Post-Game Talk: 2017 redux

[Soundwave]

How the f*** do you spend on a top 10 pick on a D-Man this crap:



I think the Rogers arena staff are still looking for Broberg's jock strap.

 

[Duder54]

,

 

[Zguy370]

How the f*** do you spend on a top 10 pick on a D-Man this crap:



I think the Rogers arena staff are still looking for Broberg's jock strap.

In all fairness to Broberg, wasn't he played in 3 positions yesterday, LD, RD and forward. Great way to develop his main D responsibilities, kid must be mesmerized!

 

[Tarus]

How the f*** do you spend on a top 10 pick on a D-Man this crap:



I think the Rogers arena staff are still looking for Broberg's jock strap.

When it comes to one on one battles, even the best defenseman can get beaten and even the worst of forwards can make something happen. It's a fast game and shit happens. RNH once deked Lidstrom out of his jock strap just as an example. 99 times out of 100 Lidstrom would stifle a play like that effortlessly when it's coming from a guy like RNH, but there is one time he didn't.

Broberg got caught reaching and was embarrassed, it happens.

 

[frag2]

Find it disgusting that only now are they mad at themselves and each other. Where the hell was this a week ago? Time for that was after the Philly game, but only now that they realize that they're an embarrassment.

I'll just go down the list of the biggest disappointments so I can get it out of my head.

Nurse - couple of the Darnell Nurse specials tonight. Gap control so bad that it would put a rookie in the press box. The second one was as egregious as it gets. Take a step and poke check him for f*** sakes. Instead dumbass just stands there and watches him zip one cross ice. I won't even mention whatever the hell he was doing on the Fox breakaway. He talks about holding each other accountable post game, would be nice if for once in his life he stepped up and acknowledged that he was a joke in a game.

Draisaitl - Nice little la de da game from him again. Rangers are stuffing 4 players in the neutral zone? Well may as well stand there and try to zip passes cross ice through the middle. Team isn't getting any shots on goal? May as well stop up high in the zone and try more hero passes to nowhere. Casual, cute, bullshit hockey. Someone needs to get a hold of him and tell him that he's got to start moving his feet, driving the puck to the f***ing net, and actually shooting once in a blue moon of a shot that isn't a gift one timer.

RNH - Joke. Floating around, skating in quicksand, slow to make decisions, slow to move, slow to make reads, slow in every facet of the game. Defensively he is an absolute tire fire. Get him out of the C position, even if it means elevating McLeod. RNH cannot play C and we need to stop pretending he can.

When the players that are supposed to be your best players are your worst players the stink runs all the way down the lineup. Once again we have to sit here and talk about how Warren Foegele and Dylan Holloway were probably our best players up front. Incredible.

Those are your 3 leaders when McD is out. Epic fail

 

[Soundwave]

When it comes to one on one battles, even the best defenseman can get beaten and even the worst of forwards can make something happen. It's a fast game and shit happens. RNH once deked Lidstrom out of his jock strap just as an example. 99 times out of 100 Lidstrom would stifle a play like that effortlessly when it's coming from a guy like RNH, but there is one time he didn't.

Broberg got caught reaching and was embarrassed, it happens.

This seems to happen often to him. He was falling on his ass in the Vegas series and I think it's happened before this season too.

How the f*** are you just falling over like that at the NHL level, he is very fortunate Lafreniere didn't get a freebie goal there.

 

[Shathar]

There's all this talk about needing another winger, or some upgrade on the defense.

I call Bull shit. It's the water... there's something in that dressing room... organziation.. something I don't know about that turns wears on the players. Something that brings out the worst of them instead of the best of them.

A personal or coaching change may resuscitate them for awhile. But the sickness will return. Perhaps it's just Canada'itis. Perhaps it's just too f***ing cold to play here. Too much pressure. Who knows but there's a reason Canada don't win cups. I suspect it's just not as much fun to be filthy rich in Canada quite frankly.

The 'cup or bust' rhetoric really didn't help. How can you go there before the season starts when there are 31 other teams trying to do the same thing. 31 other teams filled with players who want the same thing, who have pride and drive... If I played on another team and heard that crap, I would have been driven to beat said team into the ground.

 

[Oilers]

This seems to happen often to him. He was falling on his ass in the Vegas series and I think it's happened before this season too.

