Joined: Jul. 2022
Posts: 83
Likes: 25
I honestly love this.
While I agree with the sentiment we can carry three goals, I think that's all smoke and mirrors from team management. You need one good goalie in the playoffs, that's it, this 1A, 1B, 1C setup has been what's hurt us in the past. Is it Mrazek or Reimer? Is it Ned or Mrazek? Do we play Kotchetkov or Raanta? The future is Kotchetkov and he should be allowed the opportunity to start until he proves himself not worthy, pick one to back him up and you know going into the playoffs if the young goalie isn't ready for the pressure (which we know he is), then you go back to a veteran. I just don't see how this plays out well i.e. Kooch starting Game 1 of the divisional round and he loses, so we go to Freddie, and he loses, so we go to Raanta. None of that makes sense, we aren't carrying 3 goalie contracts into the playoffs when there are rentals and offensive assets that can elevate our scoring depth.
DW has a good relationship with Zito and I think there is definitely a deal that could get done. May require conditional portions of the deal that can upgrade the trade for FLA as well, i.e. points scored or playoff games played for Duclair. Your point of Noesen vs. Duclair is spot on, Duclair is an absolute improvement over Noesen.
Thanks for letting me use your ACGM thread as a comment section to vent.