Post-Game Talk: fish

[chosen]

Yes. I'll spell it out for you and I can have @EdJovanovski draw a diagram with crayons, if need be.

His analytics at even strength were never strong.
He used to excel in GF by finishing the limited opportunities he received/created
He excelled off the rush in past years

NOW, he is no longer finishing any opportunities. He was a finisher/sniper. Not just on the PP. Now, not so much. He passes up a lot of scoring chances, where past Mika would snipe a corner.

Do you understand? You should run for Senate in Pennsylvania

So, after 14 games, you have discerned that Zibanejad can't finish at even-strength even though 65% of his goals have NOT been power play goals, in his career. You're a master of anecdotal evidence.

I don't fancy crudités and I didn't kill over 300 dogs in experiments, so I had a shot at winning in Pennsylvania.

You can't really think that Gallant doesn't have a system.....

Oh, he might really believe that. Don't overestimate him.

 

[Gluten Free Breadman]

Flashbacks to the 92/93 season.
Had friends and coworkers who gave up their long time season tickets when it ended.

Care to share what happened that season to a relatively newer ranger fan? I started watching in 2006

 

[will1066]

yeah, but that happens when you don't have consistent numbers back. You can't stand up at the blue line if you don't have coverage or are facing speed coming through the neutral zone. We let teams in because they counter-attack us. And we're rushing just to get back.

Look, hockey has a lot of unexpected little plays that happen all over the ice, no matter how good or bad a team is. But whether a lot of those mistakes or little errors are impactful is all about team structure and awareness of details and situational awareness. We know the team isn't that dumb because we saw them making smarter plays for parts of the playoffs last year.

I think it's pretty clear what's happening. These immediately harmful mistakes they've been committing so far are eerily similar to how they lost the first 3 out of 4 to Pitt in the playoffs. Almost of our games this year have felt like the beginning of that series. Which says to me, the league took note of how Pittsburgh beat us. Teams know to turtle and protect the paint against us, let us have the possession all we want. Because they know, at some point, we'll be giving up 5-10 grade AAAAA+ opportunities. And if they bury 3 or more they win. That's the whole gameplan. And so, do we look good for long stretches of games? Yup? Do we look like the harlem globetrotters and is that lulling us all into this vision of a team that has a ton of skill that has just had bad luck? Yup. But it's a f***ing mirage.

Teams are playing us like EPL teams play against Man City. They wait, they protect the box and they counter at the right moments. And EVERY team does it. EVERY TEAM. It's the book on us. So without us countering with our own very tight structure, without having 4-5 men in the picture when defending, without us protecting our own paint and managing the puck almost to perfection, we are really making it hard to win games. Wayyyyy harder than it needs to be. It's crazy too. We have one of the best goalies in the game, and all we need to do is protect the paint, block point shots, clog the neutral zone and we likely win most of our games. But we don't. Cause we prefer dumb fun hockey.

Opponents getting through the neutral zone with speed and backing our defensemen is always the result of being too freewheeling in the offensive zone. Gallant has to placate these guys, and especially Panarin, because they're the leadership group of this team. But all of that creative play in the offensive negatively affects defensive positioning when the puck gets turned over. Add to this the aggressive pinching to try and keep plays alive when they're already breaking down and that's a bad recipe on the defensive end.

It's not just Panarin, although he is the main culprit. It's also on Fox and Miller. They're trying so much to low-high cycle that when they lose the puck, it instantly becomes not just an opportunity for the other team but it's a high-danger opportunity on transition because usually it's one defenseman and one forward back (if we're lucky to even have that forward back) rather two defensemen. Then Fox or Miller puts his head down and tries to join the play on the defensive end but it's helter skelter on which man they should go to in Gallant's hybrid man-on-man-zone scheme. Then, we're also terrible at corralling rebounds off the initial shot, then it becomes extended zone time for the other team, and our unit of 5 is still trying to figure their shit out while the other team, which has better structure, has an offensive play figured out already.

The freedom the coach gives them for creative offense -- aka pond hockey -- comes at a cost. And then, to top it off, all that creative play isn't even paying off with their hundred-year-drought shooting percentage.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

Care to share what happened that season to a relatively newer ranger fan? I started watching in 2006

The Rangers had a stacked team. 30 games into the season their head coach Roger Neilson was fired and replaced by an assistant coach.
They had almost the identical lineup that they had going into the trade deadline a year later when they won the cup (minus John Vanbiesbrouck). Yet they finished dead last in the Patrick Division missing the playoffs.
They were snakebite.
Mark Messier the team’s captain who had won 5 cups previously with Edmonton was rumored to be at odds with the coaching style of Nielson.
Roger Nielson seemed always more concerned about matching the style of his team’s opponents than playing to his team’s strength.
In all my years watching the Rangers I can’t recall a more disappointing time because the team had so many veteran and promising prospects. A lot of fans just had had enough. There was a famous sign that was held up at the Garden the next year that made it to the back pages of sole of the sport section’s. It read “54 years of Mediocrity, haven’t we’ve had enough “. Or something close to that.

