GDT: Game 9: Sharks @ Vegas 7pm NBCSCA

[jarr92]

You specifically stated you were laughing at the advanced stats posts (one of which was me). In addition, we have two OT losses through 9 games versus one OT loss through 11 games last year. In addition we have I think 3 EN goals against this year which makes the goal differential *slightly* less offensive.

Facts are facts on the points. It's not a big difference but it is a difference. The team is slightly better than last year. It's still a terrible team. This is unsurprising, or should be.

You haven't accounted for strength of schedule.

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

The identity of this team is clear, a scorched earth with help peeking over the horizon

If you expected the team left over after the Doug Wilson cap catastrophe to have an identity remotely resembling a competitive NHL team within a calender year of the last bad deal being shed then you either have unrealistic expectations of how quickly these kind of turnaround can happen, you massively underestimate just what a sinkhole the Wilson regime left this organization sitting in, or both

Hertl was traded 233 days ago, we weren't going to be hanging tough against even average NHL teams after all of a single draft and free agency to shore up the worst team the league has seen in 30 years, your sights were always too high for this roster and that's more on you than on Mike Grier

My sights are to high for this team? lol you mean showing up and working hard every night and playing with some structure? I don’t think I’m asking a whole lot of the franchise

Outside of Vlasic, are there any players on this team a DW signing?

Was Ferraro Joe Will?

 

[weastern bias]

My sights are to high for this team? lol you mean showing up and working hard every night and playing with some structure? I don’t think I’m asking a whole lot of the franchise

Literally yes

I will reiterate:

THIS IS NOT AN NHL CALIBER ROSTER

To expect them to perform like an NHL team is unrealistic

 

[TheBeard]

Literally yes

I will reiterate:

THIS IS NOT AN NHL CALIBER ROSTER

To expect them to perform like an NHL team is unrealistic

In your opinion, which players currently in the lineup would not make another team’s roster?

 

[weastern bias]

In your opinion, which players currently in the lineup would not make another team’s roster?

It's like you haven't paid any attention to what I've said

We have NHL caliber players, that does not mean we have an NHL caliber roster because we have no first liners/top pair D on the roster which pushes everyone up to levels they can not handle

We DO have plenty of players who would not see ice on a competent team (Smith, Thrun, Benning, Rutta) but that's not what makes us a phony NHL team, it's the fact that we have a 2nd pair PP specialist in Walman as our #1D and cap dump middle-6 part-time center in Granlund playing 1C and a 5th liner in Kunin in our middle-6, everyone on the roster is at least one line too high and it only gets worse the deeper you go into the roster

 

[OrrNumber4]

In your opinion, which players currently in the lineup would not make another team’s roster?

An NHL team is more than one that has NHLers at every position.

The Sharks have numerous players playing above their heads.

 

[hohosaregood]

In your opinion, which players currently in the lineup would not make another team’s roster?

5 out of 6 of our dmen would be the complementary member of a bottom pairing at this point of their careers. Doesn't mean they're not NHL caliber defenseman, they're just way in over their heads.

Our forwards are better but the balance of roles isn't very good. Like if we go with the F1, F2, F3 concepts, we have a lot of guys who can only play an F1 role or only play an F3 role. We don't have a lot of guys who can fill in like an F2+F1 role so we don't have a lot of line flexibility right now which is exacerbated by not having Celebrini.

 

[hotcabbagesoup]

I think the most painful part.........is that the Barracuda have five days between games. They last played on Friday and I won't get to watch anything until they play again on Wednesday.

Watching Cagnoni have an uncanny ability to get pucks through to the next
Coe hitting and skating
Caldwell in on the forecheck
Poturalski at the front of the net
Bystedt providing smiles

 

[Anomie2029]

So Warsofsky saw yesterday's game and thought - The only change needed is Benning in for Thompson.

I was giving Warsofsky a chance, but this is just as bad as keeping Quinn.

 

[YUPPY 2 7 10 11]

I think the most painful part.........is that the Barracuda have five days between games. They last played on Friday and I won't get to watch anything until they play again on Wednesday.

Watching Cagnoni have an uncanny ability to get pucks through to the next
Coe hitting and skating
Caldwell in on the forecheck
Poturalski at the front of the net
Bystedt providing smiles

Keep in mind they are competing with less competition and more time to move around in the AHL. Once they are in the NHL, they'll be like W. Smith wondering why the stuffs I do in the college doesn't work here.

 

[YUPPY 2 7 10 11]

So Warsofsky saw yesterday's game and thought - The only change needed is Benning in for Thompson.

I was giving Warsofsky a chance, but this is just as bad as keeping Quinn.

