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The Official 2026 Off-Season Thread: Revenge of the Nerds

Wolls solid but he’s a Joe Shmoe average goalie, is signed for $3.7m and can be replaced on a near min deal by AA or hildy.

he isn’t a big loss. Whether they were better off trading him for a higher pick or a third and a prospect and pulling andrae in a lesser trade remains to be seen.

But at the end of the day they must be pretty high in andrae, have freed up nearly 5m in cap space, added a pick and will come out looking pretty smart if they sign andrae to a team friendly multi year deal and he pans out.
 
Tanev might be dead and is old, OEL was good last year but also old. Rielly was horrible last year and might also be old.

A lot of good defenders don't make it to 34 as good defenders anymore.

The reality is that they will all need replacing very soon whether we want to or not.
 
MindzEye said:
Tanev might be dead and is old, OEL was good last year but also old. Rielly was horrible last year and might also be old.

A lot of good defenders don't make it to 34 as good defenders anymore.

The reality is that they will all need replacing very soon whether we want to or not.
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I can be convinced on moving Rielly.

Tanev I think we should keep, but we should basically plan as though him being healthy will be an unexpected luxury. And when he is healthy, don’t beat the hell out of him feeding him tons of regular season minutes as our #1 shutdown D.

OEL I just completely disagree on. The only concrete reason you seem to have for moving him—that you’re afraid his play might suddenly drop off from “good” to “not good”—is not a valid concern when the player is only signed for this coming season and the next, for a relatively low salary.
 
LeafGm said:
I can be convinced on moving Rielly.

Tanev I think we should keep, but we should basically plan as though him being healthy will be an unexpected luxury. And when he is healthy, don’t beat the hell out of him feeding him tons of regular season minutes as our #1 shutdown D.

OEL I just completely disagree on. The only concrete reason you seem to have for moving him—that you’re afraid his play might suddenly drop off from “good” to “not good”—is not a valid concern when the player is only signed for this coming season and the next, for a relatively low salary.
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I mean, it's pretty simple to me.

How good is this blueline?

OEL-McCabe
Rielly-Tanev
Andrae-Carlo

Because that's what it is right now. I hear "significant" changes and my first through to mind isn't Benoit and Myers. Even moving off of Carlo and putting a better 3rd pair RHD isn't a huge deal.

That blueline is a top 4 made up of #3-4-5 guys. It's a huge step down from actual competitive teams even if it's not old and cooked, which it might be sooner rather than later.
 
Both Matthews and Tanev might have been rejuvenated by the extra rest they got, and nobody needed it more than those two.

The optimist would expect them to both have great years next year.
 
Tanev is 37 before Christmas. Being away from the game for that long doesn't rejuvenate players at that age. Injuries are harder and harder to come back from, extended absences accelerate decline.
 
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MindzEye said:
I mean, it's pretty simple to me.

How good is this blueline?

OEL-McCabe
Rielly-Tanev
Andrae-Carlo

Because that's what it is right now. I hear "significant" changes and my first through to mind isn't Benoit and Myers. Even moving off of Carlo and putting a better 3rd pair RHD isn't a huge deal.

That blueline is a top 4 made up of #3-4-5 guys. It's a huge step down from actual competitive teams even if it's not old and cooked, which it might be sooner rather than later.
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I am not advocating that as our blueline next year, though. Far from it. I’m just saying that OEL is still good, brings exactly the kind of skill set we want more of on this D core and I disagree with the notion we should be so worried about his play dropping off with only 2x$3.5M left on his deal that we should trade him away while he’s still good.

Absolutely still fire Carlo out of a cannon. I’m down with trading Rielly. And like I said—we should essentially game-plan like it’ll be an unexpected surprise if Tanev is healthy.

All that plus swapping Benoit out for Andrae seems like a goodly amount of change to me.
 
There's no reason why Rielly, OEL, or Tanev can't stay and be productive. Just probably not all three. Gotta upgrade somewhere, and Tanev probably isn't going anywhere but it would be great to slot him onto the bottom pair for now. I do think it's likely we move at least one of Rielly or OEL.
 
MindzEye said:
Tanev is 37 before Christmas. Being away from the game for that long doesn't rejuvenate players at that age. Injuries are harder and harder to come back from, extended absences accelerate decline.
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That assumes that he's sitting on his couch eating potato chips all day. I'd imagine he's regularly skating, working out, etc.
 
MindzEye said:
I mean, it's pretty simple to me.

How good is this blueline?

OEL-McCabe
Rielly-Tanev
Andrae-Carlo

Because that's what it is right now. I hear "significant" changes and my first through to mind isn't Benoit and Myers. Even moving off of Carlo and putting a better 3rd pair RHD isn't a huge deal.

That blueline is a top 4 made up of #3-4-5 guys. It's a huge step down from actual competitive teams even if it's not old and cooked, which it might be sooner rather than later.
Click to expand...

Tanev and Andrae over Stecher and Benoit is already significant changes.

Now we upgrade on Carlo and Myers.
 
axlsalinger said:
There's no reason why Rielly, OEL, or Tanev can't stay and be productive. Just probably not all three. Gotta upgrade somewhere, and Tanev probably isn't going anywhere but it would be great to slot him onto the bottom pair for now. I do think it's likely we move at least one of Rielly or OEL.
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I’m an advocate of keeping Tanev because of the upside he brings if he’s healthy. And he is even more valuable in the playoffs, if healthy. But what we absolutely shouldn’t be doing is depending on him to be our regular everyday 1st or 2nd pair RHD.

Make the necessary additions to push him down the depth chart instead. Don’t worry about having too many guys—not like anyone makes it through the season with the same six guys being healthy every game anyway.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
That assumes that he's sitting on his couch eating potato chips all day. I'd imagine he's regularly skating, working out, etc.
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No, it doesn't assume that at all, it's just part of being old in a young man's game. Decline isn't an on/off switch, it's a progression of everything involved in being a high level athlete getting harder. Maintaining elite fitness gets harder, staying healthy gets harder, recovering from injury gets harder. We see guys in their prime come back from extended injury and have it take significant amounts of time to really get back into form. At 36-37 it's just way, way harder.

Which is why I'm fine having him pencilled in as a 3rd pairing D this season (we're stuck with the contract for now), but expecting him to be as good as he was over a year ago is kind of crazy. He might not even be good at all anymore.
 
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