Grabner's Ice Time? | Page 3 | HFBoards - NHL Message Board and Forum for National Hockey League

Grabner's Ice Time?

  • Thread starter Thread starter SI
  • Start date Start date
On Staple's twitter he posted a few thoughts this morning post-game and one thing had to do with Grabs and Cappy:


Could be a reason (in Caps warped brain) to reduce his ice time.

https://twitter.com/StapeNewsday/status/311132882724864000

Saw this. After protecting players the entire year and just giving vague "passengers" statements instead of pointing to anyone in particular, it seems bush league to single out Grabner, of all people, now. Especially on that particular play...a breakdown involving several players and a goal that came on a weak shot from along the boards at the goal line. Seems like there might be issues between the player and coach that have little to do with how Grabner plays on the ice?
 
Last edited:
Listen, Grabner is a goal scorer, Only Tavares and Moulson have scored more goals than him on the Isles the last 3 years. Only a moron gives him 9 minutes a game. Grabner gets a breakaway a game, causes other teams to take penalties, is an excellent penalty killer, what more can you ask from a guy ? So he made a mistake against Pittsburgh, so what ? So did 99% of the team. Capuano is a moron.

Tavares 76 goals
Moulson 78 goals
Grabner 64 goals

That's the totals the last three year, up to now. Yet Grabner gets half the ice time of those two, AND his friggen center is Marty-1 goal a season-Reasoner. Anyone who watches hockey, knows how talented Grabner is, and that he needs to be playing top 6 minutes. Hopefully our next coach realizes that.
 
Pretty disgusting that capuano threw grabner under the bus for that goal. On many levels, for starters grabner wasn't even the main culprit on the play. Also as someone else already mentioned he has been vague when taking his team to task in the media.... he chooses that play and that player to start ripping in the media. This guy is in over his head even further than i thought. He has reached embarrassing status now.
 
pretty disgusting capuano, shame on you!

the play in question has grabs taking the puck off kunitz, only to lose it back to him a split second later. this was all at the blue line. big ****ing deal that we didnt clear the zone. happens like a million times a game. cappy picking on grabs here cause a goal happened afterwards is stupid and clueless.
 
I really think there is something going on between Capuano and Grabs. Until now I thought it was just Crappy's randomness and fear of separating "proven" line combinations that produced his shortened ice time, but now, I'm not sure anymore. At the very best it's just Crappy's way of making an excuse for giving him only 10 minutes again.

To be not only negative, here some funny stuff that I found tweeted by someone and answered by Grabs (hope it is ok here to post it here): https://twitter.com/Ardie6410/status/310521135441780736/photo/1
So if there is no chemistry with Cappy, at least there is some with JT *g*
 
Listen, Grabner is a goal scorer, Only Tavares and Moulson have scored more goals than him on the Isles the last 3 years. Only a moron gives him 9 minutes a game. Grabner gets a breakaway a game, causes other teams to take penalties, is an excellent penalty killer, what more can you ask from a guy ? So he made a mistake against Pittsburgh, so what ? So did 99% of the team. Capuano is a moron.

Tavares 76 goals
Moulson 78 goals
Grabner 64 goals

That's the totals the last three year, up to now. Yet Grabner gets half the ice time of those two, AND his friggen center is Marty-1 goal a season-Reasoner. Anyone who watches hockey, knows how talented Grabner is, and that he needs to be playing top 6 minutes. Hopefully our next coach realizes that.
Just a little question......what does giving too many minutes to a breakaway artist accomplish? What if he benefits from limited time rather than ample?

I think he could do well with more time, but.....I hate the idea of him being with JT and Mush Moulson using his speed. I'd rather someone creative like Nielson who can play D be with him as well as someone who can come up the rear to get rebounds who is also defensively sound. Bailey? Possibly. I'd wish we had someone like Parrish following him in, though. {not that this team would have a player stand near the goalie by any means}
 
Ask yourselves this, and be serious in your analysis...

Do you truly, truly, truly feel Grabner scores more goals and this team has better results if he is getting, say, 16 minutes a night as opposed to 9 or 10???

I mean, we are talking about an incredibly incomplete player and one whose weapons are only put on display a good 15-20% of the time he is playing...

As an aside:
Have noticed something lately that is driving me nuts. Grabner is given the puck and leads the rush, then slows down as he's entering the zone to wait for his teammates to catch up and, while floating, ends up throwing an errand or hardly obtainable pass to one of those charging teammates. While slowing down, this also allows for opponents to get back while the guy dealing with him also manages to find his bearings better.

I find this to be very disappointing.

If I'm the coaching staff, I'm telling him to challenge that defender to the outside every single time. NO exceptions.
 
Listen, Grabner is a goal scorer, Only Tavares and Moulson have scored more goals than him on the Isles the last 3 years. Only a moron gives him 9 minutes a game. Grabner gets a breakaway a game, causes other teams to take penalties, is an excellent penalty killer, what more can you ask from a guy ? So he made a mistake against Pittsburgh, so what ? So did 99% of the team. Capuano is a moron.

