Quoting: GMBL
Lol, what does having those guys have to do with Matthews playing as the 1C (1A) and Hughes as the 2C (1B)? And again it's not just the faceoffs, it's also because he's the better defensive player.
Bringing in Matthews at 13.25M over Hischer's 8M, likely means they can't afford to keep Toffoli, so it's replacing Toffoli with a league-min guy. From, the on out, the cap outlook is not going to be much different. Nemec looks good but, if Dougie wasn't injured he wouldn't be playing, so they don't need to replace him per se.
If they are that tight-pressed for money after that, they won't be able to afford Nemec, Luke, and Holtz anyway.
They can take advantage of Nemec's 1-year at 900K or they can just take advantage of L Hughes 1-year at 900K now.
Matthews gives up 2.75xGoals/60 over the last 2 years 5v5
Jack gives up just 2.56xGoals/60 over the last 2 years 5v5.
Nico is of course the best defensively giving up just 2.41xGoals/60 at 5v5 over the last 2 years
Or we could take advantage of both 3 years of ELC nemec we still have and 2 years of ELC Luke.
NJD can fit them all fine as long as there isn't an extra 5 mill of cap from Matthews. Especially if we choose to let Nemec slide another year.
Nemec is playing because there is now a space for him to get meaningful minutes yes.
We decided 22 minutes a night in Utica is better for development than 15 minutes a night in NJD, and that the gap in play in those 15 minutes between Nemec vs Miller wasn't worth burning an ELC year. Now that there are minutes available, It's better for nemec to get them in the big show.