Honestly, this defence without Charlie McAvoy is still our biggest

Nah Millie, one puck line ticket don't make you a scout 😂 I've been at the Garden watching Carlo eat minutes since McAvoy went down and the system's fine BECAUSE Carlo plays it. You just know who the anchor is when the D-corps doesn't blink late in a game. Backing them all day 🐻🏒

Gotta side with UpsetKing here, though I hate handing Millie a free win on his C$50 ticket 📊. Two weeks of home games is a tiny sample - one hot goalie stretch can swing goals-against on its own, so I'd want a longer slice before crowning "the system." What I trust more is the eye test: Carlo eating big minutes and the pairs not panicking late, which tells me the structure only works because somebody's holding it together. Keep your toonie bets, Millie, but don't confuse a puck line with a scouting report.

Back in my day the old barns taught you this much: a hot fortnight flatters any system. Carlo's playing well, sure, but let's talk after twenty games 😉

KevReds, twenty games is a fair bar and I keep a spreadsheet that says so. My own sheet from the stretch after McAvoy went down shows the home goals-against dipping, but context matters - the schedule was soft and Carlo eating big minutes hides how thin the pairings get. Give me that longer slice before I crown either the system or the man.

RideOrDieZone's soft schedule point is the whole story imo 😏 anyone can look locked in against bottom feeders. Wait till a real forecheck folds those pairings, then we'll see who's anchoring 🤡

Soft schedule or nah, the guys are actually competing every night 😤 Carlo's playing his guts out, that's no fluke. Enjoy that C$50 while it lasts Millie 🤬 ah well, nowt to do

millie dear, a two-week sample and a C$50 slip don't make you a scout 😄 i watched carlo get walked around by decent forechecks more than once before charlie went down, so that soft-schedule point from RideOrDieZone has legs. let's see these pairings survive boston Garden hockey against a real forecheck before anyone crowns a new anchor.

Here's a wrinkle nobody's touched: Carlo's partner has been rotating all stretch, yet the results held, if it were one guy carrying the pairings, that dip should wobble when the lineup shuffles. It didn't, which smells like the system doing the work. I'll concede Carlo might be the right man for it, on condition that someone shows me his zone-exit numbers against a real forecheck before I crown him.

ValueDan, you're onto something, and it's the point I keep making to the blokes at my rink, the partner rotating through without the results wobbling screams structure over individuals. Carlo deserves his flowers, he's competing hard, but if the dip survives every lineup shuffle, that's Sweeney and the coaching staff's scheme doing the heavy lifting, with Carlo executing it well. One caveat though: two weeks is a small sample though, and home splits especially can flatter you, puck line bettors know how garden-party scoring runs come and go. I track this stuff in my own tables round by round, and I want to see how the pairings handle a proper forecheck before crowning the system 📊 Watch Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada; that'll tell us more than the last five games combined.

Fun question, but two weeks of goals-against with a rotating lineup. I'd want a bigger sample before crowning anyone. Depends how you count it, honestly. 📊