Not a big Strome fan -- he reminds me too much of Anisimov; a never-will-be-great but serviceable-at-best 2LC -- but it's hard to be that upset with this deal. Glad it's not 3 years and I'm glad there isn't a NTC attached.
Reminds me except I know who would win a cage match.
And lets not underestimate Anisimov's tip stick and rebound anticipation and length at net front. There are reasons he was a great partner to Kane up until Nashville cheap shotted the back of his knee, and he was never the same, imo. Part of that was returning another year older and then being exposed to the Blackhawks small ball beat down for too long.
Strome's tip stick/hands...just don't appear to me to be in that category. I'm not sure he should even bother trying to be a net front player, except his skating is clumsy and shit so he just needs to get stronger and keep excelling at whatever aspects he can to be a successful tweener. He is definitely talented offensively and a benefit to us. Top 5 pick? No but he is somewhere up there with Hartman and other beneficial late first type players to have around.
Dach proved to be the better and maybe ultimate partner for Kane eventually, and what I think we really need long term is the perfect Power winger to remove phyical pressure from a Strome-Cat pairing, boost their defense and win some pucks in the corner.
I'd like to see if Barrett can quickly grow into that guy, but my vision is somebody even bigger and more physical, or just give up and split them up...friends or not they aren't great together without a very cohesive and physical 3rd mate, imo. Kane erases the issues another way, but thats a unique player and gives up half the ice when we deploy our best player.
Find the solution for Kane and Cat/Strome seperately and you have some lines. Toews can be fortified in house with the foreigners pretty easily.
Excited to see Janmark-Strome-Cat maybe. Cat-Strome-Wallmark....
While not perfect one might offer us a better option than we have seen recently for a pretty talented 3rd line if they can hold up with the right D pairing.
They should spend more time figuring out how to get Cat going as that third scorer is huge.
If Cat, Kane, Kubalik are your right wings, and now we have some natural left wings...
this thing might come back together after-all, but they are delusional about the tiny young d-men and the goalies so 2021 at the least is lost.
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