Quoting: Steven_Stamkos
Right right. Killer pulls so much weight, it's going to be a gaping hole with him gone. Cirelli has been following his lead and I believe he's gonna be the guy to take that role. He's already excellent on the PK and defensively 5v5. He plays on the powerplay, albeit in a sheltered roll. He's going to be leaned on much much more going forward. The question of whether he needs to offensively step up is an interesting one. If he provides so much value defensively and in multiple other ways/situations, but only gets 40-60 points a season, is that a bad thing? I mean he's a tad lower than where Killorn's offensive production is, but he also plays center so I think you can argue that he could get more of a pass. A pass on lower than average offensive production for a 2C making 6.25 I mean. Because he brings so much value to the rest of the teams game.
Offense was something I had a concern with for most of last regular season. Obviously our defense was worse than it has been for years with no Ryan or Jan back there, and being thinner as a whole. It felt like we just tried to outscore our defensive issues most of the regular season. And for most of the 82 games I felt like we relied way too heavily on PP1 and our top line to due the heavy lifting. With Killorn leaving, I fear the same thing will happen this year. I'm a giant Eyssimont stan at this point in time, and I think he's going to need to be a guy who has a big breakout year and helps out offensively. Point Kuch and Hags will do what they do. Stammer will contribute. Cirelli is middle of the road, it would be great if he finds his scoring touch, but it's not the end of the world if he doesn't. Paul is very streaky, Colton should be getting top 6 minutes and hopefully he can breakout too and post 20+ goals and 50+ish points. Who knows what kind of season Jeannot will have. 4th line will likely be a mixing bowl until Christmas.
In conclusion to this novel of a comment, defensively as a whole, we need to be better for the majority of the season. Cause I don't think outscoring our problems is sustainable with our lack of depth.
If Cirelli can go from a mid 40's point player to mid 50's, that would be great. Colton should definitely see an increase in production with, hopefully, consistent top 6 time this season. Guys like Paul, Jeannot, Eyssimont and whomever they promote from Suracuse/acquire in ufa will also need to step up a little more next season. I'm not too worried about the offense overall, as they've been between 3.2 and 3.5 gf/g the last 4 seasons.
Defensively, they have slipped from between 2.5 and 2.8 ga/g to close to 3.1 this past year, but with Perbix amd Raddysh having another year, plus Hedman, Serg and Cernak at full strength, there should be improvement there. I also expect the team to find a decent stay at home dman to round out the group as well, while Carlile is also nearly ready.
The biggest improvement needs to be with Vasy. This past year was imo just a blip on his HoF career, but the team needs to find a backup that can play at least 25-30 games competently. Vasy also needs to both manage himself and be managed better during the regular season so he's ready to be Conn Smythe Vasy by playoffs.
As the cap moves closer to 90 million in the next few years, Tampa should be okay in that regard. The majority of the core is still in their mid to late 20's or just barely 30, outside of Stamkos and Hedman. Heard alot of talk lately about how Tampa's window is basically closed, but imo, as long as JBB makes a few key moves, that's far from reality.