Speculation: Roster Building Thread: New Season Edition

[bhamill]

The Kravitational force is too much for him

Damn.

 

[NYR Viper]

There's a lot of "12% of men think they could score a point against Serena Williams" energy going on regarding NHL coaches in this thread.

I agree, although I am in this 12%

 

[bhamill]

Not to mention dressing and forcing a player into the lineup who was clearly seriously injured, could barely move, and ended up not being able to play most of the game like everyone in the world said would happen. In the season ending elimination game. While scratching one of the players from the mentioned "Kid Line" in favor of a scrub fringe 4th liner that he kept throwing into the top 6 all season.

The guy should win a Nobel Prize with that level of hockey coaching mastery. How could we peasants ever hope to have that much hockey knowledge.

Whoa, some things are just subjective but you are revisionist here. Gallant forced Strome to play? Hahahah. That’s nonsense. Strome mislead the coaching staff and told them he could go. In fact the rumor is Gallant was pretty pissed about it. Everything else that I might disagree with here is opinion, and not worth arguing but this Strome take is frankly pure fantasy. Hahaha. I think your unhealthy hatred of Gallant is clouding your perception of reality. Hahaha.

 

[Machinehead]

There's a lot of "12% of men think they could score a point against Serena Williams" energy going on regarding NHL coaches in this thread.

If this was anything but a hockey forum, you wouldn't see as much of that.

It's an extremely poorly-coached league.

Not because of the inability, per se, of the individuals doing it, but because of the safeness culture surrounding coaching at this level.

Mostly, coaches come in and do what the last coach did. Gallant has kept together every combination he inherited from Quinn (Kreider-Zibanejad, Panarin-Strome, Kid Line, Lindgren-Fox). Quinn kept together everything he inherited from AV that didn't get traded (Kreider-Zibanejad, Miller-Hayes).

These combos aren't bad -if they were they wouldn't have made it past experimentation- but when they start to get stale as all good combos do, or the players involved outgrow the usage, there's a complete unwillingness to change things around.

Most coaches last two years and there's a dozen guys waiting for your job. Do something new, and it fails, you're no good. Do what the last coach did and it fails, the team is no good. It has to be the right idea, two coaches tried it.

Most of the decisions they make are self-defense.

You also have to keep in mind that most of the criticism is personnel-related. Personnel is very often "helicopter in a tree." I can't fly a helicopter. I don't need to to know that if I see one in a tree, the guy flying it f***ed up. If Serena Williams loses 6-0, 6-0 I know she f***ed up.

I don't think anybody is claiming they could put together a system that works in the NHL or manage 23 personalities. That part is hard. Playing your best players more and not playing lines that aren't working anymore is the easy part.

 

[EdJovanovski]

If this was anything but a hockey forum, you wouldn't see as much of that.

It's an extremely poorly-coached league.

Not because of the inability, per se, of the individuals doing it, but because of the safeness culture surrounding coaching at this level.

Mostly, coaches come in and do what the last coach did. Gallant has kept together every combination he inherited from Quinn (Kreider-Zibanejad, Panarin-Strome, Kid Line, Lindgren-Fox). Quinn kept together everything he inherited from AV that didn't get traded (Kreider-Zibanejad, Miller-Hayes).

These combos aren't bad -if they were they wouldn't have made it past experimentation- but when they start to get stale as all good combos do, or the players involved outgrow the usage, there's a complete unwillingness to change things around.

Most coaches last two years and there's a dozen guys waiting for your job. Do something new, and it fails, you're no good. Do what the last coach did and it fails, the team is no good. It has to be the right idea, two coaches tried it.

Most of the decisions they make are self-defense.

You also have to keep in mind that most of the criticism is personnel-related. Personnel is very often "helicopter in a tree." I can't fly a helicopter. I don't need to to know that if I see one in a tree, the guy flying it f***ed up. If Serena Williams loses 6-0, 6-0 I know she f***ed up.

I don't think anybody is claiming they could put together a system that works in the NHL or manage 23 personalities. That part is hard. Playing your best players more and not playing lines that aren't working anymore is the easy part.

So Quinn was the mastermind behind our ECF run this whole time

 

[Machinehead]

So Quinn was the mastermind behind our ECF run this whole time

I think defaulting to the explanation that they did better because they were coached better misses a lot. I also think it has to do with the attitude that "we're always good and if we're not it's always the coach" which, on the other side of the token, is certainly a thing.

Shesterkin put up a .935, Kreider literally almost doubled his career high in goals, and Miller became a top 4 D. That's mostly why they won as much as they did. If you want to credit Gallant with any of that, I guess I can't really argue with you although I would respectfully disagree, especially on the first two because Shesterkin is a goalie and Kreider is 31.

 

[bhamill]

I think defaulting to the explanation that they did better because they were coached better misses a lot. I also think it has to do with the attitude that "we're always good and if we're not it's always the coach" which, on the other side of the token, is certainly a thing.

