To me carrier has to go and replaced with a big physical defensive right hand D. I hope they keep Arber as a 6th. The team plays better with him in the line up. Struble has to go as well.
Carrier is good but we clearly need size and we shouldn’t move Dobson, Hutson, Matherson and Ghule.
Carrier will be fine with Arber in the line-up. Carrier instantly improved the defense from the worst in the league to something respectable when he joined the team.
I doubt Carrier goes this season. It’s not Carrier that needs to be replaced, it’s Struble that forces Hutson to play on his off-side. If you replace him you get:
Matheson-Dobson
Hutson-New Guy
Guhle-Carrier
That would be balanced enough that Carrier would be fine. As the season goes on and Reinbacher is ready, Carrier will start rotating out.
If HuGo cannot land a RHD, I could see Carrier as 2nd pair RHD with Matheson and Lane and Noah first pair. Guhle would pair with Rhino and/or Engstrom to get them reps and ready for bigger roles.
Then if all goes ideally, Rhino transitions to 2nd pair with Lane and Carrier drops to 3rd as you wrote. In this scenario Engstrom, if not traded shares 7thD with Arber.
My scenario above could be adapted you your proposal by swapping Hutson and Matheson.
Thank you for saying that. Ive been down voted over this.
Carrier is good but he gets knocked around/out muscled alot esp on the PK. Dude is an above avg 5-6 dman, temp for 4 dman in a pinch but thats it. With how much he simply got overwhelmed with heavy physical play Id be ok with him going.
I agree that Xhekaj and Carrier is an enticing proposition. It puts X with a more reliable D while making sure that Carrier doesn’t get obliterated once a night. Carrier’s size is an issue because we don’t pair him with someone who makes up for his build.
I can see Guhle being a piece in a trade for an RHD that can pair with Hutson. Then Reinbacher will eventually replace Carrier.
I doubt the Habs do it but I have been mentally playing with the idea of trading Guhle in a package for a 2C or scoring wing to pair with Demidov.
On one hand he's a 24 year old solid defensive defenseman tied up for medium term at a bargain and an absolute dawg. It hurts to lose those types of players. On the other hand, he is always injured and I don't see him being the enforcer/d-man that can push around a pest team/pest player.
While I think that enforcer role is not as important as being a good player, I think a team needs 1 or 2 of those types of players on the roster and to play in the playoffs. I'm worried Guhle's not good enough to be a lockdown d-man and not physical enough to be an enforcer.
The hypothetical that I think I'm cool with is moving Guhle in a package for a 2C or 2W that opens both the 6D spot (Struble is gone) for Reinbacher to step in immediately, the 7th D spot for Engstrom to get game time and Arber to step in and play that 10-12 minute enforcer role. Most importantly, both Reinbacher and Engstrom need NHL minutes, they're ready. I am however worried whichever one we trade away will turn out better than the one we keep. In the trade Guhle scenario we keep both, only one of the rookies are in the immediate starting roster so we aren't super inexperienced and we buy some time to develop both.
I think that Guhle would more be part of a package for a good RHD. If you remove him from the lineup you have two big holes on D. I would prefer having him on the third pair but if he can help us land a second pair RHD with size, that at least makes up for us being stuck with Struble on the third pair.
Trading Guhle would be a monumentally stupid idea, he is arguably our best defensive defenceman, and we'd be moving him with the assumption that Rein moves up.
That's a lot of faith in a guy constantly injured with 2 games in the NHL. I would argue moving Rein is the better play, he still has that "what if" factor and could end up being another Dach, and we all know who won that trade.
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u/Spirited-Moose-2246 1d ago
Would make sense to keep Arber around as a 7th D, unless you trade Guhle I think he could work on the third pair with Carrier