Confirmed with Link: Kotkaniemi signs 8 year extension

[MadeUpName]

I have a feeling the shelf life on this one is gonna be long. It's a hot and constant topic on social. I hope he's ignoring it as he probably is feeling enough pressure as it is.

Consider the source:

I think that Kotkaniemi for Horvat as a base could be interesting for both teams

 

[bleedgreen]

His major downfall was that he had an owner that couldn't be expected to spend reliably, so no matter how good it seemed like we were about to be, we'd have one or two holes that an NHL team shouldn't have, and we'd lose because of it.

Also, apparently he was kind of an abusive asshole, who no one seems to want to employ currently.

His one big publicized incident is exactly the kind of incident no one wants to touch with a ten foot pole so I kind of get him struggling to get work. You’d think he’d be able to earn his way back at some point, if he truly wants back in.

 

[MinJaBen]

I think that Kotkaniemi for Horvat as a base could be interesting for both teams

 

[cptjeff]

This may have been a talent issue, but Peters's strategy appeared to be taking as many shots as possible rather than making the tough pass for an easier shot.

With better shooters, Peters's strategy might make sense. The Canes did not have those shooters. For the most part, they still don't.

Peters's strategy was pretty explicitly to take lots of shots in the hopes that high corsi would directly translate to high scoring. It didn't. In doing so, he proved the total fallacy of playing towards the metric.

Yes, lots of advanced stats boosters thought Peters was a great coach because he was doing what their numbers said teams should do. It resulted in a putrid offense from a group that did actually have a lot of talent in it.

Peters was a shitty coach who thought he had a moneyball cheat code to the NHL. It wasn't a matter of not having better shooters. The system was to have the shooters take lots of easy shots hoping that shooting percentages would revert to the mean. He, and the system, fundamentally ignored that shooting percentages are not fixed attributes of the shooter. Ovechkin will not have the same shooting percentage if you tell him to take low risk shots from the point instead of dumping pucks in when there's no play to be made. He has the shooting percentage he has in large part because he nearly always takes his shots from high danger areas. He does the hard work to get there. Peters tried for a shortcut that was never going to work, and some of us knew it at the time.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

Canes aren’t moving Kotkaniemi for Horvat

 

[Stickpucker]

No players named after ninja turtles' weapons. I don't make the rules.

Bo Horvat will never be a Cane confirmed.

 

[Negan4Coach]

Meh….I can see some slanting towards playing more D but at the same time it doesn’t look like he’s doing that. In fact he’s jumping into every play he can get involved with. If you want to make an argument for him you could say he’s doing a good job driving a lane and taking someone with him which opens up the play for the other guys….on the occasions he catches up to the play.

He isn’t “cheating” defensively he’s doing the basic requirements and then trying to catch up when he doesn’t have the wheels. Svech isn’t that fast either. Nobody’s catching up with Necas.

Koko is in the o zone, he’s trying. The plays he’s a part of don’t end up in the net.


??

My memory was that Peters from the get go had us playing a structured system that catered to puck possession and smothering quick gapping defense that made us more competitive and was considered very progressive around the league. That we were an analytics darling kind of team that was going to be good once we our kids grew up and we added more skill.

The only thing we were getting credit for the first couple of years of Peters was being a well coached team. He inherited an AHL squad.

Kind of nicely supports my point about revisionist history being a big part of the conventional wisdom on here…

 

[bleedgreen]

Kind of nicely supports my point about revisionist history being a big part of the conventional wisdom on here…

I was scolded more than once for using the term “revisionist history” around these parts.

 

[Discipline Daddy]

Peters's strategy was pretty explicitly to take lots of shots in the hopes that high corsi would directly translate to high scoring. It didn't. In doing so, he proved the total fallacy of playing towards the metric.

Yes, lots of advanced stats boosters thought Peters was a great coach because he was doing what their numbers said teams should do. It resulted in a putrid offense from a group that did actually have a lot of talent in it.

Peters was a shitty coach who thought he had a moneyball cheat code to the NHL. It wasn't a matter of not having better shooters. The system was to have the shooters take lots of easy shots hoping that shooting percentages would revert to the mean. He, and the system, fundamentally ignored that shooting percentages are not fixed attributes of the shooter. Ovechkin will not have the same shooting percentage if you tell him to take low risk shots from the point instead of dumping pucks in when there's no play to be made. He has the shooting percentage he has in large part because he nearly always takes his shots from high danger areas. He does the hard work to get there. Peters tried for a shortcut that was never going to work, and some of us knew it at the time.