I'm giving Wars until the 12th game to win his first game as the Sharks coach. Sharks don't want to be in the history book as the only NHL with no win for 82 games.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Half our blue line were acquired as cap dumps. All of them have been pretty much in our top four. As good as Walman had been for a cap dump, he’s never been a top pair quality.

Our forwards are only ever capable of sustaining pressure when the other team is already up by three goals. We have five legitimate NHL forwards in Granlund, Toffoli, Eklund, Zetterlund, and Wennberg. And Wennberg isn’t even doing anything on his own. We have some guys who can kill penalties but would otherwise not be NHL’ers because they suck five on five that badly.

This team won’t look respectable until Celebrini is back and he will only do so much.

 

[Sharkz4Fun]

In your opinion, which players currently in the lineup would not make another team’s roster?

Kunin, Grundstrom, Sturm for sure, and then guys like Kostin/Smith if you count them.

The real problem is D though. They don't have a good enough offense to make up for the fact that essentially all 7 of the defensemen on the roster, maybe other than Ferraro only for a little bit, would quickly become 6-7's on almost every other team. They need to add at least 2 other legit Top 4 D (not Mukh) before they even start becoming competitive. The forwards in place already other than a few of the bottom 6 aren't an issue.

 

[Star Platinum]

Literally yes

I will reiterate:

THIS IS NOT AN NHL CALIBER ROSTER

To expect them to perform like an NHL team is unrealistic

Let's relegate the team to the ECHL until morale improves.

 

[weastern bias]

Let's relegate the team to the ECHL until morale improves.

The beatings will continue until morale improves

 

[Pinkfloyd]

The beatings will continue until morale improves

This should be expected with what our blue line is. Until we get some real answers there, we will spin our wheels for a while.

 

[TheBigDrunkPanda]

It's like you haven't paid any attention to what I've said

We have NHL caliber players, that does not mean we have an NHL caliber roster because we have no first liners/top pair D on the roster which pushes everyone up to levels they can not handle

We DO have plenty of players who would not see ice on a competent team (Smith, Thrun, Benning, Rutta) but that's not what makes us a phony NHL team, it's the fact that we have a 2nd pair PP specialist in Walman as our #1D and cap dump middle-6 part-time center in Granlund playing 1C and a 5th liner in Kunin in our middle-6, everyone on the roster is at least one line too high and it only gets worse the deeper you go into the roster

Ok this just goes back to my point, who built this current non nhl roster team?

 

[coooldude]

Ok this just goes back to my point, who built this current non nhl roster team?

Grier tore it all down, last year and this year is the bottom. It's a clear plan. Why would you expect better results this year? Scorched earth rebuilds don't happen overnight, in fact they generally take the better part of a decade. We just started ours in 2022.

 

[weastern bias]

Ok this just goes back to my point, who built this current non nhl roster team?

Literally Doug Wilson, as much as you refuse to accept it because he has been off the job for a whopping 2 years (a very short amount of time in a team building cycle)

He created the environment where we had such a lack of assets and talent that a team like this was inevitable, Mike Grier has maximized our futures in the fallout but make no mistake the present was ALWAYS going to look like this in the mid 2020s as a result of Wilson's decisions, we literally had no avenues to avoid this

 

[Zarzh]

It's like you haven't paid any attention to what I've said

We have NHL caliber players, that does not mean we have an NHL caliber roster because we have no first liners/top pair D on the roster which pushes everyone up to levels they can not handle

We DO have plenty of players who would not see ice on a competent team (Smith, Thrun, Benning, Rutta) but that's not what makes us a phony NHL team, it's the fact that we have a 2nd pair PP specialist in Walman as our #1D and cap dump middle-6 part-time center in Granlund playing 1C and a 5th liner in Kunin in our middle-6, everyone on the roster is at least one line too high and it only gets worse the deeper you go into the roster

A better coach would spread out the lines to try to do something and the individual players aren't as bad as Warso is making them look, Granlund is a capable 2nd liner and Wennberg a capable 3rd liner for instance, and it will be concerning if this continues by game 25.

There's no reason for Eklund and Granlund to be playing 22+ minutes a night. There's no reasons not to try to support rookies and role players.

 

[coooldude]

A better coach would spread out the lines to try to do something and the individual players aren't as bad as Warso is making them look, Granlund is a capable 2nd liner and Wennberg a capable 3rd liner for instance, and it will be concerning if this continues by game 25.

There's no reason for Eklund and Granlund to be playing 22+ minutes a night. There's no reasons not to try to support rookies and role players.

I don't understand this logic at all. Granlund has 10 points in 9 games and is clearly our best player at the moment, and Eklund has 6 in 8 (pacing for 60 points) and is one of the only guys who can control the puck in the OZ and create chances... and you are talking about a coach trying to win... and you want him to play them less? And somehow Warso is making them look worse than they actually would look if you split them up and played them less?

