Speculation: Roster Building Thread: Part XX (WTF are we going to do this Off-Season edition)

[bhamill]

Before people jump on the Schneider news and scream "HE PLAYED WITH AN INJURY FOR 2 YEARS?!?!?", some context about torn labrums might be helpful. Admittedly, I am not a doctor, but my wife and closest friends are all either EM docs or surgeons (ortho & neuro), and I myself have been dealing with a torn labrum and a neck injury for the past 12+ months and have learned a lot from my half-a-dozen different doctors:

• Most active people above a certain age (say, by the time you are 40), will have a tear in their labrum. Many don't feel any pain, just a loss of flexibility/range-of-motion. It happens with aging, but also can happen from injury.
• Labrum tears have a wide range of severity.
• Labrum tears never heal on their own (unlike muscle strains/tears).
• The vast majority of people with torn labrum will NOT have surgery, and surgery is not advisable. Recovery from surgery is incredibly long (how Schneider is saying 3 months is beyond me - everything I have been told is 12 months until you are back to baseline).
• Also, surgery is not a permanent fix. Two of my surgeons said that surgically repaired labrum tears WILL re-tear in the 2-5 year range. They only advise surgery if 1) you are in a lot of pain that it impacts quality of life, or 2) you are a professional baseball player.

I have labrum tears in both my shoulders (Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and MMA). Couldn't throw a snowball (or punch) or paddle into a wave. Had trouble even putting my elbow up by the window while driving or lifting anything over my head. They don't really heal on their own, true, but building up shoulder muscle strength around them supports and mitigates the issue. I use weights to build them up. They click like crazy doing lateral raises, but if I even take a few weeks off I feel the difference, they wont just click, they'll "catch" and its "uncomfortable" pushing through it.
Edit: for reference I'll be turning 63 in a couple of weeks, I'm no spring chicken.

 

[bigdog16]

It's window dressing.

All of those guys are still here. Nobody had their ice time cut. All the talk about this big memo and the changes he wanted to make and who did he trade? Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil. Because that was easy.

All Drury does is make is easy moves to say he did something so he doesn't get fired. He has no vision and no plan. He exists to still be employed the following year.

He's gonna get another coach and probably move Kreider because that's where he'll get the least resistance. Mika will still be here. Panarin will still be here. It's gonna be more business as usual than most people are hoping for.

And when the team sucks, because hey, this group of players just isn't a good hockey team, maybe Drury will finally run out of chances.

The guy is a weasel and a fraud. And say what you will about the players -- they have to be aware of that. I know it and I'm not even in the room.

So if you were Drury, what would your solution be? I am genuinely curious.

I am sure the response will be "I wouldn't have put us into this situation to begin with". But the reality is that everyone, management and players, expected this team to walk to the playoffs. When things got tough and they were faced with adversity, Drury tried to make changes. What did you expect him to do? He tried and ultimately failed. The players didn't try, and moped around because their buddies got traded.

 

[Siddi]

As someone from Vancouver, this is patently false. Miller got frustrated, fired up & angry. Pettersson is the one who moped worse than Zibanejad. Literally just glides around and doesn't even try to do anything many nights. Everyone in Vancouver likes Bozo more than Pettersson and it's not remotely close.

Which part is false Ed? Did he not quit on his team to go home and mope? For all the shit you and others give Zibanejad he never once quit and left for home because his ego was hurt.

Or Mika is paid to play and not opine on management level decisions. What exactly makes Mika so special that Drury needs to check in with him regarding any potential moves? Does Mika think he's at a Mahomes, Brady, or Jeter level to warrant this? Guy is an overpaid 2C on a good team who knows how to PK.

I posted about this earlier.

Anyone who takes away from Mikas comment that he demands to sit in on trade calls and roster decisions are batshit crazy.

What a normal person would take from that comment is that the players want the GM to communicate what the plan forward is AFTER the trades.

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

I get the Drury hate, and I’m no apologist, but as far as this “core” goes and its treatment I submit the following for review:

1. Drury was handed a roster full of NMC’s and people he didn’t draft. Only now are his fingerprints really starting on this team.

