Laval Rocket: Game TWO Charlotte at Laval 7PM EST

[Hannibal]

The loss of Whotherspoon and Trudeau hurts them bad

 

[Benstheman]

Man does people panic in here.

 

[Archijerej]

The ability to avoid forecheck pressure is a good determinate of any defenceman’s potential. Laval’s defence is struggling to cope with AHL level pressure. Just imagine how they will fare against the speed of NHL players.

I have often said the supposed depth of our defensive prospects is illusory. That’s why at the upcoming draft Hughes should be focusing on taking highly mobile defencemen like Hensler and that the talk of trading away of our most mobile defenceman, Matheson, is such nonsense.

It’s hard to watch when your team is caught slow on defence.

That's not really my impression after two games.

Yes, Charlotte is forechecking well, but Laval has been able to exit the zone regularly and spend a fair amount of time in the offensive zone.

The two things I've noticed:

We're giving up rush chances at a rate that's unbecoming of a top 4 team. It reaches comical levels on our powerplay. Charlotte is finishing on those with clinical efficiency. There were several back breaking moments like this after strong sequences from Laval. It's hard to keep battling when every momentum is killed by those moments.

Offensively, they force us to dump the puck a lot and play off the cycle. Charlotte is air tight defensively and our forward group is not really built for this type of play, so we are not converting our zone time into chances. Barre-Boulet, Gignac, Farrell are struggling in this environment and Dauphin is usually good in those situations, but he seems to be banded up. On the other hand, Roy has been surprisingly effective and Condotta's line has been good.

 

[LaP]

Let’s keep in mind that the year Hamilton won the Calder Cup, not a lot of the prospects we had there had great impact in the big show, aside from Price and Lapierre. Andrei K played three games and sucked. That team was led by Price and AHLers.

In Laval right now, Reinbacher is the only surefire prospect we have. Beck, Mailloux, Arber Jr will need to prove that they can adapt to the speed of the big show. Fowler is still unproven.

Never forget that the AHL is just a a stepping stone. And most of our suspects won’t make it farther.

Winning the calder cup or not doesn't matter. Most elite players in the NHL never won the calder cup. The AHL is a development league. Yes you want to make the playoffs and win some games but winning the cup realistically does not matter at all. The cup is often won by a group of AHLers. The bears won it in 2022-23 by having young NHL palyers playing in the AHL surrounded by a bunch of AHLers. Protas and McMichaeal at this point had both close to 100 games played in the NHL.

 

[LaP]

Man does people panic in here.

Whatch out if we lose the first game next season the board will explode

 

[EveryDay]

Thank you to the assholes for doing this..bande d'imbéciles.

 

[DAChampion]

BTW...I looked up the stats of the Checkers goalie. We should of sent Dobes down to make it more fair.

The guy has 8 seasons as an NHL goalie of which 4 were backup and one season as a 1B goalie for the Sharks. Not exactly "development league" material.

Not using it as an excuse, but sheesh, that's a lot more then I thought they would be facing. I wrongly thought the AHL was half full of prospects.

www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=162341

The Rochester Americans played Jiri Kulich against the Habs', the equivalent would be if the Habs had sent Demidov and Hutson to join the Rocket.

As for the checkers goalie, what I take from his NHL stats is that he's beatable.

 

[Habnot]

The teams that ultimately win in AHL are veteran, heavy team with not a lot of young prospects playing significant roles. This is the difference in this series and it was apparent in the 1st period yesterday.

You can't have it both ways.

Also, Laval's vet's might be ok for regular season but not heavy enough for playoffs. Only Condotta is standing out. ABB, HP, Gignac, Dauphin - all top line players - cannot compete against the heavy Checkers forwards.

 

[Adriatic]

So funny reading people flip out over ahl lol. Men against boys in this series. Charlotte are a good veteran squad and Rocket can't match their physicality. Anyway all that matters is Reinbacher is solid. Don't understand how some have Mailloux ahead of him. Reinbacher just plays a better all around game, not even close. Hopefully we see Fowler in the next one!

 

[zzoo]

The curse of President's team seems translated to AHL too.
Oh boy, we really suck !!!

