Note that the Penguins couldn't repeat their Cup winning ways with Crosby-Malkin until there was additional elite scoring threat from the wings (Kessel), i.e. 3-line depth.
Sure, but Kessel was kind of replacing Neal though.
And if we're using the Penguins big-3 as a template to copy, then Tavares - Matthews - Marner would be my preference over Tavares - Matthews - Nylander.
If it's Dubas' intent to keep all 4 of them, then indeed a $11m Karlsson is not in the cards. If we look at the Capitals roster, other than 68 points out of Carlson, the defense doesn't really wow you...just like the 2016 and 2017 Penguins D corps.
I'm sort of thinking that the Leafs have sort of doubled down on a Letang or a Carlson, in Rielly and Gardiner combined.
I think you are seriously under-rating Orlov-Niskanen. Their point totals don't wow you, but watch them play, especially Orlov, and you'd be ECSTATIC to have them. They do all the heavy lifting so that Carlson doesn't have to face the other teams top guys.
Look, I hardly watched the Cup finals, so I really don't know. I was just going by their statistical data, which I understand doesn't paint the whole picture.
I think my point was that the teams that have won the Presidents Trophy lately have had a stud back there. The Leafs have a couple of very good defensemen, but they do not have an elite one.
I don't think Karlsson is in the cards for the Leafs, but trading away somebody like Nylander + for an elite defender makes a fair bit of sense to me. I, like you, watched a lot of Leaf hockey last season. Now that they've signed Tavares, I think there's a pretty good argument to be made that their forward group might be the highest octane bunch in the league, at least on paper...I'm still convinced that they would benefit by trading a component out of that bunch, from a position of strength, to benefit from an addition to a current area of relative weakness, the defense group.
