Player Discussion Alexis Lafrenière: Part III

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A lot of guys that Laf is compared to, we have noted are getting bigger minutes and roles with top PP time. One guy who stands out as having mostly bottom six deployment and 14 minutes per game is Seth Jarvis. Laf has 11 points in 42 games. Jarvis has 17 points in 31.

Laf averages 13.5 minutes per game over 42 which comes out to about 565 minutes of ice time. Jarvis’ 14 in 31 comes out to 434. Jarvis was selected 13th overall in the same draft. The two are in similar situations as far as being on good teams and seeing third line minutes rather than being gifted top offensive assignments.

In the long run, it means nothing, but it definitely stings. Laf is 4 or 5 months older and much bigger and was supposed to be an NHL ready player and the top talent hands down. He’s 2 games shy of his 100th NHL game now, and pacing for 20 points this season. I know he mostly plays with guys like Chytil and Gauthier and only gets the tail end of the powerplay, but it’s not as if he gets zero PP time and hasn’t had opportunities with better players. The difference being that when Laf plays with talent, he doesn’t grab the opportunity and other young guys are starting with limited minutes and then seizing opportunities when they are presented.

Laf is 6th on the Rangers with 59 PP minutes. Jarvis is 10th on Carolina with 44. Lundell is 14th on the Panthers with only 24 PP minutes. Lundell is 8 days older than Laf and has 27 points in 40 games. Pacing for 55 points to Laf’s 20.

Seth Jarvis is on a good team. Lafreniere is on a team with the best goalie in the league.
 
He's been glued to Aho.

He played with Stepan for a bit but it's mostly been Aho
Yep, but can't stop there :laugh: Teravainen, Svechnikov, Trocheck, Necas.. those were his most common line mates. It's important to put your top prospects with skilled players
 
Offensively, I don't think Zibs has been anything special. He makes a nice pass here and there but he's definitely not driving play. Everything is one and done. I'd expect Laffy to produce similar results as Zibs on that line. 'On the rush' goals or home run setup plays.

Strome has been our best 5v5 Center. Laffy has looked solid with him.

Maybe try him with Panarin and Strome... it was going to happen before Laffy got Covid... go back to it
 
Offensively, I don't think Zibs has been anything special. He makes a nice pass here and there but he's definitely not driving play. Everything is one and done.

Strome has been our best 5v5 Center. Laffy has looked solid with him.

Maybe try him with Panarin and Strome... it was going to happen before Laffy got Covid... go back to it
I'll agree with the only caveat being that in games where Artemi is out, Zibby is definitely driving the play, and effectively creating offense. When Artemi is playing, Zib has simply been a powerplay weapon.
 
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I’m not hating on Laf. There’s mitigating factors that make every comparable a hard sell and difficult to analyze. I am disappointed and concerned that he will become a “good” player, but nothing near the hope or expectation of a #1 overall and therefore also, perhaps, a depreciating asset that’s highest value to this organization is as a chip while his shine is still bright. Of course, that is an insane risk to take on the chance that he explodes. But would I do it for someone like Pettersson? Probably at this point. I think the risk that he never surpasses a 55-60 point winger is just as high as the risk that he explodes as a point per game winger.
 
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I’m not hating on Laf. There’s mitigating factors that make every comparable a hard sell and difficult to analyze. I am disappointed and concerned that he will become a “good” player, but nothing near the hope or expectation of a #1 overall and therefore also, perhaps, a depreciating asset that’s highest value to this organization is as a chip while his shine is still bright. Of course, that is an insane risk to take on the chance that he explodes. But would I do it for someone like Pettersson? Probably at this point. I think the risk that he never surpasses a 55-60 point winger is just as high as the risk that he explodes as a point per game winger.

For what it's worth here are his stats with Mika:

303 mins, 1.98 pts/60,7 goals on 30 shots.

I looked at Panarin but no point it's only 60 mins. I don't think he's been very impressive and most of his scoring has been shooting 20% but he has produced well on the Mika line...maybe it would make sense to actually give him more ice time there and see what happens.

Really, just tell him he's playing RW with Panarin or Zibanejad. If he can't do it maybe the coaches can...coach? And teach him how?
 
