Speculation: Acq./Rost. Bldg./Cap/Lines etc. Part LXXVIII (It's Working! Let's Fix It.)

[Stewie G]

You don't need hindsight to see that calling out a struggling young player in the press, especially when you pair it with a catchy term that media was sure to run with was a bad idea.

 

[BobRouse]

You don't need hindsight to see that calling out a struggling young player in the press, especially when you pair it with a catchy term that media was sure to run with was a bad idea.

That was certainly a mistake. I didn't like it at the time and still don't. We're on the same page here.

 

[txpd]

I don't think having Weber was going to be helpful injury or not. I have no problem with Chorney. I am sometimes astonished that he is able to play NHL quality games while being scratched far more than he plays.

I think that Trotz probably erred on either or both of Orlov and Schmidt, but lets remember that they were expected to win and that letting 9 and 88 get their experience was not the priority. It was to find a way to win with a President's Cup team. Losing that series did more damage to the team than benching a couple of young defenseman.

BR: I think you meant Mac said Orlov should be top 4

 

[BobRouse]

I don't think having Weber was going to be helpful injury or not. I have no problem with Chorney. I am sometimes astonished that he is able to play NHL quality games while being scratched far more than he plays.

I think that Trotz probably erred on either or both of Orlov and Schmidt, but lets remember that they were expected to win and that letting 9 and 88 get their experience was not the priority. It was to find a way to win with a President's Cup team. Losing that series did more damage to the team than benching a couple of young defenseman.

BR: I think you meant Mac said Orlov should be top 4

Yes BMac mentioned Orlov in top 4!

I think Trotz kind of panicked and was just trying "stuff" for the sake of trying it.

Fact is that Orlov/Schmidt/Chorney/Weber all equally sucked vs the Pens. If he DIDN'T insert Weber/Chorney at some point and we still lost then perhaps we'd be ripping him for that.

Either way you are not going to win a series against a very good team with just 3 dmen playing at an acceptable level. Orpik was either suspended or sitting in the box. Alzner hurting himself in game 5/6 sealed our fate.

 

[txpd]

I don't know. If Kuznetsov had been producing at even 0.5ppg pace, they win.

 

[BobRouse]

I don't know. If Kuznetsov had been producing at even 0.5ppg pace, they win.

I don't think we can single him out. It seemed the whole team outside of the 1st line and Beagle struggled scoring.

But Kuz's line played Malkin's to a stalemate at least. He controlled something like 55% of shot attempts in the playoffs. Guys like Williams, him and Burakovsky were snake bitten.

Our bottom six is what really cost us. Chimera and Richards were the biggest culprits.

We shut down Crosby and Malkin. It was their 3rd and 4th lines going against ours that won it for them.

 

[twabby]

From the GDT that was just closed:

Scott Stevens is one of the best Dmen in NHL history.

Even he still had significant brain farts with us up until his last couple years when his play steadied a bit. But he was with us for like 5 full seasons by then.

He took further strides with the Devils.

Dmen don't reach their peak until they are closer to 30 than 20. Some take longer than others.

If Orlov and Schmidt HAVE reached their peak then its safe to say we need to find a top 4 dman asap. Good news is I doubt they have. They still need to grow.

I agree they still have plenty of room to grow, but where I disagree with you is our assessment of their current abilities compared to others on the roster, especially given Carlson's injury. Schmidt should absolutely be getting top 4 minutes with Carlson out and you could make the argument that he deserves top 4 minutes even when Carlson is healthy. Orpik's play has been better than I expected this season but I think that is more a function of Schmidt excelling rather than Orpik becoming a possession-driving dynamo despite never being one in his career.

Orlov should be with Niskanen for the forseeable future since the pairing is absolutely dynamic and good defensively despite making a defensive mistake every now and then. The sheer amount of offense they generate more than overcomes these mistakes and the team as a whole benefits compared to a Niskanen-Alzner pairing which is brutal offensively and in the neutral zone, unless you like dump-ins as the main form of generating possession.

 

[OV Rocks]

I don't think we can single him out. It seemed the whole team outside of the 1st line and Beagle struggled scoring.

But Kuz's line played Malkin's to a stalemate at least. He controlled something like 55% of shot attempts in the playoffs. Guys like Williams, him and Burakovsky were snake bitten.

Our bottom six is what really cost us. Chimera and Richards were the biggest culprits.

We shut down Crosby and Malkin. It was their 3rd and 4th lines going against ours that won it for them.

So all things equal as it will probably be the same this year, does our bottom 6 have what it takes to beat their bottom six this season?

