Confirmed Trade: [PIT/NSH] Philip Tomasino for 2027 4th round pick

[Armourboy]

When a GM makes 2 massive investments on offense like Stamkos and Marchessault, he can't afford to have his coach play them less, because they signed there for a reason, they're established top 6 players that have a ton of pedigree and were told what their usage would be so to blame the coach on that is a little absurd, ridiculous actually.

Stamkos and Marchessault are essentially playing similar minutes to what they were getting in Tampa and VGK. The issue is, the Preds aren't replacing 2 players that played those minutes last year. They lost who? Sherwood, Zucker, and Glass? Evanglista lost minutes on the powerplay which makes sense when you add Stamkos and Marchessault, but he's playing 30seconds less ES than last year, L'Heureux is a rookie so that is whatever (there's no TOI from last year for him to be mad about a drop this year).

All 3 averaged 13mins and some change or under. But you add 2 players that play 17-18+ on average? Yeah that's going to eat up a lot. Some of the players did see an increase in ice time, the younger players, but that's the nature of adding 2 big pieces like that. The team was never in need of those 2 and the GM f***ed it. Is Brunette the problem? Maybe a little, but what he did last season for a rebuild is something Trotz should have looked at as a good sign of the future, instead he went and blew his cap space to land 2 big names like they were suddenly contenders and he was some genius in his own mind - he isn't.

Your gripes with Fabbro are 100% legit though, that was some insane f*** up by Trotz. To keep Luke Schenn over Dante Fabbro? Lol. They were already lacking in RHD, to just waive one like that is ridiculous.

My main fault with Trotz is the allowing his coach to waste young talent and him getting sucked in by one hot stretch to think he had a good team and coach. That 18 game stretch is going to set this franchise back a decade if Trotz can't course correct

Brunette isn't a good coach though. Good coaches make teams better and his on ice decisions, line up changes, line blendering, TOI useage, and garbage systems actively make the team worse. It doesn't matter though because based on Trotz's own words he is going to give his coach a chance to learn and make mistakes, oddly enough something Brunette won't allow his younger players in return.

 

[mattihp]

My main fault with Trotz is the allowing his coach to waste young talent and him getting sucked in by one hot stretch to think he had a good team and coach. That 18 game stretch is going to set this franchise back a decade if Trotz can't course correct

Brunette isn't a good coach though. Good coaches make teams better and his on ice decisions, line up changes, line blendering, TOI useage, and garbage systems actively make the team worse. It doesn't matter though because based on Trotz's own words he is going to give his coach a chance to learn and make mistakes, oddly enough something Brunette won't allow his younger players in return.

Brunette is clever and understands hockey. He would be an amazing assistant coach.

 

[Armourboy]

Brunette is clever and understands hockey. He would be an amazing assistant coach.

His current offensive system says he doesn't understand it all that well. Seriously watch a Preds game one night and be astounded.

 

[mattihp]

His current offensive system says he doesn't understand it all that well. Seriously watch a Preds game one night and be astounded.

No, what it says is that he can't make an offensive system. Brunette is nowhere close to being the guy to shape the way a team's strategies in total. He would be really good at working on details though!

 

[Armourboy]

No, what it says is that he can't make an offensive system. Brunette is nowhere close to being the guy to shape the way a team's strategies in total. He would be really good at working on details though!

Oh we've heard over and over about details on the broadcasts. Oddly enough the Preds fan base is still trying to figure out which ones he is talking about cause they are all bad.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It just seems to me like maybe Brunette's ideas would work better if he had different kinds of players. He's got a relatively old and sluggish roster, and not much skill on the back end especially. Most coaches I've seen would take a roster like that and adopt something of a different gameplan that doesn't rely so much on attacking with speed and jumping the D up constantly into the offensive zone. I've usually seen coaches "simplify" or fall back into adopting a safe/conservative gameplan when faced with the kinds of execution issues and string of losing efforts that the Preds have put forth this season.

 

[Honour Over Glory]

Oh we've heard over and over about details on the broadcasts. Oddly enough the Preds fan base is still trying to figure out which ones he is talking about cause they are all bad.

You're right. Philip Tomasino was clearly misused by Brunette.

Because putting up stellar analytics as a Penguin like 17 Corsi shows Brunette was wrong all along.

Or...hold up.

Philip Tomasino - Summary - Natural Stat Trick

 

[Honour Over Glory]

You lot underestimated how bad Sullivan and his system truly are.

 

[Raistlin]

It just seems to me like maybe Brunette's ideas would work better if he had different kinds of players. He's got a relatively old and sluggish roster, and not much skill on the back end especially. Most coaches I've seen would take a roster like that and adopt something of a different gameplan that doesn't rely so much on attacking with speed and jumping the D up constantly into the offensive zone. I've usually seen coaches "simplify" or fall back into adopting a safe/conservative gameplan when faced with the kinds of execution issues and string of losing efforts that the Preds have put forth this season.

emphasis on sluggish. one of the slowest teams Ive seen this season so far.

 

[mattihp]

emphasis on sluggish. one of the slowest teams Ive seen this season so far.

Brunette was never a speedster himself. So he is trying to get anyone fast to leave

 

[Armourboy]

You're right. Philip Tomasino was clearly misused by Brunette.

Because putting up stellar analytics as a Penguin like 17 Corsi shows Brunette was wrong all along.

Or...hold up.

Philip Tomasino - Summary - Natural Stat Trick

Thing with Tomasino I didn't expect him to be good right off the bat, especially considering where he was going. I mean based on what yall were saying about Sullivan he was basically jumping from the frying pan into the fryer. I'm also betting he is dealing with some of the issue that we saw in Nashville when Novak started playing with Stamkos and Marchessault, he deferred every play to them to the point he completely stopped playing his own game.

Fabbro going to Columbus was a good fit, which is why I expected him to do ok right off the rip. I thought Tomasino to Pittsburgh was a bad fit for him, so unless Sullivan is fired or he goes on somewhere else I didn't expect him to do much.

I mean he put up 40 points with McCarron on a grinder line so the ability is there, its just a matter of if he can find it again.

None of that precludes the fact that just about every Preds fan right now thinks Brunette doesn't know what he is doing. It's become so wide spread that even our garbage media has actually started asking Trotz about it.

 

[Porter Stoutheart]

It's possible that Tomasino was already broken by the time Brunette got him. He definitely didn't make any effort to help fix him, however. None of which says anything about Brunette as a good/bad coach in general. He's definitely looking like a bad coach for the team he is coaching right now, however, completely indepedent of his handling of one player.