2. After the Florida loss last year Drury acknowledged that this team wasn’t good enough. He tried to address that by trading Trouba the “nice way” and was subsequently cock blocked into running back the same roster. Goodrow, while a leader in the room had a horrific regular season and did nothing to justify his cap hit short of a few playoff goals. Look at Carrick’s performance. How was that move? Goodrow needed to go for SOME flexibility cap wise.

3. So, Drury ran it back (and this definitely a bone thrown to “the core”) and after a 12-4-1 record, or whatever it was, that was clearly a f***ing mirage decided that what he felt after last year’s playoffs was correct. This group is never getting it done so out goes “the memo”

4. Said group folds like a house of cards and, in the process, proves that Drury was completely right. Let the blow up begin

Drury has been average but at least he has the stones to break this thing up and acknowledge that he has to be better. That’s something I heard very litttle of from the players yesterday.

And, yes, the Vancouver resident above is correct. Everything that I’ve heard re: JTM and EP is that EP is the pouting softee, not Miller.

Overall fair post, and not to beat a dead horse but #1 is going way too easy on Drury.

He gave Mika and Goodrow their contracts. Kreider by all accounts, was a quirky but model citizen up until this year.

He was handed the Trouba situation? And who else, flawed but productive Panarin? And gets a pass because of that?

This is still the “team he inherited” because much of the moves he has made have either failed spectacularly (Buch) or been the shortest of short term in nature (hemorrhaging picks for short term options no longer here). Again, how does he get a pass for this?

Being stuck w an underperforming team that is “not his”, 4 years in, is at least mostly on Drury.

 

[Pawnee Rangers]

Who told Drury to toss draft picks around like tic tacs for guys like Mott, Kane, Taresenko, Vetrano, Soucy? Who told him to overpay for Shesterkin? Bring in a malcontent like Miller?

I get he had to work his way around clauses, but if you're only solution to the problem is throwing hand grenades into the locker room and absolving yourself of any wrong doing, you're not a real great manager. And that's what he is, a manager. He's here to manage the roster and salary cap and put a competitive product out on the ice. And the only competitive stuff we see are from the last management team.

 

[bhamill]

So far, I've only liked what Laff and Jones has said. Schneiders play this year and the end of last explains a lot with the Labrum issue. It's something you can play through, though your not playing at 100%. Will be very interested to see what he looks like start of next season.

I also liked what Gabe said. The things he's going to focus on this off season.

 

[Graves97]

I get the Drury hate, and I’m no apologist, but as far as this “core” goes and its treatment I submit the following for review:

1. Drury was handed a roster full of NMC’s and people he didn’t draft. Only now are his fingerprints really starting on this team.

2. After the Florida loss last year Drury acknowledged that this team wasn’t good enough. He tried to address that by trading Trouba the “nice way” and was subsequently cock blocked into running back the same roster. Goodrow, while a leader in the room had a horrific regular season and did nothing to justify his cap hit short of a few playoff goals. Look at Carrick’s performance. How was that move? Goodrow needed to go for SOME flexibility cap wise.

3. So, Drury ran it back (and this definitely a bone thrown to “the core”) and after a 12-4-1 record, or whatever it was, that was clearly a f***ing mirage decided that what he felt after last year’s playoffs was correct. This group is never getting it done so out goes “the memo”

4. Said group folds like a house of cards and, in the process, proves that Drury was completely right. Let the blow up begin

Drury has been average but at least he has the stones to break this thing up and acknowledge that he has to be better. That’s something I heard very litttle of from the players yesterday.

And, yes, the Vancouver resident above is correct. Everything that I’ve heard re: JTM and EP is that EP is the pouting softee, not Miller.

Agree 100% here, although I think calling Drury average is prob being a bit kind. team had zero cap flexibility last year and both moves needed to be made.

In terms of the teams performance this year, how exactly is it Drury's fault that Mika, Laf, Kreider, Miller, and Trocheck all under performed? Do I agree with most of the moves Drury made during the year? absolutely not, but what exactly could he do given how the "core" was performing? He wasn't trading Lindgren/Kakko/Trouba for bonafide first line players that were going to make a difference. He also wasn't going to trade Chytil and a first for Mackinnon/Tkachuk/Point.

