Player Discussion Kirby Dach: Welcome to Montreal part 2

[morhilane]

poor bastard must look at his line and wonder how this can possibly work out.

Kapanen or Dach.

Because Dach isn't going to look better on the wing on the 1st against harder competition and lazy Suzuki at center.

While Kapanen should mesh with Armia and can win faceoffs...unlike Dach and Newhook

 

[admiralcadillac]

He’ll get his groove bach

 

[ReHabs]

Suzuki's looked about as bad and doesn't have the excuse that he spent the last calendar year rehabbing a shattered knee. Not sure what games people are watching out there, but our #1 guy is being floated by a 5'9 super midget shooting 30% and Dach is the guy taking all the heat, somehow.

I think deep down we all think Dach has a lot more upside in the tank and are desperate to see him turn into Better Joe Thornton.

 

[Ozmodiar]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1848385177468182541

Interesting development.

I think MSL taking advantage of an opportunity to lighten the load without demoting him.

 

[Toene]

Suzuki is a notable slow starter. He scored his first goal after 7 games last year, finished with 33 (as said by Greg Lanctot). Not worried at all.

 

[Trembz]

Suzuki is a notable slow starter. He scored his first goal after 7 games last year, finished with 33 (as said by Greg Lanctot). Not worried at all.

But we can't have Suzuki starting slow every year. He's the captain, 1c has the highest contract other than Laine. We need his contribution now to win games now.
We need to win now to "keep us in the mix" later on.

 

[Habs]

How can he be worse than Dach centering that line?

Good players need to be surrounded with talent , great players do not. We have some good players in montreal, no 'great ones' so we will always need help till that day arrives where we have a generational sniper

 

[sansabri]

i'd put one of caufield or slaf with Dach to help him out and move newhook with suz

 

[The Great Weal]

Suzuki's looked about as bad and doesn't have the excuse that he spent the last calendar year rehabbing a shattered knee. Not sure what games people are watching out there, but our #1 guy is being floated by a 5'9 super midget shooting 30% and Dach is the guy taking all the heat, somehow.

Our #1 guy has also been our best player for many seasons in a row now. Last year, the fanbase excused Caufield for his goalscoring because of his shoulder when he himself got annoyed at reporters trying to excuse it for his shoulder. And now Dach can't even be bothered to backcheck consistently, making him take the dumbest penalties ever, but that's excused because missing a year (yet being ready to play at the end of the season) correlates to not putting in effort somehow.

I'll never understand how Suzuki gets so much crap from the fanbase after doing so much. Guy was lights out starting as the 4th line RW, carried the corpse of Armia+Drouin in the playoffs, was the 1C during our finals run, and is one of the most productive Habs seasons in recent history. That's all ignored but Dach looking good for a stretch with bad players/camp/preseason and cherry-picking dates for Caufield's goalscoring that one stretch is somehow valued more. I'm glad management doesn't think the same way.

Dach's got the worst +/- in the league and has 1 point with less than 16 minutes of ice time, he's definitely not been equally bad as Suzuki.

Anyways, not saying we should throw the towel with Dach and that Suzuki's been perfect, but the double standard is comical. Hopefully this new line helps them both out.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Our #1 guy has also been our best player for many seasons in a row now. Last year, the fanbase excused Caufield for his goalscoring because of his shoulder when he himself got annoyed at reporters trying to excuse it for his shoulder. And now Dach can't even be bothered to backcheck consistently, making him take the dumbest penalties ever, but that's excused because missing a year (yet being ready to play at the end of the season) correlates to not putting in effort somehow.

I'll never understand how Suzuki gets so much crap from the fanbase after doing so much. Guy was lights out starting as the 4th line RW, carried the corpse of Armia+Drouin in the playoffs, was the 1C during our finals run, and is one of the most productive Habs seasons in recent history. That's all ignored but Dach looking good for a stretch with bad players/camp/preseason and cherry-picking dates for Caufield's goalscoring that one stretch is somehow valued more. I'm glad management doesn't think the same way.

Dach's got the worst +/- in the league and has 1 point with less than 16 minutes of ice time, he's definitely not been equally bad as Suzuki.

Anyways, not saying we should throw the towel with Dach and that Suzuki's been perfect, but the double standard is comical. Hopefully this new line helps them both out.

What double standard?

Overlords point was that people are trying to trade Dach and are bashing him up and down, when it was obvious after missing a full year of hockey was going to be a difficult thing for him to come in to the season ready to play at the pace and level we expect.

Yet Suzuki had no such adversity and hasn't been good this year, which doesn't really get brought up.

Obviously Suzuki is afforded more patience because of the track record; but the reality is that not many players are looking 'good' to start the year; so attacking Dach who is the one person who should be afforded the most leeway, is insane fan base behavior.

