Mailbag: MacKinnon, Panarin lead 'perfect team;' Flyers' playoff chances

Here is the Oct. 19 edition of the mailbag, where we answer your questions asked on Twitter using #OvertheBoards. Tweet your questions to @drosennhl.

If you could build a "perfect team" consisting of existing teams current forwards, defensemen and goalies, who would you want? Example, Toronto's forwards, Nashville's 'D' and the Islanders' goalies. -- @mikeybox
For the forwards, I'm torn between the Colorado Avalanche and the New York Rangers, so let's call it a split. Both have high-end skill and scoring ability, i.e. Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog with the Avalanche, and Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin and Chris Kreider with the Rangers. Both have skilled yet defensively responsible centers that win face-offs, Colorado's J.T. Compher and New York's Vincent Trocheck. The Rangers have Kaapo Kakko and
Alexis Lafreniere
developing into front-line scorers on the wing. The Avalanche have Valeri Nichushkin, one of the hardest forwards to handle in the NHL because of his size (6-foot-4, 210 pounds), skill and ability to get to the net. Is there a forward who can score, be effective in all situations and play 20 minutes per game who is talked about less than Colorado's Artturi Lehkonen? Probably not. Both teams have veteran forwards who play their roles well: Barclay Goodrow, Ryan Carpenter and Ryan Reaves in New York, and Darren Helm, Andrew Cogliano and Evan Rodrigues in Colorado.
At defenseman, again it's the Avalanche and they're joined by the Carolina Hurricanes. Colorado has arguably the best defenseman in the NHL right now in Cale Makar, who was voted the Norris Trophy winner last season. His partner, Devon Toews, would be a No. 1 on a lot of teams. The Avalanche have two more balanced defense pairs that could be top pairs on a lot of teams with Josh Manson and Bowen Byram, and Erik Johnson and Samuel Girard. You're talking about a team with speed, skill, size, strong defensive awareness, physicality and puck-moving ability. You can't ask for much more.
The Hurricanes have a lot of the same ingredients with Jaccob Slavin and Brent Burns on their top pair, and Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce on their second pair. They're not quite as deep as the Avalanche, but their style of play, how they can shut down plays and keep the middle of the defensive zone clean, makes them one of the top defense groups in the NHL. Slavin is always one of the best yet least talked about defensemen.
I would take Igor Shesterkin of the Rangers or Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning and pair them with just about any other goalie in the NHL and be fine with that, but the Islanders have the best goalie tandem with Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov. You've got Sorokin, a 27-year-old who proved himself as one of the top goalies with a 2.40 goals-against average, .925 save percentage and seven shutouts last season. You've got Varlamov, who has an elite track record and can be counted on for at least 30, which saves Sorokin and keeps him fresh throughout the season.

What would be a realistic projection for the Philadelphia Flyers season? Guess not almost last again? -- @DLaurean
I don't think the Flyers have the skill or depth to compete for a spot in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the entire season, but they'll hang around for a while and I know that coach John Tortorella will get the most that he can out of them this season. They'll stay in the race longer than expected if goalie Carter Hart can be more like he was in 2019-20 (24-13-3, 2.42 GAA, .914 save percentage) instead of struggling like he did the past two seasons (22-35-12, 3.34 GAA, .895 save percentage). I predicted the Flyers to finish last in the Metropolitan Division and, for now, I'm going to stick with that. But so far, I like what I've seen from them a heck of a lot more than the New Jersey Devils and Columbus Blue Jackets. That said, the Devils and Blue Jackets are better than they've shown, whereas the Flyers have played over expectations to start the season and I'm curious to see how they handle adversity when it strikes. They did not handle it well last season, but how much has the team culture changed in a short period of time under Tortorella? That will be the test.

Why does it feel that the Devils don't fully believe in Jesper Bratt's potential? Best player last year, but second line and second power play in the first game this season and STILL he produced better than the rest. -- @mrpinkstone
I don't agree with this narrative or feeling that the Devils don't fully believe in Bratt, and it's evidenced by his ice time. He played 17:26 per game last season, third among their forwards behind Jack Hughes (19:34) and Nico Hischier (19:21). Bratt, like Hughes, doesn't play on the penalty kill, but he averaged 10 fewer seconds of power play ice time per game (2:43) than Hughes (2:53). He started this season on the second power-play unit but is now on the top unit with Hughes, Hischier, Tomas Tatar and Dougie Hamilton. He's playing similar minutes in similar situations to last season, when he had an NHL career-high 73 points (26 goals, 47 assists) to lead the Devils. He goes all out on every shift, which means managing his ice time is best. It is how he gets the most out of every shift. He can play best with Hughes, which means he's a first line forward. Remember too that last season was the first time in his five seasons with New Jersey that he was near a point-per-game player. It's three games in but he's doing it again this season. The next step for him is to become a penalty killer, which is something all the best forwards in the NHL should want to do. If he does, you'll see his ice time go up.
Will Bo Horvat re-sign with Vancouver? What's the AAV? -- @5Canuckss
Too early to say. Horvat is in the final season of a six-year, $33 million contract ($5.5 million average annual value) and can become an unrestricted free agent. But there must be a sense of optimism that he will re-sign because he's the Vancouver Canucks captain and his agent, Pat Morris, recently said on local radio that Horvat likes playing in Vancouver, which means there must be a deal to be made if both sides are interested.
They should be. If Horvat signs with the Canucks, I expect it to be about an eight-year contract in the $7.5 million AAV range similar to what center Sean Couturier signed with the Flyers on Aug. 26, 2021 (eight years, $62 million; $7.75 million AAV). Horvat is 27 years old and will be 28 when his next contract starts. Couturier was 28 when he signed his contract. It's Horvat's time to get that kind of contract. He's worth it. He scored 31 goals and had 52 points last season. He plays a strong two-way game, kills penalties and wins face-offs. He can turn a scoring line into a shutdown line and vice versa. The Canucks have spent time, money and development resources into building a core that features Horvat, Elias Pettersson, Brock Boeser and J.T. Miller. Their window to win is open even if they've struggled out of gate this season. Horvat would be hard to replace if he left in free agency.

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