 

[Levitate]

Which part is false Ed? Did he not quit on his team to go home and mope? For all the shit you and others give Zibanejad he never once quit and left for home because his ego was hurt.

I posted about this earlier.

Anyone who takes away from Mikas comment that he demands to sit in on trade calls and roster decisions are batshit crazy.

What a normal person would take from that comment is that the players want the GM to communicate what the plan forward is AFTER the trades.

man stop making excuses for this bullshit

if this team had won anything, Mika hadn't spent the past several years floundering, if he was a franchise player and leader on this team, then maybe I'd give a flying f***

but he's a disappointing failed 1C at this point who spends half the year playing like an AHLer because he "has no confidence" or "is sensitive and it's hard for him to get out of a rut"

On top of that his team has quit on multiple coaches and he's out there running his mouth about how good they are and how management needs to communicate with them. You think this guy is easy to coach? From all we've seen I highly doubt that.

You know what the plan is? Win a f***ing cup. The plan is for you to go out there and stop moping and put the puck in the net. The plan is that you, for once, should show up at hte start of the season ready to play and not waste everyone's time for 3 months.

Get.Your.Shit.Straight.

Drury might suck ass but f*** off with making excuses for this group of players. They don't want to take responsibility for their own play.

 

[EdJovanovski]

Which part is false Ed? Did he not quit on his team to go home and mope? For all the shit you and others give Zibanejad he never once quit and left for home because his ego was hurt.

I posted about this earlier.

Anyone who takes away from Mikas comment that he demands to sit in on trade calls and roster decisions are batshit crazy.

What a normal person would take from that comment is that the players want the GM to communicate what the plan forward is AFTER the trades.

I believe he left for something in his personal life that had nothing to do with the team, though I’m not a fan of that either. I’m obviously not a big fan of Bozo. Neither of them are guys that I would seek out if I were building a team, but I’m just saying the fans in Vancouver prefer Bozo over Petey at like a 90/10 split. Did you see the comments from the organization after the exit interviews? Saying Pettersson needs to completely change who he is as a player and needs to work hard? I’ve never seen a team that bluntly call out a players lack of effort.

 

[Levitate]

Also, I don't wanna unpack the whole comment, and as I've said, I don't think these comments have nearly the meaning we give them, but this bit from K. Miller stands out.

"I was listening to a lot of the noise and just not really playing the game I wanted to play. That was a hard season for me to kind of get a grip of how I wanted to play."

I think he's touching on lack of identity and...yeah! Yeah, definitely. That's a fact.

And you can say suck it up, he's soft, he sucks, whatever. That's not the important part.

Lack of identity is a huge issue here. If you want everyone on the crew to work hard and play their role to make the boat move, you have to make it clear to all of them what direction the boat is moving in. If you want "good hockey," it has to be clearly defined what we consider that to be.

I think a lack of team identity is where the people who lean more towards analytics/roster problems and people who lean more towards culture problems have a common enemy. "I don't know what we're supposed to be" affects the room as well as affecting performance on the ice.

I don't mind Miller's comments as much as some because to me it sounds like he's acknowledging he let the "noise" distract him and he's owning up to that, rather than using it as a nebulous excuse.

As for identity....I dunno. Yeah, the team identity feels like it's been a constant tug of war since the Quinn days. All the coaches have wanted this team to play more north south, go to the net, play faster, etc. They've all repeated it over and over and over, and this team has always gone back to east/west playing to the outside styles of hockey. I can easily pin that on the players believing they have a style and identity they want to play and not wanting to change that for any coach.

 

[Graves97]

Which part is false Ed? Did he not quit on his team to go home and mope? For all the shit you and others give Zibanejad he never once quit and left for home because his ego was hurt.

I posted about this earlier.

Anyone who takes away from Mikas comment that he demands to sit in on trade calls and roster decisions are batshit crazy.

What a normal person would take from that comment is that the players want the GM to communicate what the plan forward is AFTER the trades.

