All Encompassing Tortorella Thread Pt. II

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

The funny thing about this system is the 6 goalie system.

We have the best goalie in the world in net and he's not only facing guys from the other team in front of him, but all 5 of our guys as well.. awesome stuff.

 

[Heyoooo*]

Torts probably just didnt like them. For whatever reason.

 

[Doctyl]

Touche. I forgot about Powe.

Throwing Halpern away was dumb, too.

what the hell was benching powe about? and the halpy move was a really bad one. im sure we couldve gotten a 5th rounder for him at least. gaustad got a 1st and john scott got what a 5th

 

[Let Blaine Die]

Yep.

Letting Prust, Mitchell, and Fedotenko go while replacing them with Halpern, Asham, and Pyatt.

Trading Dubinsky/Anisimov without adding another forward up front, even via free agency. Nash deal is a no-brainer, obviously, but he just offset losing depth by losing depth, and he didn't replace any of it.

Failing to get a legitimate difference maker on the backend in his 13 year tenure here, coincides with the last year as well.

Oh come one Zenith, you're better than that.

The Nash trade is one you do 10 times out of 10. Anisimov blows hot and cold and is way too streaky. Dubinsky is overpaid for what he provides. We miss Dubinsky's grit, but his contract was necessary to get rid of (FYI, if he magically gets amnestied by Columbus, I'd offer him a new cost-effective contract in a heartbeat). Feds is old and doesn't have the wheels anymore to play the kind of game we need to be successful. Everyone couldn't get wait to kick Mitchell out the door last year, but now b/c he scores 9 goals for one of, if not the worst team in hockey, he is retrospectively an integral cog in our team.

I will give you Prust. Sather should have doshed out the extra cash to keep him b/c it is becoming more and more evident that he was the heart and soul of this team.

In sum, Sather is a terrible GM and should have been fired ages ago, but don't make it as if all these players (besides Prust) are difference makers for us.

 

[SA16]

Yep.

Letting Prust, Mitchell, and Fedotenko go while replacing them with Halpern, Asham, and Pyatt.

I am not sure what you mean by "letting" them go. They were free agents and had 29 other teams potentially bidding for them. Just because a player was here before doesn't mean we have an advantage to keep him. Giving Prust, a 4th line player, 10M dollars would have been absurd and it would also be absurd to expect Prust to turn down Montreals offer to stay with us.

Mitchell is a player who a bunch of people didn't like when he was here and is only being brought up now because he happens to be having a nice season in Colorado.

Fedotenko is a nice player but he certainly doesn't help you out offensively.

Additionally over the past 2 years (excluding this one because we are looking at a during -offseason comparison):

So are you honestly going to tell me the moves made in the offseason were expected to harm our offense? Because looking at this data that is simply untrue.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

I fail to see all this "depth" we had last year, sure they scored more goals, but where exactly was it when it mattered? The Rangers could not score goals last year either. They went as far as they did because Lundqvist stood on his damn head for 60 minutes every game.

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

Oh come one Zenith, you're better than that.

The Nash trade is one you do 10 times out of 10. Anisimov blows hot and cold and is way too streaky. Dubinsky is overpaid for what he provides. We miss Dubinsky's grit, but his contract was necessary to get rid of (FYI, if he magically gets amnestied by Columbus, I'd offer him a new cost-effective contract in a heartbeat).

Not saying that Sather shouldn't have made that trade, I'm saying he should have added another legitimate top-9 forward before making the trade. Guess he thought he had that in Pyatt, he thought wrong.

Anisimov is an under-appreciated player. He was streaky, but he made his mark on several games, and he was a good two-way player. Was a little soft and not too smart with the puck, though. Dubinsky is overpaid, I'm kinda glad he's gone, but, yes, they miss his fire and his strength on the puck.

Feds is old and doesn't have the wheels anymore to play the kind of game we need to be successful. Everyone couldn't get wait to kick Mitchell out the door last year, but now b/c he scores 9 goals for one of, if not the worst team in hockey, he is retrospectively an integral cog in our team.

Pyatt never had the wheels to play the kind of game we need to be successful, and he doesn't bring PKing and two cups to the locker room.

I'm not even complaining about losing THESE players. I'm complaining about the lack luster replacements.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

dont even know why I care, Pittsburgh already won the cup.

 

[OverTheCap]

Losing both Dubinsky and Prust without finding at least one player who could replace what they brought in terms of their passion and desire is a problem. This team is too vanilla. Not much hunger, desire, or fiery personalities on this team.

 

[Doctyl]

Losing both Dubinsky and Prust without finding at least one player who could replace what they brought in terms of their passion and desire is a problem. This team is too vanilla. Not much hunger, desire, or fiery personalities on this team.

i dont miss dubi. didnt produce, took way too many stupid penalties, and made way too much money

 

[*Bob Richards*]

Trading Dubinsky in that deal is still a great move. He had an awful contract.

But this belongs in the Sather thread.

 

[LaffyTaffyNYR]

can someone explain to me why Kreider was benched?

 

[Let Blaine Die]

i dont miss dubi. didnt produce, took way too many stupid penalties, and made way too much money

Believe you me, we miss Dubinsky.

 

[JohnC]

can someone explain to me why Kreider was benched?

