Speculation: 2024-25 Roster Thread
- Thread starter Leonardo87
- Start date
-
We sincerely apologize for the extended downtime. Our hosting provider, XenForo Cloud, encountered a major issue with their backup system, which unfortunately resulted in the loss of some critical data from the past year.
What This Means for You:
- If you created an account after March 2024, it no longer exists. You will need to sign up again to access the forum.
- If you registered before March 2024 but changed your email, username, or password in the past year, those changes were lost. You’ll need to update your account details manually once you're logged in.
- Threads and posts created within the last year have been restored.
- Our 2025 light and dark themes were lost, so we are rebuilding them. Light theme is currently available, but work in progress
Our team is working with Xenforo Cloud to recover data using backups, sitemaps, and other available resources. We know this is frustrating, and we deeply regret the impact on our community. We are taking steps with Xenforo Cloud to ensure this never happens again. This is work in progress. Thank you for your patience and support as we work through this.
In the meantime, feel free to join our Discord Server
Hockey Duckie
Registered User
Kelser wanted to go to a contender and listed two teams: Chicago and Anaheim. Therein lies the missing context about "luck". The Ducks won the Pacific Division twice before Kesler decided to leave Vancouver. Murray gets credit for having a contender of a team established for Kesler to consider.
As for the Cutter trade, Philly wanted an NHL-ready d-man and preferably a RD. Verbeek got lucky b/c LaCombe was a good enough plug playing RD in his rookie year, Minty looked very good sheltered on the 3rd line, Vaaks was finally healthy, and Zell was offensively tearing up the AHL. Those youths made RD Drysdale expendable. Murray was/is working for Philly to give the org insight into Drysdale into being one of those potential RD's to get. Remember, Drysdale has been made out of glass for the past two seasons and should be a tremendous red flag unless you have some insider info. Between the Kesler, Pronger, and Cutter trade, it appears the Cutter trade was probably the luckiest of the three considering all the situational web strands involved.
Hockey Duckie
Registered User
The Athletic came out with their top d-pair rankings. LaCombe-Gudas pairing ranks 20th best with a Goal Differential/60 minutes at 0.11 (GF/60 = 2.45; GA/60 = 2.34). Team's top d-pair rankings below the Ducks are Minny, Utah, Seattle, SJ, Vegas, Toronto, Pitt, Philly, Montreal, Chicago, Nashville, and Ottawa. That's a varied mix of teams from a division leader to the worst team in the league, with respect to points, below us. Guess that proves playoff teams have a better supporting cast if their top pairing-d rank below us.
Eastern Conference 2nd Wild Card team, as of 3-22: Montreal (75 pts)
Playoff teams/Playoff hunt:
Western Conference 2nd Wild Card team, as of 3-22: St. Louis (79 pts)
Playoff teams/Playoff hunt:
Eastern Conference 2nd Wild Card team, as of 3-22: Montreal (75 pts)
Playoff teams/Playoff hunt:
- Toronto (87 pts, 2nd in Atlantic)
- Ottawa (79 pts, 1st Wild card)
- Montreal (75 pts, 2nd Wild card)
Western Conference 2nd Wild Card team, as of 3-22: St. Louis (79 pts)
Playoff teams/Playoff hunt:
- Vegas (90 pts, 1st in Pacific)
- Minny (85 pts, 1st Wild card)
- Utah (75 pts; 4 pts from 2nd Wild card)
AngelDuck
Rak 'em up
- Jun 16, 2012
- 23,116
- 16,606
One of the biggest issues I see with the roster going into next season is that we’re basically guaranteed to have a right side of our defense of:
Gudas
Trouba
Helleson
There’s absolutely no way you make playoffs with that as your right side. I like Helleson and think he settles in as a good #4/5 RHD but there’s very minimal upside to that group
At least on the left side you can justify things by crossing your fingers and hoping Minty/Zellweger get a lot better in the next 8 months.
Gudas
Trouba
Helleson
There’s absolutely no way you make playoffs with that as your right side. I like Helleson and think he settles in as a good #4/5 RHD but there’s very minimal upside to that group
At least on the left side you can justify things by crossing your fingers and hoping Minty/Zellweger get a lot better in the next 8 months.
Rasp
Registered User
- Apr 9, 2019
- 1,004
- 1,356
Luneau and Moore are definitely going to shake things up on the right. Gudas and Trouba both have only 1 year left so could see themselves moved at the deadline to free up ice time.
