How our defense looks now compared to then

[roflstomper]

In one sentence can you explain what your point is. I honestly reread the OP 5 times and can't figure it out.

 

[LSCII]

I don't remember thinking anything about the Boychuk deal, but I liked the seidenberg one. Though I thought they ****ed it up the previous off-season by signing Derek Miller over him.

But brilliant? No.

I don't really understand the point though you are trying to make.

Exactly. People always want to recall the positive part of the Seidenberg move and ignore the fact that the GM picked Morris over him, gave him a NTC and was forced to take less than market value for him just to clear a spot and space for Seids, and oh yeah, still had to give up assets to get Seids. All when he could have signed him in the offseason for nothing but money. And there were plenty of people here who were saying they should sign him in the off season BEFORE they wasted their time with Derek Morris.

 

[KnightofBoston]

I don't remember thinking anything about the Boychuk deal, but I liked the seidenberg one. Though I thought they ****ed it up the previous off-season by signing Derek Miller over him.

But brilliant? No.

I don't really understand the point though you are trying to make.

My point, is that that is what the original thread's point is about - not that I agree with it necessarily, but AOF is trying to say essentially that you don't really know how moves will work out until they do or don't.

My opinion on that specific point would probably get me thread banned but still, that was his point

 

[LSCII]

My point, is that that is what the original thread's point is about - not that I agree with it necessarily, but AOF is trying to say essentially that you don't really know how moves will work out until they do or don't.

My opinion on that specific point would probably get me thread banned but still, that was his point

Disagree. The original point of this thread is to say that things aren't so bad and that things are probably better than we think. The problem with the argument though is that they had elite players on the roster and then filled out the rest with unheralded role players in his example. On this current team, they have far less as a starting point than they did from his example.

 

[BigGoalBrad]

My point, is that that is what the original thread's point is about - not that I agree with it necessarily, but AOF is trying to say essentially that you don't really know how moves will work out until they do or don't.

My opinion on that specific point would probably get me thread banned but still, that was his point

To further AOF's sentiment but not put words in his mouth Kaberle was our supposed missing last piece and he disappointed as a Bruin despite the win.

But in 2009 when we won the Presidents trophy the D was pretty similar to the Cup winner. Boychuk and McQuaid were more on the periphery and Seidenberg was on the team that eliminated us. But it was pretty similar.

All it took was having Seidenberg and Kaberle instead of Ward and Montador. And as has been mentioned we even blundered with adding Morris as that elusive PMD last piece before correctly acquiring Seids.


Get a top pairing guy and I think the same thing can happen and we can win immediately.

 

[Mpasta]

In one sentence can you explain what your point is. I honestly reread the OP 5 times and can't figure it out.

It's one of the most ridiculous threads I've seen in a while even for AOF standards. His point is that even though the defense sucks, all we have to do is sign a future Norris Trophy winner and make some lucky trades because it's so easy to do.

I should make a thread about how we should trade our goalie for somebody 10x better.

Things are so black and white apparently.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Exactly. People always want to recall the positive part of the Seidenberg move and ignore the fact that the GM picked Morris over him, gave him a NTC and was forced to take less than market value for him just to clear a spot and space for Seids, and oh yeah, still had to give up assets to get Seids. All when he could have signed him in the offseason for nothing but money. And there were plenty of people here who were saying they should sign him in the off season BEFORE they wasted their time with Derek Morris.

I think the whole derek morris thing illustrates my point. I was a huge fan of derek morris {and paul mara and brad stuart and Nicholas Boynton} because these guys were first round picks... these guys broke into the nhl with reputations as puck movers... 40-50 point scorers...

these were the sexy names that a fan like me wanted to see here... and these were the same guys that failed here because they didn't fit

we did bring them here with fanfare and hoopla and they failed.

I was pretty annoyed when we sent morris out and brought Seidenberg in... and to be honest the majority of posters at that time were also annoyed.

but it was the right move to make

even though we couldn't see it ourselves... the man with the plan saw the move...

none of us posters were jumping for joy as the move happened... but it was the right move.

