Observations XXI

[Pred303]

looking on the bright side of things, ok well I got nothing. that was a serious, complete beatdown.

..hamhuis/weber.... each -4. in 13 minutes of ice time. in a 5 goal allowed game. had a flashback of 3rd pairs to last year's playoff.

first the PP;
..the PP continues it's superb play.
..0 for our last 22.
..no PP goals in our last 5 games.
..no PP goals in 8 of our last 10 games.
..no PP goals scored in 33 of our 49 games.
..we are now 13.9%, WPG is double that at 27.1%
..unless we dramatically improve the PP we will beat no one in the playoffs.
..and yet we continue the same umbrella PP with no changes.

now on to rinne;
..rinne. some bad luck, some bad deflections. some bad screens. but he wasn't good.
..rinne's last 10 starts. save %'s of .853, .750, .879, .903, 1.000 (18 shots), .897, .880, .818, .933, .871. won, the 3 games he was.880 or better, lost the other 7.
..that's 3-5-2, 2.80 gaa, .880 save percentage in the last 10 games,
..in fact, rinne is now 3-7-2 in his last 12 starts.
..ytd, rinne right now has the worst goals allowed against average of his entire career

this was not a good looking game for us. these are the guys we are going to have to beat best of 7 and we now have lost 6 of our last 7 to them on our home ice.

 

[PredsV82]

Rinne going to the ASG next week will be a painful joke, and I say that as one of his biggest defenders on here

 

[Roman Yoshi]

Rinne going to the ASG next week will be a painful joke, and I say that as one of his biggest defenders on here

He was really really good three weeks ago ...

Honestly, I don't know how Poile.doesnt upgrade this team. Some changes have to happen.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

He was really really good three weeks ago ...

Honestly, I don't know how Poile.doesnt upgrade this team. Some changes have to happen.

this is the "we just want another shot" team.

one could say poile's biggest mistake was believing them and not upgrading last summer.

 

[TitansVolsPreds615]

this is the "we just want another shot" team.

one could say poile's biggest mistake was believing them and not upgrading last summer.

People keep saying this but he has no assets to trade for new pieces.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

People keep saying this but he has no assets to trade for new pieces.

we are limited no doubt. tolvanen, fabbro, and this years pick. cupboard is bare.

 

[Scoresberg]

And IIRC, the big moves we’ve made at the TDL have not helped us in the playoffs.

I kinda get it that they want to go with this, but I would acquire a depth forward to give more variations to the bottom-6 and add some competition.

Also, would die to see Fabbro join us after his season has ended. We gotta sign him at some point.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

we are limited no doubt. tolvanen, fabbro, and this years pick. cupboard is bare.

Yup, and Poile has tended (by necessity with the Preds for a long time) to be a long-view GM. I'll be quite surprised if he lets go of those few remaining upper-level prospects we have. With the season disrupted by so many injuries (and who knows when Turris will be back), I'm wary of making this the "do or die all-in" season, if that's even something Poile considers.

 

[Armourboy]

I think you will know what Poile thinks of it here fairly quickly. I have a feeling he is going to look at it one of two ways, either he needs to make some moves to take a real run, or he thinks it's not going to happen and it's best to just sit on the prospects and make some moves next summer.

For certain either Fiala needs to get his stuff together or we need to find a replacement. Turris either needs to get healthy or we need to replace him. Ellis definitely needs to get his head out of his butt or he would be the guy I'm trading for a wake up call to the rest of the team.

 

[triggrman]

Before we beat Fiala up too much that defenseman, I believe it was Weber, made a bad read to leave Fiala hanging with his back to the forechecker.

 

[JustaFinnishGuy]

I believe we help Fiala offensively the best by trading him somewhere else.
Predators continue to be a team where you don't see PPG point performances for a reason. The system we play doesn't allow that (granted that Forsberg probably would have done it already if not for injuries).

 

[predfan98]

[QUOTE="Pred303, post: 155229745, member:

first the PP;
..the PP continues it's superb play.
..0 for our last 22.
..no PP goals in our last 5 games.
..no PP goals in 8 of our last 10 games.
..no PP goals scored in 33 of our 49 games.
..we are now 13.9%, WPG is double that at 27.1%
..unless we dramatically improve the PP we will beat no one in the playoffs.
..and yet we continue the same umbrella PP with no changes.
.[/QUOTE]

Amen

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Maybe they just think with all the talent at their disposal the PP will ultimately "sort itself out"... law of averages, they'll finish the season at a 30% clip or something.

I don't even know what to suggest, though. Some dirty net-front presence scorer like Simmonds is one angle, but I'm not at all convinced that'd do it.

 

[Pred303]

nope. still doesn't feel any better this morning.

on the bright side;
... we've got a good team. obviously a much better team than we were last night and for most of the past two months
... the central is playing awful and we aren't even being pressing for second in the division, so there's that too
....we know the PP is at least better than what we have shown this year and that it will get better at some point.
...A healthy Turris will obviously help us become a little more dangerous offensively.
...we can, and i am sure we will play better in net than we have been lately. .
...our defense is better than what we have shown and also should improve.
..I expect our PK to play better than it has as well.

there is nothing wrong that a good 5 game winning streak won't completely correct. One never 'panics' when a a 5 game winning streak will fix things.