How the f*** are you just falling over like that at the NHL level, he is very fortunate Lafreniere didn't get a freebie goal there.

Agree with this.

We're always saying Broberg is still developing... is he? or is this actually the best he is going to be? I've been a Broberg supporter, but I just don't see a top 4 defenseman in his game anymore unfortunately.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Man, this season is like 2017-18 on steroids. As much as people know the roster has some flaws, nobody saw it going down like this. Even in peoples’ most negative predictions, a “bad” start for the Oilers through 7 games would be like what, 3-3-1? This is nuts.

I don’t buy that “this roster totally sucks” like a lot of people are peddling, but something seems totally disconnected between the players and the coaching staff. No chance that they’ve fallen this far in 5 months, just because of losing Bjugstad, Yamamoto and Kostin.

They lost their will and belief. I'm not sure how this possibility wasn't considered by many. It was my foremost thought that Drai coming off a 13 goal playoffs was going to be thinking "what do I have to do? The Oilers failed with him piling in goals and playing like the best player in the playoffs and scoring 4 goal in one game and still losing the game. Its soul destroying. It says to a person that even your best is not going to be enough. That even another legend playoffs is not going to be enough. Keeping in mind that Drai has had 3 legend playoffs and its never been enough.

Drai told us the season was wasted. its what he meant. The guy has been busting his butt here for a decade. Burn out to some degree occurs.

 

[Drivesaitl]

There's all this talk about needing another winger, or some upgrade on the defense.

I call Bull shit. It's the water... there's something in that dressing room... organziation.. something I don't know about that turns wears on the players. Something that brings out the worst of them instead of the best of them.

A personal or coaching change may resuscitate them for awhile. But the sickness will return. Perhaps it's just Canada'itis. Perhaps it's just too f***ing cold to play here. Too much pressure. Who knows but there's a reason Canada don't win cups. I suspect it's just not as much fun to be filthy rich in Canada quite frankly.

For sure this would be the case. For players it isn't that much fun. Also due to the serious pressured atmosphere. But a lot of our players are not that great in the first place. We have a collection of players who are here mostly because they were pretty easily available. We have 10 starters that fit that description. Thats a limitation in itself.

 

[Soundwave]

They lost their will and belief. I'm not sure how this possibility wasn't considered by many. It was my foremost thought that Drai coming off a 13 goal playoffs was going to be thinking "what do I have to do? The Oilers failed with him piling in goals and playing like the best player in the playoffs and scoring 4 goal in one game and still losing the game. Its soul destroying. It says to a person that even your best is not going to be enough. That even another legend playoffs is not going to be enough. Keeping in mind that Drai has had 3 legend playoffs and its never been enough.

Drai told us the season was wasted. its what he meant. The guy has been busting his butt here for a decade. Burn out to some degree occurs.

You could see the team deflate when they got down again to Vancouver 0-3 to start the season for the second year in a row.

Burn out is definitely happening, how many times can you ask two guys essentially to drive miracle come backs or play at that high of level while the D and goaltending never, ever return the favor and win them a game once in a while.

How many times in the last 2 years could you say "well Connor or Leon sure didn't have it tonight, but thankfully our D or goaltending stepped up so we could win". *crickets*.

 

[frag2]

The 'cup or bust' rhetoric really didn't help. How can you go there before the season starts when there are 31 other teams trying to do the same thing. 31 other teams filled with players who want the same thing, who have pride and drive... If I played on another team and heard that crap, I would have been driven to beat said team into the ground.

During the preseason, Strudwick warned about reading your own news clippings and getting ahead of yourselves. Here we are.

This group of players - arrogant, stubborn, stupid

 

[Drivesaitl]

When it comes to one on one battles, even the best defenseman can get beaten and even the worst of forwards can make something happen. It's a fast game and shit happens. RNH once deked Lidstrom out of his jock strap just as an example. 99 times out of 100 Lidstrom would stifle a play like that effortlessly when it's coming from a guy like RNH, but there is one time he didn't.

Broberg got caught reaching and was embarrassed, it happens.

It happened with Lafrenierre. It wasn't Gretzky, Malkin, Crosby, Drai, McD, it was about the 10th most marquee Rangers forward lol. Not dissing the player at all but he's quality depth with the rangers, he's not supposed to be making superstar moves and players on their ass. Broberg was shaking his head for awhile after that one. He was undressed and everybody on both teams and the whole building knew it. You don't get undressed more than that and trouble is with Broberg its not really isolated.