Shesterkin put up a .935, Kreider literally almost doubled his career high in goals, and Miller became a top 4 D. That's mostly why they won as much as they did. If you want to credit Gallant with any of that, I guess I can't really argue with you although I would respectfully disagree, especially on the first two because Shesterkin is a goalie and Kreider is 31.

Of course the players have to play… but I think discounting the coaching also misses a lot. It’s an important component. HOW important I get being a subjective take…

 

[GENESISPuck94]

There's a lot of "12% of men think they could score a point against Serena Williams" energy going on regarding NHL coaches in this thread.

By this logic all politicians are 100% correct all the time because that's their job. All doctors are 100% correct all the time because that's their job. All school bus drivers are 100% correct all the time because that's their job.

It doesn't matter that Gallant's job is professional coach. He makes brain dead decisions on a regular basis because he's human. He's not immune to criticism. When he does something so mind numbingly stupid he should be called out on it BECAUSE his job is professional coach and he shouldn't be making those mistakes. The tough decisions are ok to screw up on. The gimme decisions that a pee wee coach could make there's no excuse to screw those up.

 

[FUZfan]

Shesterkin put up a .935, Kreider literally almost doubled his career high in goals, and Miller became a top 4 D. That's mostly why they won as much as they did. If you want to credit Gallant with any of that, I guess I can't really argue with you although I would respectfully disagree, especially on the first two because Shesterkin is a goalie and Kreider is 31.

I think Gallant deserves some credit for Miller and Kreiders success. He has proven to be good with young players throughout his career. AS far as Shesty goes, he never took credit for those games that Shesty stole for us. Many times he was rightfully pissed in the pressers after at how we played in those games in spite of getting the W.

I really like Gallant. He's a no nonsense, straight forward guy that gets the most out of his players. Monday morning quarterbacking him on every move he made after a wildly successful season and playoff run that hardly anyone expected is punk-ass BS.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

Whoa, some things are just subjective but you are revisionist here. Gallant forced Strome to play? Hahahah. That’s nonsense. Strome mislead the coaching staff and told them he could go. In fact the rumor is Gallant was pretty pissed about it. Everything else that I might disagree with here is opinion, and not worth arguing but this Strome take is frankly pure fantasy. Hahaha. I think your unhealthy hatred of Gallant is clouding your perception of reality. Hahaha.

Whose call is it to dress and play a player? Did he get a medical evaluation before making the decision to play that player? If he did then the decision was worse. If he didn't get that medical evaluation it was equally as bad. No player is going to say "I'm not playing". The final decision is on the coach.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

So Quinn was the mastermind behind our ECF run this whole time

Gorton for putting the core together, Drury for his deadline additions.

 

[Crease]

Gallant is pretty underrated in this discussion. The professionalism and confidence he brought to the club last season was palpable. Largely the same roster as the season before, but the results were night and day (even before the deadline).

 

[bleedblue94]

AV took the team to the SCF in his very first year, and everyone here would agree he's an idiot....

I have always felt that av's success here was born from the imprinted work ethic that torts left on the roster mixed with AV loosening the reins and letting the offense out. AV had no control of the team though and that is why the teams got progressively lazier, sloppy, and ineffective. Once henke was unable to cover up for the disaster that was the d zone the whole thing imploded. AV has always been a clown about anything defensively with hockey at every one of his stops. It is ironic that torts was brought into phili to reverse the country club environment that has infested that org after a few years of AV being there. We saw the same thing growing here on his way out of NYC. Guy is a horrible bench boss who could never adjust in game.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Gallant is pretty underrated in this discussion. The professionalism and confidence he brought to the club last season was palpable. Largely the same roster as the season before, but the results were night and day (even before the deadline).

Gallant is a players coach to the max. He gets his team to play for him and for each other, brings a confidence to the team like you said, good at handling the room.

He's completely awful from a tactical standpoint, worse than Quinn. And the numbers reflect that.

 

[bleedblue94]

Gallant is pretty underrated in this discussion. The professionalism and confidence he brought to the club last season was palpable. Largely the same roster as the season before, but the results were night and day (even before the deadline).

Gallant and Reaves brought a swagger to this org that was missing. Gallant seems to have a way to him that instills confidence in his players yet he still has the runway to call them out publicly when needed and they seem to actually care when he does that rather than some teams that just tune their coach out. Turk has some flaws for sure (many may point to Kelly who seems to be his tactical guy), but his players respond to him and seem to respect the hell out of him. This is not a shot at Quinn (I think he did some good things here) but Turk brings a lot of what Quinn lacked which was NHL level credibility. He has player and coached in this league successfully for a very long time and his players seem to love him.

 

[Crease]

He's completely awful from a tactical standpoint, worse than Quinn. And the numbers reflect that.

