Around the NHL 2023-2024

[Majorityof1]

I'm drawing a blank right now for Capfriendly's predecessor. Didn't this all happen before, and Capfriendly filled the void?

Cap geek. That shut down because the guy who ran it passed away, according to one of the articles I read about the cap friendly sale

 

[Thallis]

I'm drawing a blank right now for Capfriendly's predecessor. Didn't this all happen before, and Capfriendly filled the void?

A bit different circumstance, as CapGeek was unable to be maintained because the person who made it had terminal cancer

 

[Drubilly]

 

[PocketNines]

Basically Edmonton thinks: we brought our A game and they didn't, we can win this.

Florida is like: yeah our B game can still control them and win, so when we bring our A game it's deep trouble

Florida is right

 

[Bobby Orrtuzzo]

Mikkola scores

#firearmstrong

 

[ChicagoBlues]

NIKO!!!!

The Karelian Kris Kross Goal!!!

 

[BlueOil]

barkely dropping the F bomb live between the 2nd and 3rd on sportsnet was hilarious

i don't think florida has to do anything but sit back and counterpunch, the oilers can't crack home plate or shoot high to save their lives so far

 

[Bluesfan54]

Oilers don’t have an answer to anything Florida does. This series should be short. And gooning things up won’t help.

 

[BlueKnight]

Get f***ed Oilers!!!! I can hear the entire City of Edmonton crying out my window. I love it!!!!

 

[TheOrganist]

Wasn’t a huge fan of Mikkola but this trend is alarming where middling defenseman in St. Louis are thriving elsewhere.

 

[Xerloris]

Wasn’t a huge fan of Mikkola but this trend is alarming where middling defenseman in St. Louis are thriving elsewhere.

I don't think thriving means what you think it means. Almost scoring on his own team and then getting a lucky shot where he falls down and actually scores because it's the Oilers and their goaltending sucks is not thriving. Oilers would have been up 2-0 because of his dumbass if not for Bob paying attention and not trusting him.

 

[PocketNines]

One of the completely foreseeable consequences that an actually talented man instead of an old boys club man would understand is that when you do not have a support anchor beam as a #1, the ability to truly evaluate where the other defensemen slot is compromised. Was the player not good enough, or was he not on a good enough defense to have his future contribution understood? And if it's the latter, is that one of the inevitable consequences that of course Mr. Old Boys should have absolutely priced into his imbecile decision and realized the decision was too costly? Of course! All known at the time, before the decision was made, and said loudly.

 

[Brian39]

I don't think thriving means what you think it means. Almost scoring on his own team and then getting a lucky shot where he falls down and actually scores because it's the Oilers and their goaltending sucks is not thriving. Oilers would have been up 2-0 because of his dumbass if not for Bob paying attention and not trusting him.

He's the #4 D man for the team who is up 2-0 in the Cup Final. And Florida is not doing the 'ride 3 stud D and keep everyone else on limited minutes' strategy that we ran in 2019. Mikkola is playing 18:49 a night, which is 3:39 a night more than their #5 D man. Mikkola is playing a noticeably larger role on the Panthers run than any of Gunnar, Eddy, Dunn, or Bortz played in our Cup run.

He played 20:02 a night in the regular season as well. He has been a genuine top 4 D man for a team that now only has to win 2 of their next 5 games in order to lift the Cup.

What do you think thriving means?

 

[BlueDream]

There are a couple people on this board who would quite literally rather starve themselves than admit Armstrong’s mistakes.

Florida is very happy with that Mikkola signing. And he was solid defensively for us, too. It’s just that those couple posters loved to harp on him every time he made a mistake. But it’s cool, it’s entertaining to watch you two continue to bury yourselves in the sand.

 

[Brian39]

Wasn’t a huge fan of Mikkola but this trend is alarming where middling defenseman in St. Louis are thriving elsewhere.

I think that the performance of our D men in other systems/organizations is by far the biggest knock against Berube and would be the absolute only concern I would have about the hiring if I were the Leafs.

Army absolutely put roadblocks in front of guys and we were clearly prioritizing winning now over allowing guys to make mistakes and learn on the job.

But Dunn, Walman, and now Mikkola have all taken sizeable steps forward with new organizations after leaving Berube's system. I think all 3 of them have found their success with partners who are at least decent playstyle/build comps to Parayko or Faulk as well. Not perfect comps, but certainly not drastically different player types that are completely different than a partner we could have given them.

I thought that Berube failed to put Dunn in position to succeed here, but I think he was fair with his deployment of Mikkola/Walkman and they didn't play particularly well here (Mikkola was much better than Walman and his minutes reflected that, but he wasn't a top 4 D man here). But I do think you have to wonder if is a system/partner/usage issue when they both improved mightily in their first full season in a new system.