I think the fourth line is better this year but the 3rd line scares me

Is Eller and Connolly an upgrade over Richards and Chimera? Eller is better than Richards yes but I would say last years Chimmer beats out this years Connolly.

 

[BobRouse]

So all things equal as it will probably be the same this year, does our bottom 6 have what it takes to beat their bottom six this season?

I think the fourth line is better this year but the 3rd line scares me

Is Eller and Connolly an upgrade over Richards and Chimera? Eller is better than Richards yes but I would say last years Chimmer beats out this years Connolly.

Eller>>>>Richards
Connolly>>Chimera

Richards and Chimera were poor possession players whereas Connolly and Eller have always been very good possession players (who compliment an excellent possession player in Burakovsky well)


Again I'm far far more worried about our D. Our bottom 6 is as good as just about anyone elses.

I love Orlov and Schmidt. I do have concerns that either are ready for top 4 roles against strong playoff teams in a playoff series. I also have concerns that if someone gets hurt (Carlson/Alzner) or suspended (Orpik) about Chorney going in.

 

[OV Rocks]

Eller>>>>Richards
Connolly>>Chimera

Richards and Chimera were poor possession players whereas Connolly and Eller have always been very good possession players (who compliment an excellent possession player in Burakovsky well)


Again I'm far far more worried about our D. Our bottom 6 is as good as just about anyone elses.

I love Orlov and Schmidt. I do have concerns that either are ready for top 4 roles against strong playoff teams in a playoff series. I also have concerns that if someone gets hurt (Carlson/Alzner) or suspended (Orpik) about Chorney going in.

I will have to disagree on the Connolly Chimera part. Connolly could be better but just doesn't have the track record. I could easily see him being a Dominic Moore type player which would be awesome or he could fizzle out in the playoffs. I think this team stands pat and uses Vrana as the Pens did Rust last year. The D doesn't worry me as much and I do not see a trade that replaces anyone of our D-Man besides someone being a stud top-4. The only trade they make is a trade for a stud D-Man or a 25-30 Goal RW to play the third line using only futures and a salary to swing. So its either stand pat or make a big splash. I don't want a D-Man to replace anyone we have now

 

[txpd]

I don't think we can single him out. It seemed the whole team outside of the 1st line and Beagle struggled scoring.

But Kuz's line played Malkin's to a stalemate at least. He controlled something like 55% of shot attempts in the playoffs. Guys like Williams, him and Burakovsky were snake bitten.

Our bottom six is what really cost us. Chimera and Richards were the biggest culprits.

We shut down Crosby and Malkin. It was their 3rd and 4th lines going against ours that won it for them.

Of course there were numerous reasons that they lost. Holtby could have been more dominant. Orpik could have not done so much damage. But Kuznetsov was the team's leading scorer. He was a catalyst to success the playoffs before. Kuzy did nothing. In fact Burakovsky scored once being moved away from him and Williams became an impact player once he was moved.

We are talking about the situation with Orlov, Schmidt, Chorney and Weber as being why they lost. Kuzy being half of regular season Kuzy lifts them over that and they win.

edit: Eller is light years better than Richards. Come on. Connolly better than Chimera? Not sure. How many teams have top 4 capable defensemen on the scratch sheet? How many of solid veteran #5 d on their scratch sheets? How many have a reliable #6 skating in AHL with little or no NHL experience?

 

[marcel snapshot]

The mistake wasn't adding depth D. It was calling out the "pizzas" and subsequently plugging those lesser players into the lineup. Instead of allowing the young guys to learn from their mistakes, he called them out publicly and benched them. When the replacements were even worse, he was stuck with using the guys he just undermined or the depth guys that stunk it up.

It was of a piece with the whole "play to minimize our mistakes and the other team's chance" - play to not concede goals, instead of playing to score with solid 2-way play and crisp transition hockey. Trotz lost confidence in our ability to succeed without playing the turtle, and that lost confidence seemed to take hold of the team.

This team cannot go back to that - it's fine to be able to play a dependable turtle when you're up in the 3rd period, but Trotz had us playing it from the start of games and when it was 0-0 - the turtle showed fear of giving the other team momentum and by so doing the thing we feared came to fruition.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Because he is pointing fingers at other people without pointing at himself. This is poor leadership in my book.

Do you ever see a great QB take credit when things go right and point the finger when things don't? No. You see RGIII types.

All these guys want to win. Pointing fingers at your teammates in the media is not a way to go about it.

Joe Gibbs was the ultimate uniter. When things went wrong he took ALL the blame in the media and handled things behind closed doors. He was the coach.