Do the numbers really matter if the club just wins? We spent the last 12 months debating sustainability while the team marched to Game 6 of the ECF. Gallant got the team to win games and I really don't think they left anything on the table--the Lightning and Avalanche were objectively better teams.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Do the numbers really matter if the club just wins? We spent the last 12 months debating sustainability while the team marched to Game 6 of the ECF. Gallant got the team to win games and I really don't think they left anything on the table--the Lightning and Avalanche were objectively better teams.

We should have beaten the Lightning , although Colorado would have destroyed us so I’m happy to avoid getting humiliated in the SCF

 

[GENESISPuck94]

Gallant is pretty underrated in this discussion. The professionalism and confidence he brought to the club last season was palpable. Largely the same roster as the season before, but the results were night and day (even before the deadline).

He has his good qualities. He has his bad qualities. Not unlike pretty much every coach.

 

[GENESISPuck94]

Do the numbers really matter if the club just wins? We spent the last 12 months debating sustainability while the team marched to Game 6 of the ECF. Gallant got the team to win games and I really don't think they left anything on the table--the Lightning and Avalanche were objectively better teams.

The narrative and it was accurate for most of the season before the trade deadline, was that Shesterkin had to have a historic kind of season to keep the Rangers where they were in the standings.

There's a saying that great goalies make coaches look good. And this was the case last season.

We should have beaten the Lightning , although Colorado would have destroyed us so I’m happy to avoid getting humiliated in the SCF

We should have beaten LA too, but we had another dolt of a coach, Vigneault, who decided it was best to turtle with a 1 goal lead in the Stanley Cup Final instead of pressuring the opponent. Rangers lost 3 games in that series while LA never had the lead in those games.

 

[haohmaru]

I’ll be satisfied when we win more than 1 Cup in 80 years.



He hasn’t been doing a great job, he’s done an ok job, he’s done well some places and bad other places, but even if I assumed for sake of argument that he was doing great, that doesn’t put him above any criticism.

And if he agrees with Gallant on some of the deployment we have seen so far then yes it is a problem.

He’s done far better than “ok” and as far as “deployment” is concerned that’s all conjecture. The pieces that are on the board are there because of Drury. The Queen’s Gambit, or whatever lineups are deployed, are on Gallant and Drury has said so on numerous occasions. Are players run by the coach at some point? Probably. But that’s probably the case for every NHL team that’s worth a shit.

 

[duhmetreE]

Panarin Trocheck Laffy
Kreider Zibs Kakko
Blais Chytil Kravtsov
Goodrow Carpenter Reavo/Hunt

that's how I see game 1 of the regular season

Blais gets hurt Game 8 and enter Cuylle

 

[Raspewtin]

Do the numbers really matter if the club just wins? We spent the last 12 months debating sustainability while the team marched to Game 6 of the ECF. Gallant got the team to win games and I really don't think they left anything on the table--the Lightning and Avalanche were objectively better teams.

i think they do considering it took Shesterkin having the best individual goaltending season in at least 10 years (better than any season Hank ever had) for us to tread water until we finally got reinforcements via trade that allowed us to not ice the worst middle 6 of any playoff team.

we should learn lessons from this. i am not discounting their achievements though

 

[Machinehead]

We shouldn't have beaten Pittsburgh. I know we did and we deserve credit for it, but we shouldn't have. And the outlook is less rosy if we're a first round exit.

That's not to discount our progress, but we also still have work to do to be a true Stanley Cup contender. I think having a traditional center in Trocheck helps. I also think we're going to need younger players to step into bigger roles and act as cheap production. That's why deployment is such an issue.

If we can't give certain guys a bigger role now, they won't be ready when that's literally the only option.

 

[TheDirtyH]

i think they do considering it took Shesterkin having the best individual goaltending season in at least 10 years (better than any season Hank ever had) for us to tread water until we finally got reinforcements via trade that allowed us to not ice the worst middle 6 of any playoff team.

we should learn lessons from this. i am not discounting their achievements though

By measure of our record we were far from treading water at that point. Even Georgiev had a winning record last year.

And idk if worst middle six of the playoffs is fair either. Panarin alone makes a middle six pretty formidable.

We were definitely a poor team at 'controlling play' and we absolutely relied on shesterkin, but we were also very consistent across the season, winning most of our games by a fair margin, well before the deadline. Considering the shape Copp was in through the playoffs, you could say our middle six got worse if you really wanted to.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

The narrative and it was accurate for most of the season before the trade deadline, was that Shesterkin had to have a historic kind of season to keep the Rangers where they were in the standings.

There's a saying that great goalies make coaches look good. And this was the case last season.


We should have beaten LA too, but we had another dolt of a coach, Vigneault, who decided it was best to turtle with a 1 goal lead in the Stanley Cup Final instead of pressuring the opponent. Rangers lost 3 games in that series while LA never had the lead in those games.

Nah LA were much better than us and a really difficult matchup. That year I was hoping for Chicago