I’m not hating on Laf. There’s mitigating factors that make every comparable a hard sell and difficult to analyze. I am disappointed and concerned that he will become a “good” player, but nothing near the hope or expectation of a #1 overall and therefore also, perhaps, a depreciating asset that’s highest value to this organization is as a chip while his shine is still bright. Of course, that is an insane risk to take on the chance that he explodes. But would I do it for someone like Pettersson? Probably at this point. I think the risk that he never surpasses a 55-60 point winger is just as high as the risk that he explodes as a point per game winger.
Pettersson isn't zero risk either - he's not having a great season. Previously he looked like Datsuyk junior but recently, he's been pretty bad. I think the likelyhood of him coming here and being a superstar is probably more likely than Laffy, but still, it's not a zero risk proposition.
 
I see we're still doing this "But Laf is on a good team so he can't get more minutes" schtick. Ok, let's exclude PP time, and TOI as a factor... Here's P/60 at even strength among 2020 draftees.

If we take away the players with fewer than 10 games, that still leaves Anton Lundell, Seth Jarvis, Lucas Raymond, Dawson Mercer and Tim Stützle ahead of Alexis Lafrenière. What's the excuse? There's more to developing a player than just giving them TOI. And whatever these other teams are doing, it clearly works better than whatever the f*** this team thinks is best.

upload_2022-1-28_17-14-17.png
 
I see we're still doing this "But Laf is on a good team so he can't get more minutes" schtick. Ok, let's exclude PP time, and TOI as a factor...

If we take away the players with fewer than 10 games, that still leaves Anton Lundell, Seth Jarvis, Lucas Raymond, Dawson Mercer and Tim Stützle ahead of Alexis Lafrenière. What's the excuse? There's more to developing a player than just giving them TOI. And whatever these other teams are doing, it clearly works better than whatever the f*** this team thinks is best.

View attachment 502813

Here's the 2019 draft by the way. Again, P/60 at even strength. Take away Boldy and Harvey-Pinard with single digit games and Kakko is 10th in his draft class. But no, nothing to see here. Nothing going wrong in New York, at all :facepalm:

upload_2022-1-28_17-16-24.png
 
Do you think all of it is a orginizational thing or are they just never going to be what people expected?

If this was 2019, I would agree with you but this has happened too many times for it to be a coincidence. This organization is doing something wrong when it comes to developing players at a young age. The last one to actually his ceiling when joining the org at age 18 or 19 was Alexei Kovalev. That's sad. And just too much for it to not be an organizational thing. This isn't bad luck, or karma. This is incompetence.
 
I’m not hating on Laf. There’s mitigating factors that make every comparable a hard sell and difficult to analyze. I am disappointed and concerned that he will become a “good” player, but nothing near the hope or expectation of a #1 overall and therefore also, perhaps, a depreciating asset that’s highest value to this organization is as a chip while his shine is still bright. Of course, that is an insane risk to take on the chance that he explodes. But would I do it for someone like Pettersson? Probably at this point. I think the risk that he never surpasses a 55-60 point winger is just as high as the risk that he explodes as a point per game winger.

Pettersson is a really interesting name to bring up considering his demise over the last two seasons. How many of us think Pettersson is better than he's been lately, and how many think the early success was ... idk... luck? Environments matter a lot in any consideration of an individual. Nurture/Nature, etc. But how many times do we have to see players completely flip the script on their outlook to understand that most of any individual player's success aside from truly uniquely gifted ones--maybe three or four guys in the world at each position--is owed to systems, team performance, chemistry, and sometimes even things beyond that--culture, the actual place they live, etc?

I see we're still doing this "But Laf is on a good team so he can't get more minutes" schtick. Ok, let's exclude PP time, and TOI as a factor... Here's P/60 at even strength among 2020 draftees.

If we take away the players with fewer than 10 games, that still leaves Anton Lundell, Seth Jarvis, Lucas Raymond, Dawson Mercer and Tim Stützle ahead of Alexis Lafrenière. What's the excuse? There's more to developing a player than just giving them TOI. And whatever these other teams are doing, it clearly works better than whatever the f*** this team thinks is best.

Yeah, I think my schtick is actually that he isn't on a good team and can't get more minutes. But I wonder what you mean. Excuse for whom? Lafreniere, or the Rangers?

