Thomas Drance

I wouldn't do it when Shea Theodore is out there, and he's probably going to be playing half these games moving forward because he's actually equipped to handle that.

But even if it's Anderson, but especially the third pair of guys and Jeremy Lozon, they took advantage of that in game three.

And if McNabb's out, those guys are going to have to play that much more.

And so I guess the one thing we will see, though, Tom, is your guy Caden Korczak will probably draw back into this lineup.

And so that's very exciting.

I know how you've been on him since last summer when he got that mega extension.

so you can make an argument that Carolina should have felt that way coming out of game one based on how that game started but certainly you know I think Vegas had a really good chance of being in a pretty commanding position being up to nothing going home and so letting that one slip away all of a sudden it's a 50-50 coin flip series essentially again and so yeah I think him being on tilt makes a lot of sense Drance do you have more on the Stanley Cup final because I want to chat a little Dylan Larkin at some point here as well

I think it's no surprise that he looked as good as he did at the two international events at last year's Four Nations and this year's Olympics because,

in my opinion, and this isn't meant to be a diss in any way, I think it's actually very complimentary.

He's the best possible role player.

And that's obviously not realistic based on his salary and stature in the league for a lot of NHL clubs.

But in terms of his skill set where...

situationally so good at face-offs, on the PK, playing the bumper on the power play, using his speed, especially sometimes in secondary matchups to take advantage of lesser players, whereas for Detroit for so many years, he's kind of needed to be the focal point where he plays the most minutes, everything sort of runs through him, eventually got Lucas Raymond to come as a running mate and started being more productive, but I think he was a little miscast as kind of like...

the franchise player that needed to do all the heavy lifting.

And as a result, the Red Wings team around him wasn't good enough to compete and make the playoffs for all those years.

And if he goes to an actual contender that has a true number one center and he can kind of slot in and play those situational minutes a little bit more, I'm sure he's going to look great in the process and the team's going to benefit from it.

And so I kind of view him that way as opposed to like a total...

game changer for an organization.

It's like a really great put you over the top supplementary or complimentary piece.

And a lot of the teams that are going to be most interested in him probably already have the players in place where that could be a fit for him.