I completely agree with your post overall but I just had to bold this take.

2020s Ovechkin's "hard work to get there" involves him standing at the circle and then waiting to receive passes, and not making effort to get back and make defensive plays.

Still pretty neat to watch a legend, even if he's scored seemingly half of his goals on the power play against our team.

 

[Anton Dubinchuk]

FWIW, penalty aside I thought KK looked pretty good yesterday, at least of the shifts I saw. More confident offensively.

 

[Vagrant]

Canucks would laugh us off the phone asking for Horvat for KK. we have tried to shoehorn the poor kid into producing by putting him between our best forward groups and he just can't produce for his life. he's a pretty nondescript 3rd liner. nobody is going to cosign our mistake, as nice as that would be.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Peters's strategy was pretty explicitly to take lots of shots in the hopes that high corsi would directly translate to high scoring. It didn't. In doing so, he proved the total fallacy of playing towards the metric.

Yes, lots of advanced stats boosters thought Peters was a great coach because he was doing what their numbers said teams should do. It resulted in a putrid offense from a group that did actually have a lot of talent in it.

Peters was a shitty coach who thought he had a moneyball cheat code to the NHL. It wasn't a matter of not having better shooters. The system was to have the shooters take lots of easy shots hoping that shooting percentages would revert to the mean. He, and the system, fundamentally ignored that shooting percentages are not fixed attributes of the shooter. Ovechkin will not have the same shooting percentage if you tell him to take low risk shots from the point instead of dumping pucks in when there's no play to be made. He has the shooting percentage he has in large part because he nearly always takes his shots from high danger areas. He does the hard work to get there. Peters tried for a shortcut that was never going to work, and some of us knew it at the time.

I agree with a lot of this, but not really the part about having enough talent to win.

Eric Staal was way past his peak by the time Peters got here, and Jordan had already proven to be a caliber below what we were expecting. The defense was Faulk, a teenaged Hanifin, and a bunch of trash. The forward core was a stagnating Jeff Skinner, raw young versions of Lindholm and Rask, and spare parts that JR found in a dumpster somewhere. We added Aho and Teravainen during that era, but it wasn't yet obvious what we had on our hands. The goalies were... actually let's not even talk about that.

TBH I thought Peters probably gave us about as good of a chance of winning as anyone would have. The shoot-constantly approach made sense because it was the one thing we could do better than the other team.

 

[Borsig]

Not impressed with KK even when he has gifted linemates.

 

[WreckingCrew]

Not impressed with KK even when he has gifted linemates.

Anyone not named Svech, Nachos, Nookie, Nosen (overperforming expectations) has been largely unimpressive so far this season (even Slavin has been on the struggle bus, and Aho making massive gaffes)

 

[Vagrant]

we're in a bad spot with him, to be honest. they're trying to feed him minutes and situational advantages to will him into usefulness but even that isn't working. this is his 5th NHL season. if you're still burping and changing him it's probably time to recognize the reality of your situation. he's about to play game 100 with Carolina and in how many of those has he been a difference maker? it would take an absolute avalanche of advanced stats to resolve the bitterness of watching him play. he has more minors than points playing with the absolute best we have to offer. 1 goal and 0 assists in his last 14 and the goal was on a spinorama pass by necas to put him in all alone that I am not entirely sure he even got his stick on. it's hard to watch.

 

[Stickpucker]

If I'm being honest I don't see it with Kokomiami. He seems like a nice kid and I want to see him do well. But...

I was/am higher on Nachos than most even in his down year. Mostly because you could see the skill jumping off the page at you. He has insane wheels, can dangle, has great vision. He has a one timer that can score. I've long said I think he's a 70+ pt player in his prime especially with the right line mates. I think he still has a lot of room to grow.

With Kokomiami I don't see what tools he has to be high on him. He improved his skating in the off season and it looks passable. He's kind of big and good at face offs. He has a good shot if given all day (he won't be in the NHL). He seems kind of strong and scrappy...maybe we should just groom him to be a bottom 6 agitator? (RBA doesn't seem to want an agitator in the lineup) I just don't see how his game translates to a top 6 player?

That would be fine...but not for what we gave up to get him. I'd be okay if we didn't already have Jordo at 3c and he was paid closer to 4m but I have a hard time getting excited about his game. At this point he may be blocking a transition of Nachos to 2c which hurts the team in the long term. Right now he's actively making lineup decisions harder not easier.

