2017-18 Around the League | Congratulations Washington Capitals!

[oobga]

What is all this based on?

Schultz and Yakupov were already broken before Mclellan got here, don't see how it's his fault in any way whatsoever. Their fate as Oilers was already sealed unfortunately.

I do fault coaches when they have players with talent/promise and are not able to get anything out of them. As I said, Yak was very much excited about hockey again and started getting his game back on track under Nelson. That ended in a hurry the next year of course.

McLellan showed his dislike for both of these players before they left. Schultz more than Yak of course. I think there are coaches in the NHL that could have done more, even if McLellan couldn't.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I do fault coaches when they have players with talent/promise and are not able to get anything out of them. McLellan showed his dislike for both of these players before they left. Schultz more than Yak of course. I think there are coaches in the NHL that could have done more, even if McLellan couldn't.

McLellan has gotten flack for how he has used and worked with younger struggling talent most of his career too. He was simply the wrong coach for those players.

 

[GodPucker]

Yeah he has. Long ways to go. Good for Yak as well tonight. I only follow the Avs to see what he is doing.

 

[Mav3rick07]

Yeah he has. Long ways to go. Good for Yak as well tonight. I only follow the Avs to see what he is doing.

The Avs play by play announcer is entertaining too.

 

[oobga]

McLellan has gotten flack for how he has used and worked with younger struggling talent most of his career too. He was simply the wrong coach for those players.

I think if we could have got a coach that could get players to buy into defensive play, and defensive detail, we would all have been for it a couple years ago. And I think McLellan really is good at that. But, I wouldn't be surprised if we also have everyone that doesn't get to play with McDavid putting up career low offensive numbers. The hope is that Drai can be another elite talent for us that can just drag a line kicking and screaming to success as well, but we'll never get to know if McLellan is going to keep using his McDavid/Drai crutch.

I do think though we're gonna have to flip to a coach one day with a more gifted offensive mind to really get consistent success on this team, but McLellan will deserve credit for the defensive foundation he left behind.

 

[oobga]

Dustin Brown came to play this year.

 

[Del Preston]

Dustin Brown came to play this year.

Last season he only played more than 18 minutes in a game eight times and never played more than 19:39.

Already this year he played 18:03 in the opener and 22:23 last game, and is up to 14:20 tonight. He fell out of favour with Sutter and Lombardi.

 

[CupofOil]

I do fault coaches when they have players with talent/promise and are not able to get anything out of them. As I said, Yak was very much excited about hockey again and started getting his game back on track under Nelson. That ended in a hurry the next year of course.

McLellan showed his dislike for both of these players before they left. Schultz more than Yak of course. I think there are coaches in the NHL that could have done more, even if McLellan couldn't.

Everything under Nelson was fools' gold. A bunch of meaningless games with no pressure whatsoever, I wouldn't put much stock at all in those stat padding games.

They had a chance to earn a spot under Mclellan and failed to grab it, the damage had already been done. They played no semblance of a structured game here, completely lacked any semblance of confidence due to the previous regime.

Schultz was placed into a perfect situation, probably one of the few places in the league where he could have rehabilitated his game. Yak failed in St. Louis under two different coaches and has played 3 nice games this season so I wouldn't say that he is a big success now that he's away from Mclellan. I wish Yak well but Mclellan is far down the list of reasons why he was unable to carve out a successful NHL career for himself up until this point. Mclellan is not without faults but Schultz and Yak's failures here were not due to him.

 

[GodPucker]

Smith with another huge save. keeping the Flames in it. Kings look fast.

 

[Mav3rick07]

The Flames always seem to only go as far as their netminder. I guess you could say the same about most teams but them especially over the past few years .

 

[Del Preston]

Smith with another huge save. keeping the Flames in it. Kings look fast.

The Flames' defense looks the exact same as last year.

 

[oobga]

Everything under Nelson was fools' gold. A bunch of meaningless games with no pressure whatsoever, I wouldn't put much stock at all in those stat padding games.

They had a chance to earn a spot under Mclellan and failed to grab it, the damage had already been done. They played no semblance of a structured game here, completely lacked any semblance of confidence due to the previous regime.

Schultz was placed into a perfect situation, probably one of the few places in the league where he could have rehabilitated his game. Yak failed in St. Louis under two different coaches and has played 3 nice games this season so I wouldn't say that he is a big success now that he's away from Mclellan. I wish Yak well but Mclellan is far down the list of reasons why he was unable to carve out a successful NHL career for himself up until this point. Mclellan is not without faults but Schultz and Yak's failures here were not due to him.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but from my view I see McLellan putting guys in the dog house in his head pretty quickly, and when he doesn't like you, you are likely never getting out. He wants near finished products, guys that need no babysitting, guys that play hockey the good old Saskatchewan boy way. I think that limits the types of players that Chia can bring onto this team, pre-determines the types of guys he needs to ship off, and to some degree and the team is and will be worse for it. It's not so bad that we can never win of course, Chia is doing a good job bringing in prototypical McLellan players like Russell and others, and the style of game McLellan wants to play, they can help execute it and get wins. Just might not be the easiest road to success that we're on right now.

