Speculation: Roster Building Thread LXXXI - All along the Watch Tower

[jay from jersey]

The most ridiculous thing is the mental gymnastics on these boards when failures are thrown 100% at the feet of Quinn without allowing for a possibility that players might not be just as talented as projected or did do something themselves that caused their failure. On the other hand they found hundreds of qualifies - some of an outrageous nature - just because a poster can’t admit that Quinn can actually do something right.

To me - with so many successful developmental stories on the Rangers since Quinn became the HC, he earned more of a benefit of a doubt and have successes attributed to him being here than being questioned for failures, especially when it’s not really failures yet - just fans being impatient not getting instant gratifications.

My main gripes with Quinn beyond the PP and some of his personnel decisions is the lack of preparation we see. It seems like every game we start slow or are behind 1 or 2 nothing and have to claw our way back. It’s like coaches I had when I was younger would say if your going to make a mistake, do it at full speed and with purpose. He’s the guy who is ultimately responsible for getting the team ready to play. I’m not gonna go into player development and all that. The sole reason he pisses me off, is that this team has come out hungry once maybe twice this year. That’s unacceptable to me

 

[Daves a mess]

Anyone of you self dubbed hockey geniuses have any clue ( off the top of your noggin) who the top three are in rookie scoring so far this season?

I tried and failed miserably.

My best guesses got me only 3 in the top 10.

 

[Daves a mess]

Anyone of you self dubbed hockey geniuses have any clue ( off the top of your noggin) who the top three are in rookie scoring so far this season?

I tried and failed miserably.

My best guesses got me only 3 in the top 10.

Easiest part was knowing none in the top 10 were Rangers

 

[Cmox]

Yeah....he just simply remade himself amidst the pandemic and after Wisconsin. Of course.

Wished the vets worked and skated in the off season ( it especially odd seeing how they played in the bubble playoffs )instead of expecting no season and f***ing around. Obviously I have no knowledge this is what happened but it sure seems plausible.

 

[Kovalev27]

How much of what’s going on with Mika is contract extension related pressure I’m starting to really wonder.

 

[BKGooner]

Sickly pale, soft, middle age does that to all men when times brutal hands cut the oxygen chord. Compliance becomes inevitable with time, even for a furious Viking

“Wealth dies. Friends die. One day you too will die. But, the thing that never dies is the judgement on how you have spent your life.”

Skol.

 

[Avery16]

How much of what’s going on with Mika is contract extension related pressure I’m starting to really wonder.

Zuccarello syndrome as opposed to COVID aftereffects? Impossible to say, but that wouldn't be my first guess.

 

[duhmetreE]

Hahahahaha....jackass......Answer your phone. Kettle on line 2.


What does it mean he came in ready to go? That he kept himself in shape skating with Lafreniere? That a 20 year old came in ready to be a top-4 defenseman in the NHL after NOT having been that amazing at defending?

You DO know for how long Miller has been a defenseman, right? Because if you did, you would realize how much of an ignorant douche you sound like when you claim he has had 30 coaches.

I am sure that his coach from high school and Granato are completely responsible for him. Yeah. Last year, he was being ruined by Granato. Now, we are owing thanks to Granato. Or does he not count and Miller's high school coach is responsible for this?

And you want to thank his high school coach for his development. What sounds like the more realistic scenario?

So, in your estimation... Is David Quinn or Jacques Martin responsible for Miller's 'growth' as a defender?

 

[duhmetreE]

Andersson garbage dubbed nhl ready
Howden garbage
Chytil only figured it out after knoblauch got his hands on him
Kravtsov org thought he’d be in better hands in Siberia
Kakko barely an nhler last season dubbed nhl ready
Lafreniere as close to a generational first overall as you can get without actually being a generational talent. Has 1 point.
Gauthier barely in the lineup

these are all first round picks none are hitting their marks let alone actually looking great under Quinn. Kakko the closest and he’s got 3 points all year.

these are red flags when they all can’t figure it out under the same coach.

Kakko is a beast at takeaways.

Thanks Quinn!



this is what it's come to.... For decades we clamored we needed out 'own lottery/top picks'... we FINALLY got him... and we're celebrating how good he is at takeaways...

 

[duhmetreE]

How much of what’s going on with Mika is contract extension related pressure I’m starting to really wonder.

none.

IMO He got 'fat' during quarantine, living it up with his wife. He lost focus and/or desire. He wasn't as prepared as he normally is and then he got the 'rona. The question is, how long is he going to be playing catch up? and will he catch up?

I think the opposite of you, he is going to come out on fire next season with a contract on the line.