AngelDuck
Rak 'em up
- Jun 16, 2012
- 23,116
- 16,606
Sure but the deadline in the NHL happens with 25-30 games left in the season.
IMO the plan is for Gudas and Trouba to be staples on the blueline the vast majority of next season
91Fedorov
John (Gibson) 3:16
- Dec 30, 2013
- 1,213
- 705
Yeah, I agree with this. Luneau seems like he's ready to make the jump, but he hasn't won it yet. Having the 3 guys we have there now means Luneau and Moore don't have to be rushed.
I think this year Luneau will need to outplay Helleson to get playing time, and if he does we'll sit Helleson in the short term and move Gudas in the long term. But that's only if he takes the job and runs with it.
I think it's too early to say with Moore. We'll get a better idea once we see him in the NHL/AHL. I think, if Luneau and/or Moore look shaky, we re-sign Trouba as insurance.
Anaheim4ever
Registered User
- Jun 15, 2017
- 8,830
- 5,416
Hypothetically if all 3 of Luneau, Helleson and Moore pan out.
LaCombe/Luneau
Mintyukov/Moore
Zellweger/Helleson
Someone becomes trade bait to make room for Sjolberg at some point.
LaCombe/Luneau
Mintyukov/Moore
Zellweger/Helleson
Someone becomes trade bait to make room for Sjolberg at some point.
Special teams have really cost them a lot of points this year. I just don't understand why they are so bad. I think they need to simplify things on the PP. No one shoots from the point, no one is screening the goalie as much, and There is no QB, no one directing traffic. It's Whack-a-mole. They basically wait for the other team to make a mistake. There is no movement, This teams talent is being wasted. I get Carolina has a good PK, but law of averages, should have potted at least one goal last night.
The Duck Knight
Henry, you're our only hope!
You just listed a lot of problems on the PP but not even the 2 biggest ones. Winning faceoffs and zone entries. This team's biggest issue on the PP is that they barely ever have control in the O-zone to attack.
What's crazy about the zone entries, you have 3 guys, Z, Leo, and Terry who should be able to carry the puck into the zone. The FO's are still an issue but Mac and Leo are improving.
The Duck Knight
Henry, you're our only hope!
The zone entries are pretty simple and I'm not even employed by an NHL team.
Cutter is also very good at carrying the puck on entries. There's no movement and support away from the puck carrier. As good as those guys are it doesn't make a difference because the other guys are standing still. The other four guys on the ice need to be in motion and know and be prepared to either make a quick decision when passed to or recover a dump.As far as faceoffs I give Leo a pass due to experience. McT is actually down from 52% last year to 49% this year. Strome just sucks.
If you even were to just make Strome disappear and replace him with say Tavares I think the PP would have a marked improvement just because it would win more ozone draws. Plus Tavares is a far better player with the puck.
Last edited:
The lets get 4 guys to stand still at blueline and pass the puck back to one guy with speed PP zone entry is mind numbingly stupid
The Duck Knight
Henry, you're our only hope!
The slingshot isn't the issue. Every team uses it. But most teams realize the guys without the puck also need to be in motion for it to be effective.
TheGoodShepard1
Dongle Digits. Fire Newell Brown
- Nov 26, 2017
- 9,900
- 14,202
In fairness to Clune, he probably gets an ego boost out of his scheme because he gets to practice against Brent Thompson every day. The PK is mind-numbing, the only time they have any modicum of success is when they pressure the puck all the way up the ice (which is why I'd like guys like Terry and Leo to become established on the unit, so they can create counters), and they just... don't do it enough, electing to surrender the blue line immediately and retreat back into their shitty, passive box (it's probably the tightest of any penalty kill I watch in the league, from the bottom to the top of the faceoff circles).
The result? Well, they don't really succeed in what appears to be their only objective (eliminating seam passes) and they surrender almost the entire low slot and the goal line, so teams either work the triangle play from the goal line back to the bumper, they try to jam pucks into the crease on Dostal/Gibson and get multiple cracks at it, or they shoot for rebounds because the defensemen are so high up that they immediately cede inside position to the opposing forward because there's no way for them to recover and get back.
The result? Well, they don't really succeed in what appears to be their only objective (eliminating seam passes) and they surrender almost the entire low slot and the goal line, so teams either work the triangle play from the goal line back to the bumper, they try to jam pucks into the crease on Dostal/Gibson and get multiple cracks at it, or they shoot for rebounds because the defensemen are so high up that they immediately cede inside position to the opposing forward because there's no way for them to recover and get back.
