When you got Jared McCann at such a reasonable price, were you at all tempted to change your thinking and go 7-3-1?
Dubas: We thought about it. I would understand why you would look at it. It wasn?t just a case of going 7-3-1 because the cost was low. It was also, if we go 7-3-1, who would we be losing, and what would the cost be to replace that person at their current cap hit?
That would give us increased exposure on defense, and we knew what the market was shaping up to be in terms of free agents. I think that manifested itself a little bit last night. We also knew what the available players were and what we thought they were.
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Can you expand on protecting Justin Holl over a couple of the forwards?
Dubas: The way we looked at it was ? what do we have in Justin, and what do we have for the future? He is signed for two more years. He has taken, in the last two seasons, major steps. I understand he is 29 years old, but he is extremely well-conditioned. There is very low mileage on him overall.
Holl and Muzzin together as a tandem, especially in the first three-quarters of the season, played against the other team?s best players. In our division, those were not a lot of easy nights if you go to Edmonton, Vancouver, we saw what Montreal did after they beat us, Calgary? every team in our division ? Winnipeg with their top line ? had very challenging players to defend against. Jake and Justin took that role on and performed very well in it.