Speculation: Roster Building Thread VI (2019/2020)

[Machinehead]

I push back on hot takes and stupid comments. Some people are just more prone to making them.

On the flip side of that, I can debate an actual issue and be perfectly fine having different opinions.

For example, I can debate someone on the Panarin or Trouba issues, dedicate pages upon pages to it, and be perfectly okay disagreeing with that person. Likewise, I can debate someone and still see the logic in their perspective.

I don't think patience for 20 year old players is a middle of the road opinion; it's common sense.

Do I think I'm smarter than everyone? Not at all. But I do think I'm in the group of people who, more often than not, aren't talking out of their ass either.

In my experience, it's usually the people who have a tendency to talk our of their ass who chafe the most when they're called on it. Everyone knows who they are. Some choose to ignore it. Some just rolls their eyes. But everyone has a pretty good idea of who they are --- except the actual people in question.

So yeah, when people comment about players they aren't old enough to remember, or players they've never worked with, or conveniently leave out a huge amount of context, I'm gonna call it out.

You think that's what you're doing, but you're very close-minded on certain issues and come off as extremely arrogant.

Also, I think you're biased in favor of Howden while you accuse others of having an agenda against him.

You've always had a chub for Howden and that's fine, but you're not above irrationally loving players like everyone else does despite the fact that you put yourself on this pedestal of being the ultimate logician.

Full disclosure, I always give Kreider the benefit of the doubt. We all have that player. It's not "the usual suspects," it's everyone.

 

[Glen Sathers Cigar]

No, you see that's not how it works. We don't get to award style points because he tip-toed through 4 players to make a tape to tape pass, or that he shot a laser of a goal from 10 feet out.

An assist is an assist, and a goal is a goal. I don't care if it goes in off his stick, his head, his arm, or his ass. So long as it goes in. For years we *****ed and moaned about people not going to the net. We *****ed and moaned last year about him needing to use his size and get in close to be successful. I'm not going to start criticizing him now because he did exactly what people wanted. Let's be real honest for a second, if he used a pretty dangle move, the same people would be complaining that the move would never work in the regular season.

And by the way, that stupid deflection goal and phantom assist made up the only two points we had in that game. Not bad for a higher schooler.

So with all do respect to that point, **** that noise.

As for the issues with the coach, take that up with the coach. That's a Quinn thing.

Style points? I'm talking about positioning, smarts, making the right plays, the right reads, knowing where to be - doing what a responsible NHL player needs to do. He struggled with virtually all of this, basically everything aside from effort, for most of last year and it seems to have carried over. Who said anything about dangling or making pretty plays? I didn't.

And I didn't call the deflection goal stupid. Good play to go to the net. I just said scoring a goal (and 2nd assist) doesn't override his overall performance. There's a reason coach speak often refers to the process over results, in preseason even more so. And as DQ says often: I can't unsee what I'm seeing. I see Howden constantly seem overmatched, constantly be out of position, constantly losing his man and seemingly always a step behind or a step out of the way. Frankly, his positioning and 'knowing where to be' is my greatest concern with him because it's what he struggled with the most last season and it still seems to be an issue. This isn't a style point thing, I never said anything of the sort.

I'm just not encouraged by what I've seen from him. And I didn't realize I had to extrapolate on what seen means but I'm not talking about pretty plays and dangles.

And I don't have my mind made up on the player and am trying to justify it or anything. I like Howden a lot and want him to succeed. I'm simply talking about what I've seen for the past few months going back to last season. Where am I saying I'm done with the player or not being patient? Simply saying he didn't look good this preseason and it was more of the struggles he had last season.

Nice to know though that if someone has a different opinion from you that it's them making a stupid point.

 

[DanielBrassard]

How is he treated?

He gets third and fourth line minutes with third and fourth line players. Sometimes he gets less than 10 minutes, sometimes more. Overall he gets about 14 minutes and change.

He's not taking a slot from Kravtsov. He didn't take time from Chytil. We wouldn't Chytil on the third or fourth line anyway right now.

Should he have been sent down to the AHL at some point last time? You bet.

But I feel like it very much becomes a pile-on situation and like most kids who weren't even old enough to drink, I saw both good and bad.

Well the big thing is he didn't ever really get banished to a 4th line role with total plugs as Andersson and Chytil did for a while either. He was always used as a middle-six type center when he never really deserved it.

According to a lot of the data he had some of the worst impacts defensively in the league last season and was a negative offensively, he really shouldn't have had much NHL ice time whatsoever.

This isn't meant to be a dogpile, but just how I saw it. As far as the part about Chytil, I am unsure why it would have been a bad idea to have him on a 3rd line. The 3rd line shouldn't be a line that is a grind line or a defensively-oriented line. But they want him to get top line minutes in the AHL as a center, fine whatever.