Tavares 76 goals
Moulson 78 goals
Grabner 64 goals

That's the totals the last three year, up to now. Yet Grabner gets half the ice time of those two, AND his friggen center is Marty-1 goal a season-Reasoner. Anyone who watches hockey, knows how talented Grabner is, and that he needs to be playing top 6 minutes. Hopefully our next coach realizes that.

Totally agree with everything you said
 
Ask yourselves this, and be serious in your analysis...

Do you truly, truly, truly feel Grabner scores more goals and this team has better results if he is getting, say, 16 minutes a night as opposed to 9 or 10???

I mean, we are talking about an incredibly incomplete player and one whose weapons are only put on display a good 15-20% of the time he is playing...

As an aside:
Have noticed something lately that is driving me nuts. Grabner is given the puck and leads the rush, then slows down as he's entering the zone to wait for his teammates to catch up and, while floating, ends up throwing an errand or hardly obtainable pass to one of those charging teammates. While slowing down, this also allows for opponents to get back while the guy dealing with him also manages to find his bearings better.

I find this to be very disappointing.

If I'm the coaching staff, I'm telling him to challenge that defender to the outside every single time. NO exceptions.

1) of course he would have more chances with more ice time. 15 mins should be the target for him.
and 2) tell me time, period and game of an example of this slowing down when entering the zone. i seriously dont know what you mean.
 
Ask yourselves this, and be serious in your analysis...

Do you truly, truly, truly feel Grabner scores more goals and this team has better results if he is getting, say, 16 minutes a night as opposed to 9 or 10???

I mean, we are talking about an incredibly incomplete player and one whose weapons are only put on display a good 15-20% of the time he is playing...

As an aside:
Have noticed something lately that is driving me nuts. Grabner is given the puck and leads the rush, then slows down as he's entering the zone to wait for his teammates to catch up and, while floating, ends up throwing an errand or hardly obtainable pass to one of those charging teammates. While slowing down, this also allows for opponents to get back while the guy dealing with him also manages to find his bearings better.

I find this to be very disappointing.

If I'm the coaching staff, I'm telling him to challenge that defender to the outside every single time. NO exceptions.

I'm with you on all this. Grabner's been better this year, much better, but he doesn't have very good vision or hockey sense. He's also too fast for many of his linemates. He doesn't really know how to play an NHL game, he's strictly an "off the rush" guy, but again, he HAS been better this year.

I'm with scott99 though, you gotta play this guy more than NINE MINUTES! He'll never be Tavares but he's certainly effective enough out there (ESPECIALLY compared to the alternatives on this roster) that he can play 15-16 min per night! Just not with Reasoner.
 
Ask yourselves this, and be serious in your analysis...

Do you truly, truly, truly feel Grabner scores more goals and this team has better results if he is getting, say, 16 minutes a night as opposed to 9 or 10???

I mean, we are talking about an incredibly incomplete player and one whose weapons are only put on display a good 15-20% of the time he is playing...

As an aside:
Have noticed something lately that is driving me nuts. Grabner is given the puck and leads the rush, then slows down as he's entering the zone to wait for his teammates to catch up and, while floating, ends up throwing an errand or hardly obtainable pass to one of those charging teammates. While slowing down, this also allows for opponents to get back while the guy dealing with him also manages to find his bearings better.

I find this to be very disappointing.

If I'm the coaching staff, I'm telling him to challenge that defender to the outside every single time. NO exceptions.
You say that as though the Isles top-6 isn't absolutely littered with incomplete players.

Do I think that the Isles would be better served with Grabner playing more minutes, and Kyle Okposo playing fewer? Absolutely.
 
Shifts are absolutely not a factor because they are relative.
Grabner needs top 6 minutes. That is the entire point of the argument - after I posted this -
Islanderspointblank had a feature about it and so did lighthousehockey the very next day - even Staple commented on his reduced minutes.

It got reduced once Bailey was reintroduced into the lineup. I am all for giving Bailey a shot at some top minutes, but not at Grabner's expense. Why are the Isles paying him 3 mill a season to play 10 minutes a game?


Here are Grabner's shifts during the Caps game
Grabner 16 shifts with a TOI of 9:22 - Josh Bailey had 23 shifts to Grabner's 16.

Looking at the shifts closely -
He had 6 shifts in the third period - 4 of the 6 shifts clocked in at:
:03 (can you really count this as a shift?), :09 (this shift ended with Nielsen's goal), :16 (ended on a whistle with PK2 coming out to take a draw), :14 (shift ended the game)
None of these short shifts ended with Grabner huffing off the ice.

Grabner had 4 shifts and a total of 2 minutes of TOI in the second period...
one of those shifts was an abbreviated :13 seconds that ended with a whistle.

This has everything to do with Grabner not getting enough minutes.
He has produced more than any other Winger not named Moulson.

Hell we won the game, so no complaints here, but Grabner needs to be paired with Nielsen and get top 6 minutes.
Not for nothing, but all you did was prove that sihift length was a main factor in his icetime. It was not so much the number of shifts, but the length. I wasn't trying to say this was his fault.
 
