Interesting article, but the issues are kind of non-issues.
A lot of worry about the bottom 2 defense pairings, but much like the argument of if someone is a LW/RW does it really matter?
Ok, so perception is the problem here. People hear 3rd pair and go, oh, the guys that get 10 min or less a game and never any important minutes, they are just there to give the other 4 a breather. BUT not all teams are built like that. SOMETIMES, you have a team deep enough that the bottom 2 pairs are actually pretty even, so you have 1 top pair, and 2 2nd pairs. With these, you'll see the minutes balanced more between the bottom 4 guys, but you don't see it an awful lot, because it's usually expensive and in these days of the cap, the bottom 4 is not where you want to spend money.
It's actually usually what happens after a contender acquires a rental down the stretch, just done before the deadline. There's no issue moving Radko and Jensen around on the 2nd/3rd pair, you just balance the minutes out.
Hopefully Ilya steps up and can fill Holtby's shoes, cause that solves the cap issues, and it may be easier to recover from than losing a legit #1 Center.
As long as they can stay healthy, they are lined up really well right now. Most complete team since the dominating presidents trophy winning team that failed in the first round. Season starts over again in the playoffs.
