Rantanen vs Necas points race to end of season.

[benfranklin]

Put it this way, Necas has a really bad habit of skating directly into the teeth of the defense and turning the puck over quickly during things like a line change or whenever he gets the puck with a little space in the neutral zone. He's never seen a 1v2 or 1v3 that he doesn't think he can stick handle through, but he just doesn't have the hands to do it.

Hmm will be interesting to see Makar and MacKinnon work with that. He likely wont be the first player up the ice and watching MacKinnon stop and turn back will likely force him to do the same.

 

[Toby91ca]

They literally do ask how you do it, unless you think Rob Brown was one of the most dominant players in history.

But no one typically goes that deep and I'm not sure why anyone would think Rob Brown was even close to a dominant player, regardless of how you think he was able to put up the numbers he put up, the numbers he put up were not dominant anyway. He had one season where he was 5th in pts and 7th in goals....which isn't dominant to begin with, but he was 74 pts and 36 goals away from the leader. Outside of that one year he was generally never in the top 100 goal or point scorers (he did have a few...but we aren't talking top 10, 20 or 30).

So guys that are only near the top once in their career you write-off as a fluke anyway, who cares how they scored?

 

[Svechhammer]

Hmm will be interesting to see Makar and MacKinnon work with that. He likely wont be the first player up the ice and watching MacKinnon stop and turn back will likely force him to do the same.

I've made the joke more than a few times on the Canes board that it's a matter of time before MacKinnon is trying to physically rip him in half when he regresses back to his usual play. I do hope for his sake he can finally learn he doesn't have to do everything himself, and hopefully being on a team and line with a talent like MacKinnon will help with that, but it's going to take time. When he isn't 'on', his game can be really ugly, so it's all about how to harness and maintain his ability to stay 'on'

 

[a mangy Meowth]

I've made the joke more than a few times on the Canes board that it's a matter of time before MacKinnon is trying to physically rip him in half when he regresses back to his usual play. I do hope for his sake he can finally learn he doesn't have to do everything himself, and hopefully being on a team and line with a talent like MacKinnon will help with that, but it's going to take time. When he isn't 'on', his game can be really ugly, so it's all about how to harness and maintain his ability to stay 'on'

MacKinnon has played extensive minutes with the individual known as "Andre Burakovsky".

Necas will be allowed to live intact. He may need to alter his diet, however.

 

[Muffin]

Put it this way, Necas has a really bad habit of skating directly into the teeth of the defense and turning the puck over quickly during things like a line change or whenever he gets the puck with a little space in the neutral zone. He's never seen a 1v2 or 1v3 that he doesn't think he can stick handle through, but he just doesn't have the hands to do it.

So he really is just MacKinnon lite.

 

[benfranklin]

I've made the joke more than a few times on the Canes board that it's a matter of time before MacKinnon is trying to physically rip him in half when he regresses back to his usual play. I do hope for his sake he can finally learn he doesn't have to do everything himself, and hopefully being on a team and line with a talent like MacKinnon will help with that, but it's going to take time. When he isn't 'on', his game can be really ugly, so it's all about how to harness and maintain his ability to stay 'on'

The difference in ice time is where the significant increase in points may come from. "If" he sticks with MacKinnon, hes nearly guaranteed 22+ minutes compared to the 17-18 he always received in CAR. Between the PP, MacKinnon and Makar apples, and playing with better players than he ever has, youd have to think he is going to go off.

But if he fails with Mackinnon and gets demoted to Mittlestadt and Nichushkin takes that 1RW spot, It could get ugly.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

But if he fails with Mackinnon and gets demoted to Mittlestadt and Nichushkin takes that 1RW spot, It could get ugly.

Why? That's the exact situation he was in with Carolina. Playing with Kotkaniemi and Robinson. And he was their leading scorer while Aho plays with like Jarvis and Svechnikov lol

 

[Svechhammer]

Why? That's the exact situation he was in with Carolina. Playing with Kotkaniemi and Robinson. And he was their leading scorer while Aho plays with like Jarvis and Svechnikov lol

He was our leading scorer based off going supernova on a 130 point pace for the first month or 2 to start the season.

He cooled off considerably since Thanksgiving, regressing back to his usual rate.

 

[a mangy Meowth]

He was our leading scorer based off going supernova on a 130 point pace for the first month or 2 to start the season.

He cooled off considerably since Thanksgiving, regressing back to his usual rate.

It's just a fact. No need to put such spin on it!