I guess that's my point... that just because we cant see something developing isn't automatically grounds for panic and despair. most of the negativity here today was here 10 years ago too. we were wrong then... hell in round 1 of 2011 when we were playing montreal theres a hell of a lot of posters here that were screaming for Julian and chiarelli to be fired and saying chara was not a leader...

just because the fans that post here cant see the truth doesn't mean it isn't true...

I am NOT don sweenys biggest fan but I'm even more UNSURE about cam neely. I don't know if either guy has a plan that will work. I'm not here saying that I like the direction we are going in, but as a fan I am saying we should give these guys a chance.

they are making moves... things are happening... and some of the stuff does look good IMHO. chiarelli caught me asleep at the wheel. you wont find any posts I ever made telling people... 'wait... just watch and see... chiarelli is making all the right moves.'

I never did that... I cant remember anyone else ever doing that. chiarelli surprised us all when we won the cup. I don't remember a single poster here that season saying we will win a cup now.

sometimes us fans don't know everything

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

It's one of the most ridiculous threads I've seen in a while even for AOF standards. His point is that even though the defense sucks, all we have to do is sign a future Norris Trophy winner and make some lucky trades because it's so easy to do.

I should make a thread about how we should trade our goalie for somebody 10x better.

Things are so black and white apparently.

my point is more about how things happen in front of our eyes that we all ***** and crap upon because we think its better as fans to ***** and crap

then when it happens... instead of being happy we ***** and crap then too it seams. maybe I shouldn't bother making a point cause the same set of fans ***** and crap about my posts that ***** and crap about the state of the team too

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Disagree. The original point of this thread is to say that things aren't so bad and that things are probably better than we think. The problem with the argument though is that they had elite players on the roster and then filled out the rest with unheralded role players in his example. On this current team, they have far less as a starting point than they did from his example.

yes... that's pretty much my point. but I did go back to prior to chara to show how a 5 year time period took us from crap to cup

now... some people will debate with me that chara was special. we had to hire a guy that had a personal connection with him to get him.

my point is theres always something special going on. anytime one of these elite dmen is moved, theres something special.

we got brad park because ny wanted phil Esposito... that was special.

Anaheim got chris pronger because prongers wife hated Edmonton... that was special.

Philadelphia got chris pronger because they were willing to give him a crazy contract... that was special.

theres always something special about getting an elite dman, but if a team needs to do it... its possible.

in the past year 4 other teams made deals/moves to get an elite dman and it was special in every case. and some people here wont say adam Larson or seth jones are elite dmen. but that's really my point too. getting dmen often surprises us... it often is more about the fit of a guy in the right situation as opposed to his reputation.

should we have gambled on dion phaneuf last year? could he have become our elite dman? honestly... his age isn't too old. we know he has elite level talent.

the problem with phaneuf is his confidence/style of play... could we have fixed it... was it worth the risk? was it worth the cap hit?

a lot of response to my post is that we CANT get another zdeno chara. One poster tells me that we made 'LUCKY' trades...

I don't agree at all to that. a lot of our deals didn't work... but we kept trying... kept shuffling the deckchairs... kept trying to find the RIGHT PIECES and those pieces were never sexy pieces. Even our high profile tomas karble deal was met with 50% disapproval

so that's my point... that we started in worst shape last time... none of us supported the moves our team was making... none of us predicted success... and we still won the cup 5 years anyhow

who will be upfront on the bandwagon this time? I hope you all join me supporting this team when it does something worthy of support. and I hope you are all there with me on the bandwagon when we win our next cup.

 

[Dr Quincy]

I think the whole derek morris thing illustrates my point. I was a huge fan of derek morris {and paul mara and brad stuart and Nicholas Boynton} because these guys were first round picks... these guys broke into the nhl with reputations as puck movers... 40-50 point scorers...

these were the sexy names that a fan like me wanted to see here... and these were the same guys that failed here because they didn't fit

we did bring them here with fanfare and hoopla and they failed.

I was pretty annoyed when we sent morris out and brought Seidenberg in... and to be honest the majority of posters at that time were also annoyed.

but it was the right move to make

even though we couldn't see it ourselves... the man with the plan saw the move...

none of us posters were jumping for joy as the move happened... but it was the right move.

