I’m all for competition, but this forward list’s comically long.
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Still expect Dubas to make a trade that will send out some of the forwards in favor of a quality left defenseman and/or a center.
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In some way, I believe that Dubas could trade Brazeau for a defensemen that can balance the Top 6, which I think you can get something decent out of it. Why I could see this happening is because the penguins during the 1st round against the flyers sat him out of soderblom because they didn’t think he was playoff material. And with players like kuzmenko and Robertson coming in along with extensions made and youngsters in the minors, this should be no shock if Justin Brazeau is playing in a different color next season.
Kovalenko?
Let's keep pulling on that thread. It seems Dubas could or should trade one of those 11 forwards, to clear the logjam and to acquire a defenseman either directly or with the assets from said trade. Now of those 11, Sid and Geno are locks and a Kindel trade is extremely unlikely. It's also considered bad form for a GM to trade a player shortly after signing or re-signing them to significant dollars and/or term. So cross off Chinakhov, Novak, Kuzmenko, Robertson, Dewar and Lizotte. All that's left of the 11 you listed are Rakell and Rust. Given how glowingly Dubas speaks about Rust's value in the room, Rickard Rakell would be the likely trade candidate.
Would Dubas really trade a player as important to the team and to Sid specifically as Rakell, especially this late in the off season? Who could he even get back in return? Nikishin's name is out there, but this whole scenario seems to be headed to fantasy land in a hurry.
Sam Girard is about to get a 3-year extension too, isn’t he? 😂
The counter is that the Pens almost never have all preferred 12 Forwards available at the same time. That's just a template for a perfect world.
I wouldn't count on more than 10 games out of 84 with that situation. 15 if we're lucky.
Really, we should be expecting 2 preferred Forwards out on average per game. Meaning that if you're the 13th Forward and are healthy all season, you will almost always suit up. Even the 14th Forward could get half a season pretty easily.
So I think fans need to shift to this mindset of thinking of our Forward group as 14 or 15 players, not 12.
Hallander missed 69 games. McGroarty would have started in October but he was hurt to start the season. Lizotte missed 27, Malkin 26, Rakell 22, Brazeau 18, Acciari 15, Crosby 14, Rust 10…
That's 9 preferred Forwards in double digits with man-games-lost. We can't map it out with the assumption that Muse will have everyone healthy at his disposal. That's not reality.