 

[Svechhammer]

It's just a fact. No need to put such spin on it!

Lol I'm just saying, if you're thinking he can be there, look at what his stats look like since late November.

27 Games
4 G
14 A

18 points for a 54 point pace over 82 games.

Not great

 

[benfranklin]

Why? That's the exact situation he was in with Carolina. Playing with Kotkaniemi and Robinson. And he was their leading scorer while Aho plays with like Jarvis and Svechnikov lol

It could work. Id like to think playing with MacKinnon vs Mittlestadt would be more beneficial for him, but yes if we could guarantee his production on the 2nd line, hell yes.

Drouin-MacKinnon-Nichushkin
Lehkonen-Mittlestadt-Necas

Mini dream of inserting Landeskog in eventually and whoever we acquire with the money we have.

Lol I'm just saying, if you're thinking he can be there, look at what his stats look like since late November.

27 Games
4 G
14 A

18 points for a 54 point pace over 82 games.

Not great

Very true, but the talent he was playing with is pretty pathetic compared to. Its more the high tempo shoot everything, corsi rules CAR system that workd for everyone there. m a bit nervous for Rantanen under that. Hes a high quality guy, not shot anything and everything guy.

 

[Svechhammer]

It could work. Id like to think playing with MacKinnon vs Mittlestadt would be more beneficial for him, but yes if we could guarantee his production on the 2nd line, hell yes.

Drouin-MacKinnon-Nichushkin
Lehkonen-Mittlestadt-Necas

Mini dream of inserting Landeskog in eventually and whoever we acquire with the money we have.


Very true, but the talent he was playing with is pretty pathetic compared to. Its more the high tempo shoot everything, corsi rules CAR system that workd for everyone there. m a bit nervous for Rantanen under that. Hes a high quality guy, not shot anything and everything guy.

Not worried about Rantanen as long as he's with Aho, who is an incredibly underrated playmaker of his own. He regularly sets up Grade A scoring chances every time he's on the ice, but we just have never had anyone capable of consistently finishing them, and he's also capable of finishing plays himself, but has never really had anyone capable of consistently giving him those feeds. Jarvis has probably been the closest we've had, but he gets blown off the puck too easily at this point in his career, so it's not been super effective so far. Guentzel gave him that kind of talent last year and they blew up giving us a legitimately dangerous 1st line for the first time under Brindy, so I'm very hopeful Rantanen is capable of doing the same, if not improving upon that just a bit.

 

[Spilot23]

I've made the joke more than a few times on the Canes board that it's a matter of time before MacKinnon is trying to physically rip him in half when he regresses back to his usual play. I do hope for his sake he can finally learn he doesn't have to do everything himself, and hopefully being on a team and line with a talent like MacKinnon will help with that, but it's going to take time. When he isn't 'on', his game can be really ugly, so it's all about how to harness and maintain his ability to stay 'on'

He looked a bit nervous like if he was always trying to find and pass the puck to Mack. That's a good thing I guess but so far his zone entries has been something I liked the most this and his one timers. Before that it was Mackinnon doing all the work then dropping the pass to Drouin. Having two fast skater entrying the zone kinda changes the dynamic how they can do it.

 

[Czechboy]

27 Games
4 G
14 A

18 points for a 54 point pace over 82 games.

You are right. It is very true that if you ignore a players great games, multi point games and scoring streaks and only show their shitty ones, then they look shitty.

He's 12th in scoring today (with games in hand) and on pace for 91 points. He still leads the Canes in scoring too! I've said from the start that 82 points in 82 games would be tremendous for him. I still think he can do that and has some cushion. He has 31 games to get 25 points. I personally like his chances. 12 points in his last 14 games (January) has me feeling optimistic. Time will tell of course.

 

[Czechboy]

They both play tonight so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

Necas, in one way, had it rough. He was traded Friday night and playing on line 1 at noon on Saturday. Then again Sunday. He looked much better in game 2. I still worry he won't gel with MacK and Makar. I hope I'm wrong but they all will have to adjust to one another which they are all capable of doing. They need to practice together and get talking a lot to figure out their considerable strengths together.

I still think Necas is best suited as a 2nd line carrying player with PP1 time. When he hit the 2 posts on the PP the puck was being funnelled to him the entire PP and that is what he needs. Problem is that Mack and Makar are elite and want (deserve) the puck too.

Having said that.. this is Necas's to screw up or capitlize on. Golden opportunity and 98% of the forwards in the NHL would love the spot he is currently in. I hope he can figure this out. I like the Avs so I'm happy he got moved to a team that is fun to watch!

