me wan da poonani
Joined: Sep. 2020
Posts: 4,857
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As a few others have mentioned here, your suggested Meier deal is way too rich to be realistic.
Fiala, a star winger just as good as Meier went for #19 pick + B level prospect.
Mark Stone, one of the best two way wingers in the game went for Brännström + a 2nd rd pick.
Taylor Hall, coming off a MVP season got the Devils a 1st + B level prospect + 2 warm bodies.
Alex DeBrincat, coming off two consecutive 40+ goal (per 82 games) seasons got the Blackhawks pick #7 in a rather underwhelming draft + 2nd + 3rd.
Meier is nowhere near a lock to even get Holtz + 1st, that'd be an extraordinary return for the Sharks.
"devils can go two routes with the defenseman:
1. pair a defensive guy with each of your high risk defenseman (offense or inexperienced)
sieg - hamilton
luke - marino
graves - nemec
or 2. play luke & nemec together (that's the first pairing in 2-3 years) and let them figure it out on the 3rd pair, while you have a legit shutdown pairing:
sieg - hamilton
graves - marino
luke - nemec
i went with the last one, but either works"
I like the way you were thinking about the defense pairings, I agree that Luke Hughes would thrive on the 2nd pair playing with Marino.
But I think there are better options for the overall 23/24 setup.
My main gripe with it is that I believe it'd be way too early to play Nemec in the NHL next season, apart from a 9 game cup of coffee as to preserve the ELC slide.
An additional year of development in the AHL would do Nemec wonders, just like Luke Hughes will have gotten two years in the NCAA before likely becoming a full-time NHLer for next season.
Besides, I'd bet that Okhotiuk, Bahl, Walsh and Brendan Smith would all be outright better players than Nemec come October 2023 anyway.
I think the Graves (and Bratt) signing is very optimistic, about 1m short in AAV to get him to resign with the Devils.
Given how many young up and coming defenders the Devils are gonna have to juggle, I'd actually prefer them to save the cap space and go quite young with their 23/24 D corps:
Siegenthaler - Hamilton
Hughes - Marino
Okhotiuk - Walsh (or Smith / Bahl)
While a little inexperienced, Bahl, Walsh and Okhotiuk will be entering their peak years at 23 (Walsh 24) at the start of the 23/24 season.
I think all three of them would be perfectly capable to take 3rd pair responsibilities and help the Devils into another playoff run.
Tarasenko would be a decent option to go after in FA.
The contract you signed him seems a little rich for term but the 6 - 6.5m AAV range seem reasonable to me.