 

[dauv]

Thank you to the assholes for doing this..bande d'imbéciles.

Social Media really needs to find a fix to this glaring problem. Maybe the answer would be the out all these keyboard warriors personally. These types of individuals are very brave behind a keyboard but are more than likely p***y*s in real life.

How is it okay for someone to blast/insult anyone on social media. Act as if you are face to face with the person for gods sake.

 

[Paradoxe]

Thank you to the assholes for doing this..bande d'imbéciles.

Well we need to thank them X is bullshit anyway. Just ask him to come here.

 

[Paradoxe]

Social Media really needs to find a fix to this glaring problem. Maybe the answer would be the out all these keyboard warriors personally. These types of individuals are very brave behind a keyboard but are more than likely p***y*s in real life.

How is it okay for someone to blast/insult anyone on social media. Act as if you are face to face with the person for gods sake.

I got a fix : CLOSE THEM ALL. We forumers have found the peace! Social media is a plague.

 

[HabsAddict]

.

Also, Laval's vet's might be ok for regular season but not heavy enough for playoffs. Only Condotta is standing out. ABB, HP, Gignac, Dauphin - all top line players - cannot compete against the heavy Checkers forwards.

I agree with this post.

I didn't know how teams are built in the AHL. I thought it was a development league but it turns out that there are teams built mostly by veterans. See Checkers.

That threw a wrench into Laval because we are loaded with prospects and some of our vets are on the small side. Our season long hyena checking and swarming the net is ineffective and almost gone.

One of my criticism of Vincent was that early on hyena offense was dominating and we didnt have an equivilant hyena defense. Only in the later quarter of the season did i see forwards come back hard to support their defenseman.

I got a bit of tunnel vision when i kept blaming Mailloux for a parade of 2 on 1. It wasn't until i saw several 2 on 1 in a period against all the defenseman that it became clear there wasn't much support by the forwards. They were so deep in the offensive zone that it constantly left ALL defenseman exposed.

The downside now is that our pack mentality on offense is neutered and we don't have a heavy pack defense to offset a bigger, tougher team. This is one of the two criticism of Vincent and this will sink us.

It is what it is. My thinking that we have 4-5 people ready to push their way into the NHL is on life support. Unless we have a dramatic turn around, which may happen but unlikely, HuGo needs to add an NHL caliber RHD as well as finding a top 2C. And worse, the value that we appeared to have in prospects just got a kick downwards.

Let's hope the boys turn it around and prove the hope we have in them...

 

[HabsAddict]

Social Media really needs to find a fix to this glaring problem. Maybe the answer would be the out all these keyboard warriors personally. These types of individuals are very brave behind a keyboard but are more than likely p***y*s in real life.

How is it okay for someone to blast/insult anyone on social media. Act as if you are face to face with the person for gods sake.

X allows 200,000 blocks so it's not that hard to block idiots. Even here i put a few dozen on ignore.

I don't blame the platform as long as it gives me the option to block people i rather not interact with. X and this platform does. The other place i frequent is heavily modded and I'm one of those mods.

Sadly...the net gives everyone a platform, even those who appear to have escaped from an asylum...

 

[Soaker]

two ugly loses in a row, they are in the mix to get swept.

 

[Soaker]

In a game where scoring more than the opposition is a neccessity for victory +/- will always have meaning not the demeaning it tends to get around here. It is actually magnified in the post season where one line getting owned can wreck a season.

plus minus has it's worth when used properly to those that get it.

 

[Soaker]

Shots were 31-19 in favour of laval

scoring more goals wins games not more shots.

 

[DAChampion]

I get the impression that many are interpreting the Rockets' recent struggles as an indictment of the Habs' farm system. I'd like to point out:

1) They're in the conference final, down 2-0 to a team with a 1200 (!!!) PDO. But if anyone had predicted a conference final finish for Laval this year, others would have said "that'd be amazing !"
2) Of course the Habs' farm system is depleted -- Demidov and Hutson just graduated.

The Habs ' farm team is an actual farm team and made the conference in spite of three of the prospects this forum ranked top four last summer (Hage is the other, I think he was 4th) not being on the farm team's roster.