 

[benfranklin]

Not worried about Rantanen as long as he's with Aho, who is an incredibly underrated playmaker of his own. He regularly sets up Grade A scoring chances every time he's on the ice, but we just have never had anyone capable of consistently finishing them, and he's also capable of finishing plays himself, but has never really had anyone capable of consistently giving him those feeds. Jarvis has probably been the closest we've had, but he gets blown off the puck too easily at this point in his career, so it's not been super effective so far. Guentzel gave him that kind of talent last year and they blew up giving us a legitimately dangerous 1st line for the first time under Brindy, so I'm very hopeful Rantanen is capable of doing the same, if not improving upon that just a bit.

Rantanen definitely is that guy and a very underrated passer IMO, so hopefully they feed off eachother well. Hes as close to Jagr as weve seen in the NHL IMO.

 

[tarheelhockey]

This is actually a perfect example of how your bias is completely clouding your ability to just give the player a little credit. Necas didn't 'stand around and do nothing'... He made a zone entry with speed, made a no look drop pass, and backed off the D to give him room.

You're setting yourself up some wiggle room to explain why Necas might score like a bunch more points than Rantanen, and that's fine, but just be honest with yourself - you really don't want it to happen and you're clearly going to try to resist it using dialogue on here lol.

What’s the bias involved in describing the factual events of a play?

Regardless of which player we’re talking about, anyone passing pucks to MacKinnon (the league’s top scoring forward) and Makar (the league’s top scoring defenseman) is going to pick up a lot of “passive” points. Necas’ first assist the other night was an example of that, the second assist less so but still an example of where the goal likely doesn’t get scored if it’s another defenseman shooting.

All other things equal, I’d expect Necas to score a ton of points as long as he’s on that first line/PP unit. Nothing wrong with that, good on him, I just don’t agree that this suddenly makes him a “better player” than he was 2 weeks ago.

 

[tarheelhockey]

But no one typically goes that deep and I'm not sure why anyone would think Rob Brown was even close to a dominant player, regardless of how you think he was able to put up the numbers he put up, the numbers he put up were not dominant anyway. He had one season where he was 5th in pts and 7th in goals....which isn't dominant to begin with, but he was 74 pts and 36 goals away from the leader. Outside of that one year he was generally never in the top 100 goal or point scorers (he did have a few...but we aren't talking top 10, 20 or 30).

So guys that are only near the top once in their career you write-off as a fluke anyway, who cares how they scored?

Rob Brown is an example of where you either look at a player’s stat line and think “wow he was better than almost any other player that year” or you take the time to think about context and think “he was lucky as hell to be the guy skating next to a prime Mario Lemieux”.

There IS a difference, and people should and usually do make the distinction.

 

[Avsavsavsavsavs]

I for one am excited for the east coast to see how bad of a skater Rantanen has become these days. One of the best shots in the league, great on the boards, but I think some of the dads in beer league are a better skater than Rantanen is in 2025.

 

[behemolari]

tou have title wrong, should be Rantanan vs Nacas

 

[Czechboy]

I've made the joke more than a few times on the Canes board that it's a matter of time before MacKinnon is trying to physically rip him in half

Stylistically it's a hillarious match. They could be in a cop movie together... one is Riggs and the other Murtaugh.lol I have the same worry FTR. MacK is like a scientist. Necas is like an artist. One is in a suit and one is in sandals and tie dye.lol

 

[Czechboy]

tou have title wrong, should be Rantanan vs Nacas

Appreciate it.. I fixed it and hopefully it's correct this time!

 

[GettingYourMoms]

Can´t wait for Canes getting smoked by Necas in playoffs, they didn´t appreciated him at all, fked him over with playing him on 2nd/3rd line with bums like Martinook Kotkaniemi etc, now he is finally free, even if he plays with Mitts on 2nd line it would be massive step up in players quality. Canes are the most hated NHL team for czech fans just by how they treated Necas.

 

[GettingYourMoms]

Why? That's the exact situation he was in with Carolina. Playing with Kotkaniemi and Robinson. And he was their leading scorer while Aho plays with like Jarvis and Svechnikov lol

yep, Canes the worst team ever especially that bimbo coach on bench, this trade was justice for Necas. Best case scenario is Moose coming back in 4 months signing for reasonable cash and Necas playing on 2nd line optimally with Lehkonen , that would be funny!

 

[KrisLetAngry]

I expect Rantanen to win this by 10% to 20%