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Originally Posted by nickschultzfan
You are acting like you need as many Dmen as forwards. You don't. You 50% more forward prospects than Dman prospects (9 forwards spots in the top-3 lines, 6 blueliner spots, 4th line doesn't count).
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And you're acting like defensemen are as easy to develop as forward prospects. One of the reasons why Minnesota ran into the issue this year with their defense is because Cuma didn't develop as quickly as they had hoped, Scandella had his ups and downs, and we had injuries.
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Gilbert and Suter will be here for a while. That means there is only 2 top-4 Dmen spots for Brodin, Scandella, Spurgeon, Stoner, and any UFA we sign in the next 3-4 years. 5 guys for 2 spots. We are fine. Especially if somebody comes out of nowhere to challenge.
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Stoner and Spurgeron I wouldn't pencil in as top 4 defensemen. Nor Kampfer. Brodin will still need to develop. And we still don't have a lot in the cupboard in terms of guys we can call up.
Cuma has been for all intents and purposes a bust. Medvec, Prosser and Lorenz aren't top 4 material.
We could use another short-term defenseman that we can develop in the AHL for a while along with Dumba simply because we have no quality outside of Dumba and Brodin.
Bussi is a project like any of our players. I would have liked to use that project on a defenseman, so at least have some balance and depth there. We've been drafting a ton of forwards (And for good reason) but defense can be a bit scary outside of Suter and Gilbert.