This isn't to say that Army doesn't deserve blame for the state of our D. But I do think that there is valid concern about whether Berube's system is tough on the non-stud D men. All of the success he had relied on Petro/Parayko/Bo all logging huge minutes and essentially running a 6 man group that was deployed as 1A, 1B, 1C, 5A, 5B, 5C.

 

[Xerloris]

He's the #4 D man for the team who is up 2-0 in the Cup Final. And Florida is not doing the 'ride 3 stud D and keep everyone else on limited minutes' strategy that we ran in 2019. Mikkola is playing 18:49 a night, which is 3:39 a night more than their #5 D man. Mikkola is playing a noticeably larger role on the Panthers run than any of Gunnar, Eddy, Dunn, or Bortz played in our Cup run.

He played 20:02 a night in the regular season as well. He has been a genuine top 4 D man for a team that now only has to win 2 of their next 5 games in order to lift the Cup.

What do you think thriving means?

Dun is thriving. Walman is Thriving. Mikkola is a 3rd pairing D that's on a good team and playing where they need him play. Just so happens the rest of the team is good enough to cover for his f*** ups. We on the other hand were not good enough to cover for his f*** ups.

 

[SirPaste]

I think that the performance of our D men in other systems/organizations is by far the biggest knock against Berube and would be the absolute only concern I would have about the hiring if I were the Leafs.

Army absolutely put roadblocks in front of guys and we were clearly prioritizing winning now over allowing guys to make mistakes and learn on the job.

But Dunn, Walman, and now Mikkola have all taken sizeable steps forward with new organizations after leaving Berube's system. I think all 3 of them have found their success with partners who are at least decent playstyle/build comps to Parayko or Faulk as well. Not perfect comps, but certainly not drastically different player types that are completely different than a partner we could have given them.

I thought that Berube failed to put Dunn in position to succeed here, but I think he was fair with his deployment of Mikkola/Walkman and they didn't play particularly well here (Mikkola was much better than Walman and his minutes reflected that, but he wasn't a top 4 D man here). But I do think you have to wonder if is a system/partner/usage issue when they both improved mightily in their first full season in a new system.

This isn't to say that Army doesn't deserve blame for the state of our D. But I do think that there is valid concern about whether Berube's system is tough on the non-stud D men. All of the success he had relied on Petro/Parayko/Bo all logging huge minutes and essentially running a 6 man group that was deployed as 1A, 1B, 1C, 5A, 5B, 5C.

I agree with most of this but I do disagree that Berube failed to put Dunn in a position to succeed. He got plenty of opportunities to play in the top 4 including almost 20 games being paired with Parayko. He was never able to do anything with those minutes and mostly looked like a liability although solid enough offensively. He has certainly taken his game to another level after a very bad first season in Seattle though.

 

[Stealth JD]

I kind of hope Washington trolls the rest of the NHL and buys PuckPedia too.

 

[ChicagoBlues]

Panthers will win in THREE!

 

[Brian39]

I agree with most of this but I do disagree that Berube failed to put Dunn in a position to succeed. He got plenty of opportunities to play in the top 4 including almost 20 games being paired with Parayko. He was never able to do anything with those minutes and mostly looked like a liability although solid enough offensively. He has certainly taken his game to another level after a very bad first season in Seattle though.

Hard, hard disagree.

In the 2 seasons following the Cup, Dunn played just 197 minutes at 5 on 5 with Parayko. They put up pretty solid possession numbers together in offensive deployment, but Parayko was his 5th most common partner in that stretch. He played 111 minutes with Parayko in 2019/20 and 86 minutes together in 2020/21. There was definitely not a near 20 game stretch where they were partners.

His 2019/20 was pretty much the exact opposite of 'liability but solid enough offensively.' He had a positive goal differential with every D partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Faulk (-1). He had a positive expected goal differential with every partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Bortz (47.8%). All in all, we outscored the opposition 51 to 32 with him on the ice at 5 on 5 despite his point total decreasing from the previous season. His expected goals against per 60 was the 2nd lowest of his career (to date). His actual goals against per 60 was also the 2nd lowest of his career.

There is nothing that suggests he was anything close to a defensive liability in 2019/20. We dominated the opposition with him on the ice, but his time on ice per night was by far the lowest of his career (16:16 a night vs 17:32 the year before and 17:14 his rookie season).

