Great lines. Prefer to keep sheary off top line but would take these every game

Slight nit-pick would be keeping Gustafsson and Carlson away from each other, since I don't trust either one of them to play consistent defense (amazing offense though, I'll give them that). Otherwise, these look good. I like the idea of trying Kuzy on the PK.

yes

I agree with what you have here but a thought just occurred to me: Are they keeping Eller in to keep his value up so that when it in fact does come time to trade him March 1st, then they can get the most for him? Otherwise if he is often scratched and sitting in the press box all the time it might give teams the impression that he's not worth trading for?...maybe it's a stretch I don't know...

The problem is they are playing him instead of Mantha and Mantha is good and Eller is playing badly and not deserving his time. They just used the Eller-Backstrom-Oshie line if it was Mantha instead of Eller the line would be 2x better

That line would be fire with Oshie tenacity plus Backstrom passing between him and Mantha, high skill.

If that's the case, I would think they should trade him now. I can't see his value improving from now until the trade deadline, so I think they would try and deal him now in case they can receive any more value by having 40ish games left instead of 20ish games. As much as we want Eller gone to improve the team, I think MacLellan fears breaking up the locker room by trading Eller, so I can't see him getting traded, and the best fans will probably get will be having Eller possibly scratched.

I completely agree with you I think Eller should be traded now but I don’t think GMBM will do it he has not been that good of a gm since the caps won the cup, I feel like he gets rid of youth an elects instead to go with non-core vets when they need to insert some young, fast, talented players like Vrana, Sprong, and Snively so I’m guessing Snively could be traded cause look at what happened to the other two

I would tend to disagree with that assessment, as while there is an argument to be made that he has been loyal to an unhealthy degree with players like Eller, I don’t think that making trades to get better is a bad thing. Washington upgraded by trading Vrana and nabbed a guy with term and someone who plays much better defense in Mantha. While it can be argued a 2nd was too much to add in there, I don’t think purely trading someone slightly younger is a bad thing, and the same goes with Sprong. Analytical darling for sure, but he has a goal scoring pace unsustainable to higher minutes per game, and can’t play defense worth a damn, so even though he’s younger Johansson was still a needed upgrade. This is not to say MacLellan is without his faults, for example the Panik contract was a major misstep, but I feel the younger player argument isn’t a viable one when looking at the bigger picture, and I feel it may be a misstep to assume that trading for older players make you worse and to deal fast players isn’t the worst trying in the world, especially when this team isn’t built for speed, but to stop teams built for speed. While it would be nice to see guys like Vrana, Sprong, and maybe Snively (though Snively is a unique case, 27 years old and only 20 career NHL games) succeed with Washington, the way the team is built isn’t reliant on speed which makes less of a necessity.

I don't think Lavs necessarily doesn't like 'youth', he just doesn't like one way play or loafers. For his system to work really well (like we've seen up until the last few games) he needs two way play. I think that's probably very obvious to you. Lavs will only tolerate one cherry picker and that's Ovi. Mantha has it all and when he bears down and is engaged, he is a force, but he often doesn't get in and do the dirty work Eller or Oshie or Sheary and others will. Vrana and Sprong are one way players. Caps can always find fast one way players with a good shot. But they don't want them because it puts too much pressure on the other 4 skaters and if you ain't pulling on the rope, you ain't playing long for Lavs.

Edmonton declines, they simply don't have the cap space. And they play best when they run their 4 centers on their own lines: McDavid, Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins and McLeod. So I don't know why they were the first place you thought of to dump Eller.

So you do have a point but my problem is ok they don’t want these guys but don’t lose them for nothing, the vrana trade was awful even if Mantha would have kept performing the way he did in Detroit it still would have been awful that trade was really bad and Vrana was good same with Sprong look at how he was with the caps during the short season and how he is now with the Kraken and all they got for him was rental Mojo who is often not doing much and then just randomly shows up. If they don’t want to utilize those high skill one-way players that’s one thing but they need recognize their value when they give them away

Obviously Bmac knows more about Vrana issues than we ever will but moving him out and a bad contract was worth it to him to take a bit of a loss. I like Mantha and just hope he stays engaged more which is what he has struggled with over his career but he fits in fine with this team.

I don't have a strong opinion on Sprong myself. I am glad we got Johanssen for him because he is always in position, is a real smooth skater, is very good at keeping possession and making the right plays, can play effectively on the PP, and can carry the puck in on said PP. He has fit in perfectly on this team and is having a good year also.

Yeah I like Mojo but Vrana and Sprong while they caps system can’t tolerate a lot of those players I feel that it really boosted the team to have one of them on the roster. I too think Mantha fits in well with this team and I believe he can be a big piece for them I just think that Lav does everything in his power to prevent Mantha from finding his game, he gets inconsistent time and linemates is healthy scratched every other game and is often play on lower lines with low skill line mates. Almost as dumb as putting kubel on Ovi’s line which is the worst possible thing Lav could ever do yet he did it anyway. 1 of the things that sticks out the most to me about mojo is his play in front of the net I feel like it is very strong