Like out of those names, I think it's pretty obvious the big differences. The two leaders of the pack, Lundell and Jarvis are on dynamite offensive teams. Their 8th and 7th, respectively, on their teams in 5v5p/60(among forwards)-- (Lafreniere is currently 8th on the Rangers -- including 14 games of Blais). Raymond and Mercer play on bad teams, but play considerably more than Lafreniere.

And Stutzle... I mean, he's really the closest comp all around and he's currently outproducing Lafreniere by .01p/60. Hardly somebody this board has given up on, and hardly leaps and bounds ahead of our prized bust.
 
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If this was 2019, I would agree with you but this has happened too many times for it to be a coincidence. This organization is doing something wrong when it comes to developing players at a young age. The last one to actually his ceiling when joining the org at age 18 or 19 was Alexei Kovalev. That's sad. And just too much for it to not be an organizational thing. This isn't bad luck, or karma. This is incompetence.
There's a reason why this team has won once in 70 years.
 
NHL Stats

Here's the 2017 draft last year. Rangers really did a great job developing Chytil. They kept him in a third line role so he could feast on lesser competition. It's no surprise he was able to take control in that spot and had the 2nd best pts/60 of any 2017 draftee last year.

Hmmmm. It's almost like you can make a story to fit your preconceived notions.

But yes it's the organizations fault. Neil Smith, Glen Sather, Jeff Gorton, and Chris Drury all don't know how to draft prospects.

Trottier, Sather, Renney, Torts, AV, and Quinn all don't know how to develop them in the lineup.

Unless you're saying somehow Jim Dolan is so involved that he singlehandedly ruins the development of all forward prospects?
 
NHL Stats

Here's the 2017 draft last year. Rangers really did a great job developing Chytil. They kept him in a third line role so he could feast on lesser competition. It's no surprise he was able to take control in that spot and had the 2nd best pts/60 of any 2017 draftee last year.

Hmmmm. It's almost like you can make a story to fit your preconceived notions.

But yes it's the organizations fault. Neil Smith, Glen Sather, Jeff Gorton, and Chris Drury all don't know how to draft prospects.

Trottier, Sather, Renney, Torts, AV, and Quinn all don't know how to develop them in the lineup.

Unless you're saying somehow Jim Dolan is so involved that he singlehandedly ruins the development of all forward prospects?

The Rangers haven't done that good of a job with Chytil.
 
NHL Stats

Here's the 2017 draft last year. Rangers really did a great job developing Chytil. They kept him in a third line role so he could feast on lesser competition. It's no surprise he was able to take control in that spot and had the 2nd best pts/60 of any 2017 draftee last year.

Hmmmm. It's almost like you can make a story to fit your preconceived notions.

But yes it's the organizations fault. Neil Smith, Glen Sather, Jeff Gorton, and Chris Drury all don't know how to draft prospects.

Trottier, Sather, Renney, Torts, AV, and Quinn all don't know how to develop them in the lineup.

Unless you're saying somehow Jim Dolan is so involved that he singlehandedly ruins the development of all forward prospects?

I mean, when the most consistent complaint about Lafreniere is how he 'looks' relative to a bunch of players that the same people complaining don't watch play regularly and only see in highlights, making up stories to fit preconceived notions is pretty much the native language.
 
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Pettersson is a really interesting name to bring up considering his demise over the last two seasons. How many of us think Pettersson is better than he's been lately, and how many think the early success was ... idk... luck? Environments matter a lot in any consideration of an individual. Nurture/Nature, etc. But how many times do we have to see players completely flip the script on their outlook to understand that most of any individual player's success aside from truly uniquely gifted ones--maybe three or four guys in the world at each position--is owed to systems, team performance, chemistry, and sometimes even things beyond that--culture, the actual place they live, etc?



Yeah, I think my schtick is actually that he isn't on a good team and can't get more minutes. But I wonder what you mean. Excuse for whom? Lafreniere, or the Rangers?

Like out of those names, I think it's pretty obvious the big differences. The two leaders of the pack, Lundell and Jarvis are on dynamite offensive teams. Their 8th and 7th, respectively, on their teams in 5v5p/60(among forwards)-- (Lafreniere is currently 8th on the Rangers -- including 14 games of Blais). Raymond and Mercer play on bad teams, but play considerably more than Lafreniere.

