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2022-2023 Around The League

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GoNordiquesGo said:
Don't get me wrong, I really like their center line. I just think top 5 is pushing it. More like 5-10 IMHO. Without spending too much time, I'm pretty sure at least five of those teams can field a better center line. Now they may choose to play centers on the wings and it changes the result however...
Edmonton, Florida, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Vancouver, Vegas, St-Louis, Ottawa (maybe still too much unproven however, like New Jersey...),
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Florida and Vancouver, clearly better. Zero debate there.

Vegas I have my doubts on being better than Calgary as it stands today. Kadri + Backlund > Karlsson + Stephenson. Eichel playing at his ability if better than Lindholm... he didn't play up to that last year when he played.

Edmonton, Tampa, St Louis, and Ottawa are not better... Ottawa is close to getting there, but has to prove more. Edmonton almost never runs their top 3 guys as centers at a time. Off the top I don't see them. Tampa has an equivalent top line guy and Kadri and Cirelli are close... Colton and Backlund are different leagues. Colton has some offensive danger to him, but not nearly the defensive player. St Louis is similar to Edmonton, their guys who can all play center, don't.

Pittsburgh is all health related. They can run a great 1-2-3 setup, but it doesn't seem they can ever get them all healthy together. Carter is regressing pretty hard too.

Toronto is the trickiest to me. Matthews is debatably the best center in the league. No question he is better than anything Calgary can put out there. Tavares is regressing pretty quickly and I'm not totally sure he's better than Kadri today. Kerfoot is Kerfoot... great at garbage points and keeping stats people happy, but not nearly as effective as he should be. He also plays a lot of wing.

All together, I'd get a debate of Calgary as high as 3rd and as low as 6th.
 
Pokecheque said:
Weegar is definitely a top-pairing guy, and if Sutter pairs him with Tanev as many suspect, that'll be one of the best shutdown duos in the league.

Both he and Markstrom need to clean up the postseason brain farts, but apart from that, Calgary looks like a legit contender right now.
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I thought a lot of folks soured on Weegar last season? Not trying to argue, just trying to understand. Seems FLA wanted to get rid of him?
 
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UnkleKraker said:
I thought a lot of folks soured on Weegar last season? Not trying to argue, just trying to understand. Seems FLA wanted to get rid of him?
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He didn’t have a great playoffs, though no one on FLA did. And I think some of it is contract related. Panthers weren’t going to be able to afford his next contract.
 
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Friend shared this with me. Next level shade. Guess the city it comes from.

1662732225264.png
 
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UnkleKraker said:
I thought a lot of folks soured on Weegar last season? Not trying to argue, just trying to understand. Seems FLA wanted to get rid of him?
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He makes some real brain dead plays and he hurt them in the playoffs with some of those. He was still their best defensemen in the playoffs though. He's a bit of a live by the sword, die by the sword type. It didn't help they forced him to the right side of the ice for the majority of it.
 
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henchman24 said:
Florida and Vancouver, clearly better. Zero debate there.

Vegas I have my doubts on being better than Calgary as it stands today. Kadri + Backlund > Karlsson + Stephenson. Eichel playing at his ability if better than Lindholm... he didn't play up to that last year when he played.

Edmonton, Tampa, St Louis, and Ottawa are not better... Ottawa is close to getting there, but has to prove more. Edmonton almost never runs their top 3 guys as centers at a time. Off the top I don't see them. Tampa has an equivalent top line guy and Kadri and Cirelli are close... Colton and Backlund are different leagues. Colton has some offensive danger to him, but not nearly the defensive player. St Louis is similar to Edmonton, their guys who can all play center, don't.

Pittsburgh is all health related. They can run a great 1-2-3 setup, but it doesn't seem they can ever get them all healthy together. Carter is regressing pretty hard too.

Toronto is the trickiest to me. Matthews is debatably the best center in the league. No question he is better than anything Calgary can put out there. Tavares is regressing pretty quickly and I'm not totally sure he's better than Kadri today. Kerfoot is Kerfoot... great at garbage points and keeping stats people happy, but not nearly as effective as he should be. He also plays a lot of wing.

All together, I'd get a debate of Calgary as high as 3rd and as low as 6th.
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Fair enough.
I'd argue that McDavid-Draisaitl-Nuge, Point-Stamkos-Cirelli and ROR-Thomas-Schenn are better, but then it gets into the debate of whether or not they play as center or not, like Draisaitl and Stamkos, although Stamkos moved back to center in the playoffs because of Point's injury. But it becomes the team's choice, its not because they don't have the Center power.

