2024 preseason (camp, media stuff)

[tiburon12]

In a salary cap league, roster decisions are made as contracts are signed unless somebody on a one-way really underperforms. The point of preseason games is mainly to gouge season ticket holders.

No, the point of pre-season is to warm up before the real season. That's why no one is in favor of eliminating the pre-season, but rather truncating it because players only need a few game reps.

In that light, pre-season is also the chance for coaches to see how their players have progressed as a result of their off-ice training and judge the changes in in-game settings.

While you're right the pre-season is ultimately meaningless w/r/t points (Doug Murray hattrick excluded ), it still remains the best place to judge whether a player is NHL ready for the upcoming season or not. Gushchin has proven he is worth giving a shot to, especially early on. That's not a full roster spot, but that's a chance to prove it.

 

[Hodge]

No, the point of pre-season is to warm up before the real season. That's why no one is in favor of eliminating the pre-season, but rather truncating it because players only need a few game reps.

In that light, pre-season is also the chance for coaches to see how their players have progressed as a result of their off-ice training and judge the changes in in-game settings.

While you're right the pre-season is ultimately meaningless w/r/t points (Doug Murray hattrick excluded ), it still remains the best place to judge whether a player is NHL ready for the upcoming season or not. Gushchin has proven he is worth giving a shot to, especially early on. That's not a full roster spot, but that's a chance to prove it.

Preseason is a horrible way to judge whether a player is ready for the upcoming season or not. The quality of rosters teams are icing, especially in week one, are barely above AHL caliber. Even when they draw into the lineup, veterans on one-way deals are incentivized not to exert themselves and risk injury. We haven't learned anything new about Gushchin who has already established he can score at the AHL level.

 

[Reijo]

Man, it's such a logjam.

• I have to believe Sturm continues to be the 4C. So this means one of Grundstrom, Dellandrea, Kostin, (less likely) Goody/Kunin are getting scratched until/unless injury.
• Then we add 1 more roster fwd - G. Smith, and then Vlasic.
• So Cardwell, Gushchin, RIP Bords, Mukh, Thompson, maybe Cagnoni (I'm not up on the AHL roster battles) are in the AHL hoping for callups.
• Off chance that Grier moves one of these logjam fwds for a depth RD or a pick, giving the kids one roster spot sooner til callup.
• Sidenote, up-and-down lineup wingers will be Kostin and Grundstrom; Smith could get demoted to 3C and Wennberg plays 2C or 2W with Granlund at C; no matter what, our 3rd line is actually a good 4th line but a bad 3rd line... unless Kunin and Goodrow surpass expectations. They'll grind hard though.
• D is now a mid-to-weak 2nd pair as the 1st pair, and two third pairs. better than last year but not by much, and thin behind that.

Now that theres been some games already etc, is it clear that Walman is the number one d-guy on the first pp unit no?

 

[Jargon]

Preseason is a horrible way to judge whether a player is ready for the upcoming season or not. The quality of rosters teams are icing, especially in week one, are barely above AHL caliber. Even when they draw into the lineup, veterans on one-way deals are incentivized not to exert themselves and risk injury. We haven't learned anything new about Gushchin who has already established he can score at the AHL level.

Gushchin has proved himself in the AHL (but that doesn’t matter), has looked great in camp (who cares) and looked awesome in the preseason (totally useless), so I guess, by your standards, the only way for him to make the team is to somehow manifest himself into the lineup?

I think all these things are of course factors for coaches - they’re all auditions for players. The only way to see if the success transfers to the NHL is to let him play a few games in the NHL and I think he’s earned that.

 

[barriers]

Gushchin has proved himself in the AHL (but that doesn’t matter), has looked great in camp (who cares) and looked awesome in the preseason (totally useless), so I guess, by your standards, the only way for him to make the team is to somehow manifest himself into the lineup?

I think all these things are of course factors for coaches - they’re all auditions for players. The only way to see if the success transfers to the NHL is to let him play a few games in the NHL and I think he’s earned that.

He's also got 4 points in the 6 NHL games he's been on the roster, but you're right. Producing at the the NHL level when called upon means nothing

 

[Hodge]

Gushchin has proved himself in the AHL (but that doesn’t matter), has looked great in camp (who cares) and looked awesome in the preseason (totally useless), so I guess, by your standards, the only way for him to make the team is to somehow manifest himself into the lineup?

I think all these things are of course factors for coaches - they’re all auditions for players. The only way to see if the success transfers to the NHL is to let him play a few games in the NHL and I think he’s earned that.

Gushchin has proven that he can score, mostly on the power play, against minor league goalies and defenses while not providing anything else to a team in the way of defensive play, physicality, PK, forechecking, etc. Maybe he should have gotten more runway last season ahead of guys like Barabanov and Hoffman but he's clearly worse than our current top six forwards and doesn't fit our defensively oriented bottom six.

So no he hasn't "earned the right to be on the opening night roster" as @OrrNumber4 said. At best, he's earned the right to be the first call-up when someone in the top six gets injured but he'll need to continue earning that in the AHL over Cardwell, Bystedt and Graf.

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

Well, for what it's worth, Goose did play some PK last game so maybe Coach is considering him to be more than just an AHL-caliber scorer. And he took Musty's spot on the PP mudway through the game. I think Wars sees more in him than Quinn. Will be intriguing to see his deployment the next preseason game.

 

[weastern bias]

At this point Gushchin has been more impressive than Smith so I can see a world where he makes the team on the 2nd line and Smith gets to play 3rd line comp until he's ready for more responsibility

72-71-73
75-64-20

Pair Smith with Wennberg on the 3rd line with whatever winger fits best until Smith is more seasoned and is ready for top-6 minutes with Granlund, this gives Gushchin a chance to legitimately audition for a role that fits his skillset

 

[TheBeard]

So no he hasn't "earned the right to be on the opening night roster"

I mean if we’re going off what he’s done in the NHL and what he’s done in preseason then he’s probably earned it more than Smith has.