Ill give you a hint. It has to do with the j word

 

[SA16]

Losing both Dubinsky and Prust without finding at least one player who could replace what they brought in terms of their passion and desire is a problem. This team is too vanilla. Not much hunger, desire, or fiery personalities on this team.

I am confused. So is passion worth a goal per game or something? I thought Torts was supposed to be a good motivator that should provide passion? There's no way to argue that this team has less offensive talent than last years team. It's simply untrue. The fourth line as I just showed could have been expected to have almost the exact same production. The third line should obviously have taken a bit of a hit losing one of Anisimov/Dubinksy but that was expected to be made up for by Kreider - hasn't worked out though he's been very good the last two games (when he is not being randomly benched). The talent on the first two lines got a gigantic upgrade and is only not doing so by the poor play of Richards and Gaborik (which for Gaborik a large portion of the blame has be put on coaching).

Placing the blame on Sather for poorly constructing the team here does not really work. The problem has been a lack of execution by several of our top players, mind-boggling coaching decisions (the amount of TOI Boyle gets, playing Gaborik on the wrong side, constant line juggling etc..) and the lack of any semblance of a powerplay.

can someone explain to me why Kreider was benched?

Largely because he had too many shots on goal and had he played more he would had more TOI than Boyle which is unacceptable. Kreider had 3 shifts in the third for a total of 3:02. After his first shift he went 8 minutes before getting another. Boyle had 8 shifts in the third (lol) for a total of 7:55 (what!?)

 

[Doctyl]

Believe you me, we miss Dubinsky.

i miss arty a hell of a lot more than i miss dubi

 

[JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK]

Trading Dubinsky in that deal is still a great move. He had an awful contract.

But this belongs in the Sather thread.

Yeah, if we're going to continue this discussion, we gotta move it to the Sather thread.

Even I was going off topic there. And I call myself a mod.

 

[Doctyl]

torts is a motivator correct? he has practically no other use as a coach other than to get the team going.

this looks like the most unmotivated team ive seen in a long time. so why the hell is torts still behind the bench? the one thing hes good at he isnt even doing well.

 

[JCrusher*]

Ill give you a hint. It has to do with the j word

When/If Torts is fired i think kreider will be jumping for joy and i cant blame him he was our best forward tonight and he gets benched at a time when we could of used some more quality shots.

 

[OverTheCap]

i dont miss dubi. didnt produce, took way too many stupid penalties, and made way too much money

He was definitely overpaid, but he was a player who never hesitated to stand up for his teammates. When Crosby pushed Lundqvist a few seasons ago, Dubi got in his face, and he stood up for Boyle when he was jumped by Carkner last year.

We haven't seen a lot of that this year - the team didn't react when McDonagh and Richards were victims of dirty hits. Like Zenith said, it's not so much that we lost these players, it's that some of the good attributes that they had were not replaced.

 

[Doctyl]

When/If Torts is fired i think kreider will be jumping for joy and i cant blame him he was our best forward tonight and he gets benched at a time when we could of used some more quality shots.

so many j words

johnny torts? JTM? JAM? combination all three?

 

[JohnC]

so many j words

johnny torts? JTM? JAM? combination all three?

All three are synonymous

 

[trilobyte]

i miss arty a hell of a lot more than i miss dubi

That is the truth. I miss Artem, Brandon not at all.

 

[BBKers]

Another stunning display of "stoneage hockey".
Gotta luv our Fred Flintstone fella behind the bench with the JAM. Him and Barney (Sullivan) put on quite the primate comedy...
Sather is Mr Stone?
Yabadabadoo!!!!!

 

[OverTheCap]

I am confused. So is passion worth a goal per game or something? I thought Torts was supposed to be a good motivator that should provide passion? There's no way to argue that this team has less offensive talent than last years team. It's simply untrue. The fourth line as I just showed could have been expected to have almost the exact same production. The third line should obviously have taken a bit of a hit losing one of Anisimov/Dubinksy but that was expected to be made up for by Kreider - hasn't worked out though he's been very good the last two games (when he is not being randomly benched). The talent on the first two lines got a gigantic upgrade and is only not doing so by the poor play of Richards and Gaborik (which for Gaborik a large portion of the blame has be put on coaching).

Placing the blame on Sather for poorly constructing the team here does not really work. The problem has been a lack of execution by several of our top players, mind-boggling coaching decisions (the amount of TOI Boyle gets, playing Gaborik on the wrong side, constant line juggling etc..) and the lack of any semblance of a powerplay.

You seem to be focused to much on points and stats, and there's so much more to hockey than that.

I never argued that this year's team has less offensive talent than last year's team so I'm not sure why that's even being brought up. However, last year's team managed to do better offensively than this year's team - due in large part to the fact that they played better than the sum of their parts. They played like a TEAM, something that I haven't seen much from this year's version.

It's not all about talent - the players need to back each other up and play as one unit if they want to succeed. That's a hallmark of every cup team. In addition to having skill, they need to have the necessary character as well.

While I agree that lack of execution and coaching decisions have been problematic this year, I think that roster construction is an issue as well. Our bottom 6 doesn't stack up with the rest of the league, let alone legit contenders such as Pittsburgh and Chicago. We have needed a bottom pairing defenseman for over a year - never addressed. As a team that went to an ECF, our roster underwent too much turnover.