 

[The Great Weal]

Yet Suzuki had no such adversity and hasn't been good this year, which doesn't really get brought up.

It's brought up a lot in most threads here so that's just not true.

But yes, looking to trade Dach because of his current performance is crazy talk.

 

[Retired]

Interesting development.

I think MSL taking advantage of an opportunity to lighten the load without demoting him.

yup, funny how that works out

 

[LaP]

But we can't have Suzuki starting slow every year. He's the captain, 1c has the highest contract other than Laine. We need his contribution now to win games now.
We need to win now to "keep us in the mix" later on.

It really doesn't matter. Crosby has had a few early slumps in his career. McDavid had one last year and one again this year. What matters is what the player do over the full season. All players including generational players have at least one slump and it really doesn't matter when this slump is. The problem is we have a bad team and nobody can cover for our first line inevitable slump.

 

[Skip Bayless]

Suzuki is a notable slow starter. He scored his first goal after 7 games last year, finished with 33 (as said by Greg Lanctot). Not worried at all.

Same for Armia. Then he starts looking like a god, and then gets injured for like 20 games just when he's peaking.

 

[OldCraig71]

Suzuki's looked about as bad and doesn't have the excuse that he spent the last calendar year rehabbing a shattered knee. Not sure what games people are watching out there, but our #1 guy is being floated by a 5'9 super midget shooting 30% and Dach is the guy taking all the heat, somehow.

I'm not giving him any heat I haven't even commented on his play till this point but he hasn't looked good this year.

"Dach said Monday that his knee is 100 per cent healed and that he felt ready to play games at the end of last season".

That quote came from the Montreal Gazette, so it's from him and not me.

The whole team save a handful of players has looked bad this year and yeah, maybe giving him a break from center to the wing might be something that gets him going.

 

[Rapala]

If Slaf can't go Dach on the wing replacing him is exactly where he should go to get his creative juices flowing.
Newhook will also be better as he's shown to have much more involved as a center it's a role I think he relishes.

 

[OldCraig71]

What double standard?

Overlords point was that people are trying to trade Dach and are bashing him up and down, when it was obvious after missing a full year of hockey was going to be a difficult thing for him to come in to the season ready to play at the pace and level we expect.

Yet Suzuki had no such adversity and hasn't been good this year, which doesn't really get brought up.

Obviously Suzuki is afforded more patience because of the track record; but the reality is that not many players are looking 'good' to start the year; so attacking Dach who is the one person who should be afforded the most leeway, is insane fan base behavior.

Overlords quoted me and I haven't been posting that Dach should get traded, I don't recall saying much at all about him. This is a message board and every one of us is critical of players at times and I see nothing wrong with that.

 

[morhilane]

If Slaf can't go Dach on the wing replacing him is exactly where he should go to get his creative juices flowing.
Newhook will also be better as he's shown to have much more involved as a center it's a role I think he relishes.

Newhook was on the wing during practice, it's Kapanen who was centering the 2nd line instead of Dach.

 

[Rapala]

Newhook was on the wing during practice, it's Kapanen who was centering the 2nd line instead of Dach.

Kapanen hasn't shown me much of anything to warrant that jump.

 

[overlords]

Our #1 guy has also been our best player for many seasons in a row now. Last year, the fanbase excused Caufield for his goalscoring because of his shoulder when he himself got annoyed at reporters trying to excuse it for his shoulder. And now Dach can't even be bothered to backcheck consistently, making him take the dumbest penalties ever, but that's excused because missing a year (yet being ready to play at the end of the season) correlates to not putting in effort somehow.

I'll never understand how Suzuki gets so much crap from the fanbase after doing so much. Guy was lights out starting as the 4th line RW, carried the corpse of Armia+Drouin in the playoffs, was the 1C during our finals run, and is one of the most productive Habs seasons in recent history. That's all ignored but Dach looking good for a stretch with bad players/camp/preseason and cherry-picking dates for Caufield's goalscoring that one stretch is somehow valued more. I'm glad management doesn't think the same way.

Dach's got the worst +/- in the league and has 1 point with less than 16 minutes of ice time, he's definitely not been equally bad as Suzuki.

Anyways, not saying we should throw the towel with Dach and that Suzuki's been perfect, but the double standard is comical. Hopefully this new line helps them both out.

We must be watching different games because if there's been one saving grace to dach's early season, it's that he's been coming back deep in the d zone and intercepting passes/breaking up plays fairly consistently. Similarly, Josh Anderson has made a pretty big improvement here despite still being offensively useless. I don't really care about ticky-tack penalties that don't get called 90% of the time. It's just another symptom of timing not being there at worst or the refs being gullible Pejorative Slurs at best.

