Waived: [DET] F Christian Fischer waived by the Red Wings

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He was solid last year but a total ghost this season.
There's only room for one ghost in Detroit :sarcasm:

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Wasn't exactly sad to see him leave Arizona. 33 points in his rookie campaign for us was nice, but he struggled with consistency for the Coyotes. Didn't like that Rick Tocchet seemed like he was trying to reshape him into a grinder, but in hindsight maybe that was doing him a favor.
 
Wasn't exactly sad to see him leave Arizona. 33 points in his rookie campaign for us was nice, but he struggled with consistency for the Coyotes. Didn't like that Rick Tocchet seemed like he was trying to reshape him into a grinder, but in hindsight maybe that was doing him a favor.
You can damage a guy doing that though. I certainly thought that was an issue with Babcock towards the end of his year in Detroit. He would take all the offense out of a guy while making him sound defensively. Brendan Smith and Tomas Jurco were both players that seemed to have strong early returns that he wound up thumping a lot of the upside out of. Jurco had the back injury, but Smith has continued in the league for years. My guess is people would say that rounded him into a player that could stick around, but he also completely neutered the offensive side of his game and damaged the player in my opinion.

Not as familiar with the Arizona end. Fischer has talent and he competes hard, but he always seems to be in too much of a hurry to make the quick correct read. He never wants to hold onto the puck and when he cannot outside of safe dumps he makes a decent amount of hope plays towards the center of the ice. I really do wish him well, I hope he can find the right role because the dressing room raves about him and how gregarious he can be which can be important to a rebuilding team. I sort of wonder what he would be as a fourth liner on a really good hockey team where I think you get more use out of his role.
 
You can damage a guy doing that though. I certainly thought that was an issue with Babcock towards the end of his year in Detroit. He would take all the offense out of a guy while making him sound defensively. Brendan Smith and Tomas Jurco were both players that seemed to have strong early returns that he wound up thumping a lot of the upside out of. Jurco had the back injury, but Smith has continued in the league for years. My guess is people would say that rounded him into a player that could stick around, but he also completely neutered the offensive side of his game and damaged the player in my opinion.

Not as familiar with the Arizona end. Fischer has talent and he competes hard, but he always seems to be in too much of a hurry to make the quick correct read. He never wants to hold onto the puck and when he cannot outside of safe dumps he makes a decent amount of hope plays towards the center of the ice. I really do wish him well, I hope he can find the right role because the dressing room raves about him and how gregarious he can be which can be important to a rebuilding team. I sort of wonder what he would be as a fourth liner on a really good hockey team where I think you get more use out of his role.

I will definitely agree that he has talent and works hard, the latter of which did noticeably improve while playing for Rick Tocchet on the Coyotes. Tocchet has a particular coaching style though, which seems to suck all the offensive talent out of guys who have any, especially young ones who need to develop. Dave Tippett did the same thing and famously quipped, "the NHL is not a developmental league." Stupid thing to say considering only the best of the best ever jump up to the NHL and immediately become impact players or a completely finished product. With Tippett at least it worked for a few years, though he had to rely on extremely good goaltending by Mike Smith to make it work, but I'm digressing. Back to Fischer, by the time Tourigny came to Arizona, Fischer clearly had some habits that Tocchet presumably had coached into him. I won't try to say whether Tourigny did a lot to coach it out of him, but if he tried, it must have at least worked to a small extent as he ended up with 27 points in his final season in Arizona. However, also to your point about how he tended to handle the puck when it wound up on his stick, it's as if he was treating it like a hand grenade with a 1-second fuse and had to get rid of it as quickly as possible. He almost never seemed to take even a brief moment to try and stickhandle it at least a little bit and maybe try to create some space for himself with that frame of his to make a play (he's not the biggest of guys, but he's not exactly a small guy either). By the time his 22-23 contract expired, he must not have fit the direction Armstrong and Tourigny wanted to take the team, either that or he wanted more money than we were willing to offer him. At that point I figured his ceiling was a 3rd line winger who was responsible defensively and could chip in some secondary scoring here and there. You can find a player of that type rather easily in this league, hence me not exactly being sad to see him go.

I'm glad you posted what you did in response to me though, since it enabled me to recall a lot more than I was considering at the time I made my original post about him. Took me on a nice little trip down memory lane about the guy. :)
 
Wasn't exactly sad to see him leave Arizona. 33 points in his rookie campaign for us was nice, but he struggled with consistency for the Coyotes. Didn't like that Rick Tocchet seemed like he was trying to reshape him into a grinder, but in hindsight maybe that was doing him a favor.

I wonder if Tocchet would be interested in a reunion?
 
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I wonder if Tocchet would be interested in a reunion?

He might be. Depends on what kind of relationship he had with Fischer when he was his head coach. I know that head coaches do have a voice in how their team is constructed, but it's probably a good thing that Tocchet isn't the one making the final decision in Vancouver, otherwise the Canucks team would consist of 12 grinders, 6 shutdown defensemen, and a goalie playing out of his mind most nights. Okay, maybe that's a bit hyperbolic, but you get the idea.
 
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Hes also the type of guy that when youre battling for a playoff spot and having trouble buying a goal... he should be getting greasy, digging at goalies, or trying to spark the more offensive lines with a hit or a fight. He did it last year and he was great, this year that spark was gone for whatever reason
 

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