 

[Pred303]

meanwhile i hate these things;

..the goal horn going off on arvidsson's failed breakaway.
..the song glorious
..mase being so tissue soft on goalie performance. be an analyst mase, not a company schill (examples just last night being the waived off goal where yes rinne was screened, but you HAVE to at least cover the shortside post on that shot. another on the cross ice pass to the backdoor that caught rinne out of position and facing the wrong way and another on the soft shot from the point). Every game with the first few saves mase says "he's really on tonight". drives me nuts.
..the offside review. period. (even if we are now 5 for 5 this year)
..fiala trying to stick handle in traffic.
..jarnkrok getting so badly backdoored.
..our PP. period.
..that tolvanen only has 4 goals in 24 games in the AHL
...WPG.

 

[drwpreds]

When we have a horrible game like last night, it always sucks the fun out of everything for me. I don’t feel like watching other games, watching highlights, reading the boards, posting on the boards, etc. And when the loss is to the Jets, it makes it 10 times worse. I have gotten to the point where I hate the Jets worse than any other team in any other sport, and for me that is saying a mouthful.
But the day after, just as a way of self-therapy, a few thoughts: (apologies for the length- feel free to skip)

1) I have commented on this before, but Preds Twitter/Social media is an absolute dumpster fire/cesspool. Last night was absolutely awful- there is no arguing that. But the number of people that have just thrown their hands up, curled up in the fetal position and just given up is just ridiculous. The running theme on Twitter last night was “well, that’s it- we just cannot beat the Jets- our window is closed”. Completely ridiculous. I think we on this board have done a much better job of reacting a whole lot more rationally- so kudos for that.

2) I may get blasted for this, but I think it was kind of a strange game. Despite the score, that game did not feel like a complete beat down to me. The expected goals for the game were 2.79 to 2.69 in the Preds favor. I am not for one second saying we didn’t get soundly defeated. But for me it was not one of those games where it was just a complete blow out/beat down, where one team just completely dominated the other.

3) As bad as last night feels, I am still trying to learn my lesson from last season. The reality of the situation is this- nothing that happened last night will mean squat come playoff time. Whether the Jets beat us 10-0 or we beat them 10-0, it really does not matter one bit. Last year should have taught us that lesson. Last year, the Preds were the better team during the season. We won the division. We won the President’s trophy. We won the season series vs the Jets. We took 5 out of 6 points from them in three 2nd half matchups down the stretch. We earned home ice advantage. We were looked at by almost everyone as the favorite to win the West. And what did all of that mean come playoff time??? Absolutely nothing. Same thing applies this year. No matter what happens last night- if we are good enough to beat them in the playoffs we will. If we aren’t, we won’t. What happened in one game in January doesn’t affect that one bit.

4) For anyone who has given up based on last night- what if the Preds had won the game 5-1? Would those people be saying today that Its over for the Jets? Of course not.

5) The Jets may very well be better than us- but if they are it ain’t by much. The past 2 seasons the two teams have played 14 times. The record is 7-7. The Preds played a complete crap series in the playoffs last year and still took them to 7 games. Jets may be better than us, but there is no way you can convince me that we CAN’T beat them in a series. Doesn’t mean I am confident about it, but we can beat them.

6) We can probably kiss the division goodbye at this point. 4 points behind Jets and they have 2 games in hand. Plus we have to play 2 times in Winnipeg down the stretch. But I am still trying to convince myself that I don’t even care about that this year. I don’t know about anyone else, but assuming we play the Jets in round 2 I absolutely do NOT want home ice advantage. I have ZERO confidence in us playing them in Bridgestone. They have run us out of the building 3 times now. I have much more confidence beating them on the road.

7) After last night, many people are on the Simmonds bandwagon now. I do agree that he would be a great addition, especially against the Jets. But I still hope we do NOT overpay for him. I would rather take my chances with what we already have than overpay for a guy who will be here only 30+ games. Use those assets on something more long term.

8) Was anyone bothered at all by Josi and Ellis’s post game comments about the Jets?? They basically went into some great detail about how awesome their team is. (Josi- “they have everything”). I don’t know, maybe it’s just me and maybe I was just in a bad mood but I wasn’t crazy about hearing that. If I am the captain of the team, by attitude is “the heck with them”. Just say they have a good team, we have a good team and it just wasn’t our night. But don’t go freaking overboard praising them. Again, maybe it’s just me though..

9) Hard not to be worried about Rinne. Since Dec 6 he has a 3.40 GAA and .887 save%. Yikes. He always has a stretch like this during the season so hopefully he will pull out of it.

 

[TitansVolsPreds615]

Johansen is having a hearing on his chop on Scheifele. Looks like he's going to be facing a suspension.

