Line Combos: CBJ Roster Discussion/Line Combos/Injury Report

[majormajor]

would love bjorkstrand. having a second line that is a scoring threat would make this team a lot more formidable. seems like a guy that KJ would love playing with, as well.

Bjorkstrand needs to play the forecheck to be his best, and we need a line that can establish that. It's such a good momentum shifter when the rush play gets tilted. In Seattle they had him for a couple years on the nominal third line with Gourde and Tolvanen. It was by far the best line and frequently the top unit in terms of ice time too. I could see a unit like that, perhaps with Boone at center and Chinakhov on the other wing, or perhaps one of Silly or Danforth could fit there. In Seattle they made it to the second round of the playoffs with that forechecking line as their best unit, imagine us having a line like that with two lethal scoring lines ahead of them.

burakovsky's numbers have really fallen off a cliff, not sure what's up with that but he has two more years left after this one and an easily-digestable AAV for us. could fit as a reclamation guy, big body with some skill, and a deprecated asset. two years removed from being a really good second line winger. if the cbj pro scouts think they can build him back up it could be a shrewd move.

If you want a guy who might score 50 pts, if all goes well, while being a defensive drag, then you can find that guy with a cheaper contract than Burakovsky. He's a pure one way guy who has lost his one way.

also saw that friedman said that seattle's looking to revamp its blueline a bit. i've posted a lot on here about the ideal type of d-partner for severson… jamie oleksiak would look really good in this d-group, as they lack a pure shutdown type. has one more year after this one, too.

He's supposed to be that player but most of the time just doesn't do it. If you watch Del Bel's goal again, you see a situation where Oleksiak could just bounce the guy from the crease but tries to intercept the puck instead.

 

[cbjthrowaway]

Bjorkstrand needs to play the forecheck to be his best, and we need a line that can establish that. It's such a good momentum shifter when the rush play gets tilted. In Seattle they had him for a couple years on the nominal third line with Gourde and Tolvanen. It was by far the best line and frequently the top unit in terms of ice time too. I could see a unit like that, perhaps with Boone at center and Chinakhov on the other wing, or perhaps one of Silly or Danforth could fit there. In Seattle they made it to the second round of the playoffs with that forechecking line as their best unit, imagine us having a line like that with two lethal scoring lines ahead of them.

i agree that forechecking is one of his strongest traits but disagree with the notion that he has to be on a line with two other forecheck guys in order to be effective.

he's perfectly capable of playing a variety of scoring line roles here, and his versatility + forechecking would give them a lot of options. three wildly different theoretical lines with bjorkstrand:

• johnson - monahan - bjorkstrand (ideal support for KJ)
• chinakhov - sillinger - bjorkstrand (ideal third line)
• jenner - fantilli - bjorkstrand (ideal support for fantilli)

zero linemate overlap in either of those options, and neither includes voronkov/marchenko (who imo have to stay together).

imo the third option there is the best – two veteran forechecking wings who can produce at a second-line clip and are good in their own end supporting a young center with superstar potential.

If you want a guy who might score 50 pts, if all goes well, while being a defensive drag, then you can find that guy with a cheaper contract than Burakovsky. He's a pure one way guy who has lost his one way.

the point of buy-low guys is to extract surplus value via a deprecated acquisition cost, and turn the player (back) into a Dude.

not saying they should go after him, just saying that the jackets fit the criteria of a team that could (clear need at wing, long-term cap space) if their pro scouts think they can re-Dude-ify him.

He's supposed to be that player but most of the time just doesn't do it. If you watch Del Bel's goal again, you see a situation where Oleksiak could just bounce the guy from the crease but tries to intercept the puck instead.

even if oleksiak isn't always a physical force and isn't an ideal pure shutdown type, he may still be the best option to add those elements to the lineup, given that:

1. he's not a pure rental
2. he has traits (experience, size/reach) that are lacking in this group at present
3. he is (theoretically) available given friedman's comment about seattle wanting to change the blueline (dunn, mountour have NTCs, larson not available)

the roster has clear needs. perfect solutions to those needs that are also 1) available and 2) affordable plainly don't exist. doesn't mean the GM shouldn't take concrete steps to address those needs.

 

[GoJackets1]

Burakovsky has always intrigued me as a player but at this point he’s just a worse version of Chinakov IMO. Would love Bjork back though.

 

[majormajor]

i agree that forechecking is one of his strongest traits but disagree with the notion that he has to be on a line with two other forecheck guys in order to be effective.

Having guys on his line who can forecheck and also play rush, that's fine. But if you have someone on a line with Bjorkstrand who can't cycle the puck with him, that will be a big step backwards. I've watched his whole career and I can tell you his effectiveness as a player goes from mid level to top end when all three guys embrace cycling the puck. He's not a valuable player right now playing with Burakovsky and Stephenson, for example.

the point of buy-low guys is to extract surplus value via a deprecated acquisition cost, and turn the player (back) into a Dude.

not saying they should go after him, just saying that the jackets fit the criteria of a team that could (clear need at wing, long-term cap space) if their pro scouts think they can re-Dude-ify him.

