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Player Discussion Mika Zibanejad

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How does it look to the rest of the team that when Laviolette throws the lines into a blender, the only combo he keeps together are Mika and Kreider? How does it look to the rest of the team that a guy wearing and A and 2nd longest tenured player on the team won't ever get his hands dirty? Mika has played absolutely gutless hockey consistently since the the start of the 23 season. That's 2+ years.
 
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Mika, bread and kreider are all highly skilled but too soft. They dont want to bang up an opponent and battle in the gladiators arena. How can they get tougher and meaner? Theyre just afraid of contact. The same old sad story.
 
Our start has been very nice, so major changes are not imminent right now for the coach. Problem is we fans know Zibanejad can turn to net negative for the team if he doesn't score on powerplay and it seems like matter of time. We all know he very likely catch hot streak at some point in the season. But collective fear is, dry streak going to happen in the playoffs. Margin of error is so tiny there it actually can cost us it all. Mika can't be ghost at the powerplay and be liability at the same time getting major playing time against top competition. I'm all for it to make players getting what they deserve by play, and it's pretty much clear to everyone Lafreniere has earned fair try in PP1. Youngster is scoring at will, hungry, clutch. When Mika seems passive, lost, unmotivated.. Situation with Mika seems rather difficult. His attitude and whole demeanor lacks passion. Like there is no dog in him. So I think giving him tough love has chance to backfire. if he indeed is fragile, respond to it could give more negative outcome. Still thinking Lavi has to do it at some point. This is contender roster, they have to be pushed to the limit.
 
McRanger92 said:
How does it look to the rest of the team that when Laviolette throws the lines into a blender, the only combo he keeps together are Mika and Kreider? How does it look to the rest of the team that a guy wearing and A and 2nd longest tenured player on the team won't ever get his hands dirty? Mika has played absolutely gutless hockey consistently since the the start of the 23 season. That's 2+ years.
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It looks fine to the rest of the team. They're hockey players. For the same reason they all love Lindgren and follow Trouba. There's more to the locker room than CF% or whatever. It's going to take a longer down stretch of the season for Lavy to really shake things up. It's not happening at 5-1-1. And we've all seen Mika have slow starts then get red hot. He may or may not still have that in him. While the team is rolling they will be patient.

I think it would be fine to dial back minutes for that line given their PP and PK time. Especially when Chytil's line is rolling. Use the young guys more 5v5 for now.
 
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If you look at Mika’s HR page he really was not bad last season. Scoring down a bit 5/5, but all his rate stats were right around Average Mika.

One thing I noticed was that his dZone starts went way up vs. historical norms FWIW. Suggests Lavi is using him a bit differently which we don’t talk about a lot but could be the source of some of his ennui. Maybe asking him to focus on defense more than he’s comfortable.

www.hockey-reference.com

Mika Zibanejad Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Title | Hockey-Reference.com

Checkout the latest stats of Mika Zibanejad. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft and more on Hockey-Reference.com
www.hockey-reference.com www.hockey-reference.com
 
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CTTribe73 said:
If you look at Mika’s HR page he really was not bad last season. Scoring down a bit 5/5, but all his rate stats were right around Average Mika.

One thing I noticed was that his dZone starts went way up vs. historical norms FWIW. Suggests Lavi is using him a bit differently which we don’t talk about a lot but could be the source of some of his ennui. Maybe asking him to focus on defense more than he’s comfortable.

www.hockey-reference.com

Mika Zibanejad Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Title | Hockey-Reference.com

Checkout the latest stats of Mika Zibanejad. Get info about his position, age, height, weight, trade, draft and more on Hockey-Reference.com
www.hockey-reference.com www.hockey-reference.com
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It’s an interesting take. Not one that I have really considered, but what I see out there is a guy who has no confidence right now.

He is the king of overpassing, and when he really gets in trouble is when he doesn’t have the confidence that he can finish the play himself. He’d rather deflect the responsibility of finishing the play because he’s doubtful of his own ability to do so. He tried again to make the perfect pass to Kreider on the PP and it failed miserably. He should’ve just taken the shot there. In my opinion he’s more likely to score than he is to get that pass through. Especially since we just scored that way. The prior game. It takes a special talent to beat teams the same way over and over and over again. Defenses adapt. the only players that can ever do this are generational, and that’s not Mika.

I haven’t really seen a physical decline, he seems to be moving just as fine as he ever did. I really think it’s a confidence issue. He knows he faced criticism for his performance last year, and it’s possible that the issue is compounding.