I guess that's my point... that just because we cant see something developing isn't automatically grounds for panic and despair. most of the negativity here today was here 10 years ago too. we were wrong then... hell in round 1 of 2011 when we were playing montreal theres a hell of a lot of posters here that were screaming for Julian and chiarelli to be fired and saying chara was not a leader...

just because the fans that post here cant see the truth doesn't mean it isn't true...

I am NOT don sweenys biggest fan but I'm even more UNSURE about cam neely. I don't know if either guy has a plan that will work. I'm not here saying that I like the direction we are going in, but as a fan I am saying we should give these guys a chance.

they are making moves... things are happening... and some of the stuff does look good IMHO. chiarelli caught me asleep at the wheel. you wont find any posts I ever made telling people... 'wait... just watch and see... chiarelli is making all the right moves.'

I never did that... I cant remember anyone else ever doing that. chiarelli surprised us all when we won the cup. I don't remember a single poster here that season saying we will win a cup now.

sometimes us fans don't know everything

I agree, but this is something I think some of the "optimists" are missing: it goes both ways. We can make a post about how people wanted to fire Claude before the end of the 2011 regular season and how people were totally wrong about it.

But we can also make a post about how in June of 2013 people were predicting a dynastic run. "Bergeron and Marhand and Krejci are just hitting their prime.... Dougie and Seguin haven't even gotten close to their prime... Rask has shown he can go on a deep playoff run... Boychuk has emerged...Khoko, Knight and Spooner are on their way....Another bounce or 2 and we have 2 Cups with the chance to go back to back"

Yes sports surprise us. That's why we watch them. At the same time, whether you are glass full, glass empty or somewhere in between, you have to look at things and give an opinion. Sure, it may turn out you were wrong, but that doesn't diminish the argument you made at the time.

My opinion: The B's have been a mediocre team that last 2 years and as of now don't look better for this year. They are caught in a weird spot of waiting for young kids to emerge, but seeing the possible downturn for important veterans.

I don't see a Cup run for the Chara-Bergeron led team, but sure, something could fall out of the sky and emerge that would change that. But I feel a little safer saying that they won't win a Cup this year than I do saying that Lauzon (or Carlo or CMiller or Gryz) is going to make the team and be Drew Doughty.

Sometimes you just play the odds.

 

[ODAAT]

while the D from that Cup winning team or prior to it weren`t world beaters on paper (outside of an in his prime Z) the biggest difference to me is that the game`s speed has so increased since then and if you can`t ice a mobile crew on the back you`re done.

That D with Seids, JB, Ference and co were able to do their jobs remarkably effectively. I`ll wager this, if you put that same Cup winning D out on the ice today ( in their primes if you will), they`d be exposed, perhaps not nearly as much as this group but they wouldn`t be as effective in 2016/17 as they were then

 

[KnightofBoston]

Disagree. The original point of this thread is to say that things aren't so bad and that things are probably better than we think. The problem with the argument though is that they had elite players on the roster and then filled out the rest with unheralded role players in his example. On this current team, they have far less as a starting point than they did from his example.

Which is why I don't agree with the thread

 

[BruinDust]

while the D from that Cup winning team or prior to it weren`t world beaters on paper (outside of an in his prime Z) the biggest difference to me is that the game`s speed has so increased since then and if you can`t ice a mobile crew on the back you`re done.

That D with Seids, JB, Ference and co were able to do their jobs remarkably effectively. I`ll wager this, if you put that same Cup winning D out on the ice today ( in their primes if you will), they`d be exposed, perhaps not nearly as much as this group but they wouldn`t be as effective in 2016/17 as they were then

And at times, they were exposed back then, certain teams proved to be tough match-ups for the Bruins even in 2011 because they iced fast rosters. And now like you said the game itself has sped up overall since that time.

I don't know if you could build a group like that and be successful today.

Problem is I don't know if you can build a more puck-moving group and still execute Julien's defensive zone system.