Let's say we put Granlund with Smith to support him and put anyone else (Toffoli) on the right wing, Okay. But you want to take Granlund off the PK, where he's one of our best, just so he doesn't get to 22 minutes a night, I guess? And if that's our new 1st line, then our second line becomes Eklund-Wennberg-Zetterlund? Or do you want Gushchin there on LW, meaning Eklund is now on the third line? Anyway the waterfall continues, now we have Gushchin-Sturm-Goodrow ("Gushchin isn't being given his chance on a scoring line!!!!") or Eklund-Sturm-Goodrow on the third line (you think Eklund will play better in this situation???) ... So Dellandrea plays 4th line C and PK and we get G. Smith and Grundstrom to round the lineup out. Sounds pretty bad to me. Sounds like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The simple problem we have is that we don't have center depth with Celebrini out. It forces Granlund to 1C rather than supporting Smith or other youngsters like you're proposing. The solution to the problem is Celebrini comes back or Smith gets a lot better real fast. The solution is not a line blender and the problem is not Warsofsky (we haven't even talked about the defense here in this exchange). I promise you everyone would be screaming bloody murder if we had hired Sturm or anyone else, and were still sitting at 0-7-2 or thereabouts.

The coach is not the problem. Name an amazing coach - they would not have us at 3 wins right now. Probably not 1 win. The roster is the problem. The roster will only get better as our prospects develop over the next few years and we slowly add supporting players like Walman, Toffoli, etc who can at least play a middle-of-lineup role. I just can't understand at all what anyone mad at Warso would do differently that would materially change the outcome of this season for this team.

 

[weastern bias]

/\ everything @coooldude said, and also that we have 3 NHL caliber D men on the roster, only one of whom belongs in the top-4 of a well constructed defense

This team is bad everyone, sorry to break it to you

 

[Zarzh]

I don't understand this logic at all. Granlund has 10 points in 9 games and is clearly our best player at the moment, and Eklund has 6 in 8 (pacing for 60 points) and is one of the only guys who can control the puck in the OZ and create chances... and you are talking about a coach trying to win... and you want him to play them less? And somehow Warso is making them look worse than they actually would look if you split them up and played them less?

Let's say we put Granlund with Smith to support him and put anyone else (Toffoli) on the right wing, Okay. But you want to take Granlund off the PK, where he's one of our best, just so he doesn't get to 22 minutes a night, I guess? And if that's our new 1st line, then our second line becomes Eklund-Wennberg-Zetterlund? Or do you want Gushchin there on LW, meaning Eklund is now on the third line? Anyway the waterfall continues, now we have Gushchin-Sturm-Goodrow ("Gushchin isn't being given his chance on a scoring line!!!!") or Eklund-Sturm-Goodrow on the third line (you think Eklund will play better in this situation???) ... So Dellandrea plays 4th line C and PK and we get G. Smith and Grundstrom to round the lineup out. Sounds pretty bad to me. Sounds like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The simple problem we have is that we don't have center depth with Celebrini out. It forces Granlund to 1C rather than supporting Smith or other youngsters like you're proposing. The solution to the problem is Celebrini comes back or Smith gets a lot better real fast. The solution is not a line blender and the problem is not Warsofsky (we haven't even talked about the defense here in this exchange). I promise you everyone would be screaming bloody murder if we had hired Sturm or anyone else, and were still sitting at 0-7-2 or thereabouts.

The coach is not the problem. Name an amazing coach - they would not have us at 3 wins right now. Probably not 1 win. The roster is the problem. The roster will only get better as our prospects develop over the next few years and we slowly add supporting players like Walman, Toffoli, etc who can at least play a middle-of-lineup role. I just can't understand at all what anyone mad at Warso would do differently that would materially change the outcome of this season for this team.

Simple lines are Gushchin-Granlund-Zetterlund, Eklund-Wennberg-X, Goodrow-Smith-Toffoli, Grundstrom-Sturm-X. Xs can be filled with Dellandrea, Kunin, or Kostin based on results. That has the potential to get some wins, get the rookies some experience, and create a more balanced attack at the cost of potentially ugly losses.

The problem I have with Warso's lines is there's no potential now or in the future because it is the worst of both worlds. Smith has to play hard minutes because he can be focused in on.

 

[weastern bias]

Simple lines are Gushchin-Granlund-Zetterlund, Eklund-Wennberg-X, Goodrow-Smith-Toffoli, Grundstrom-Sturm-X. Xs can be filled with Dellandrea, Kunin, or Kostin based on results.

That team would still be incredibly bad

 

[Zarzh]

That team would still be incredibly bad

It would be a massive improvement over Warso's lines.