Last I checked LeBron is not the coach or the GM...well maybe he is!! haha clown

Clevelands management bought into this when they brought LeBron back. They knew what they were getting. Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan did the same stuff. It's the price you pay as a management to have one of the greats in the NBA, and the price to win Championships.

Think the Cavaliers would trade back? No LeBron, no championship, but no pressure from their superstar? Lol. Zero chance dude.

 

[Ridley Simon]

From the GDT that was just closed:



I agree they still have plenty of room to grow, but where I disagree with you is our assessment of their current abilities compared to others on the roster, especially given Carlson's injury. Schmidt should absolutely be getting top 4 minutes with Carlson out and you could make the argument that he deserves top 4 minutes even when Carlson is healthy. Orpik's play has been better than I expected this season but I think that is more a function of Schmidt excelling rather than Orpik becoming a possession-driving dynamo despite never being one in his career.

Orlov should be with Niskanen for the forseeable future since the pairing is absolutely dynamic and good defensively despite making a defensive mistake every now and then. The sheer amount of offense they generate more than overcomes these mistakes and the team as a whole benefits compared to a Niskanen-Alzner pairing which is brutal offensively and in the neutral zone, unless you like dump-ins as the main form of generating possession.

I think you need to let this "D pairings" thing go for a little while twabs. I think Trotz and Rierdon "get it". But I also think they are using the regular season to try out a little bit of everything with combo's, so that when the post season hits and match ups become so much more important, they will have a lot more experience/knowledge with the various pairings to utilize them better.

We ALL complained this summer about static lines in the post season. Ok, now we are addressing that, and it's by design, IMO. There will be injuries in the playoffs. So let's use this time to work through large segments of experiments (games, not periods, not shifts) to ensure as much Intel can be gathered.

Why would you have a problem with this, with north of 35 games left to play? I'd wager come game 75-77 or so, they will settle in ....to what they want to look like for the playoffs. Right now the tinkering is very smart.

 

[Ridley Simon]

Seidenberg

I wanted him this summer, and was vocal about it. Most thought the idea was stupid, and wanted the Campbell's and Hudler's instead.

If they can get Seidenberg and Vrbata (both cheap $$$ guys), they would be in pretty good shape. Each can play in many places, and would allow the depth to be strong.

 

[Revelation]

Seidenberg would be great, he can play both LD and RD and compliments practically every defenseman we have. Has been lights out this year too next to an Alzner-ish player in DeHaan.

 

[twabby]

I think you need to let this "D pairings" thing go for a little while twabs. I think Trotz and Rierdon "get it". But I also think they are using the regular season to try out a little bit of everything with combo's, so that when the post season hits and match ups become so much more important, they will have a lot more experience/knowledge with the various pairings to utilize them better.

We ALL complained this summer about static lines in the post season. Ok, now we are addressing that, and it's by design, IMO. There will be injuries in the playoffs. So let's use this time to work through large segments of experiments (games, not periods, not shifts) to ensure as much Intel can be gathered.

Why would you have a problem with this, with north of 35 games left to play? I'd wager come game 75-77 or so, they will settle in ....to what they want to look like for the playoffs. Right now the tinkering is very smart.

The Alzner-Niskanen pairing is the most frequently used pairing in the entire NHL since 2014-15 (a total of 2,881 5v5 minutes). How exactly is that trying something new? Meanwhile, Orlov and Niskanen have only skated together for 366 minutes at 5v5 but have been far more effective from a shots, expected goals, and actual goals standpoint. If anything, continuing with Orlov-Niskanen would be trying something new. These exact 3 pairings (27-2, 44-9, 88-4) were tried near the end of last season during one of their worst stretches of play of the season. What they are doing now is nothing new.

Given Trotz's track record, it's hard for me to believe he'd select the riskier option come crunch time, even if the numbers say it's a more effective option. Now would be a perfect time to give Orlov-Niskanen top pairing shutdown duties and elevating Schmidt to the top 4 (possibly beside Alzner) to see if they can handle the increased responsibility, but he's not. He's reverting back to his comfort zone IMO, not trying anything new.

A simple example was in the game against Ottawa in a 4v4 situation down a couple of goals he decided to put Alzner and Orpik on the ice in separate shifts while Schmidt didn't see a single shift at 4v4. It doesn't really make sense other than preferring to play safe rather than risk giving up a goal, ignoring the fact that Schmidt is typically one of their safer options even if the perception doesn't match that reality.

