The Stu/Chair pairing has had some atrocious stretches, that's for sure. That said, how many teams out there have studs on the 3rd pairing?  Serious question; not an expert on roster depth league-wide.

Seems to me you'd ideally want 2 legit top pairings where either can play against #1 lines, and provide offense of their own. Your 3rd pair is some mix of the veteran "intangibles" guys, a la Stuart and up-and-coming youngsters perhaps not ready for 20 mins a night a la Morrissey & Chiarot. 

...I guess IDEALLY ideally you want BETTER defence, so we're clearly not there!  But I don't have too big an issue with our top 7 D now....more concerned with lack of D prospects in the pipeline after JM. 

I just think Stuart gives the puck away and makes the wrong decisions the majority of the puck. He can't just make the safe smart play to get the puck out of the zone. Pairing him with Chiarot is a disaster waiting to happen. I would like to see a BIG D man on the 3rd pairing that doesn't care if he ends up with only one point at the end of the year as long as he doesn't let anyone score on his team.

Ladd to Montreal for McCarron and Lernout.

Does not help they both lefties.