Sure go with optimism, why not. He'll get buried in the bottom 6 and play with Suter and Erne every night if he even gets in the line up. I'm fully prepared for him to dominate for 2 weeks in GR then come back look like himself and have 1 assist in 12 games.

I think playing with Veleno & Rasmussen with the way those two have been playing as of late could be good for Zadina. And to be quite honest, I thought he’d played well since the Colorado game at home last season. Every part of his game has improved, except his shot. Let’s hope he’s worked on that and can get the puck anywhere but the goalies chest when he returns.

Veleno gets a lot of credit for his development and Zadina’s goes unnoticed. I think that has a lot to do with expectations because I really don’t see much separation between the two when it comes to both their play and production. They are very similar players in more ways than one.

Probably but i'm done with line speculation when it comes to Lalonde. He blenders these guys every other night and except for Larkin and Raymond who knows who's playing with who, where and for how long. Veleno is a fine bottom 6 center maybe winger as the career goes on. He doesn't have the skills to get higher in the line up. Zadina just looks like a guy who should score 55+ pts a season and just doesn't. He's beyond frustrating.

I think trading Chiarot helps the team a lot more than trading Kubalik.

Ok I must have miss it when was Veleno playing well?

It's the fajitas.

Yeah, it has been somewhat of a rollercoaster with Lalonde and his line combinations. I suppose we can attribute some of that to the injuries they’ve dealt with but, overall he does seem a little stubborn with the lines he’s putting out there. I like to think these lines here are pretty intriguing combos and we haven’t seen any of them all year.

I am still hopeful when it comes to Zadina, but don’t get the wrong idea, it’s not likely he becomes a consistent .50 ppg guy; I think there is about 10/15% chance he does tho.

You don’t say? I would imagine teams aren’t exactly lining up to acquire good ole Benny boy. That may be a bit of a roadblock.


I don’t think I said he was “playing well”; he has continued to progress and develop his game on the way to solidifying himself as a mainstay in this league. He isn’t quite there yet, in my opinion. He will never be a top 6 guy, I don’t think, and I do think Zadina still could be a middle six guy.

Strong likelihood.

Since Rasmussen is playing very well tight now how can you not draw that conclusion?

I could see how you came to that conclusion since I coupled them together. I think they both played promisingly relative to their individual situations. Rasmussen has played reasonably well (a little overblown by some), and I think Veleno’s play has been very encouraging. So, I think adding Zadina into the fold with two players who are developing positively would bode well for Zadina and the trio as a whole.