Dave Hakstol

[Ghosts Beer]

I love Konecny, but he makes some incredibly bad mistakes at times trying to do too much. The beginning of last season was particularly bad. He got better, but still makes you hold your breath at times.

If one were to ask which Flyers are most likely to make a horrific turnover leading to a goal the other way, it would easily be Konecny, Ghost, & Sanheim. I like them all, but when they sit during the last few minutes of a lead, that’s why. Trying to reduce risk in a situation where they don’t need it & the likelihood of scoring a goal is outweighed by the need to prevent the quick backbreaker.

 

[FlyTimmo]

If one were to ask which Flyers are most likely to make a horrific turnover leading to a goal the other way, it would easily be Konecny, Ghost, & Sanheim.

Funny. I would have said Hagg, Manning and Gudas

 

[Striiker]

Funny. I would have said Hagg, Manning and Gudas

Manning is the correct answer by a mile.

Jus another example of offensively talented young players being incorrectly stereotyped as defensive liabilities.

 

[FlyTimmo]

Manning is the correct answer by a mile.

Jus another example of offensively talented young players being incorrectly stereotyped as defensive liabilities.

And honestly, it felt like Provorov would make more big mistakes than Gostisbehere.

 

[MacDonald4MVP]

Friendly reminder that Bellemare got all the ot usage over kony last year.

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Watching Hakstol coach a 3v3 period is f***ing awful.

 

[Striiker]

It’s amazing Edmonton & the Islanders missed the playoffs, & Hakstol made it, given that their freewheeling offensive styles & physical talent are so vastly superior to Hakstol’s “archaic” focus on defensive responsibility & avoiding mistakes.

This is a myth. It was made up by people trying to fabricate a reason for Hakstol benching young players.

If he actually cared about stuff like that, guys like Manning, Hagg, etc would never have played here. They’re all more likely to cause a goal against than the guys who got benched in the last few years.

Also, go ahead and quote someone who said offense/scoring is the only thing that matters. Or that you don’t need good defensive players. I’ll wait.

Don’t you hate it when people take posts and exaggerate it for the sake of argument? I bet you do, since you accuse people of doing it to you pretty often. Maybe it’s a bad idea to do it to others then, don’t you think?

 

[MacDonald4MVP]

Manning is the correct answer by a mile.

Jus another example of offensively talented young players being incorrectly stereotyped as defensive liabilities.

Gudas also has shut down rep while some of his reads in dzone are straight up comedy.

 

[Striiker]

And honestly, it felt like Provorov would make more big mistakes than Gostisbehere.

If someone went back and found that to be true it wouldn’t surprise me.

Provorov is great, but he does tend to fumble the puck at times. Meanwhile Ghost is a lot smarter and safer of a player than his reputation would suggest. People act like he scores so much because he’s reckless and stupid, but that’s far from true. Like I said, some people can’t get past stereotypes.

 

[Striiker]

Gudas also has shut down rep while some of his reads in dzone are straight up comedy.

Gudas is a strange one...

There’s times when he plays like a great top 4 defensemen. Then other times he plays like his head was chopped off.

He does seem to be pretty reliant on partners too. Like this year he did great with Sanheim and then horrendous with Manning or Hagg. He just needs the right fit, it seems.

 

[Garbage Goal]

Generally D pairs are a guy who anchors the pairing and a complementary guy who is, more or less, contributing as much as he is being carried by the other one. Pairs like Provorov-Ghost seem to be the exception and not the norm, at least to me.

Gudas is the second guy on a pairing. Never gonna carry one, but will contribute just as much as he will be carried when paired with a good partner who can anchor the pairing. That's why he needs to be with Sanheim to succeed because that Provorov-Ghost pairing should be our top pair. No reason for it not to be when Sanheim-Gudas makes a good second pairing. Except Hakstol. He's the one caveat with literally every lineup projection.

Provorov was a rookie and could legally drink less than a year ago. He's supposed to make mistakes. Every rookie, especially on D, will make plenty of mistakes. So will Dahlin.

 

[FLYguy3911]

Ghost is the best defenseman at handling and protecting the puck. Not really that close.

Provorov had some brutal turnovers last year and no one played more than him.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

It’s amazing Edmonton & the Islanders missed the playoffs, & Hakstol made it, given that their freewheeling offensive styles & physical talent are so vastly superior to Hakstol’s “archaic” focus on defensive responsibility & avoiding mistakes.

It was one of those nothing went right seasons for the Oilers. Its amazing that coaching staff could not fix that PP with the talent they have.
The Isles allowed 295 goals or whatever ever it was and Doug Weight was arguably the worst coach in the league

 

[Garbage Goal]

Watching Hakstol coach a 3v3 period is ****ing awful.

I can't wait for Konecny to only get one or two shifts (possibly away from Ghost and Giroux) and see Lehtera or Weise in sudden death 3v3 OT again.