I think the difference is that Broberg remains pretty tentative out there, looks scared a lot of the time, and will attempt to take the puck rather than the player a lot of the time.

 

[Soundwave]

During the preseason, Strudwick warned about reading your own news clippings and getting ahead of yourselves. Here we are.

This group of players - arrogant, stubborn, stupid

Is it the players or is it the front office that had 10000 red flags last year that this goaltending tandem and defensive unit was a big problem, but they did nothing to address either one because "well you just got to keep getting kicks at the can and a Cup will just fall out of the sky" mentality that Holland has.

Starts at the top.

How many teams that are apparently "desperate" for a Cup would've run back the same goalie tandem?

 

[McIce Whole]

Our whole team sucks. Skinner played good last game, everyone else was absolute garbage.

Hyman and Kane aren’t causing havoc like they normally do.

Drai is trying to do way too much and loses the puck every time.

Our defence is absolutely f***ing garbage. For the love of god get some improvements back there, there is just no way in hell you can win with this D core.

 

[Soundwave]

Skinner was OK last night, but he is not a guy that can elevate his game to a high end level of play, which is what we need. We need a goalie who can steal some wins for us.

He's a Mikko Koskinen tier goalie maybe without the extreme lows (well looking at his playoffs last year, I'd rather have had Koskinen in net).

Unfortunately I think Campbell is in the same boat. We lost Smith and the two replacements are two Koskinens.

 

[Drivesaitl]

You could see the team deflate when they got down again to Vancouver 0-3 to start the season for the second year in a row.

Burn out is definitely happening, how many times can you ask two guys essentially to drive miracle come backs or play at that high of level while the D and goaltending never, ever return the favor and win them a game once in a while.

How many times in the last 2 years could you say "well Connor or Leon sure didn't have it tonight, but thankfully our D or goaltending stepped up so we could win". *crickets*.

I'm amazed its taken this long to surface with the two. McD sure wasn't stellar either this season and we'd only seen one McD type great play through 5 games against weak teams in the schedule.

Leads me to my last point that people, and you were saying the team looks destroyed without McD. These two games, Minny, and NY were the difficult part of the schedule we've seen. These two games were going to be real hard regardless of whether McD was playing or not. We've been losing to non playoff clubs WITH McD.

The burn out factor is why the team needed to make a big splash. They needed some new blood and enthusiasm.

 

[CycloneSweep]

I'm amazed its taken this long to surface with the two. McD sure wasn't stellar either this season and we'd only seen one McD type great play through 5 games against weak teams in the schedule.

Leads me to my last point that people, and you were saying the team looks destroyed without McD. These two games, Minny, and NY were the difficult part of the schedule we've seen. These two games were going to be real hard regardless of whether McD was playing or not. We've been losing to non playoff clubs WITH McD.

The burn out factor is why the team needed to make a big splash. They needed some new blood and enthusiasm.

As much as you didn’t like Yamamoto. He was young and full of enthusiasm. Same with Kostin. I believe they probably kept the room light and fun which helped in situations like this.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Our whole team sucks. Skinner played good last game, everyone else was absolute garbage.

Hyman and Kane aren’t causing havoc like they normally do.

Drai is trying to do way too much and loses the puck every time.

Our defence is absolutely f***ing garbage. For the love of god get some improvements back there, there is just no way in hell you can win with this D core.

Skinner was lucky last night. he made one save with the shaft of his stick. its uncanny with him and I've seen it happen 10X. No goalie is trying to stop a puck with shaft of stick. Its pure fortune when it happens, luckier than a goal post and he had two of those.

Skinner was decent. and made one quality stop and a series of stops he should make. On the difficult plays he wasn't getting to those. There was also the 4th goal called back which was a pity call. It was a goal. I've seen more of skate movements still be called a goal. Even in telecast they couldn't belive the goal was called back. Really Skinner last night should probably have had 6GA. Trouble is this is Skinner. This was his good game as you say. The first one of the season and he still got torched.

 

[Drivesaitl]

As much as you didn’t like Yamamoto. He was young and full of enthusiasm. Same with Kostin. I believe they probably kept the room light and fun which helped in situations like this.