And Stutzle... I mean, he's really the closest comp all around and he's currently outproducing Lafreniere by .01p/60. Hardly somebody this board has given up on, and hardly leaps and bounds ahead of our prized bust.

As I said before, I don't think we would be having this conversation if Buch hadn't been traded and the Rangers had kept Laf-Zib-Buch as the first line this season. The Rangers chose not to go that way and now here we are with Laf being the odd man out. As your stats show Laf is not dramatically out of place stat wise, the root problem is that the Rangers lines are a mess for different reasons - leading to 5v5 issues etc.

Saying Laf should suck it up and play with Panarin and Strome on his off wing is not very realistic. The Canes eg would just cut through that line as if it wasn't there in a play off setting. Gallant has stressed that winning is priority #1 - he knows full well Laf is not in an ideal position.

Re: Pettersson. He showed he has extreme inherent talent - then he got injured and soured on the organization. Form is temporary, morale can be improved - inherent talent is rare. I think Laf has extreme talent - he just hasn't been in a setting that helps him show it the most. Partly he needs to take responsibility - everyone has to function in a 200-foot setting nowadays, but the Rangers also need to give him quality time to hone his talent at the NHL level with the proper support. The issue is that this is not the Rangers' priority. The Rangers have a contradiction here that needs to be solved in an intelligent manner. How to fix Laf's "environment".
 
The Rangers haven't done that good of a job with Chytil.

Aren't you always saying that we need to draft more prospects so we will be better down the road? This with an org that doesn't do "prospects down the road" very well. The Rangers are far too big to handle patience well, impatience and making the playoffs for the spectacle will always take priority - especially for the Owner and his Consultant. Even fans cannot handle two seasons of prospects without flying off the handle with talk of 'bUsTs'.
 
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Aren't you always saying that we need to draft more prospects so we will be better down the road? This with an org that doesn't do "prospects down the road" very well. The Rangers are far too big to handle patience well, impatience and making the playoffs for the spectacle will always take priority - especially for the Owner and his Consultant. Even fans cannot handle two seasons of prospects without flying off the handle with talk of 'bUsTs'.
this time it's different

We have a bunch of Jed Ortmeyers developing
 
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The tricky thing is there isn't one thing we can point to and say that's why our prospects keep fizzling out. I don't think anyone's looking for excuses, just putting together all the information available to paint a picture of why we're in the situation we're in. The historically low usage has been brought up thats established. Then we wonder how these guys go from being dominant world class prospects then they get here and seemingly become neutered uncreative players. That's where you think about some of the player interviews given, Kakko, Spooner, etc... last night I went back and re-listened to Spooners interview (despite assumptions did not throw DQ under the bus) these kids got brought in under a coach who told them don't stick handle with the puck, treating all of them as college players instead of NHLers... you listen to what Spooner said, promising minutes then not delivering on those promises, all the miscommunication... he's not the only player who's said those sorts of things... Kakko said he wasn't really allowed to play his game. Then you wonder why the lockeroom completely imploded under DQ, the controversy with the prospects... that's all player development. For years now people have clowned on the Oilers for awful player development, but truthfully these last handful of years the Rangers are right there with them and I hate to say it. I can understand that DQ was attempting to make the kids complete players in his image of what an NHL player should be.. but you don't develop high end prospects the way you'd develop a role player.

On top of all that, I think the other thing that people may be uncomfortable with... you look at some of the other top prospects at the time, Hughes, Barkov, Rantanen... you're gonna have to put these guys in those roles and be comfortable that quite frankly they may spend a period of time underproducing. You need to give these kids reps and minutes to grow into those roles. Let's take Hughes.. 1st season 21 points in 61 games 16 minutes a game, Laf 1st season 21 points 56 games 14 minutes a game... next season Hughes paces 45 points playing a whopping 19 minutes a game. We know about Barkovs first couple years. Rantanen similar deal, 20 year old season 40 points 18 minutes a game, Kakko pacing 30 points 16 minutes a game. My point is, on top of all the struggles we've seen so far people have to be comfortable with the idea that even for top prospects you may have to stick those guys in larger roles, leave them there and understand that they may not blow the doors off at first. Just my opinion, but that's why for years now people have been talking about the Fasts, the Veseys, the Blackwells (who despite his average ice time spent the majority of those minutes in a top 6 role) it should've been a priority to get these kids those minutes during the rebuild phase so when we're in a win now mode (like now) they would have had some of those growing pains behind them... regardless they really need to find minutes for these kids and stick them there
 