 

[Edge]

You think that's what you're doing, but you're very close-minded on certain issues and come off as extremely arrogant.

Also, I think you're biased in favor of Howden while you accuse others of having an agenda against him.

You've always had a chub for Howden and that's fine, but you're not above irrationally loving players like everyone else does despite the fact that you put yourself on this pedestal of being the ultimate logician.

Full disclosure, I always give Kreider the benefit of the doubt. We all have that player. It's not "the usual suspects," it's everyone.

Here's the thing though, within the context of Howden, I've said the following:

1. His mid-year last season was abysmal.
2. He should've gone down to the AHL.
3. His performance has both good and bad.
4. His preseason was middle of the road, maybe bottom middle.

If that's a chub for a player, than I need some pills, because it's a pretty pathetic one.

I don't LOVE Howden. I just don't have the pitch forks out, nor do I go out of my way to take a shot while not doing the same for others who performed on the same level, or worse.

I'm perfectly open to changing my mind, and have even said "We'll see how things go."

So you're accusing me of too completely different things here. On the one hand, I'm middle of the road and milquetoast, and on the other hand I'm close-minded and biased about players.

Well which one is it? Because the comments I just gave you above doesn't indicate that I have some kind of pro-Howden agenda. That or I'm dreadful as an advocate on behalf of a player.

In this case, I think you're far more displeased with Howden than I am pleased with him.

 

[SA16]

With Howden the production is not there nor do you see the flashes of skill out of him. You see a strong work ethic yet he's often out of position. With Chytil last season you saw things to make you think he has potential to be a strong player. Two of those goals when rushing down the side and cutting in front. Good hands with the puck. But he's not strong enough yet and needs to be more engaged. You don't get that with Howden. You get a guy who put up a decent amount of points for his role without doing much to show that it's something he can do consistently and he had one of the lowest shot rates in the league. He did nothing this preseason to show he deserves to be on the team and frankly did nothing last preseason to do so either. There's no reason he at 20/21 years old shouldn't be in the AHL trying to get better (not his fault he is not). As a whole his performance last year was atrocious and it's done nothing to make me think he will be an NHL player. Andersson's was bad also however he looked far better in this preseason and showed some real improvement- real strong on the boards, good positional play, lots of nice plays with his stick in passing lines and the like.

 

[DutchShamrock]

No, you see that's not how it works. We don't get to award style points because he tip-toed through 4 players to make a tape to tape pass, or that he shot a laser of a goal from 10 feet out.

An assist is an assist, and a goal is a goal. I don't care if it goes in off his stick, his head, his arm, or his ass. So long as it goes in. For years we *****ed and moaned about people not going to the net. We *****ed and moaned last year about him needing to use his size and get in close to be successful. I'm not going to start criticizing him now because he did exactly what people wanted. Let's be real honest for a second, if he used a pretty dangle move, the same people would be complaining that the move would never work in the regular season.

And by the way, that stupid deflection goal and phantom assist made up the only two points we had in that game. Not bad for a higher schooler.

So with all do respect to that point, **** that noise.

As for the issues with the coach, take that up with the coach. That's a Quinn thing.

There is no way to ever truly know, but I suspect that if it was Chytil getting an assist off a faceoff win, the evidence that he was truly our #2 center would have been cemented by many, many folks. It's funny how that works.

 

[Tawnos]

It's worth reiterating, again, that simple performance isn't the main deciding factor between keeping a guy up and sending him down at this point in time. And overall potential isn't either.

Theoretically, here's what I mean. One of the marks of a pro is consistency in approach. That means that when you compare one shift to the next for an individual, more often than not the player did the same types of things. I'm not necessarily talking about quality of performance here. The AHL is a great place to learn to work on that kind of consistency. If a player already has it, then that's one fewer thing he has to learn from AHL time. If a player has this, but the quality maybe isn't where it needs to be, a coach might conclude that he can teach those performance aspects at the NHL level and trust that the consistency in approach will still be there. On the flip side, if a player does NOT have that consistency, a coach might conclude more strongly that the player needs AHL time to learn it.

And this is where I think the big difference between Chytil and Howden lies right now. It's not that Howden performed better. It's that he's already working from a more professional base that Quinn can try to build on at the NHL level. You can really see the shift-to-shift consistency issues Chytil still has.

There does come a point where the priority in this kind of decision needs to be placed on quality of performance, but right now is not that point.

Don't know what post you're referring to.

No, I often don't sit there and read the thread cover to cover like it's Moby Dick.

I don’t either, but the post of mine I re-quoted above was on the same page as posts you made. It’s not like you weren’t active around the same time.

