NHL Network: Bruce Boudreau on which team in the Pacific Division he thinks has had the most impressive offseason.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Erika Wachter: “We’re going to dive deeper into this specific division and see who will come out with a real story book year, next year. Want to begin again, as you have your outlook for us, with who had the most impressive offseason?”
Boudreau: “Well, you know, it’s always harder to tell before this, before the season starts. But I really like that Edmonton didn’t sit back and say, ‘Hey, listen, we’re we’re just, we’re pretty good. We’re going to go out and we’re going to make a lot of changes, and we’re going to get better, and we’re going to get better offensively.’
And holy smokes. I mean, they already had the two best offensive players and maybe a top-five offensive winger in the league. And if Evander Kane ever gets healthy and gets to the point where he’s back to where he was even two years ago.
Like, I mean, you add Jeff Skinner and Viktor Arvidsson, two players that, I mean, when Viktor Arvidsson was in Nashville, he’s like a dog on a bone, and he works, very Hyman like, and Jeff Skinner just scores. And I mean, you’re putting these guys maybe with Leon Draisaitl, I mean, they had to have, you considered as good a season, or good as offseason as anybody else.
And I mean, it just made them stronger. You look at the players that lost, and I think that’s not a, that, they can afford to lose those guys. But they picked up two players that are going to make them, every building they go into, they’re going to go, oh my god, we got to think defense against this team, because this team is coming at us.”
Wachter: “Yeah, rolling out multiple lines with that, just adding that depth right to it for that Edmonton club.”