Yeah, I pretty much agree. Also Walman and Pysyk will be on IR for a while so Oesterle or Hagg will start as LD in the bottom pair and Lindstrom will play on the right. That is unless some prospect can wow during training camp and steal a spot, but based on prospect tournament I don't think that will happen for a D, at least not to start the season. If any rookie makes the team, it will likely be Berggren or Soderblom. I personally would love to see a big boy line of Rasmussen-Sundqvist-Soderblom.

Sundqvist is not a centre - he wins less than 40% of faceoffs. Veleno is likely to be the 4C with Ras on his left and Sunny on the right. Erne and Smith as scratches.

Walman and Pysyk are out long term, maybe the entire season. Fabbri is useless as a centre and he won't dislocate Suter in any way. Hägg is the most likely 3LD with Lindström as 3RD, Oesterle had the worst stats last season of all defenders and will be #7.

Osterle and Walman healthy scratches? Expensive to say the least. Sundqvist played a lot of center in St. Louis didn't he?

Walman is injured for many months. He won't be a healthy scratch he will be on injury reserve at least until next year.

Oesterle has been a healthy scratch 90% of the time he's been in Detroit so far, that's why he was signed in the first place.

Sundqvist is no centre, he's been on the wing his entire time with Detroit and we have several other players that are much better centres than he is.

Why is Oesterle being paid above league min to be a healthy scratch in 90% of the games?

Because he was signed before we got Walman in a trade and because he can play both sides and we were very thin on the right side and didn't yet know if Sieder could cut it. Oesterle was our worst defender last season bar Stecher, even Staal and DeKeyser had better stats than he did.

Ouch. Sounds like some foreshowing for the Chiarot deal