Chiarot is the exact type of player you want on a playoff team. He’s not afraid to throw around his weight and plays a mean game.
People here like to use him as the scapegoat for all defensive flaws this team has. Chiarot serves best as a 4/5 in a shutdown role.
If the roster is ass and has him playing top 2 minutes, that’s not the players fault. Blame poor coaching/roster management.
Thought he was also one of the better players on the team through the last month of the season. Prone for 1-2 bad plays a game, but even with that being said, thought he brought a lot more positives than negatives.
Agreed. I hated him the 1st season but this season he simplified his game and looked much better. If we can get him down to the bottom pair, be a primary pker, and have his main goal be knocking people in front of the net down, I'm good with it. He's still overpaid and signed for too long, but getting into a role where he looks good might allow us to trade him if Buium, Wally, etc look like they should be brought up the following season.
I actually think him and Aljo could make a really good bottom pair because Aljo plays a very smooth simple game, and Chia does best when he isn't overthinking the game.
I would also be fine with a Maata/ Aljo bottom pair if Stevie can deal Chia but I don't think that is likely. I don't think Maata looked nearly as good with Ghost as he did Hronek. He often struggled to get pucks out of the zone last year, and couldn't connect on a pass at all. He started to look better towards the end of the season but we haven't seen pre-illness level Maata since he got sick.
Wings primary goal needs to be to clear two dman off the roster minimum. Then they need to find Ed a capable partner. I'm good trying Walman with Seider again next year with the understanding that they aren't getting the hardest minutes in the league. Even Seider isn't that level of dman, so thinking Walman is going to look good in that situation is a bit much.
I am also good with dealing Wally and getting Seider a true partner if a good deal is out there, but I am less concerned about this than other holes. We really just need one true top 4 dman to pair with Ed. Seider can pull Wally along for another year so long as they aren't only getting top end defensive matchups.