I have reached Entry Draft day and I am pausing to think about this offseason and what the future holds.
There have been a few moves made already (by me, I mean) including the re-signing of RD
Michal Lezak to a 2-year deal.
Lezak is just 24 and was an RFA and I had to make a tough decision about him and 27-year old LD Thomas Dingle. With depth at the position and the emergence of young
Josh Hishon it didn't make sense (economically) to try to retain both of them and in the end I decided to keep the younger
Lezak who is also considered to have more upside and has a more well-rounded game. Dingle was our 2nd assistant Captain so this leaves a bit of a leadership void, but in reality
Lezak is likely in the best position to fill that as he has the requisite personality skills.
Having signed
Lezak, the other big task was to fill the void left by the departure of Goalie David Mencl (though Mencl in fact has not yet been signed as a free agent). We originally thought of targeting the talented 27-year old Gabriel Marchand but in the end we decided he wanted more than we were willing to spend at this position and with
Terry Ross returning as a solid option. Marchand ended up re-signing with the Montreal Canadiens as it turned out. So instead we looked for one of the few middle-tier options and found veteran (30 years old) Kazakhstan native
Andriy Polischuk. Polischuk had been with San Jose for 2 and a half seasons until he was traded to Ottawa this past mid-February. He is durable (which can't be said of
Ross), has great stamina and determination, and profiles as being a similar type player to
Terry Ross. It could be a bit of a challenge to make sure both Goalies get enough starts and remain happy and sharp but this did seem like the best option in the current market. Admittedly, at a bit over 5 million per year we might have overpaid but again it wasn't a very deep market and we felt we had the cap space to spend.
Other than that so far our only moves have been the signings of recent draftees to entry level contracts. Having traded the rights to our 6th and 7th round picks from 2021 (C Matt Christian and RD Ash Naurato) we had to make decisions about 3 others before our rights to them expired. We signed all 3 to entry level contracts: G
J. T. Soronzonbold, who might likely be a future backup Goalie for us, RD
Gerald Murray, who at least looks like a possible future 7th defenceman or 3rd liner in the NHL, and RD
Adam Martizes, who might develop into a useful role-player but at least is a capable injury replacement call-up type defense-first defenceman.
Likely to be more immediately impactful are draftees from last year who have now been signed to contracts and will be given a chance to earn spots on the active roster this coming season. Foremost among them is the physically intimidating C
Bobby Newsome, who right now is listed at the #2 spot on our depth chart at his position (behind
Jeremy Kelley), LW
Ken Rechlicz (listed at #3 on the depth chart, behind
Brian Hughes and
Milo Holland but ahead of the under-rated
Tommy Lockhart), RW'ers
Bill Reynolds (4th on depth chart) and
Oscar Axelsson (#6, behind
Clark St. Croix, who now is most comfortable at RW as his primary position instead of Center/re, though he can play all 3 forward positions quite well). We haven't made a decision whether to pull the trigger on a contract for C
Lance Williams yet but considering that he is listed as #3 on our depth chart we probably should.
So part of thinking ahead towards next season is realizing that we may be fully embracing a youth movement and that could lead to some growing pains and at least one year of under-performance as a team. Last year's rookies- LW
Milo Holland and RD
Josh Hishon- both pretty much justified our faith in them and
Holland is now considered our second best LW with
Hishon being our 3rd best defenceman overall (after
Lezak and
Sherwood Sharp). Our top two picks from the draft previous to that haven't been as impressive but
Clark St. Croix at the very least is a solid 3rd or 4th line forward and RD/LD
Craig Woodard (likely to be moved to LD primary as we are stacked at RD) still shows great promise (5-star potential) and is 5th on the depth chart among defencemen. If all or most of these 4 players take a step forward in 2023-2024 that will bode well for the team. But it is by no means a guarantee.
In the bottom-line metric of goal differential as a team, it is the goals for area where we are weaker. Our best true goal-scorer is 34-year old LW
Brian Hughes, and he has average 29 goals per season the past 3 years. He has proven to be durable and isn't showing any clear signs of diminished skills but we are going to need to replace him with some younger goal scorers at some point. And likely soon.
Aleksandr Dugin, at age 27, is more of a playmaker than a goal scorer, but he will get his share (averaged a bit under 26 per season in his career thus far). Young
Milo Holland profiles more like
Dugin than
Hughes.
Clark St. Croix is a decent 2-way forward but again more like Dugin, and hasn't shown any real goal-scoring talent yet. We get some goal scoring from defencemen like
Luke Bosum (18 goals last season, 3rd best on the team) and
Sherwood Sharp (23 goals in his first season with Colorado but only 11 last season) and young
Josh Hishon looks like he might develop into more of a goal scorer.
But we really need to get a forward who is a legit goal scorer. Our young possible additions to the club this coming season aren't likely to be the solution to this.
Bobby Newsome did score 44 goals in the OHL this past season and it is fair to say that he does have some skills in this area, but as an NHL player he profiles as more of a power forward, agitator, backchecking forward.
Newsome is likely to make the biggest impact with his defense and his intimidation, spending a lot of time in the sin bin.
Ken Rechlicz is another 2-way forward who looks more like a playmaker than a scorer on offense. The same is true of
Oscar Axelsson. And
Bill Reynolds. Our balanced approach has largely worked pretty well thus far, but we probably need to diversify a bit more and not put all our eggs in the 2-way forward basket.
Actually, looking at
Lance Williams again I realize that he does have some skills getting open combined with decent shooting accuracy and offensive read skills. He doesn't have great shooting range but maybe he is a guy who can get some goals in close (garbage collector is one of his higher role ratings.)
But although the chances of getting an immediate impact player with our first pick in the draft later today, at #29 overall, is not high, we might be well served to target a goal scoring forward with that pick or our second round pick, looking towards the future.