My biggest frustration about 2019/20 is that Dunn and Petro were extremely good together, but got limited to just 219 minutes together at 5 on 5. In those minutes, they were above 60% in every underlying metric and outscored opponents 16-7. It was sheltered usage, but they dominated the opposition and I strongly believe that they should have been given more rope together. Instead, Petro played more minutes with each of Falk, Parayko, and Gunnar than he did with Dunn.

Then Petro walked and instead of giving Dunn the chance to take over PP duties and handle an expanded role, we brought in Krug. Dunn's most frequent partner in 2020/21 was fellow left-hand shot Marco Scandella and then his 2nd most frequent partner was Bortz. Those two partners accounted for 434 of his 5 on 5 minutes. He played 85 total minutes with our #1 RD Parayko and 76 minutes with #2 RD Faulk. We got outscored 3-1 with him and Parayko together and outscored opponents 3-2 with him and Faulk together.

Both years, he finished 5th among our D in time on ice per game (6th if you include Scandella in 2019/20, which I don't think is fair since he was brought in a direct replacement to Bo).

I very much disagree that he got plenty of top 4 opportunities. He certainly didn't get an extended look partnered with Parayko.

 

[SirPaste]

In the 2 seasons following the Cup, Dunn played just 197 minutes at 5 on 5 with Parayko. They put up pretty solid possession numbers together in offensive deployment, but Parayko was his 5th most common partner in that stretch. He played 111 minutes with Parayko in 2019/20 and 86 minutes together in 2020/21. There was definitely not a near 20 game stretch where they were partners.

You are correct about that, went to look it up and the stretch I was referring to was before the cup, they played 488 minutes together.

 

[Xerloris]

Hard, hard disagree.

In the 2 seasons following the Cup, Dunn played just 197 minutes at 5 on 5 with Parayko. They put up pretty solid possession numbers together in offensive deployment, but Parayko was his 5th most common partner in that stretch. He played 111 minutes with Parayko in 2019/20 and 86 minutes together in 2020/21. There was definitely not a near 20 game stretch where they were partners.

His 2019/20 was pretty much the exact opposite of 'liability but solid enough offensively.' He had a positive goal differential with every D partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Faulk (-1). He had a positive expected goal differential with every partner he played with at 5 on 5 except Bortz (47.8%). All in all, we outscored the opposition 51 to 32 with him on the ice at 5 on 5 despite his point total decreasing from the previous season. His expected goals against per 60 was the 2nd lowest of his career (to date). His actual goals against per 60 was also the 2nd lowest of his career.

There is nothing that suggests he was anything close to a defensive liability in 2019/20. We dominated the opposition with him on the ice, but his time on ice per night was by far the lowest of his career (16:16 a night vs 17:32 the year before and 17:14 his rookie season).

My biggest frustration about 2019/20 is that Dunn and Petro were extremely good together, but got limited to just 219 minutes together at 5 on 5. In those minutes, they were above 60% in every underlying metric and outscored opponents 16-7. It was sheltered usage, but they dominated the opposition and I strongly believe that they should have been given more rope together. Instead, Petro played more minutes with each of Falk, Parayko, and Gunnar than he did with Dunn.

Then Petro walked and instead of giving Dunn the chance to take over PP duties and handle an expanded role, we brought in Krug. Dunn's most frequent partner in 2020/21 was fellow left-hand shot Marco Scandella and then his 2nd most frequent partner was Bortz. Those two partners accounted for 434 of his 5 on 5 minutes. He played 85 total minutes with our #1 RD Parayko and 76 minutes with #2 RD Faulk. We got outscored 3-1 with him and Parayko together and outscored opponents 3-2 with him and Faulk together.

Both years, he finished 5th among our D in time on ice per game (6th if you include Scandella in 2019/20, which I don't think is fair since he was brought in a direct replacement to Bo).

I very much disagree that he got plenty of top 4 opportunities. He certainly didn't get an extended look partnered with Parayko.

So we lost Dunn because of Berube and not Armstrong?

 

[Brian39]

So we lost Dunn because of Berube and not Armstrong?

Tell me what you believe I meant when I said "This isn't to say that Army doesn't deserve blame for the state of our D."

 

[Xerloris]

Tell me what you believe I meant when I said "This isn't to say that Army doesn't deserve blame for the state of our D."

Tell me how many Dmen we have traded and currently have that are not named Dunn? State of our D is not determined by one single player.

 

[BlueDream]

Tell me how many Dmen we have traded and currently have that are not named Dunn? State of our D is not determined by one single player.

So you’re saying it’s not just one instance, but a myriad of mistakes? Cool, glad we all agree.

Now continue on with your “Armstrong rocks!!!” routine. Self-awareness is key.