Don’t watch any videos of him fighting. You’ll be…uh…disappointed.Miller replacement??
I'd rather have Zboril or Urho trying to figure it out too than paying $3M/year for a 3rd D pair JAG.He's not any good. I would have preferred Zboril or Urho trying to figure it out over a bad player getting paid $3m. I wish Steve Yzerman was the Bruins GM.
They’re making the mistake of valuing size over whether the guy can actually play or not. I would have given Suter 3 x $6 before making this deal. They’re just spinning their wheels right now.I'd have given Suter 3 years $5.5m AAV, or given up a 3rd for Schmidt, 100 times before making this deal. The need was another top-4 D and they whiffed IMO.
The need was a 3rd pairing D who could add size and physicality to a blue line corps badly lacking that, and who could take the defensive zone starts and PK minutes left by Lauzon. That's pretty much exactly what they've got in Forbort. He blocks a lot of shots, uses his body, and can log a lot of defensive zone starts. It's maybe $0.5 to $1M more than he's worth, but that's FA. He's not a world beater but he fit the roster need and as with Reilly they're getting him through what should be his peak. Anyone complaining about the deal should just look at the Poolman, Ceci, Barrie, etc., contracts...this is what 3rd pairing defensemen that you can maybe play in the Top 4 are getting.I'd have given Suter 3 years $5.5m AAV, or given up a 3rd for Schmidt, 100 times before making this deal. The need was another top-4 D and they whiffed IMO.
I agree with this. The Bruins need size and experience on the back line, so adding an “older, bigger but less mobile” version of Lauzon at 3/$3AAV fills an important need at reasonable cost.Essentially just an older, bigger, but less mobile Lauzon. Suspect he gets PK minutes, and does a lot of D-Zone faceoffs and fills Lauzon's minutes for the most part on the 3rd pair.
$3m seems like kind of a lot for him, but it won't hamstring them much.
Have to wonder if Zboril ends up beating him out how this will look in the last two years as well.
That's what every team does. You have to be good and lucky to win a cup. Vegas has them as the 4th most likely team to win in 2022 at 12/1. Colorado is 1st at 6/1. I don't think there were reasonable moves to be made this offseason that would have closed that gap too much.Looking once again like we’re in good position to have a very good regular season and pray for perfect health and everything to go right in the spring.
I should restate - I don't think a bottom-pairing D with size was the only need; I would have preferred a better all-around top-4 defenseman given how injury-prone Grzelcyk was this past season. I don't disagree that they also needed a 6th-7th d-man who could be a PK specialist, but that's not someone you want to pay $3m/year for, and I think Forbort is better than that designation.The need was a 3rd pairing D who could add size and physicality to a blue line corps badly lacking that, and who could take the defensive zone starts and PK minutes left by Lauzon. That's pretty much exactly what they've got in Forbort. He blocks a lot of shots, uses his body, and can log a lot of defensive zone starts. It's maybe $0.5 to $1M more than he's worth, but that's FA. He's not a world beater but he fit the roster need and as with Reilly they're getting him through what should be his peak. Anyone complaining about the deal should just look at the Poolman, Ceci, Barrie, etc., contracts...this is what 3rd pairing defensemen that you can maybe play in the Top 4 are getting.
Who do you make a splash for? The UFA market sucks this year and I doubt Dougie Hamilton is walking through that door.All of the above is fair but I would personally rather splurge, use the $6 mil on Forbort and Reilly toward a legit top pairing defenseman, and fill in the holes with young guys rather than fill the holes with more expensive average players while half of the top pair is merely decent (and gets pushed around come playoff time).
Edit: If there were no such moves to be had, that's fine, and I'm happy to be rooting for a competitive team once again, but if ever there was a time for a splash it would be for whatever remaining years of Bergy/Marchand excellence that we have left.
And I freely admit that we are surprise improvement from a couple players/another Hall-type addition/Coyle getting unstuck away from a lot of these issues taking care of themselves naturally.
I think the first group is a better collection of names, but I don't think it's actually a better defense corps. Suter is going to be 37, he's basically given up any pretence of playing a physical game the last two seasons, and he's a guy who is going to demand offensive zone starts when that's what their existing LD are best suited for. I think that defense corp is going to get overpowered in the playoffs because outside of McAvoy, there's just not a lot of physicality in that group, and as a whole it's really skewed towards offense over defense. The team has plenty of mobile, puck moving guys, what they needed was size, physicality, and more defensive zone prowess. If you add Suter, I think you pretty much have to move on from Clifton because there's no other apparent way to fix those weaknesses in that unit.Grzelcyk - McAvoy
Suter - Clifton
Reilly - Carlo
Zboril
with an eye towards upgrading Clifton at the deadline with a rental - is a better corps IMO than:
Grzelcyk - McAvoy
Reilly - Carlo
Forbort - Clifton
Zboril