 

[Revelation]

The Alzner-Niskanen pairing is the most frequently used pairing in the entire NHL since 2014-15 (a total of 2,881 5v5 minutes). How exactly is that trying something new? Meanwhile, Orlov and Niskanen have only skated together for 366 minutes at 5v5 but have been far more effective from a shots, expected goals, and actual goals standpoint.

Given Trotz's track record, it's hard for me to believe he'd select the riskier option come crunch time, even if the numbers say it's a more effective option. Now would be a perfect time to give Orlov-Niskanen top pairing shutdown duties and elevating Schmidt to the top 4 (possibly beside Alzner) to see if they can handle the increased responsibility, but he's not. He's reverting back to his comfort zone IMO, not trying anything new.

This, if we get knocked out this year I'll wager it'll be because of Trotz being stupid with the D pairings again.

 

[Raikkonen]

“Fairly similar,” he said, asked to compare this year’s roster to last year’s. “Maybe we’re a little deeper this year. I like what our third line has done this year. I like what our fourth line has done. Maybe our penalty killing is a little bit better. Our power play hasn’t produced at the rate it did last year, but I think we’re generating chances. And we haven’t relied on it, which is a positive sign.”
[/I]

Anybody reading this forum could said exactly that!

OK, I will join the party with ideas.

How about Kulikov-like guy? Top-4 capable. UFA. His team could be a seller, probably. IIRC he played with Orlov on the same pair in one of the national tournaments.

Top-4 Dman gives us Orpik-Carlson/Orlov-newGuy pair possibility or newGuy-Carlson/Orpik-Orlov or newGuy-Niskanen. Plenty of possibilities actually.

All situations guy could help for sure. Orlov being 3rd pair PMD would be a weapon too.

Depth: Schmidt and Chorney. That sounds nice.

PS: Been voting for Seidenberg since before he was traded at deadline for a 2nd. But he's older.

 

[RandyHolt]

Trotz has shown a lot of promise this year, in terms of trying new things.

I think he has given this defensive approach a solid chance. He really has. How many years of playoff failures does he have?

Last years playoff teams gave up repeated odd mans to start games, yet were a jennings grade team. It was as jekyll and hyde as it gets.

If we were afforded those same chances in a back and forth game, that is one thing. As it was, our team was in such shambles from a system perspective, a rare dominant playoff power play performance was needed to even get past philly.

Countless players were slumping. It was a disaster. I really hope Trotz learned from it. I know these old school coaches are hesitant or unable to change but I am hopeful he will not wait until the 11th hour to try no brainer things.

Lets try leaning on the offensive guys on D more, versus scratching them and wrecking their games looking for excuse to get our new RD in. As we coast into the playoffs once again, its imperative he doesnt make the same mistakes he made last year.

 

[Holtbyisms]

Trotz has shown a lot of promise this year, in terms of trying new things.

I think he has given this defensive approach a solid chance. He really has. How many years of playoff failures does he have?

Last years playoff teams gave up repeated odd mans to start games, yet were a jennings grade team. It was as jekyll and hyde as it gets.

If we were afforded those same chances in a back and forth game, that is one thing. As it was, our team was in such shambles from a system perspective, a rare dominant playoff power play performance was needed to even get past philly.

Countless players were slumping. It was a disaster. I really hope Trotz learned from it. I know these old school coaches are hesitant or unable to change but I am hopeful he will not wait until the 11th hour to try no brainer things.

Lets try leaning on the offensive guys on D more, versus scratching them and wrecking their games looking for excuse to get our new RD in. As we coast into the playoffs once again, its imperative he doesnt make the same mistakes he made last year.

I might just be imagining it cause things are going well lately but are you noticing Orlov and Schmidt both(and Carlson before injury) are activating like crazy and jumping into the rush? 88 and 9 especially have been all over the ice lately. I hope that's a sign of things to come in the playoffs man.

 

[hockeykicker]

Without getting too off topic, oshie wife posted a few videos of him at the hospital for their daughter. Hopefully she feels better soon

 

[Holtbyisms]

Without getting too off topic, oshie wife posted a few videos of him at the hospital for their daughter. Hopefully she feels better soon

Hopefully it's just a fever or something and nothing serious. He'll have a nice little break now to be with his family and look after her.

 

[Corby78]

Without getting too off topic, oshie wife posted a few videos of him at the hospital for their daughter. Hopefully she feels better soon

Never want to see kids sick. Prayers to the oshie family

 

[ovikovy817]

TBL trades Nesterov to MTL for Racine and a 6th. Wow

Would be a perfect, cheap, good 6-7th D for the Caps. Better than Chorney.