Really making a bit of a leap based on the quotes above. Starts off by mentioning the Goodrow situation followed by the noise surrounding Trouba during the summer and leading up to the trade. Second quote reads more like a threat that management better play nice or else.

 

[FoxysExpensiveNYDigs]

It happened against Buffalo after the tournament.

Oh okay. I thought he said 4 nations.

 

[zlev]

2. After the Florida loss last year Drury acknowledged that this team wasn’t good enough.

i really dont think he did. he had to move Goodrow for cap reasons and he had to dump Trouba before the cat was fully out of the bag that he was useless so he could have the cap room the next year after he extended Igor. he still re-signed Lindgren for more money AAV than like 4 or 5 much better defensemen got on the open market. that alone tells me he was f***ing clueless.

 

[bhamill]

Buying out a player who had 33 points in his last 32 games (February onwards) for an 8M dead cap hit is preferable to having that player on the ice? You guys says Drury is a bad GM I can only imagine how bad the team would be if some of you guys were in charge.

I mean YEAH, unrealistic and counterproductive, but it would be emotionally satisfying. Hahahaha.

 

[Machinehead]

So if you were Drury, what would your solution be? I am genuinely curious.

I am sure the response will be "I wouldn't have put us into this situation to begin with". But the reality is that everyone, management and players, expected this team to walk to the playoffs. When things got tough and they were faced with adversity, Drury tried to make changes. What did you expect him to do? He tried and ultimately failed. The players didn't try, and moped around because their buddies got traded.

1) I would fire everyone in scouting at every level and start over. The players we target are garbage.

2) This team needs another very good defenseman. First-pair caliber. Drury's solution for the defense has been to put Fox with a bunch of bottom pair guys and it sucks. Drury is very much part of the problem on the blueline. He doesn't have a Panarin or a Zibanejad there taking up huge money with a clause. There's no excuse for his plug fetish.

3) We need another forward with a motor and 5v5 production, preferably who can play center or wing. I'd like to get Peterka but I think Buffalo is gonna f*** with us just to f*** with us like they did with Eichel. Maybe we can get McLeod. I'd also kick the tires on Dallas if they get knocked out. They're gonna be looking to change things and everyone they draft is a hit.

4) I'd probably pull the trigger on Panarin at this point. Again, you got Colorado, Dallas, Edmonton, LA, Vegas, Minnesota. THREE of them are gonna lose. There's gonna be some teams in the West this summer that are pretty reactionary.

5) Play Brett Berard like 50 minutes a game.

I hate doing trades because what are the odds I speak the name of the player we get? What are the odds it's even realistic? So I'm just gonna make something up. We got Rossi, McLeod, and Sergachev. There you go.

Cuylle-Miller-Zibanejad
Berard-Rossi-Lafreniere
Kreider-McLeod-Othmann
Rempe-Carrack-Edstrom

Miller-Fox
Sergachev-Borgen
Idk Somebody- Schneider

Yeah, I'm gonna keep Kreider for now. I don't think he has much value. Gabe is in the AHL for now. I don't think he's ready. He replaces Kreider when he gives me a reason to. I traded Trocheck. Where? I don't know.

We're younger, faster, and a lot better at 5v5.

And I think that team I posted still sucks so I would probably just tear it up, but you're probably right that that's not happening, so that's my best crack at not doing that.

Yeah, it's easier said than done and I made a bunch of shit up, but ultimately what I'm looking for are major changes to try to make this team better at 5v5 and upgrade their motor. I don't see Drury making major changes. He's trying to tweak around the margins on a team that isn't that close to being good.

 

[bhamill]

Thank you for posting all the clips. I really appreciate that!

Yes, Thank you @Clark Kellogg !

 

[mrhockey193195]

I have labrum tears in both my shoulders (Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and MMA). Couldn't throw a snowball (or punch) or paddle into a wave. Had trouble even putting my elbow up by the window while driving or lifting anything over my head. They don't really heal on their own, true, but building up shoulder muscle strength around them supports and mitigates the issue. I use weights to build them up. They click like crazy doing lateral raises, but if I even take a few weeks off I feel the difference, they wont just click, they'll "catch" and its "uncomfortable" pushing through it.
Edit: for reference I'll be turning 63 in a couple of weeks, I'm no spring chicken.

