smithers joe

Watching the start of the season so far, it feels like we just may not have enough players that can win those battles, and it really stands out given how much Tocchet has emphasized that part of the game. Maybe we need to keep the pucks away from the boards more often and stop ringing it around in the D-zone or dumping it in the offensive zone and failing to retrieve it.

IMO we miss a healthy Pearson in this regard. I think we hope Joshua Guiseppe Podkolzin could be that guy maybe we try Bains. The reality is we don't have a guy in our top 9 who can win a board battle outside of Miller and that would detract from Millers value and be the difference between him scoring 80 VS 60 where if we had a Burr to step up right now that would be a "Difference maker" Miller would put up 80-100 and our board battler would put up 40-50 instead of 20-30 playing bottom 6. the sad reality is we have a bunch of guys tailor made for this role but none of them are willing yet to seize it.