All that being said, I don’t know how to fix this. We can’t just write him off. He’s likely better than anyone else out there that’s available. You can point to the Zib/Brassard trade and say do it again, but the reality is that we got extremely lucky there.

He probably deserves a demotion or a healthy scratch, but that could just exacerbate the issue. We really need him to get going if we’re gonna have any shot at a cup
 
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Kaapo Cabana said:
It’s an interesting take. Not one that I have really considered, but what I see out there is a guy who has no confidence right now.

He is the king of overpassing, and when he really gets in trouble is when he doesn’t have the confidence that he can finish the play himself. He’d rather deflect the responsibility of finishing the play because he’s doubtful of his own ability to do so. He tried again to make the perfect pass to Kreider on the PP and it failed miserably. He should’ve just taken the shot there. In my opinion he’s more likely to score than he is to get that pass through. Especially since we just scored that way. The prior game. It takes a special talent to beat teams the same way over and over and over again. Defenses adapt. the only players that can ever do this are generational, and that’s not Mika.

I haven’t really seen a physical decline, he seems to be moving just as fine as he ever did. I really think it’s a confidence issue. He knows he faced criticism for his performance last year, and it’s possible that the issue is compounding.

All that being said, I don’t know how to fix this. We can’t just write him off. He’s likely better than anyone else out there that’s available. You can point to the Zib/Brassard trade and say do it again, but the reality is that we got extremely lucky there.

He probably deserves a demotion or a healthy scratch, but that could just exacerbate the issue. We really need him to get going if we’re gonna have any shot at a cup
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What I would do-and I don't know if this is even possible-is I'd tell Smith and Kreider not to shoot if they don't have a virtually open net and just keep feeding Mika so he can shoot himself. Give him as many scoring chances as humanly possible. Sort of the 'Beatings will continue until morale improves' approach.
 
Row I Goon said:
Call it whatever you want. Quote stats ad nauseam. I don’t care.

For me, right now, he ain’t no 1C. In fact, IMHO, he ain’t playing like a recognisable top 6 forward.
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Watch out, there are staunch defenders of this guy. They will show you the amazing face off metrics he has so far...
 
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DuneGoon84 said:
Watch out, there are staunch defenders of this guy. They will show you the amazing face off metrics he has so far...
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I haven’t seen anyone defending his play so far. Lavi is clearly noticing it as the decrease in ice time shows.

The line has been getting good bounces, and smith isn’t a bad fit. It’s just our 3rd line. And as a 3rd line it’s both overpaid and not terrible.
Maybe he’ll get matched up w a 3rd pair and remember he’s making 9.5 million.
 
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You'd be hard pressed trying to find anything in that article that comes across as 'complaining', even if you were looking for narratives to push. The worst thing you could infer is that Mika wants more time for that line to prove itself (I guess youd could try and infer he's blaming Smith, but with longbow ability like that you probably should have been at Agincourt).

Also, can someone please get Larry a sub-editor? This shouldn't make it to print...
"Zibanejad’s average ice time going has dropped from a career-high 21:38 in 2019-20..."
 
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That line either misses Buchnevich or Vatrano and I'm not sure either of them would fix this at this point. When they keep trying guys on RW and it doesn't really work, it might be time to look at the two incumbent guys. And specifically the C. And it looks like that's what Laviolette is doing.
 
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Rempe73 said:
Mika complaining about this is hilarious. Like, get back to reality
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Misleading headline by Larry because his quotes say nothing of the sort. "I don't think anyone wants to play less." is a rather cliche quote that pretty much any player would say yet somehow that turned into an article about him being upset about his ice time.

Although, I see @mike14 has already said the same thing. This is just Larry fishing for a story.
 
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looks like garbage tonight in the first. Probably the worst I’ve ever seen from him. He’s bad defensively in this one.
 
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SA16 said:
Misleading headline by Larry because his quotes say nothing of the sort. "I don't think anyone wants to play less." is a rather cliche quote that pretty much any player would say yet somehow that turned into an article about him being upset about his ice time.

Although, I see @mike14 has already said the same thing. This is just Larry fishing for a story.
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Yellow journalism as presented by the ny post. William Hearst would be proud
 
Filip's line was our best line last night and it wasn't even close. Mika needs to play better. He seems to get off to slow starts. This season so far looks more the same. He's flubbing too many passes and plays and losing his coverage now and again and losing too many puck battles. The way for him to get more ice time is to play better.
 
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Dude sounded like a complete bl**j** there. He could've owned that he's been playing like shit. He's making people turn on him very quickly
 
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