Oof, sounds like your situation is pretty rough. Glad to hear that you're finding ways to mitigate and make it better. Similarly for me, I do ~2 hours of weight lifting/PT exercises nearly every day. Tons of internal/external shoulder rotation (with & without flexion), lots of protraction (I also have a long thorasic nerve injury and a paralyzed serratus anterior), and tons of front/side raises & shoulder press. I'm a tennis player, so doing everything I can to be able to serve/play and compete again.

 

[Siddi]

man stop making excuses for this bullshit

if this team had won anything, Mika hadn't spent the past several years floundering, if he was a franchise player and leader on this team, then maybe I'd give a flying f***

but he's a disappointing failed 1C at this point who spends half the year playing like an AHLer because he "has no confidence" or "is sensitive and it's hard for him to get out of a rut"

On top of that his team has quit on multiple coaches and he's out there running his mouth about how good they are and how management needs to communicate with them. You think this guy is easy to coach? From all we've seen I highly doubt that.

You know what the plan is? Win a f***ing cup. The plan is for you to go out there and stop moping and put the puck in the net. The plan is that you, for once, should show up at hte start of the season ready to play and not waste everyone's time for 3 months.

Get.Your.Shit.Straight.

Drury might suck ass but f*** off with making excuses for this group of players. They don't want to take responsibility for their own play.

Really making a bit of a leap based on the quotes above. Starts off by mentioning the Goodrow situation followed by the noise surrounding Trouba during the summer and leading up to the trade. Second quote reads more like a threat that management better play nice or else.

So you fall into the first category I mentioned in my prevoius post. Got it.

 

[bhamill]

Oof, sounds like your situation is pretty rough. Glad to hear that you're finding ways to mitigate and make it better. Similarly for me, I do ~2 hours of weight lifting/PT exercises nearly every day. Tons of internal/external shoulder rotation (with & without flexion), lots of protraction (I also have a long thorasic nerve injury and a paralyzed serratus anterior), and tons of front/side raises & shoulder press. I'm a tennis player, so doing everything I can to be able to serve/play and compete again.

Sounds like you have it worse than me at present. I get some discomfort at times, and like I said, I backslide if I don't keep up on it, but at this point I function fairly normally. Was worst for me when I was around 50. Had to quit BJJ. Took a few years to REALLY get back full strength and close to full range, but now I'm mostly good.
Good luck, bud!!

 

[GoAwayPanarin]

I have labrum tears in both my shoulders (Brazillian Jiu Jitsu and MMA). Couldn't throw a snowball (or punch) or paddle into a wave. Had trouble even putting my elbow up by the window while driving or lifting anything over my head. They don't really heal on their own, true, but building up shoulder muscle strength around them supports and mitigates the issue. I use weights to build them up. They click like crazy doing lateral raises, but if I even take a few weeks off I feel the difference, they wont just click, they'll "catch" and its "uncomfortable" pushing through it.
Edit: for reference I'll be turning 63 in a couple of weeks, I'm no spring chicken.

Where do you train at?

 

[tlk]

Pull the trigger on Panarin.
Give KAM 7x8.

/s

 

[bhamill]

I get the feeling the media is asking them specifically about distractions, and if that's the case, and they say no, they're lying and we know they're lying.

So they're either gonna say that they were distracted, and we're gonna get mad, or they're gonna lie to us, and we're gonna get mad.

That's pretty much every comment from a player in any context.

That's why I don't pay attention to any of this shit.

The only thing of value from any of this is some clarity on what some of the injuries are. The rest is pissing in the wind.

Or they could have responded like Trocheck did and we'd understand, and even laud. "Sure there are ALWAYS distractions. Its our JOB to play through them."

 

[Levitate]

1) I would fire everyone in scouting at every level and start over. The players we target are garbage.

2) This team needs another very good defenseman. First-pair caliber. Drury's solution for the defense has been to put Fox with a bunch of bottom pair guys and it sucks. Drury is very much part of the problem on the blueline. He doesn't have a Panarin or a Zibanejad there taking up huge money with a clause. There's no excuse for his plug fetish.

