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Around the League 2016:World Cup Edition

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damacles1156 said:
Team USA doesn't have the talent period, to compete at the international level.

Has nothing to do with Lombardi.

I mean Kane/Suter are literally the USA's best players. That's about it.

Canada has Jake Muzzin playing five/six defender minutes....Hello folks.
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First, they just played so mentally and emotionally out of it after those 2 pre-tournament games against Canada. It's one thing to not have talent, it's another to play dumb and weak. Mental and physical mistake after mental and physical mistake in the actual tournament.

Second, Canada has been on a roll lately. Well, lately isn't a great word, it's Canada and hockey. What team is beating them? It's almost impossible to score on them. Maybe NA can break through because of their ridiculous speed. You need to combine a couple countries to beat a pro Canada team, outside of a great one game performance by someone. The Soviets could keep up, but they're now Russia and not what they used to be.

It's like the US in basketball. If a pro USA basketball team shows up, nobody is going to beat them.
 
kingsfan28 said:
Lots and lots of finger pointing will be directly at the USA brass for putting together this team.
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After the two Cup wins, Lombardi pretty much walked on water. After this debacle and the last two years, I'm seriously starting to question his judgment. Can he change course when it's so painfully obvious his previous blueprint is outdated?
 
KingsFan7824 said:
First, they just played so mentally and emotionally out of it after those 2 pre-tournament games against Canada. It's one thing to not have talent, it's another to play dumb and weak. Mental and physical mistake after mental and physical mistake in the actual tournament.

Second, Canada has been on a roll lately. Well, lately isn't a great word, it's Canada and hockey. What team is beating them? It's almost impossible to score on them. Maybe NA can break through because of their ridiculous speed. You need to combine a couple countries to beat a pro Canada team, outside of a great one game performance by someone. The Soviets could keep up, but they're now Russia and not what they used to be.

It's like the US in basketball. If a pro USA basketball team shows up, nobody is going to beat them.
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Pretty much.
 
lumbergh said:
After the two Cup wins, Lombardi pretty much walked on water. After this debacle and the last two years, I'm seriously starting to question his judgment. Can he change course when it's so painfully obvious his previous blueprint is outdated?
Click to expand...

What blueprint would you like the Kings to flip a switch too ? Cause it would require a tear down.

The Sharks ? Produced zero cups and a decade of playoff embarrassment

Pitt ? They fired their GM from 2006-2014(also the coach), It took a roster no one predicted would do serious play-offs damage, and a stellar performance from a young Goalie.

Hawks ? Who went out first round

What blueprint would you like to see ?

Don't say Detroit, just don't


I am all for adding some more speed/skill, but it's not going to happen tomorrow, or this coming season. In a cap world, you have to draft and develop speed/skill.

Cause every single team in the NHL wants it. Also every single NHL team tries to avoid letting their own speed/skill players from hitting UFA.
 
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kingsfan28 said:
Not a single forward scored for the US in the last two games. Kane with a whopping 1 assist.
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Lombardi would have been better off picking Brown/Lewis than some of the US's current wingers. At least Brown/Lewis would have played hard.

heh.

USA had weak center play, really weak.
 
lumbergh said:
After the two Cup wins, Lombardi pretty much walked on water. After this debacle and the last two years, I'm seriously starting to question his judgment. Can he change course when it's so painfully obvious his previous blueprint is outdated?
Click to expand...

Brown is at 6 and going nowhere ever, Kopitar is at 10, Toffoli will get whatever he's going to get, Carter, Quick, and Gaborik are signed for a bunch more years. There's no changing course. There's playing with the fringes. It's bringing in Purcell, Gilbert, and Trotman. It's hoping the system can produce a productive player or two every year. Then you have to have the guys being paid all the money show up. That's the course for the foreseeable future. We'll always come back to Voynov too, because you can't lose a player like that for nothing. Young, relatively cheap, right handed defenseman aren't out there to get.
 
damacles1156 said:
Lombardi would have been better off picking Brown/Lewis than some of the US's current wingers. At least Brown/Lewis would have played hard.

heh.

USA had weak center play, really weak.
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Yes they did. How often tonight did you hear Kesler or Paveleski's name called? They were both invisible aside from taking faceoffs.
 
Team Europe looks terrible in the first couple games, but now looks like an actual team. Team USA looks at least decent in the first couple games, but end up disjointed, and the worst team in the games that have actually meant something in the World Cup.
 
Ryan Suter: I feel like we let our country down, we let ourselves down.

Don't be too hard on yourself Ryan, hardly anybody cares
 
damacles1156 said:
What blueprint would you like the Kings to flip a switch too ? Cause it would require a tear down.

The Sharks ? Produced zero cups and a decade of playoff embarrassment

Pitt ? They fired their GM from 2006-2014(also the coach), It took a roster no one predicted would do serious play-offs damage, and a stellar performance from a young Goalie.

Hawks ? Who went out first round

What blueprint would you like to see ?

Don't say Detroit, just don't


I am all for adding some more speed/skill, but it's not going to happen tomorrow, or this coming season. In a cap world, you have to draft and develop speed/skill.

Cause every single team in the NHL wants it. Also every single NHL team tries to avoid letting their own speed/skill players from hitting UFA.
Click to expand...

For the past five plus years Lombardi has talked a lot about being "hard to play against" and "culture", which to me stands for grind it out, go through a wall together, beat opponents into submission kind of hockey. Clearly he kept that mindset with the USA squad for the World Cup.

The team needs creativity and a serious injection of youth and energy. Sadly that's gonna probably require a coaching change and a fundamental rethinking of what success looks like today.
 
lumbergh said:
For the past five plus years Lombardi has talked a lot about being "hard to play against" and "culture", which to me stands for grind it out, go through a wall together, beat opponents into submission kind of hockey. Clearly he kept that mindset with the USA squad for the World Cup.

The team needs creativity and a serious injection of youth and energy. Sadly that's gonna probably require a coaching change and a fundamental rethinking of what success looks like today.
Click to expand...

So you don't have Lombardi in charge of Team USA. For the Kings Lombardi has the opportunity to have a whole pipeline and system going that the team can grow on. International play is really all about throwing together the best and hoping the chemistry works.

Average age of Kings forwards right now is 27.
Average age of the Kings defenders right now is 25.

Now obviously not everyone on the current roster is gonna still be with the team once the season rolls around, so this number may go up or even down.

The Kings really aren't particularly old. How much younger should they be?
 
lumbergh said:
For the past five plus years Lombardi has talked a lot about being "hard to play against" and "culture", which to me stands for grind it out, go through a wall together, beat opponents into submission kind of hockey. Clearly he kept that mindset with the USA squad for the World Cup.

The team needs creativity and a serious injection of youth and energy. Sadly that's gonna probably require a coaching change and a fundamental rethinking of what success looks like today.
Click to expand...

The talent pool will be deeper for the next tourney, especially at center. Most of the the guys on this USA team won't be around during the next crack at it, including the management.
 
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