 

[Daves a mess]

Andersson garbage dubbed nhl ready
Howden garbage
Chytil only figured it out after knoblauch got his hands on him
Kravtsov org thought he’d be in better hands in Siberia
Kakko barely an nhler last season dubbed nhl ready
Lafreniere as close to a generational first overall as you can get without actually being a generational talent. Has 1 point.
Gauthier barely in the lineup

these are all first round picks none are hitting their marks let alone actually looking great under Quinn. Kakko the closest and he’s got 3 points all year.

these are red flags when they all can’t figure it out under the same coach.

I'm a "tap the brakes" guy on the "Fire Quinn!" brigade, but I have no counter argument to this set of facts.

It is def concerning. I'm not gonna lie. Like I posted last week, I have been guilty of surfing the point stats of the #1's and 2's over the last decade and I'm kinda concerned here. Not panicked. But concerned.

 

[wafflepadsave]

Andersson garbage dubbed nhl ready
Howden garbage
Chytil only figured it out after knoblauch got his hands on him
Kravtsov org thought he’d be in better hands in Siberia
Kakko barely an nhler last season dubbed nhl ready
Lafreniere as close to a generational first overall as you can get without actually being a generational talent. Has 1 point.
Gauthier barely in the lineup

these are all first round picks none are hitting their marks let alone actually looking great under Quinn. Kakko the closest and he’s got 3 points all year.

these are red flags when they all can’t figure it out under the same coach.

Right because you would think there would be at least some isolated individualistic plays where we’d say “ wow, he’s gonna be good soon or next season “.

 

[wafflepadsave]

So are they gonna pick up a LD to protect in expansion ?

Lindgren , Miller exempt , X
Trouba, Fox except , Lundkvist
Expose Bitetto and Hajek

Right now they protect Hajek if he qualified

Smith , JJ see ya.

I’m hoping smith and jj are bye bye at the deadline.

 

[Synergy27]

Right because you would think there would be at least some isolated individualistic plays where we’d say “ wow, he’s gonna be good soon or next season “.

See my post in the Laf thread. Check out the scoring chance Stutzle manufactured for himself last night. That’s the kind of “not scoring” that would have me much less concerned if we were seeing it occasionally. Occasionally, not even consistently.

Laf either forgot how to play, is being held back per direction of the coach, or is just not prepared mentally to do what makes him special now that he’s on an NHL rink.

 

[TheBloodyNine]

I’m hoping smith and jj are bye bye at the deadline.

where exactly would they be going

 

[Rongomania]

Ol' Bubblicious.

F*ck that guy.

 

[gravey9]

Andersson garbage dubbed nhl ready
Howden garbage
Chytil only figured it out after knoblauch got his hands on him
Kravtsov org thought he’d be in better hands in Siberia
Kakko barely an nhler last season dubbed nhl ready
Lafreniere as close to a generational first overall as you can get without actually being a generational talent. Has 1 point.
Gauthier barely in the lineup

these are all first round picks none are hitting their marks let alone actually looking great under Quinn. Kakko the closest and he’s got 3 points all year.

these are red flags when they all can’t figure it out under the same coach.

I would argue that very few prospects should be "figuring it out" at the NHL Level. It's unfair and stunting. It's VERY rare. I wish Kakko stayed at TPS another year. And I wish there was a better place for Laff than going to back to Juniors. Almost all of our greatest players in our history were developed in lower leagues. Leetch, Kovy, Graves, Richter, Lundqvist. I think much of the mismanagement you are writing about belongs at the feet of upper management as much as Quinn.

As far as Gauthier is concerned, there's something in his game which seems invisible to the fan, that is clearly bugging Quinn and previously bugged Carolina. Because physically he's built like a tank. He has great wheels and decent hands, yet his icetime has been all over the place and the only place he's completely thrived is in the AHL. You could argue in his case, that Quinn has enough to work with to make this kid a player. But I would argue that Buch wasn't that much more useful at the same age as Gauthier. Gauths is just taking longer to figure it out. I feel like he will. But I would also say that Chytil and Gauthier were like carbon copies of each other in the A. Just dominant play drivers. For whatever reason Gauthier is having more issues away from the puck or in practice, -- i dunno. But it's related to that. While Fil has really figured that side out much faster at a much younger age.

As for Howden -- that's not on Quinn. Quinn has put that kid in tremendous opportunities to develop and succeed and the kid just keeps bashing his head up against what looks like a low ceiling. You can blame Quinn for giving him too many opportunities and talk about usage, but Howden being Howden is Howden's problem at this point.

The one thing that you have to like about David Quinn is that he doesn't let kids make too many mistakes away from the puck without making them learn from their mistakes. That is fundamentally the right approach. The problem is - he gives vets way too many chances to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

 

[wafflepadsave]

See my post in the Laf thread. Check out the scoring chance Stutzle manufactured for himself last night. That’s the kind of “not scoring” that would have me much less concerned if we were seeing it occasionally. Occasionally, not even consistently.

Laf either forgot how to play, is being held back per direction of the coach, or is just not prepared mentally to do what makes him special now that he’s on an NHL rink.