It always striked me as weird that it is a common theme that the strength of the Center line is one of the most important aspect for a team, yet there are a lot of teams who volontarily choose the weeken their center line by having the 2C play wing... Not even their 3C but their 2C...

UnkleKraker said:
Friend shared this with me. Next level shade. Guess the city it comes from.

View attachment 582904
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Probably downtown Toronto...
 
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UnkleKraker said:
I thought a lot of folks soured on Weegar last season? Not trying to argue, just trying to understand. Seems FLA wanted to get rid of him?
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So Weegar is kind of a weird player. Between the blue lines, there’s almost no one better at defending. He prevents zone entries almost better than anyone. Also has some decent puck skill.

The downside? He’s not phenomenal at protecting the puck in his own end once it actually does get past him. He’s prone to some bad turnovers.

Don’t know if that’s exactly why he’s had two rather poor postseason showings in a row but I think that’s more of an issue with Florida overall than it is with just Weegar. All defensemen, even the best ones, have some WTF moments. Avs are no exception. But it felt like every single one that Weegar had ended up in the back of the net.

So yeah, I could see the Panthers not be crazy about re-upping him, but I don’t think that means he’s bad or anything. He’s just got some real warts to his game that a better goalie and better coach should be able to mitigate better.
 
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Personally, I think the bigger problem in Florida is that they don’t have that game breaker on the back end. Ekblad ain’t quite that level, at least offensively. As Henchy pointed out, a HUGE reason they sputtered so badly was because their power play sucked. Get a Hughes or Makar type back there (hell, a Christian Ehrhoff type would worked wonders) and they blow past the first two rounds easy.
 
Pokecheque said:
Personally, I think the bigger problem in Florida is that they don’t have that game breaker on the back end. Ekblad ain’t quite that level, at least offensively. As Henchy pointed out, a HUGE reason they sputtered so badly was because their power play sucked. Get a Hughes or Makar type back there (hell, a Christian Ehrhoff type would worked wonders) and they blow past the first two rounds easy.
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Pokecheque said:
Personally, I think the bigger problem in Florida is that they don’t have that game breaker on the back end. Ekblad ain’t quite that level, at least offensively. As Henchy pointed out, a HUGE reason they sputtered so badly was because their power play sucked. Get a Hughes or Makar type back there (hell, a Christian Ehrhoff type would worked wonders) and they blow past the first two rounds easy.
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Their problem is that they are extremely bad defensively as a team, which is why they can't keep the puck out of their own net and had to rely on coming from behind wins all the f***ing time (which doesn't work in the playoffs).

An offensive defenseman sure as f*** won't fix that. What they needed was a Nuke, a Lehkonen and a Landeskog upfront to help with the Montour and Weegar type of dmen.
 
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Balthazar said:
Their problem is that they are extremely bad defensively as a team, which is why they can't keep the puck out of their own net and had to rely on coming from behind wins all the f***ing time (which doesn't work in the playoffs).

An offensive defenseman sure as f*** won't fix that. What they needed was a Nuke, a Lehkonen and a Landeskog upfront to help with the Montour and Weegar type of dmen.
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They probably need a better system too. One that addresses team defense, but yeah a straight dead puck stalker like Nuke or Lehk would probably help them tremendously.
 
GoNordiquesGo said:
Fair enough.
I'd argue that McDavid-Draisaitl-Nuge, Point-Stamkos-Cirelli and ROR-Thomas-Schenn are better, but then it gets into the debate of whether or not they play as center or not, like Draisaitl and Stamkos, although Stamkos moved back to center in the playoffs because of Point's injury. But it becomes the team's choice, its not because they don't have the Center power.

It always striked me as weird that it is a common theme that the strength of the Center line is one of the most important aspect for a team, yet there are a lot of teams who volontarily choose the weeken their center line by having the 2C play wing... Not even their 3C but their 2C...


Probably downtown Toronto...
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It comes down to what is most effective for the team. I'd say when it comes to legit top 6 talent, you're better off putting them in positions to score than having them as a 3C. IE if Newhook could only be a 3C at center and he's only a 15-20 guy there, is he better off being a 20-30 guy at 2LW?
 
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