 

[Machinehead]

Care to share what happened that season to a relatively newer ranger fan? I started watching in 2006

The Rangers were a really good, up and coming contender in 1991-92 who had a tough out in the playoffs to the eventual champions.

Expectations were sky-high that 92-93 was going to be the year and they completely shit the bed and missed the playoffs entirely (analytics weren't a thing back then but I'd bet anything this was puck luck!)

Then they played the 1993-94 season and I heard they did ok.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Ironically, I was thinking to myself during the game that it was the most north-south they've been in a long time, especially early in the game, with the new line combinations. The Trocheck line with Vesey and Laf was really good. Kreider looked alive with Chytil and Kravtsov. Guess what, though, the Zib-Panarin-Kakko was the worst, not counting the 4th line. I don't think Kakko will benefit from playing with those two. He had that one great play in the third where he was able to move in on Varlamov but lost the handle at the last moment.

The lines looked as good as anything we've seen since the Ducks game, I thought.

 

[will1066]

Care to share what happened that season to a relatively newer ranger fan? I started watching in 2006

Rangers traded Bernie Nicholls, an upper-level offensive player, for Mark Messier in 91-92. They won the President's Trophy but lost to the Pens in the playoffs.

The next year, they didn't make the playoffs. Messier vowed that would never happen again, as he never had missed a playoffs.

The year after, they won the Cup.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I have an accurate, real world view of what a leader is.

You're a leader or you're not. Reading a book doesn't make you a leader.

You mean a non-nuanced view? Being a leader is literally like everything, it can be learned and can be improved on by learning and by practice. Sure some people are more naturally assertive but thinking you can't learn anything about being a good leader is asinine. I guarantee you every CEO worth his salt spends time learning how to be a better leader. You're coming off as anti-intellectual. "Reading a book? Nerd!"

 

[will1066]

You mean a non-nuanced view? Being a leader is literally like everything, it can be learned and can be improved on by learning and by practice. Sure some people are more naturally assertive but thinking you can't learn anything about being a good leader is asinine. I guarantee you every CEO worth his salt spends time learning how to be a better leader. You're coming off as anti-intellectual. "Reading a book? Nerd!"

What's described as "maintenance days" for Trouba's absences at practice is really book-reading and TED-talk video-watching time set aside for him.

 

[Gordon Bombay]

The Rangers had a stacked team. 30 games into the season their head coach Roger Neilson was fired and replaced by an assistant coach.
They had almost the identical lineup that they had going into the trade deadline a year later when they won the cup (minus John Vanbiesbrouck). Yet they finished dead last in the Patrick Division missing the playoffs.
They were snakebite.
Mark Messier the team’s captain who had won 5 cups previously with Edmonton was rumored to be at odds with the coaching style of Nielson.
Roger Nielson seemed always more concerned about matching the style of his team’s opponents than playing to his team’s strength.
In all my years watching the Rangers I can’t recall a more disappointing time because the team had so many veteran and promising prospects. A lot of fans just had had enough. There was a famous sign that was held up at the Garden the next year that made it to the back pages of sole of the sport section’s. It read “54 years of Mediocrity, haven’t we’ve had enough “. Or something close to that.

I was only a kid at the time so it's pretty much all hearsay to me but wasn't there a lot of injuries that year? Wasn't that the infamous Leetch broken ankle year?

 

[will1066]

I was only a kid at the time so it's pretty much all hearsay to me but wasn't there a lot of injuries that year? Wasn't that the infamous Leetch broken ankle year?

Yes, he fell in Manhattan on some ice (ironic).

 

[will1066]

The Rangers had a stacked team. 30 games into the season their head coach Roger Neilson was fired and replaced by an assistant coach.
They had almost the identical lineup that they had going into the trade deadline a year later when they won the cup (minus John Vanbiesbrouck). Yet they finished dead last in the Patrick Division missing the playoffs.
They were snakebite.
Mark Messier the team’s captain who had won 5 cups previously with Edmonton was rumored to be at odds with the coaching style of Nielson.
Roger Nielson seemed always more concerned about matching the style of his team’s opponents than playing to his team’s strength.
In all my years watching the Rangers I can’t recall a more disappointing time because the team had so many veteran and promising prospects. A lot of fans just had had enough. There was a famous sign that was held up at the Garden the next year that made it to the back pages of sole of the sport section’s. It read “54 years of Mediocrity, haven’t we’ve had enough “. Or something close to that.

It's also worth noting that GM Neil Smith was hell bent on importing Oilers who had won with Mess in Edmonton, trading away a lot of the future for that Cup.

 

[mike14]

I have an accurate, real world view of what a leader is.