I think this particular type of buy low project is something the Jackets no longer fit the criteria for. When you take on someone who has term on their deal, you can't just try them out, like we would with say Jack Quinn. We would have to work on Burakovsky for a long time and keep on working on him when it fails in the beginning. We need to win hockey games, we're not rebuilding anymore. Bad players shouldn't play, and let's be clear, Burakovsky is a really bad player right now. If/when Burakovsky gets bought out, then you can bring him in and try him out, and if it doesn't work, that's fine, we move on. That would be a different situation.

even if oleksiak isn't always a physical force and isn't an ideal pure shutdown type, he may still be the best option to add those elements to the lineup, given that:

1. he's not a pure rental
2. he has traits (experience, size/reach) that are lacking in this group at present
3. he is (theoretically) available given friedman's comment about seattle wanting to change the blueline (dunn, mountour have NTCs, larson not available)

the roster has clear needs. perfect solutions to those needs that are also 1) available and 2) affordable plainly don't exist. doesn't mean the GM shouldn't take concrete steps to address those needs.

I'm aware that perfect doesn't exist. Most of the time though, Oleksiak isn't even average. You're making arguments that would make more sense if we were talking about good but imperfect players. Burakovsky and Oleksiak aren't that.

I also think our defense is fine for the way our team plays. We would be a much better defensive team if we had a top end defender like Rasmus Andersson or Adam Pelech. But if you add an average defender to this mix that we have, I still think we end up at the bottom of the league in terms of goals against. Oleksiak would probably make it worse.

 

[CBJWerenski8]

 

[Jovavic]

^that's great but what about Chinakov?

 

[CBJWerenski8]

^that's great but what about Chinakov?

 

[Jovavic]

Feels like it'll be after the break at this point but hopefully he does get some games in beforehand. I wonder if the young guys like Fantilli will be sent down for 4 Nations break or will they get vacation time?

 

[majormajor]

I'm doing the mods a favor (maybe) by moving this discussion out of the Fantilli thread. Or perhaps we can have a separate leadership thread if people want to make that.

No, I see Jenner as player who can't stay healthy for a full season, with a declining ability to contribute who is overvalued by the fanbase because he once had a 30 goal season a decade ago, chose to stay in columbus and was the best player we drafted and developed for years. His leadership, amounted to almost no positive result in either locker room chemistry, player development and professionalism, or on ice results. I can see no evidence of success from his leadership but I can see a horrible locker room year after year prior to this one. there simply is no value is keeping Jenner when he literally has nothing to do with the first success we have had in 5 years.

This whole way of inferring from team results to what individuals do behind the scenes needs to get thrown out. You don't learn much of anything that way. You would have sold Ryan O'Reilly and Sam Reinhart down river after watching them in Buffalo.

You wouldn't have been able to imagine that the situation in terms of team success and learning would have been even worse without them. The same thing with Boone, you can't see the counterfactual. It's a blind, prejudiced way of thinking (prejudice in the sense that you're making a judgment about someone without knowing the situation).

I'll keep my true opinions calm so the mods don't have extra work but this is one of the worst takes I've read here and that's pretty impressive

It is going on the all-star team of bad takes.

It's frustrating but that is how a lot of people think about the world.

Were you the captain during a rebuild? --> Bad leader.

imo a captain should:

1. be a guy who can inspire the room with his words and his play
2. be a guy who can step up and drag a team to victory
3. be a guy who sets the standard with his play
4. (ideally) be a guy who is the de facto face of the franchise

this isn't meant as a slight to jenner whatsoever, but imo he was thrust into the captain role in a time when they didn't really need a captain. they'd just dealt foligno, savard, atkinson and jones. they were asking a young (at the time) player to step into that role without many veterans in the room.

he was clearly the best choice at the time, but my issue was (and is) with the notion that they had to make that choice then. that doesn't mean i doubt anything said about his leadership qualities, but to me he's the ideal "A" rather than a guy who you put the C on.

to me, werenski emphatically checks all the boxes. he's the engine that runs the team, he has stepped up as a leader, and he sets the standard for this team. he's also, imo, the face of the franchise, and the best player on the roster.

i could see fantilli eventually wearing a letter (perhaps even the C) some day. same with mateychuk. sillinger seems destined to wear a letter somewhere even if he's not a long-term fit here, and KJ is such a rink rat that i could see him growing into a formal leadership role the same way jordan eberle has in his career.

You're kind of conflating leadership in general with who is wearing the letter. The locker room doesn't work that way. The vocal guys will be vocal regardless. The leaders will lead (not necessarily the same as the vocal guys). Awarding a C is not deciding who the leaders of the team are, they already have that figured out organically.

Werenski for his part is not naturally the most vocal leader. He's getting more vocal though and it seems like he would be a good captain - for all we know Boone and Z are already planning on that transition. Fantilli has some leadership attributes but is so far from knowing the details of the game, we'll check back in on that 5+ years down the road. A guy that you never mention in this discussion, but you should, is Kirill Marchenko. He's probably the closest to being the Nick Foligno personality and just so happens to be an incredible player.

 

[Doggy]

Thinking about how good the Voronkov-Monahan-Marchenko line has been, do you think we ever get to this line if Jenner is healthy? We fans saw that the Jenner-Monahan-Marchenko line wasn't working in the pre-season but seemed like HCDE was locked into it.

 

[majormajor]

Thinking about how good the Voronkov-Monahan-Marchenko line has been, do you think we ever get to this line if Jenner is healthy? We fans saw that the Jenner-Monahan-Marchenko line wasn't working in the pre-season but seemed like HCDE was locked into it.

I think that was more about Evason not trusting Chinakhov and Voronkov at that point. Now that he knows what they can do, and we all know how good that top line is, there's no way Jenner gets moved there.

 

[Doggy]

I think that was more about Evason not trusting Chinakhov and Voronkov at that point. Now that he knows what they can do, and we all know how good that top line is, there's no way Jenner gets moved there.

Not suggesting Jenner would get there now, just wondering how long it would have taken for us to get there in the first place if Jenner had not gotten hurt in pre-season.