I wouldn't fully discredit what happened under Nelson either. That team was shattered. If Eakins stayed, they would have finished that season completely in the dumps. Nelson got almost that entire team playing hard and for each other again by the end of that year. We would have definitely finished 30th too if we stuck with Eakins and might not have won McDavid

 

[Soundwave]

McLellan has turned Draisaitl, Pavelski, Burns, and Couture into All-Star tier players under his watch.

Happy for Yak, but remember one year ago when Sam Gagner also had a great start with the Columbus Blue Jackets playing for his NHL life.

It has a way of focusing and making a player grow up.

Schultz, Yak, Gagner, are welcome to have success elsewhere. The crown jewel for us would be if Ryan Nugent Hopkins can re-establish his game and turn his career around here.

Of all our "wonder kids" IMO, RNH at his best was the best of that group (yes even better than Hall). So smart, so confident, his rookie scoring pace was matching Malkin's rookie year until getting hurt.

If we can get even 80% of *that* RNH back, we hit the jack pot. That player was as good as Leon Drasiaitl last year, that would be a third All-Star for our forward group with Puljujarvi and Yamamoto still to come.

 

[Mav3rick07]

I hate to say it but the Oilers could sure use someone like Tkachuk on their team right now .

I'm not saying he's better than Puljuiarvi it's WAYYY too early but I can't help but notice Tkachuks tenacity.

 

[CupofOil]

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but from my view I see McLellan putting guys in the dog house in his head pretty quickly, and when he doesn't like you, you are likely never getting out. He wants near finished products, guys that need no babysitting, guys that play hockey the good old Saskatchewan boy way. I think that limits the types of players that Chia can bring onto this team, pre-determines the types of guys he needs to ship off, and to some degree and the team is and will be worse for it. It's not so bad that we can never win of course, Chia is doing a good job bringing in prototypical McLellan players like Russell and others, and the style of game McLellan wants to play, they can help execute it and get wins. Just might not be the easiest road to success that we're on right now.

I wouldn't fully discredit what happened under Nelson either. That team was shattered. If Eakins stayed, they would have finished that season completely in the dumps. Nelson got almost that entire team playing hard and for each other again by the end of that year. We would have definitely finished 30th too if we stuck with Eakins and might not have won McDavid

I can't say that I agree. Chia has been drafting pure skill players the last two drafts and McClellan developed a bunch of highly skilled players in San Jose. McClellan does like a particular type of player, guys that are versatile and hard on the puck and he can be stubborn to a fault but this is the case with most coaches who preach defense first and have certain favourites, look at Babcock with Hyman for instance. Most coaches would have hated the way Yak and Schultz played here, they were liabilities. That's on them and the previous regime for ruining them.

 

[GodPucker]

LOL Tkachuk trying to rip Quicks mask off. Oh boy can't wait until that guy gets his.

 

[Del Preston]

Giordano with the flop. Embarrassing.

 

[GodPucker]

Gio and Brown both flopping lol.

 

[CupofOil]

Giordano with the flop. Embarrassing.

Brown too. Two pukes in Brown and Tkachuk doing pukey things. Makes for a fun game.

 

[oobga]

McLellan has turned Draisaitl, Pavelski, Burns, and Couture into All-Star tier players under his watch.

Happy for Yak, but remember one year ago when Sam Gagner also had a great start with the Columbus Blue Jackets playing for his NHL life.

It has a way of focusing and making a player grow up.

Schultz, Yak, Gagner, are welcome to have success elsewhere. The crown jewel for us would be if Ryan Nugent Hopkins can re-establish his game and turn his career around here.

Of all our "wonder kids" IMO, RNH at his best was the best of that group (yes even better than Hall). So smart, so confident, his rookie scoring pace was matching Malkin's rookie year until getting hurt.

If we can get even 80% of *that* RNH back, we hit the jack pot. That player was as good as Leon Drasiaitl last year, that would be a third All-Star for our forward group with Puljujarvi and Yamamoto still to come.

Burns/Pavelski were trending very well before he got to SJ. And those are definitely the kinds of guys he needs to be successful. The elite talents that can just get the job done, with some help of course from a guy like Jumbo Joe. Couture is one of those finished products out of the gate that McLellan loves as well. As Jumbo said, the kid was already any elite 2-way player as a rookie, good work there by Wilson. Drai, jury is still out of he can put up the numbers we need away from McDavid, but I hope he is another guy that can be self driven and make another line "coach-proof" per se.

Aside from the top end guys though, there is this huge pool of players between elite and terrible that coaches need to get stuff out of to consistently win, especially in the playoffs. Would hate to keep a trend going where guys in that pool under-perform here, move on and end up being useful NHLers and we just pass it off as they would have never done it here anyways. Last year where was a bunch of career lows or near lows from that group for us when they didn't have the pleasure of McDavid time.

 

[GodPucker]

The Ryan Smyth clone, Sean Monohan gets the garbage open netter

 

[Del Preston]

Booooooo 3-point division games.

 

[Aerrol]

Really happy for Yak too. Have to say that the Avs look like team Yak though - so much scrambling, everyone is being chased by bees it seems. Not sure it's sustainable but I'd love for him to break out finally.

 

[Canovin]

Happy to see my boy ConYak doing good.

 

[Cloned]

This is gonna be one of those "darkest timeline" years, isn't it?