#1 guy (and captain) being our go-to offensive leader and still deciding to take games off to start the year while whining to the media that they want to 'go for it' is not a great look. That entire line is getting buried despite Cole coming out like gangbusters. Nick might have points but he has looked terrible. He looks unwilling to chase the puck or implicate himself physically. Dach looks visibly frustrated, but Suzuki doesn't look like he's checked in enough to care yet.

I'm not dragging suzuki because I think he's gonna have a bad year or because I don't like him, I'm just pointing out that any double standard here is going the other way than what you're stating. Having high expectation for a guy who missed an entire year is insane.

Let's put it this way...cave in Suzi's knee, take him out of the game for a year and then give him armia and newhook as linemates. How good does he look? Worse than he already does, I bet. Yikes.

 

[morhilane]

Kapanen hasn't shown me much of anything to warrant that jump.

It could just be for today's practice, or the line is going to be downgraded without Dach on it. It's not like Dach as the only one playing badly on it...

 

[SlafySZN]

Caufield keeping Dach in check helping him having fun!

 

[schwang26]

But we can't have Suzuki starting slow every year. He's the captain, 1c has the highest contract other than Laine. We need his contribution now to win games now.
We need to win now to "keep us in the mix" later on.

I agree. There’s not enough star power on this team to cover for injuries or slumps. I really think they should shuffle the top 6. Suzuki, Dach, Caulfield. Slaf, Kapanen, maybe Armia, Anderson or Heineman. They’ve lost 3 in a row, so it can’t hurt. You aren’t winning many games when only the bottom 6 are playing solid hockey.

 

[The Great Weal]

We must be watching different games because if there's been one saving grace to dach's early season, it's that he's been coming back deep in the d zone and intercepting passes/breaking up plays fairly consistently.

Well the stats, the coaching staff, and my eye test say that Dach is struggling significantly more than Suzuki.

#1 guy (and captain) being our go-to offensive leader and still deciding to take games off to start the year while whining to the media that they want to 'go for it' is not a great look. That entire line is getting buried despite Cole coming out like gangbusters. Nick might have points but he has looked terrible. He looks unwilling to chase the puck or implicate himself physically. Dach looks visibly frustrated, but Suzuki doesn't look like he's checked in enough to care yet.

I would be pissed off too if I take the worst and most costly penalties because I keep getting beat. You're making it seem like taking terrible penalties because you're frustrated is a good thing.

I'm not dragging suzuki because I think he's gonna have a bad year or because I don't like him, I'm just pointing out that any double standard here is going the other way than what you're stating. Having high expectation for a guy who missed an entire year is insane.

The entire narrative this offseason was that Dach would help this team this season tremendously and that he'd easily replicate what Monahan did for us last year. Now the narrative has shifted. For the record, I am excusing this year for Dach but I'm not blaming every issue with him so far because of the injury. Just like last year when Cole was carried a good chunk of the season by Suzuki and Slaf and people here were excusing it because of his shoulder when he himself is not accepting that excuse.

Let's put it this way...cave in Suzi's knee, take him out of the game for a year and then give him armia and newhook as linemates. How good does he look? Worse than he already does, I bet. Yikes.

I am 100% confident Suzuki's worst game with an injury is vastly better than Dach's worst game. Dach is most definitely the worst player on the team at the moment and the linemates excuse is a very bad one. Putting him on the wing with Suzuki and Caufield should have been done way sooner, he's getting killed out there.

 

[SlafySZN]

Well the stats, the coaching staff, and my eye test say that Dach is struggling significantly more than Suzuki.

I would be pissed off too if I take the worst and most costly penalties because I keep getting beat. You're making it seem like taking terrible penalties because you're frustrated is a good thing.

The entire narrative this offseason was that Dach would help this team this season tremendously and that he'd easily replicate what Monahan did for us last year. Now the narrative has shifted. For the record, I am excusing this year for Dach but I'm not blaming every issue with him so far because of the injury. Just like last year when Cole was carried a good chunk of the season by Suzuki and Slaf and people here were excusing it because of his shoulder when he himself is not accepting that excuse.

I am 100% confident Suzuki's worst game with an injury is vastly better than Dach's worst game. Dach is most definitely the worst player on the team at the moment and the linemates excuse is a very bad one. Putting him on the wing with Suzuki and Caufield should have been done way sooner, he's getting killed out there.

Players won’t ever use that ‘’excuse’’ doesn’t mean it isn’t true. It was true for Caufield even if he doesn’t say it and it’s true for Dach this year too. Being healed to play doesn’t mean you won’t take some time to find your game.