1) of course he would have more chances with more ice time. 15 mins should be the target for him.
and 2) tell me time, period and game of an example of this slowing down when entering the zone. i seriously dont know what you mean.

I've seen it several times recently, but there was one such occasion last night in the third against Pittsburgh and I believe it was with about 5-7 minutes to go in the game. He was on the right, a good step ahead of Nielsen coming out of their own zone. Nielsen had the puck and sent Grabs the pass. I thought he was going to try to move past the Dman. Instead, he did what I mentioned above. Nielsen eventually caught up, but was covered well by a Pen. Okposo was on the ice at the time and came in on the left side.

Grabner threw some stomach-high pass across the ice and Okposo swatted at it a bit. I think he even got called for a high stick.

Found myself absolutely shaking my head wondering "WTF?"
 
Part of me thinks that Grabner is scoring BECAUSE of the exact amount of ice time and that more ice time might actually be worse for him.

Part of me thinks just put him out there and realize that his 5 on 5 defense is abominable and hope that the other forwards can recover.

Lastly, anybody else about to call Grabner for who he really is....Mariusz Czerkawski
 
Ask yourselves this, and be serious in your analysis...

Do you truly, truly, truly feel Grabner scores more goals and this team has better results if he is getting, say, 16 minutes a night as opposed to 9 or 10???

I mean, we are talking about an incredibly incomplete player and one whose weapons are only put on display a good 15-20% of the time he is playing...

As an aside:
Have noticed something lately that is driving me nuts. Grabner is given the puck and leads the rush, then slows down as he's entering the zone to wait for his teammates to catch up and, while floating, ends up throwing an errand or hardly obtainable pass to one of those charging teammates. While slowing down, this also allows for opponents to get back while the guy dealing with him also manages to find his bearings better.

I find this to be very disappointing.

If I'm the coaching staff, I'm telling him to challenge that defender to the outside every single time. NO exceptions.
This is the Isles. Capuano is probably telling Grabner to wait for his linemates to set up. Monkey, meet football. Have at it.

If we had a solid second line center and Nielson were the third line checking line center with someone more complete like Josh Bailey on the opposite wing, Grabner has his job. Rush, break in and score or just get the puck out of our zone for a bit if he whiffs. See the positive of a speedster who only scores on maybe one of seven or eight breakaways? That's MINIMUM twenty seconds our goalie does not face one scoring chance.

Of course, saying this, there are many in the organization tilting their heads as if some funky sound were played in front of a schnauzer.

On ice time, if he can stay ripe with ten minutes, great. His specialty and pretty much most of his game is offensive rushes. If his defense were better I'd say give him fifteen, maybe 20. But if his legs were getting worn, I don't chance that weapon of his, NO WAY. I'd try and use it better, though. PK, behind by a goal with two VERY defensive forwards, he might even stay out the last three or four minutes just for that one breakout.
 
Is it me or the next time Grabner gets a breakaway, he should just wrist the puck at the top of the faceoff circles(inbetween both)
 
Is it me or the next time Grabner gets a breakaway, he should just wrist the puck at the top of the faceoff circles(inbetween both)

:laugh:

In reality though, the goalies are much further out when Grabs has a breakaway vs. when he has the puck in the slot.

But, I do wish he would just shoot, or stick to one move (it doesn't have to be fancy Michael).
 
:laugh:

In reality though, the goalies are much further out when Grabs has a breakaway vs. when he has the puck in the slot.

But, I do wish he would just shoot, or stick to one move (it doesn't have to be fancy Michael).

If grabner was able to do something to the ilk of what JT did against Ottawa...the "forsberg" if you will...i think it would work well for him, only bc goalies have to back up so fast when hes skating in on a break. Just an idea, that or if he does the skate in and kind of stop-ish, that now gives him a goalie moving backwards and deeper in the net...then just rifle towards a corner. His wrist shot is really good and should be used. Tambellini used it in shootouts pretty well, but i think tambs was actually a better stinkhandler than Grabs is too...Grabner is more effective at everything else.
 
His hands are made of stone, he has zero moves, it's so embarrassing. Imagine how many more points/goals he'd have if he finished a fraction of his breakaways.
 
His hands are made of stone, he has zero moves, it's so embarrassing. Imagine how many more points/goals he'd have if he finished a fraction of his breakaways.

Embarrassing are other things in this organization, but not Grabner's breakaways. They are a bonus, and he does finish a fraction of them, it's just a very small fraction. If it was a much bigger fraction his total goals would be huge, as he does already score a lot in "normal" situations. In fact, he would be a star and would have never landed on the Island, as he wouldn't have been put on waiver in the first place.
 
To be honest I think the whole team has had their times reduced and some increased.

It's leveled off. JT used to play 25+ min per game and some others as well.. Now he gets 18-20 which is good. Most good teams don't overplay. nash only does 18-22 min per game.

Certain players, like I think Chapin said before may not be able to produce as much with more minutes. it sounds funny, but the term is decreasing rate of return. In this case points.

I wouldnt give grabs more than 16 min per game...give everyone the necessary rest to go balistic EVERY shift.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Ad

Ad