely insane. I dont even think milbury couldve done that

Yeah I’m gonna be honest and say that I only trust Kevin Kurz to tell me what he’s heard. I don’t trust his ability to make an educated guess.

Nelson was a 40 point player when strome was with NYI. He was on pace last year for 40 goals. Sorry but hes not a W.

“That take screams denial” is the most accurate response you could have. I don’t know that Lou has any idea what he’s doing. I think he threw all the money he could at Kadri because Johnny Hockey wasn’t gonna sit around all summer waiting to finalize his contract. If Kadri is really an isle it’s cause Lou outbid everyone else by a significant margin and because of the fact they have a great relationship.

I don’t even disagree with you. Just saying that Nelson was great on the power play with Barzal, Lee, Pageau and Dobson last year. I could c them wanting to recreate that.

ffs a pp is really different than 5v5. Are you for real rn thinking that success on a pp means they fit together at 5v5. Ws and Cs have very different responsibilities at 5v5 while on the pp theyre all kinda scrambled together bc the gameplay is much less complex.
Sorry bro but this is a massive stretch

I’m not saying it’s a good idea to try and replicate it at 5 V 5. Hell I agree with you on that. I am just trying to figure out what the **** Lou is thinking rn.

I should’ve been clear in stating that I’m just trying to determine one possible motive for all this. They should just sign Sonny Milano and be done with this Bs.

Its really amazing how everyone hates lou until we have success. Lou hasnt been perfect. I think he does struggle in FA but hes been very good in other areas. The idea that hes senile is crazy

Idk he’s struggled on the trade market too. The Palmieri trade was an egregious overpay and you could argue the same for the Pageau one. Then he took Garth Snow’s carefully crafted defensive core and turned it into 3 second round picks and Richard Panik. We got lucky he hit on Raty and Odelius.

Do you honestly think the guy who traded Devon Toews for two second round picks is in charge of the draft? Hell the dude overpaid to get romanov too smh. Only reason I’m not gonna rip him a new one for that is because of Romanov’s friendship with Sorokin. Also maybe Romanov figures it out next to Dobson. Idk.

Barzals skillset is best suited for center and he’s spoken about taking pride in being a center who can play with anyone and in all 3 zones. If they ask him to move to wing to accommodate Kadri he will likely Tkachuk his way out of here next offseason

Hes thinking of moving 13 to W thats what hes thinking

Clearly I’m not the only one who disagrees with you. It makes no sense to bring in a new coach for Barzal than make him play a different position… smh.

I dont think he overpayed on pageau. Look at what lehkonen went for. Lehky is a W who didnt have 25 goals at the TDL. Unfortunately thats the going rate for 2 way beasts like JGP. He made 2 bad trades with NYI. 1 was the toews trade which we've gone over 100 times already agreed horrible trade. The 2nd was out of necessity and was the andy greene trade where pelech was expected to be out all season. I dont hate the palmieri deal, while i think he couldve been had for less it wasnt a bad deal imo it just wasnt a good one. He moved ladd without moving a 1st which was a great job, he got a 2nd for leddy (another great job).
As for snows d core lou certainly put his mark on an amazing d core. The P&P extensions are amazing. Dobson is a stud and romanov is gonna be very good. Garth left us with ladd boychuk and leddy if you dont recall and lou got us out of that for 1 2nd rounder (and 250k dead cap with panik).
Lou has made 3 1st round picks, 11, 12, and 23 and comes away with dobson wahly and holmstrom, thats a win. He had 4 2nds and pulled out raty and bolduc with wilde and iskhakov. Considering the rate of 2nd rounders that become nhlers (200 games with a positive career war) is 17% raty alone would cover that though i think bolduc has a decent chance of becoming an nhler.
(Not including 2022 picks bc they havent played since the draft so its hard to evaluate though at this point it looks good with odelius and george).
He also got sorokin to come over from russia which is something garth didnt do.
He hasnt been the best but hes been pretty good and hes won 2 jim gregory awards with nyi so im pretty sure im not the only one that thinks that.