The tricky thing is there isn't one thing we can point to and say that's why our prospects keep fizzling out. I don't think anyone's looking for excuses, just putting together all the information available to paint a picture of why we're in the situation we're in. The historically low usage has been brought up thats established. Then we wonder how these guys go from being dominant world class prospects then they get here and seemingly become neutered uncreative players. That's where you think about some of the player interviews given, Kakko, Spooner, etc... last night I went back and re-listened to Spooners interview (despite assumptions did not throw DQ under the bus) these kids got brought in under a coach who told them don't stick handle with the puck, treating all of them as college players instead of NHLers... you listen to what Spooner said, promising minutes then not delivering on those promises, all the miscommunication... he's not the only player who's said those sorts of things... Kakko said he wasn't really allowed to play his game. Then you wonder why the lockeroom completely imploded under DQ, the controversy with the prospects... that's all player development. For years now people have clowned on the Oilers for awful player development, but truthfully these last handful of years the Rangers are right there with them and I hate to say it. I can understand that DQ was attempting to make the kids complete players in his image of what an NHL player should be.. but you don't develop high end prospects the way you'd develop a role player.

On top of all that, I think the other thing that people may be uncomfortable with... you look at some of the other top prospects at the time, Hughes, Barkov, Rantanen... you're gonna have to put these guys in those roles and be comfortable that quite frankly they may spend a period of time underproducing. You need to give these kids reps and minutes to grow into those roles. Let's take Hughes.. 1st season 21 points in 61 games 16 minutes a game, Laf 1st season 21 points 56 games 14 minutes a game... next season Hughes paces 45 points playing a whopping 19 minutes a game. We know about Barkovs first couple years. Rantanen similar deal, 20 year old season 40 points 18 minutes a game, Kakko pacing 30 points 16 minutes a game. My point is, on top of all the struggles we've seen so far people have to be comfortable with the idea that even for top prospects you may have to stick those guys in larger roles, leave them there and understand that they may not blow the doors off at first. Just my opinion, but that's why for years now people have been talking about the Fasts, the Veseys, the Blackwells (who despite his average ice time spent the majority of those minutes in a top 6 role) it should've been a priority to get these kids those minutes during the rebuild phase so when we're in a win now mode (like now) they would have had some of those growing pains behind them... regardless they really need to find minutes for these kids and stick them there
Well, Kreider and Bread blocking Laf is unfortunate. However, DQ playing Blackwell over Kakko is, well, fireable lol. Gorton and Davidson allowing it while also, at the end of the year, endorsing another year of Quinn is another reason they all got canned. People were so quick to act like Gorton was always right and that Dolan was a psycho in this situation, which I do not believe he was.
 
We'll never know but it is stupid how much complaining happens about he and Kakko for not doing things that our entire roster outside of Fox and Shesterkin have also not been doing. They play for one of the most passive, slow teams in the NHL, but it's surprising that they look slow and passive?

This is an interesting take, but at what point does the slow and passive play get pinned on the players rather than the system? Is the team as a whole slow and passive because our top two picks, who we expected to be making a bigger impact, are slow and passive?

Chicken and egg no?

Also, I don’t find our first and fourth lines to be slow and passive at all. It’s that middle six, which happens to be where these two players have been slotted most of the time…
 
This is an interesting take, but at what point does the slow and passive play get pinned on the players rather than the system? Is the team as a whole slow and passive because our top two picks, who we expected to be making a bigger impact, are slow and passive?

Chicken and egg no?

Also, I don’t find our first and fourth lines to be slow and passive at all. It’s that middle six, which happens to be where these two players have been slotted most of the time…

Seems less chicken and egg and more that you fundamentally disagree with the precept. I said I think the whole team plays slowly and passively.
 
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