Absolutely! Or maybe he has to be much more aware on defense that it’s holding him back?

 

[Ola]

I think he deserves at least some credit for helping them along.

I mean, if we're going to blame him for guys performing shitty, isn't it a two-way street?

You tell me, how does Miller look compared to last year?

How does Fox look compared to how he was projected?

I just think that judging a coach by those standards are borderline childish (yet I wouldn’t be surprised to see mainstream media in NY do the same). Expectations on Hajak was high after the trade from Tampa, is DQ to blame for him not meeting them? I can guarantee that the impact of Quinn on a kid that he has worked with a few months is minimal compared to the base line NHL coach.

Look, when you draft No 1 or No 2 overall, there comes special expectations. You get a kid that has really special abilities, and to nurture that into becoming a really special player in the NHL, takes a lot and it’s not something an organization can afford to drop the ball on.

Kakko comes in and scores 2 goals in 4 games, yet Brett Howden gets PP times while KK don’t for several games. Why was that? DQ wanted Kakko to focus on his defense. KK didn’t apply himself enough. Kakko hasn’t scored any goals after that. You will not find many top 1/2 picks getting as little PP time as Kakko has received. Kakko was perfectly OK on the PP from day 1 last season. But he is put to focus on defense. Is that right? Don’t ridicule that question.

I just see sooooooo many excuses. Kakko and Laf were drafted in bad drafts, we got high picks the wrong drafts. The kids got bad attitude. It will come re Kakko and we have already heard it. He was stubborn and practiced the wrong way in Finland, tough luck for him. We can’t be blamed for it anyway, right?

You know what is “non-negotiable” — a term that is thrown around so much, but it’s funny lol, it doesn’t apply to management — you can’t screw up the development of two top 2 picks.

 

[Synergy27]

I just see sooooooo many excuses. Kakko and Laf were drafted in bad drafts, we got high picks the wrong drafts. The kids got bad attitude. It will come re Kakko and we have already heard it. He was stubborn and practiced the wrong way in Finland, tough luck for him. We can’t be blamed for it anyway, right?

I’m not even seeing those excuses. Most people have just rationalized away the lack of production as bad luck or unprecedented COVID era (lack of) preparation. I don’t think any of the folks that are not concerned at all about what these kids have done to date are lacking any confidence at all that they will still end up the game breaking talents we thought we drafted.

 

[Avery16]

If Zibanejad continues to play as he does I think he’ll be moved and Gorton will go all in on Eichel

the assets required for Eichel would sting but I don’t think it would be obscene

NMC

 

[Ola]

The one thing that you have to like about David Quinn is that he doesn't let kids make too many mistakes away from the puck without making them learn from their mistakes. That is fundamentally the right approach. The problem is - he gives vets way too many chances to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

Creating offense in today’s NHL is very complex. Guys like Ziba and Panarin can look goofy off the ice, but you can’t overstate how downright smart they actually are. If you started to talk offensive hockey with them, they could go on for days about small small details. This is why they are successful. They soak everything up, they experiment, they analyze.

For me from early days of DQs tenure in NY, listening to his comments after games, it’s so obvious that he has zero respect for this knowledge. For these details. For the thinking behind things. I’ve for a long time wondered why that is the case? I think one explanation is that he comes from the college environment. Bunch of new kids every year, communication is a one-way street. This is how it’s done, period.

DQ don’t understand it, he doesn’t encourage it. Of course he won’t handcuff Panarin, he has put on a show form Day 1, not even Torts would get in the way of that.

But this results in a double standard that I bet irks the heck out of someone like TDA. 80% of what is going on in the top players universe isn’t understood by the coach. Bad plays in that regard goes unnoticed as well as good plays. It’s “over-passing” or too much “E-W”, should be more “N-S”.

I don’t for a second thinks that DQ applies a double standard. But he most certainly applies a very incomplete standard. Throw away a puck that easily could have been kept within the team won’t get noticed despite that it results in the team playing defense for 30 sec instead of attacking for 30 sec. But god forbid that you try to keep a puck within the team and fails. Why? OMG it can result in that you play defense for 30 sec...

 

[Cag29]

Kakko is a beast at takeaways.

Thanks Quinn!



this is what it's come to.... For decades we clamored we needed out 'own lottery/top picks'... we FINALLY got him... and we're celebrating how good he is at takeaways...

Give him time. He will be really good.

 

[Kovalev27]

Your kidding yourself if you think lafreniere was a number one in a bad draft. He had done things very few kids ever have. CHL player of the year twice. Dominant at the WJCs

this kid should not be feeling his way thru. You don’t want to blame quinn? Fine. Then blame the player. But pretending everything is peachy with him is bull.

 

[duhmetreE]

Give him time. He will be really good.

I'm not that worried about Kakko, just found it amusing.