 

[Striiker]

It was one of those nothing went right seasons for the Oilers. Its amazing that coaching staff could not fix that PP with the talent they have.
The Isles allowed 295 goals or whatever ever it was and Doug Weight was arguably the worst coach in the league

Both of those teams are DYING for a solid safe reliable solid gritty solid guy like Hagg

 

[MacDonald4MVP]

Generally D pairs are a guy who anchors the pairing and a complementary guy who is, more or less, contributing as much as he is being carried by the other one. Pairs like Provorov-Ghost seem to be the exception and not the norm, at least to me.

Gudas is the second guy on a pairing. Never gonna carry one, but will contribute just as much as he will be carried when paired with a good partner who can anchor the pairing. That's why he needs to be with Sanheim to succeed because that Provorov-Ghost pairing should be our top pair. No reason for it not to be when Sanheim-Gudas makes a good second pairing. Except Hakstol. He's the one caveat with literally every lineup projection.

Provorov was a rookie and could legally drink less than a year ago. He's supposed to make mistakes. Every rookie, especially on D, will make plenty of mistakes. So will Dahlin.

Good players make bad ones look better and thats where the complimentary crap comes from. No matter if it's Cleary, Girardi or Leino they ain't complimenting anyone's game. They are getting dragged along.

We we seen this first hand when coburn went from being part of elite top pairing to absolute tirefire in 14/15. Gudas is clearly a good one as he made us all believe Mdz was legit top4 two way force two seasons ago and instead of getting dragged to all hell by Manning he made even that paring passable.

 

[Ghosts Beer]

This is a myth. It was made up by people trying to fabricate a reason for Hakstol benching young players.

I he actually cared about stuff like that, guys like Manning, Hagg, etc would never have played here. They’re all more likely to cause a goal against than the guys who got benched in the last few years.

Also, go ahead and quote someone who said offense/scoring is the only thing that matters. Or that you don’t need good defensive players. I’ll wait.

Don’t you hate it when people take posts and exaggerate it for the sake of argument? I bet you do, since you accuse people of doing it to you pretty often. Maybe it’s a bad idea to do it to others then, don’t you think?

Show me where I said that your argument was “offense/scoring is the *only* thing that matters.”

I didn’t. That’s *you* exaggerating what I said. What I really said is that for how much you bash Hakstol’s style as vastly inferior to a more “modern” offensive focused style, you really gloss over how Edmonton & the Isles missed the playoffs & Hak made it.

Moving on — Guys like Manning & Hagg never would have played here if Hakstol truly cared about defense & minimizing risky plays? Really? 1. Who’s in charge of the players on the team? 2. Who would have played instead of them among the choices on the roster he was given? Sanheim? He made tons of blunders in limited, cherry-picked minutes. Morin? He’s as mistake-prone as anyone. Maybe I’ll yell his name & he’ll pass me (the opponent) the puck again.

You somehow think Ghost was less likely to make an egregious, breakaway-the-other-way type gaffe than Manning or Hagg. Not sure there’s a way to prove it, but I definitely think you’re wrong. And I love Ghost. That said, he’s a lot like Konecny in that he can try to do too much with the puck, & if he screws up — odd man rush the other way. I’m certainly not saying Hagg & Manning don’t make mistakes, I think they are both 6/7 types with many warts, but they are less likely to make a high risk play at an inopportune time resulting in an instant odd man rush.

 

[Garbage Goal]

Good players make bad ones look better and thats where the complimentary crap comes from.
We we seen this first hand when coburn went from being part of elite top pairing to absolute tirefire in 14/15. Gudas is clearly a good one as he made us all believe Mdz was legit top4 two way force two seasons ago and instead of getting dragged to all hell by Manning he made even that paring passable.

You can be a good 2nd guy, or complementary player if you prefer, on a pairing. Coburn was good during most of his time with us, just like Gudas was good in that one season and he was good when paired with Sanheim. That one season for Gudas was two seasons ago though and, outside of it, there is nothing to suggest he can be the anchor on a pairing. I think he might be good enough to anchor a 3rd pairing, granted, but that is not what we need him to be right now, is it? Since he is easily one of our four best D and we were hoping for him to anchor the 2nd pairing last year.

 

[deadhead]

I think youre right though, after his contract is up he'll be gone unless they make a serious playoff run in the next two years.

Welp, that would be true if the coach was Lavi, as well.

Especially, now that they have real talent, though he'll get some leeway if the goalies aren't better, no coach can do much if he has bad (not average, but bottom 5-10) goalies.

 

[MacDonald4MVP]

You can be a good 2nd guy, or complementary player if you prefer, on a pairing. Coburn was good during most of his time with us, just like Gudas was good in that one season and he was good when paired with Sanheim. That one season for Gudas was two seasons ago though and, outside of it, there is nothing to suggest he can be the anchor on a pairing. I think he might be good enough to anchor a 3rd pairing, granted, but that is not what we need him to be right now, is it? Since he is easily one of our four best D and we were hoping for him to anchor the 2nd pairing last year.

So just like Couturier not having a good season with Umberger and now doing well when complimenting Konecny?

 

[Ghosts Beer]

I’ve loved Gudas since he was in Tampa, but he was a shell of himself this season, both physically & as a defenseman in general.