 

[ODAAT]

And at times, they were exposed back then, certain teams proved to be tough match-ups for the Bruins even in 2011 because they iced fast rosters. And now like you said the game itself has sped up overall since that time.

I don't know if you could build a group like that and be successful today.

Problem is I don't know if you can build a more puck-moving group and still execute Julien's defensive zone system.

Not sure how to answer your last line but I think as far as Julien goes, in viewing Krug for example, it`s clear that Krug hasn`t been instructed to do nothing but retrieve and pass. He`ll often use that great speed to be the puck carrier and it appears that Julien has allowed this knowing that Krug is more than able to race back and often get back into the play.

I don`t think you`ll ever see a D where all 6 are speedsters or offensive minded but I also think Julien wouldn`t be overly hindering in allowing his D to push that puck up ice whether with their feet or by pass if they can show they are capable of getting themselves back into position.

I see a difference in Krug and Miller/Morrow in that, when either of the latter rushed the puck up ice, they were able to get back quickly but unlike Krug, seemed to be a bit confused to where they needed to go when coming back with Krug just does it intuitively IMO

 

[BruinDust]

Not sure how to answer your last line but I think as far as Julien goes, in viewing Krug for example, it`s clear that Krug hasn`t been instructed to do nothing but retrieve and pass. He`ll often use that great speed to be the puck carrier and it appears that Julien has allowed this knowing that Krug is more than able to race back and often get back into the play.

I don`t think you`ll ever see a D where all 6 are speedsters or offensive minded but I also think Julien wouldn`t be overly hindering in allowing his D to push that puck up ice whether with their feet or by pass if they can show they are capable of getting themselves back into position.

I see a difference in Krug and Miller/Morrow in that, when either of the latter rushed the puck up ice, they were able to get back quickly but unlike Krug, seemed to be a bit confused to where they needed to go when coming back with Krug just does it intuitively IMO

He does, Krug for whatever reason is able to execute Julien's system in his own end. He reminds me of Ference in that sense is even though he's not the biggest guy, he is smart enough to know how Julien wants his coverage executed.

Unlike the countless other puck-moving guys who've been here under Julien and weren't able to do it. Morris, Kaberle, Corvo, etc. Liles looked like he struggled with it too, hopefully a full-training camp can get him up to speed. I think it's a tough thing to do, adjust to Julien's defensive system late in the season, especially if the D-man came from playing a more man-to-man chasing style on his previous team.

Can Morrow or Colin Miller make the adjustment to effectively playing this box-out style system? We'll see I guess.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

this speed thing... it bugs me a bit

as a long time hockey fan I saw the flying Frenchmen come along and win like 7 or 8 cups in like 12 years or so... everyone said that speed was the only way to win

and then along came philadephia broad street bullies

as a long time hockey fan I saw the Edmonton oilers with messier and coffey and Anderson and those boys on the bus win 4 of 5 cups... and everyone said speed was the only way to win

and then along came trapping teams and left wing lock teams like Detroit and new jersey... and people said that was the only way to win

in truth for the past 40 years ive been a fan... they always said speed wins whenever a fast team wins... and they say big wins whenever a big team wins

remember when we won and went to the finals 2 years later? all of a sudden everyone needed to get bigger...

I think that's the same thing ive seen for 40 years... whoever won the most recent cup establishes the flavor of the month. if a different team wins the cup next year there will be a new standard bearer.

does speed every hurt... no... so you should try to be fast
does size hurt... no
does skill hurt... no
does playing a good system hurt... no
does having a goalie stand on his head hurt... nope
does have amazing special teams hurt... not that ive ever noticed
does having heart and a hungar to win hurt... again, doesn't seem to

people can point to one outstanding aptitude of a team and say this team won because of this advantage... but then that same team fails to win the next year.

the fastest team isn't very likely to win this year...

from my 40 years of watching hockey theres one thing that leads to victory more often than any other... that's depth

well rounded deep teams win

 

[LSCII]

this speed thing... it bugs me a bit

as a long time hockey fan I saw the flying Frenchmen come along and win like 7 or 8 cups in like 12 years or so... everyone said that speed was the only way to win

and then along came philadephia broad street bullies

as a long time hockey fan I saw the Edmonton oilers with messier and coffey and Anderson and those boys on the bus win 4 of 5 cups... and everyone said speed was the only way to win

and then along came trapping teams and left wing lock teams like Detroit and new jersey... and people said that was the only way to win

in truth for the past 40 years ive been a fan... they always said speed wins whenever a fast team wins... and they say big wins whenever a big team wins

remember when we won and went to the finals 2 years later? all of a sudden everyone needed to get bigger...