Last edited:
Other than that, though, the PK is pretty good, right?
Face offs and zone entries are definitely a huge problem. But when they do enter the zone, the players are for the most part standing around, making obvious passes that are easy to defend. There is little if any motion. When I watch other teams, all 5 players are moving/skating, switching angles and positions and creating screens, and making the d-men sort it out.
The Duck Knight
Henry, you're our only hope!
100% but getting the puck into the zone with clean possession is a prerequisite.
Hockey Duckie
Registered User
LaCombe needs a stay-at-home partner so LaCombe can use his energies on the offensive side. Otherwise, he'll play the shutdown role with Luneau like he was for Fowler. Stay-at-home RD youths are Helleson, Moore, and Warren. Hinds is a left shot who can play both sides equally well, just like LaCombe and Zell.
Luneau's offense is great, but so are Minty and Zell's offense. Both Minty and Zell are struggling on the defensive side. Luneau played six games with the NHL club to start the season and he was shelled: 6 gp, 0g + 0a = 0 pts, a -5 rating, and a CF% = 37.6%. We need more to see more defensive dominance at the AHL level for Luneau.
Deuce22
Registered User
100% on LaCombe. Mintyukov has been much better paired with Helleson than he was with Trouba. I think Moore is the key guy. Big and good defensively but can really skate.
Hockey Duckie
Registered User
Moore has some offensive abilities that have yet to be tapped due to being forced to playing shutdown D for the past two seasons for Harvard. As for speed, I think I denoted it at this year's Dev camp that Moore was flying like the wind, especially for that skate back and forth till you die metric event. It seems like at each previous Dev camp, one NCAA shows up. Three seasons ago, it was LaCombe. Two seasons ago, it was Colangelo. This past season's Dev camp, it was Moore.
Our fastest skaters on the same pair level. If they have instant chemistry... OMGoodness! But that's so far away. Moore does look very comfortable in the AHL. I seem him pinch down and flow back up to the blue line so effortlessly. It's like daayyyyyyum! I'm so happy we signed him as he could be the dark horse in our RD talent depth.
Minty is playing better because he's playing a 3rd pairing role. His ATOI now is 17:41. Last year, I noted how Minty struggled to play in a top-4 role. The only time he didn't look out of place in a top-4 role was when LaCombe was playing RD with him for seven games.
Although Minty is the same age as Zell, Zell went a draft earlier as an early Sept baby. Zell played four years in the CHL, winning two WHL DPoY and one CHL DPoY. Minty played only two seasons in the CHL, wining one OHL DPoY. Two seasons because the OHL didn't play any games and no international games for Minty because of the Russian Invasion. Minty needs an extra year or two to catch up to playing experience. We just need to be patient with Minty b/c the talent and skills are there. The Beauchemin punch is already in Minty!
Everyone knows I watch two teams. This is such a big part of successful powerplay production. There needs to be a blend of guys who aren't possessing the puck moving defenders around and out of position with quick passes, clean pass receptions and opportunities executed when lanes open up to get the pucks to corners either to draw defenders down to kick back to the point for good point shots or passes into the slot for high danger chances.
If a team isn't passing the puck with speed and forcing a penalty kill to get disrupted to the point of near total disorganization, then a penalty kill is going to be able to keep a team's chances at the net low danger. In other words, listlessly moving the puck around between stationary powerplayers more often than not does f*** all. Most powerplay goals come off of quick passing plays where the second, third and sometimes even fourth pass has clicked quickly and thrown the penalty killers' defensive structure off entirely.
This team isn't coached to do this. The entries on their own are bad, but once we're set up, the puck movement and stationary set up does nothing to disrupt the penalty killers. This was the VGK's problem for a long time where I'd argue they won a cup in spite of a low event/effort powerplay. This is the first year they're at the top of the league on the powerplay because they've improved their passing and mobility. The fact that nothing seems to change with the way these guys play the powerplay, this deep into the season, seems indicative that these coaches either don't know the best way to improve the powerplay or they dont know how to coach these improvements into this group of players. Either way, it's the same old shit game after game.
Last edited:
2faded
Registered User
I find this funny so I felt like posting it again with all PP talk. The only guy between the goal line and the blue line is McTavish and if he was any farther back he'd be in the front row.