3) We need another forward with a motor and 5v5 production, preferably who can play center or wing. I'd like to get Peterka but I think Buffalo is gonna f*** with us just to f*** with us like they did with Eichel. Maybe we can get McLeod. I'd also kick the tires on Dallas if they get knocked out. They're gonna be looking to change things and everyone they draft is a hit.

4) I'd probably pull the trigger on Panarin at this point. Again, you got Colorado, Dallas, Edmonton, LA, Vegas, Minnesota. THREE of them are gonna lose. There's gonna be some teams in the West this summer that are pretty reactionary.

I'd agree with a lot of this stuff. I suspect that the whole "targeting plugs" is some kind of attempt to find some diamonds in the rough, but mehhh, wasting a lot of time hoping to get lucky instead of just like...trading for Chychrun last offseason and letting Lindgren walk.

With Panarin I dunno, I don't think you get good value for him in a trade but at this point you need a miracle for the team to turn around and for him to be useful in terms of team success. he can't will the team to the playoffs by himself. The thing I hate is that I don't think many teams that would want him have resources that are that good. The Rangers are likely to get a late first, and some mid level prospects in return, which is blah.

5) Play Brett Berard like 50 minutes a game.

I hate doing trades because what are the odds I speak the name of the player we get? What are the odds it's even realistic? So I'm just gonna make something up. We got Rossi, McLeod, and Sergachev. There you go.

Cuylle-Miller-Zibanejad
Berard-Rossi-Lafreniere
Kreider-McLeod-Othmann
Rempe-Carrack-Edstrom

Miller-Fox
Sergachev-Borgen
Idk Somebody- Schneider

Yeah, I'm gonna keep Kreider for now. I don't think he has much value. Gabe is in the AHL for now. I don't think he's ready. He replaces Kreider when he gives me a reason to. I traded Trocheck. Where? I don't know.

We're younger, faster, and a lot better at 5b5.

And I think that team I posted still sucks so I would probably just tear it up, but you're probably right that that's not happening, so that's my best crack at not doing that.

Yeah, it's easier said than done and I made a bunch of shit up, but ultimately what I'm looking for are major changes to try to make this team better at 5v5 and upgrade their motor. I don't see Drury making major changes. He's trying to tweak around the margins on a team that isn't that close to being good.

I actually do see Drury wanting to make some significant changes but we'll see what happens. If he's the asshole narcissist everyone says he is you think he's gonna put up with the comments coming out of someone like Zibanejad? f*** knows what he does but possibles ome wild shit goes down this offseason.

Once again going back to the Zibanejad comments, I know Siddi keeps saying "he just wants management to address them after the trade to know what the plan is!" and it's like...man, you don't need to rally the troops after you dump a 4th liner no matter how popular he is. What part of the plan do you think that changes?
Do you need to have a huddle up when you trade Trouba? Does that "change the plan"? No.

IMO what's happening here is Drury couldn't make many changes during the summer so the team got the chance to run it back like they no doubt preferred and they weren't doing so great, so Drury put out the memo that got leaked. Zibanejad and others were likely pissed that Drury wasn't including them on that "decision" to make changes like that. Personally? I don't think that's their business to worry about. GMs need to be able tom ake the moves the feel are necessary without running it past the players. The team needed/needs a shakeup but the core players don't want that and didn't like not being let in on Drury's plans to do so. That's all.

I don't think Zibanejad wants to be in on trade calls like that strawman they keeps getting thrown out, but it sounds like he wants to be involved in what management does with the direction of the team, which IMO isn't appropriate.

 

[Levitate]

Or they could have responded like Trocheck did and we'd understand, and even laud. "Sure there are ALWAYS distractions. Its our JOB to play through them."

yeah somehow trocheck here is the only goddamn adult in the room

 

[Graves97]

So you fall into the first category I mentioned in my prevoius post. Got it.

And your obsession with Mika exceeds @Webster's obsession with Zuc, so really can't take anything you say about him seriously. Hope you enjoy the 20-40 and -20 again next year cause I won't.