You're a leader or you're not. Reading a book doesn't make you a leader.

I've been to a lot of schools/training institutions whos basic tenent is that "leaders are made not born", but obviously it's not really something that can ever be proven either way...

I would say thought that ongoing learning and development, of which reading generally plays a large role, is important to leaders of all types (and to people in genral)

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Except we don’t have a Messier on this team

 

[duhmetreE]

You mean a non-nuanced view? Being a leader is literally like everything, it can be learned and can be improved on by learning and by practice. Sure some people are more naturally assertive but thinking you can't learn anything about being a good leader is asinine. I guarantee you every CEO worth his salt spends time learning how to be a better leader. You're coming off as anti-intellectual. "Reading a book? Nerd!"

I judge a tree by it's fruit. This team has had horrible leadership and consistency. He's been dogshit since being the 'leader... This team doesn't have a leader, unless you count Ryan Reaves

Yeah this is where we differ in thought. Leading a company and leading men are two different things. Sure, things may overlap but it's a different beast.

anti-intellectual? I can read all I want on how to be < insert random thing >, it is not going to make me great. We're degenerating into semantics... if you're reading Leadership books, good on you.

 

[duhmetreE]

So, after 14 games, you have discerned that Zibanejad can't finish at even-strength even though 65% of his goals have NOT been power play goals, in his career. You're a master of anecdotal evidence.

I don't fancy crudités and I didn't kill over 300 dogs in experiments, so I had a shot at winning in Pennsylvania.

You can't be this dense.

 

[Gluten Free Breadman]

PIT and STL fired their coaches mid season and won Cups. The team is awful right now with no signs of improvement. No cap space to make the additions they did last year. What's the solution? Can't fire 20 players. And sitting around waiting for different results while doing the same thing isn't helping either.

Teams replace their coaches. Rangers are a 2 billion dollar organization. 11 million wouldn't hold them back.

11milion is .55% of 2billion. You can only afford to do that about 181 more times.

 

[Clark Kellogg]

I was only a kid at the time so it's pretty much all hearsay to me but wasn't there a lot of injuries that year? Wasn't that the infamous Leetch broken ankle year?

Yes, there was the Leetch ankle injury and I remember James Patrick missed a part of the season but other than that the team was healthy. The year before they finished with 105 points (before the days of loser points) and that year 79 points.

 

[will1066]

Yes, there was the Leetch ankle injury and I remember James Patrick missed a part of the season but other than that the team was healthy. The year before they finished with 105 points (before the days of loser points) and that year 79 points.

Just to clarify for the millennials here, we had tie games worth 1 point back then. They played to the 3rd period buzzer and that was it.

 

[zlev]

92-93 was ruined mostly because Leetch got hurt. imagine if Adam Fox misses the 2nd half of this season.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I judge a tree by it's fruit. This team has had horrible leadership and consistency. He's been dogshit since being the 'leader... This team doesn't have a leader, unless you count Ryan Reaves

Yeah this is where we differ in thought. Leading a company and leading men are two different things. Sure, things may overlap but it's a different beast.

anti-intellectual? I can read all I want on how to be < insert random thing >, it is not going to make me great. We're degenerating into semantics... if you're reading Leadership books, good on you.

I never said that he's been successful, but it's not because he's reading leadership books. And you actually think that leading a 20 hockey players is somehow harder or requires some special leadership that leading multinational organizations? Also a lot of men work at these corporations as well.

 

[Peltz]

Zibanejad having zero even strength goals on a 62% possession line is a comedy of insanity.

It's one of those random sports things that people way overreact to that they shouldn't react to at all.

He hit a post last night on a one-timer from Panarin at ES. Could've easily been the difference. It happens.

 

[Peltz]

Team isn't gonna miss the playoffs unless Shesty has a season ending injury.

We're not looking like a contender right now, but the team is still too good at the top of the lineup to miss out.

The division is better than ever. I think you vastly overestimate our chances here.

I give us a 40-50% chance at best of making the playoffs, even when healthy. Look at the standings: Flyers, Bruins, Islanders, and Devils are all much better teams than last year.

Unless Shesterkin finds his Vezina-level game and goes on a stingy bender like he's capable of doing we're not a lock. This season's Shesty isn't a factor so far.

This is a tight division, and Rangers aren't playing tight hockey at all. They give up way WAY too many goals to be a playoff team in this environment.

All the scoring talent in the world doesn't matter when you give up so many backbreaking goals.

 

[Cmox]

Since ive been a ray of positivity.

Did anyone see this guy winning the car? It looks like it went through the board. He got close to the slot but hit the corner and went through it...

 

[Peltz]

Just to clarify for the millennials here, we had ties worth 1 point back then. They played to the 3rd period buzzer and that was it.

They didn't have 4v4 overtime yet? When did regular season OT start?