 

[hockey diva]

We seem to do better when we are the underdog. Let the jets have the division and all the pressure. (Would love to see them have to play a pacific team in the first round).

And we seemed to have a lot of jets fans perusing our board. I appreciate the mods for deleting any garbage and/or their fans minding their manners.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

Being a sports fan is more fun if there's a rivalry in play. It can be extra fun to have a villain to cheer against while you cheer for your heroes. So I'm all good if things heat back up between the Preds and Jets. I thought it was heading that way with some of the regular season games last year. I thought the playoffs were going to be a bloodbath. But for us it was clear even in the Colorado series that our boys weren't quite switched on for the playoffs. And I think that happened for the Jets too. It left our series against them a little bland compared to my expectations. I don't believe either team was really in synch last year in the playoffs.

It's pretty funny to read some of the comments about Johansen, for example. If he's a villain to anybody out there, wow, that'd be great. So hard to envision him as the fiend that some seem to be viewing him as, but so much the better if any our guys can be hated. The more hate the better! Bring it on! I'm all ready to hate the Jets again and adopt them as a long-term rival, so hopefully the teams can take the next step together to provide that. (I can tell it's not quite there yet though - if I hated them THAT much already I'd be hoping for them to crash into last place instead, never mind any hopes for an entertaining playoff series). The potential is there at least.

 

[MrJoshua]

I still find it amusing that we finally have the long-anticipated rivalry with the nearby Thrashers, now that they're in Winnipeg. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about the Jets.

 

[Drake744]

I still find it amusing that we finally have the long-anticipated rivalry with the nearby Thrashers, now that they're in Winnipeg. That's about the only positive thing I have to say about the Jets.

Kovalchuk was fun to watch back in the day.....

 

[LCPreds]

1) I have commented on this before, but Preds Twitter/Social media is an absolute dumpster fire/cesspool. Last night was absolutely awful- there is no arguing that. But the number of people that have just thrown their hands up, curled up in the fetal position and just given up is just ridiculous. The running theme on Twitter last night was “well, that’s it- we just cannot beat the Jets- our window is closed”. Completely ridiculous. I think we on this board have done a much better job of reacting a whole lot more rationally- so kudos for that.

2) I may get blasted for this, but I think it was kind of a strange game. Despite the score, that game did not feel like a complete beat down to me. The expected goals for the game were 2.79 to 2.69 in the Preds favor. I am not for one second saying we didn’t get soundly defeated. But for me it was not one of those games where it was just a complete blow out/beat down, where one team just completely dominated the other.


6) We can probably kiss the division goodbye at this point. 4 points behind Jets and they have 2 games in hand. Plus we have to play 2 times in Winnipeg down the stretch. But I am still trying to convince myself that I don’t even care about that this year. I don’t know about anyone else, but assuming we play the Jets in round 2 I absolutely do NOT want home ice advantage. I have ZERO confidence in us playing them in Bridgestone. They have run us out of the building 3 times now. I have much more confidence beating them on the road.

I'm on board with pretty much all of your points but definitely wanted to comment on a few.

1) You need to go look back in that thread. I saw at least one person say precisely what you saw on twitter/social media. "we cannot beat the Jets". There's something about hockey that makes people lose their minds in the moment. It would be like throwing your hands up in the air and giving up because you realized you had a relatively sub par 0.25 mile segment in an entire 26.2 mile marathon.

2) I'm completely with you on this. We had Rinne letting in a trash goal to start us off 0-1 and the Jets had top notch goaltending pretty much the entire game. They did a better job slamming home their rebound opportunities. The Preds had similar opportunities and failed on almost all of them.

6) Disagree on this one. We know we can streak and the fact that we still have 2 games against the Jets means the opportunity is certainly there for a full tilt.

 

[Bringer of Jollity]

I'm of the "anyone can beat anyone" mindset (we went to the Finals as a #8!), but we've lost something like 5 of last 6 at home to the Jets and lost 4 of 6 when it really mattered last season, and we don't look particularly threatening in a lot of those losses. When you look at that roster, I don't fault fans for feeling like they're just a better team we're not going to be able to get past. Considering the type of stuff that posters COULD be throwing around (as already referenced), I'm already a little sick of the posters expressing some negativity or pessimism being called out on it. Heaven forbid!

 

[GoldOnGold]

2 games for Johansen

 

[Armourboy]

Really you think about that game, if Watson puts that early one in instead of ringing the pipe this is probably a completely different outcome.

Secondary to that, I'm not sure if it actually lines up, but it feels like Rinne started to slip about the time Saros got sick. I think with his age he just needs a good break. He's always played better in the past after one, it may be more so now. That fact worries me come playoff time.

Last but not least I think we do need an upgrade over Fiala. He, much like Forsberg in his early career, seems so impatient. Instead of taking what the game gives him he tries to force things too much. I'm still wondering if he changed sticks or something because I dont remeber his puck handling being this bad last season. I'm pretty sure a ton of it is probably just frustration and pressure he is putting on himself, but it's just horrid to watch.