 

[Vagrant]

he's overpaid by double what he should be making and that's generous. it sucks that people talk like his contract isn't a big deal, but it's almost literally what excluded us from being able to be aggressive about our 2nd line vacancy at center. they made a hope play and without svech, necas, aho, and burns doing a lot of heavy lifting it would be more reflective in our record.

KK is almost exactly comparable to oskar lindblom other than being a winger, and there's folks that aren't happy at his $2.5 million price. I have no problem with making a speculative play, but it's just so difficult to project success based on what he showed us his first season here and the lack of shots and offense in general. we pivoted to give him a larger role after being less effective than expected hoping that putting him between great wingers would raise all ships with the tide and he sank like a rock. it needs immediate correction and if we can do something like we did with rask for nino, don't hesitate to do it.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

he's overpaid by double what he should be making and that's generous. it sucks that people talk like his contract isn't a big deal, but it's almost literally what excluded us from being able to be aggressive about our 2nd line vacancy at center. they made a hope play and without svech, necas, aho, and burns doing a lot of heavy lifting it would be more reflective in our record.

yea cuz this FO makes big trades or signs big UFAs to the 2C position.

 

[tarheelhockey]

yea cuz this FO makes big trades or signs big UFAs to the 2C position.

I mean Trocheck was a pretty damn good move at the time. And Kotkaniemi was, himself, a major signing with the intent of him being our 2C.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I mean Trocheck was a pretty damn good move at the time. And Kotkaniemi was, himself, a major signing with the intent of him being our 2C.

we didnt trade much of value for Trocheck, that isnt the kind of big move that Kotkaniemi is somehow "blocking." that is some big time 2C Vagrant believes we would be in the play for.

 

[Vagrant]

yea cuz this FO makes big trades or signs big UFAs to the 2C position.

as tarheel mentioned, the play to get him was probably one of the splashier moves we could have made. it should have been more widely predicted to be suspect based on the deviation it was from our standard mode of operation that has brought us so much success with our signings. it was an exploitative move that seemed based half in billionaire pride and half in pure speculation. it was hubris and we got burned for it. it was almost insulting to everyone we've squeezed out of an extra $500k by allowing negotiations to drag on indefinitely and forcing one of our star players to find his own extension. it just didn't fit the narrative of prudence bordering on penny wise pound foolish.

 

[tarheelhockey]

we didnt trade much of value for Trocheck, that isnt the kind of big move that Kotkaniemi is somehow "blocking." that is some big time 2C Vagrant believes we would be in the play for.

To me it’s more that we can’t trade for the next Trocheck or Turbo — the guy who’s a cap problem for some team but a perfect fit for what we’re missing — because we’re completely leveraged into keeping Kotkaniemi on the books for the foreseeable future.

It’s not a crippling move or anything, but it does come at the cost of flexibility. And flexibility is what lets us rip off other teams when they get in trouble.

 

[Vagrant]

we didnt trade much of value for Trocheck, that isnt the kind of big move that Kotkaniemi is somehow "blocking." that is some big time 2C Vagrant believes we would be in the play for.

I think we could have made more honest efforts for Giroux or Malkin or Copp if we didn't have his contract on board and didn't have to backfill with a guy like Stastny. even keeping Tro would have been on the table, even if that wasn't the best idea either.

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

as tarheel mentioned, the play to get him was probably one of the splashier moves we could have made. it should have been more widely predicted to be suspect based on the deviation it was from our standard mode of operation that has brought us so much success with our signings. it was an exploitative move that seemed based half in billionaire pride and half in pure speculation. it was hubris and we got burned for it. it was almost insulting to everyone we've squeezed out of an extra $500k by allowing negotiations to drag on indefinitely and forcing one of our star players to find his own extension. it just didn't fit the narrative of prudence bordering on penny wise pound foolish.

at least KK's signing and playing on the roster doesnt create extravagant feelings in people

 

[Nikishin Go Boom]

I think we could have made more honest efforts for Giroux or Malkin or Copp if we didn't have his contract on board and didn't have to backfill with a guy like Stastny. even keeping Tro would have been on the table, even if that wasn't the best idea either.

we werent in play for Malkin. Oh man the reactions watching Copp underperform his contract and cost more than KK. Im sure that would go over well. I dont think Giroux was likely due to his age and getting 3 years cuz we sign older guys for multiple years.