Bang on. I was considering jsut this last night. these are loose guys joking around and keeping things light. Barrie was another one. Theres been others we've lost but Barrie, Yama, Kostin were cards, jokers in the room. The team is probably missing all of them in the room. Its a part that maybe doesn't get considered a lot, how the room feels. Right now the room is real serious which is often counter productive. It stops being fun even being there. McD and DRai are very serious people, although Drai has that sarcastic humor side of him.

Oh Kassian was another. We lost him too. Kane has been kind of angry instead of seeing much of his lighter side. But you add a streak like this and the whole team feels like shit.

Gagner is kind of a feel good guy. Maybe he gets in the room and can be a bit positive.

 

[Shathar]

Is it the players or is it the front office that had 10000 red flags last year that this goaltending tandem and defensive unit was a big problem, but they did nothing to address either one because "well you just got to keep getting kicks at the can and a Cup will just fall out of the sky" mentality that Holland has.

Starts at the top.

How many teams that are apparently "desperate" for a Cup would've run back the same goalie tandem?

Absolutely. But the stupidity is pervasive. Everyone looks stupid right now. Again... so far. I am trying to hold onto optimism.

 

[Tarus]

It happened with Lafrenierre. It wasn't Gretzky, Malkin, Crosby, Drai, McD, it was about the 10th most marquee Rangers forward lol. Not dissing the player at all but he's quality depth with the rangers, he's not supposed to be making superstar moves and players on their ass. Broberg was shaking his head for awhile after that one. He was undressed and everybody on both teams and the whole building knew it. You don't get undressed more than that and trouble is with Broberg its not really isolated.

I think the difference is that Broberg remains pretty tentative out there, looks scared a lot of the time, and will attempt to take the puck rather than the player a lot of the time.

He's a former first overall pick who was torching his peers just a few short years ago. He may never live up to the initial billing of his draft position, but he's still an exceptionally skilled player who can take advantage of a defenseman's mistake one on one.

Not to say I'm defending Broberg as a player(I don't think he's much of one), just saying that one bad play doesn't define the player. Pretty much every highlight reel goal scored in the NHL is a highlight of an NHL defenseman getting embarrassed with just a slight shift of perspective.

 

[Drivesaitl]

He's a former first overall pick who was torching his peers just a few short years ago. He may never live up to the initial billing of his draft position, but he's still an exceptionally skilled player who can take advantage of a defenseman's mistake one on one.

Not to say I'm defending Broberg as a player(I don't think he's much of one), just saying that one bad play doesn't define the player. Pretty much every highlight reel goal scored in the NHL is a highlight of an NHL defenseman getting embarrassed with just a slight shift of perspective.

Fair enough Lafrenniere did look good last night I thought. I did note the skills to have the confidence to pull off a play like that and others he made.

Nah, I'm not defining Broberg and I'm not at all decided on him. Skill D can take some time. Seems to take more time when they are slight of build like he is. Doesn't have his man strength yet it appears. He's worth waiting for to see what we got.

I understood your rationale.

 

[CycloneSweep]

Bang on. I was considering jsut this last night. these are loose guys joking around and keeping things light. Barrie was another one. Theres been others we've lost but Barrie, Yama, Kostin were cards, jokers in the room. The team is probably missing all of them in the room. Its a part that maybe doesn't get considered a lot, how the room feels. Right now the room is real serious which is often counter productive. It stops being fun even being there. McD and DRai are very serious people, although Drai has that sarcastic humor side of him.

Oh Kassian was another. We lost him too. Kane has been kind of angry instead of seeing much of his lighter side. But you add a streak like this and the whole team feels like shit.

Gagner is kind of a feel good guy. Maybe he gets in the room and can be a bit positive.

It’s one of the intangibles that get missed. They aren’t the best on ice players but they help the other guys feel good, and that leads to better performance.

None of the guys in the team seem to be fun guys. They are all hard assed and serious. Usually those guys just get angry when the going gets tough, get them all together and it just fuels animosity and anger. Need lighter guys to change the mood and energy.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

It’s one of the intangibles that get missed. They aren’t the best on ice players but they help the other guys feel good, and that leads to better performance.

None of the guys in the team seem to be fun guys. They are all hard assed and serious. Usually those guys just get angry when the going gets tough, get them all together and it just fuels animosity and anger. Need lighter guys to change the mood and energy.

Just remember, Milan Lucic had excellent intangibles.