His minutes were down from the start, & I really wonder if he had a nagging injury since camp. Obviously his turnovers in game 6 were the cherry on top of a subpar season for him. I’ll be interested in how he responds this season, but I’m not expecting a big bounceback.

 

[deadhead]

Ghost cut down on the bad turnovers last year, the reason he was benched at the end of games was simple, when teams are playing aggressive and throwing an extra body in the D-zone, his size is a detriment because with limited room to skate he can be easily knocked off the puck - but he was still playing 20+ minutes a night, just in situations where his skills were more valuable. I'd rather give him an extra PP minute than see him on the PK or the end of games.

Hagg doesn't give up those kind of turnovers because he never gets that far up the ice.

Gudas and Sanheim should be our second pair, it's a matter of Gudas regaining his mojo and Sanheim growing up physically and mentally - they complement each other and have the skill to drive play, they just have to cut back on the bad mindfart plays the way Ghost did.

Hagg/MacDonald/Folin are just placekeepers for Morin/Myers - the idea of those two together would be fun to watch, talk about intimidation at the blue line! Though I want to see Morin play at the NHL level before I declare him the next Chara or Pronger - there's a tendency here (and I'm at fault at times) to project one's hopes on an unproven player because they have yet to fail.

 

[Garbage Goal]

So just like Couturier not having a good season with Umberger and now doing well when complimenting Konecny?

I'm not sure I see the parallel, but as far as Couturier is concerned he played with Giroux and Konecny largely. I can't think of any center in the league who would have had a better set of wingers flanking him off-hand (I'm sure there are some comparables, none that spring to mind immediately). Especially considering that Couturier is best on offense when he's driving the net and the play as opposed to playmaking or creating openings, which are what Konecny and Giroux excel at.

Personally, I also see Couturier's output last year as a bit of an aberration, I wouldn't expect him to have a season like that again ever honestly. He shot a career-high shooting percentage, over 3% above his career average, Giroux is only going to get older, it's going to be hard to ever beat winger setup of Giroux-Konecny, and Giroux himself has some advanced stats that would indicate that his season was a bit of an anomaly as well.

Note, I'm not disparaging any player here.

 

[deadhead]

And honestly, it felt like Provorov would make more big mistakes than Gostisbehere.

He did, but strangely enough almost all in the D-zone with bad clearing passes. Provorov improved his offense but was very careless on defense, it's like he'd play prefectly for 30 seconds then make a mindless pass to the wrong uniform. Of course, we tend to forget he was only 21 in his second NHL season - there's a reason most HCs prefer seasoned veterans.

Ghost played a far more controlled game last year, previously he'd try to force plays and get stripped in open ice for breakaways, now he's learned to dump it in when pressured and life to fight another shift. It's part of the learning curve, you don't have to force something every time you're on the ice, you're gonna have 25 or so shifts, it's ok to accept a few aren't going to go anywhere.

 

[Striiker]

Show me where I said that your argument was “offense/scoring is the *only* thing that matters.”

I didn’t. That’s *you* exaggerating what I said. What I really said is that for how much you bash Hakstol’s style as vastly inferior to a more “modern” offensive focused style, you really gloss over how Edmonton & the Isles missed the playoffs & Hak made it.

So you assumed that me wanting a coach who knows what year it is must mean I wanted a clone of the Islanders or Oilers? Not a reach at all... solid logic there...

The difference between us making the playoffs and those teams missing wasn’t Hakstol... it was that our team was better than either of them. Coaching obviously had nothing to do with it, seeing as our coach was clearly horrendous.

Moving on — Guys like Manning & Hagg never would have played here if Hakstol truly cared about defense & minimizing risky plays? Really? 1. Who’s in charge of the players on the team? 2. Who would have played instead of them among the choices on the roster he was given? Sanheim? He made tons of blunders in limited, cherry-picked minutes. Morin? He’s as mistake-prone as anyone. Maybe I’ll yell his name & he’ll pass me (the opponent) the puck again.

Lets make a note that, yet again, you’re the one who brought up Sanheim. Just want that on record for when we go over that whole “everything is about Sanheim” stuff again.

But yes, he was superior to both of those players. He made mistakes too, but he was easily still better in all 3 zones.

Morin is also superior to those two. Everyone who watched the AHL knows that.

If Hakstol cared about mistake free hockey he would have picked the guys least likely to make them. He didn’t.

And Hextall puts the players on the roster, but it was Hakstol who picked Manning and Hagg over Sanheim and Morin. Hextall gave him a chance to pick correctly but having them on the team to start the year.

You somehow think Ghost was less likely to make an egregious, breakaway-the-other-way type gaffe than Manning or Hagg. Not sure there’s a way to prove it, but I definitely think you’re wrong. And I love Ghost. That said, he’s a lot like Konecny in that he can try to do too much with the puck, & if he screws up — odd man rush the other way. I’m certainly not saying Hagg & Manning don’t make mistakes, I think they are both 6/7 types with many warts, but they are less likely to make a high risk play at an inopportune time resulting in an instant odd man rush.

Ghost is less risky than either of them and it’s not even remotely close. Do I need to go over that stereotype thing again? Because it seems like we’re back to that.