rate the following RWs

[lanky522]

I wouldn\'t rely on samsonov, smo, and the young guys to make an incredible impact during even strength. As far as kovalev is concerned, he\'s stedily declined in production since he left pittsburgh... what signs point to him bouncing back? None that I\'ve seen... he\'s russian and he doesn\'t give a sh*t, he never really has.

Why are you trashing aebischer? His stats (w-l and save %) were almost as good as the other two montreal goalies last season, and he still had a 90.0% save percentage with no defense. I think that he adds a lot to the phoenix situation. He\'s by no means a savior, but he certainly won\'t hurt.

Also, you don\'t need a phenominal goaltender to have a great or even good team plus minus. Gretzky had a pretty good +/- on the oilers despite fuhr hardly ever posting a 90.0+ save percentage... I\'m not saying that phoenix is like the edmonton team, but really, if you play good enough defense, and only allow 19 or so shots a game, it doesn\'t take a patrick roy to keep pucks out of the net.

in the end, debating this is futile, because +/- is one of the hardest things to accurately predict... it\'s so fickle and therefore a rather silly stat to use for our purposes... so if you have to predict it, you pretty much go with what happened last year unless major changes have been made...

neither montreal or phoenix made any major changes, so their plus/minus\' will probably both once again suck.

I do think that the addition of aebischer could increase phoenix\'s player\'s average +/- by 2 or 3 though.

[Chuk]

There is an interesting article on Fox Sports.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nhl/story/7160292

Doan scored 27 goals last year with the most consistent assists coming from Reinprecht at 4 (14.8%), even though they seemed to have some chemistry before Reinprecht was injured. What this shows is that Doan creates his own on a team with no support.

Considering the defense is solid in PHX, the goalies are improved and Mueller will no doubt the first talented centreman that Doan has played with in years, I think Doan will have better numbers this year.

I agree with Lanky that a Mon/Phx debate is pointless. Both are weaker teams who will have a poor +/-. I just look at Mon defence vs. Phx and it isn\'t even close.