I think that's the same thing ive seen for 40 years... whoever won the most recent cup establishes the flavor of the month. if a different team wins the cup next year there will be a new standard bearer.

does speed every hurt... no... so you should try to be fast
does size hurt... no
does skill hurt... no
does playing a good system hurt... no
does having a goalie stand on his head hurt... nope
does have amazing special teams hurt... not that ive ever noticed
does having heart and a hungar to win hurt... again, doesn't seem to

people can point to one outstanding aptitude of a team and say this team won because of this advantage... but then that same team fails to win the next year.

the fastest team isn't very likely to win this year...

from my 40 years of watching hockey theres one thing that leads to victory more often than any other... that's depth

well rounded deep teams win

There's no question you are correct by saying you can win with a multitude of styles, but even the most casual fans of the sport have to see that the game is changing. People want to tout this concept that it's now all about speed, but that's not entirely accurate. It's about speed with skill. The game is morphing away from the grind it out, play gritty and physical style to one all about skill and speed. If you continue to try and stay with a physical, grinding style and not at least adapt slightly, you're not going to be successful long term, IMO.

 

[ODAAT]

There's no question you are correct by saying you can win with a multitude of styles, but even the most casual fans of the sport have to see that the game is changing. People want to tout this concept that it's now all about speed, but that's not entirely accurate. It's about speed with skill. The game is morphing away from the grind it out, play gritty and physical style to one all about skill and speed. If you continue to try and stay with a physical, grinding style and not at least adapt slightly, you're not going to be successful long term, IMO.

Great post

I haven`t seen most of the young prospects on D but from that of which I have read, they are mobile and quick on their feet. Not all are the offensively gifted type of D-man but all have the ability to turn, retrieve, distribute which is vital now.

 

[nmbr_24]

To further AOF's sentiment but not put words in his mouth Kaberle was our supposed missing last piece and he disappointed as a Bruin despite the win.

But in 2009 when we won the Presidents trophy the D was pretty similar to the Cup winner. Boychuk and McQuaid were more on the periphery and Seidenberg was on the team that eliminated us. But it was pretty similar.

All it took was having Seidenberg and Kaberle instead of Ward and Montador. And as has been mentioned we even blundered with adding Morris as that elusive PMD last piece before correctly acquiring Seids.


Get a top pairing guy and I think the same thing can happen and we can win immediately.

If I am not mistaken the team that won the cup had around a 50% turnover from 2009, it was a lot more than two defensemen.

 

[BruinDust]

If I am not mistaken the team that won the cup had around a 50% turnover from 2009, it was a lot more than two defensemen.

There are actually very few similarities to the 2009 group and the group that won in 2011.

2009 playoffs

Played all 11 games - Chara, Wideman, Ward, Stuart, Montador.

The rest - Hunwick (1), Ference (3), Hindy (7)

2011 playoffs

Played at least 24 out of 25 games - Chara, Seidenberg, Ference, Boychuk, Kaberle

The rest - McQuaid (23), Hnidy (3)

So really, out of your top 5 D, there is only one constant from 2009 to 2011, Zdeno Chara. Ference was obviously injured in 2009 to only play 3 playoff games. Hnidy was the 7th D-man both years and he left and came back again.

It's actually closer to the 2010 playoff group, which lost Hunwick and Wideman, but added Seidenberg and Kaberle in time for the 2011 run.

 

[don]

Why do people look backwards instead of to the present? It does no good. Good trades and players of the past are gone; mistakes of the past are gone. Let them go and look to the present and future.