Anyway, I also re-quoted it to show you where I’m coming from on this.

 

[Edge]

Well the big thing is he didn't ever really get banished to a 4th line role with total plugs as Andersson and Chytil did for a while either. He was always used as a middle-six type center when he never really deserved it.

According to a lot of the data he had some of the worst impacts defensively in the league last season and was a negative offensively, he really shouldn't have had much NHL ice time whatsoever.

This isn't meant to be a dogpile, but just how I saw it. As far as the part about Chytil, I am unsure why it would have been a bad idea to have him on a 3rd line. The 3rd line shouldn't be a line that is a grind line or a defensively-oriented line. But they want him to get top line minutes in the AHL as a center, fine whatever.

And again, for the record, I am 100 percent in the camp of people who thinks Howden should've been sent to the AHL last year.

 

[Zibanejbread]

 

[Edge]

There is no way to ever truly know, but I suspect that if it was Chytil getting an assist off a faceoff win, the evidence that he was truly our #2 center would have been cemented by many, many folks. It's funny how that works.

And that's the thing. None of this evidence that Howden didn't belong, or deserved to be on this roster less than others.

Yes, there's a lot of holes in his game right now. That's not a question for me. At all.

Does he have more holes than others? No, I don't see that. I think he has different holes in his game, but not necessarily more holes.

Again, the issue isn't whether Howden has been a god-send to this roster. This issue is whether certain people are fixated on him more than others. In other words, are they seemingly looking for a reason to comment on a player, while avoiding similar comments about players with similar amounts of shortcomings and mistakes.

The debate for me is less about good vs. bad, so much as it is agenda and balance.

 

[Vitto79]

Rather see Haley on the 4th line vs. Smith...........are they really using Smith just to PK on D aswell?

McKegg is the obvious choice to play of course.........then call up kids later

 

[True Blue]

Que the pitchforks

 

[Tawnos]

Rather see Haley on the 4th line vs. Smith...........are they really using Smith just to PK on D aswell?

McKegg is the obvious choice to play of course.........then call up kids later

Do the Rangers have 4 defensemen who can PK if you don't include Smith? Skjei, Staal, and Trouba are definites (right or wrong). Can Hajek, Fox or DeAngelo operate on the PK? I'm not sure.

 

[LORDE]

Take this for what's its worth, but IMO a good amount of the issues this board has when dealing with each others' differing opinions is the lens they view the team through.

Some see a team that, currently, is deemed not competitive or not as good as it could/should be.

Others tend to view the team as a work in progress that is years away from what it could/should/will be.

Of course Strome isn't an ideal 2C. Of course Staal is AT BEST a 3rd pair. Of course he and Smith are here solely because of their contracts and our cap issue.

Howden, Chytil and Andersson all have things to work on, worrying about which one plays on which line or in the AHL is futile because in a day, a week or two it'll change.

The NYR haven't even started painting the picture of what they are yet. The coaches will try to ice the best team obviously, but if a kid needs time in the AHL or in the press box they'll do it because making him a better player tomorrow is infinitely more important than a win Thurs night.

 

[Gardner McKay]

You think that's what you're doing, but you're very close-minded on certain issues and come off as extremely arrogant.

Also, I think you're biased in favor of Howden while you accuse others of having an agenda against him.

You've always had a chub for Howden and that's fine, but you're not above irrationally loving players like everyone else does despite the fact that you put yourself on this pedestal of being the ultimate logician.

Full disclosure, I always give Kreider the benefit of the doubt. We all have that player. It's not "the usual suspects," it's everyone.

You see the irony in your statement, right? Especially considering your response to @Tawnos?

Don't know what post you're referring to.

No, I often don't sit there and read the thread cover to cover like it's Moby Dick.

If there is anyone on this board who is willing and able to have a civil discussion without going up hyperbole mountain, it is @Edge.

 

[thethirdhockeyman91]

Mcclord! New Tank commander, General Haley!

 

[Raspewtin]

I don't see any good reason why we can't groom one of the other defensemen to PK in this transitional year we are having.

You see the irony in your statement, right? Especially considering your response to @Tawnos?




If there is anyone on this board who is willing and able to have a civil discussion without going up hyperbole mountain, it is @Edge.

"hyperbole mountain" is not the only way someone can be frustrating to engage with.

 

[Tawnos]

I don't see any good reason why we can't groom one of the other defensemen to PK in this transitional year we are having.

Me neither, but it's valuable to have a guy to pick up the slack if one of the young guys is having his confidence take a hit because he's struggling on the PK.

 

[TheDirtyH]

For starters, I don't particuarly think Howden played poorly.

I think he had good moments and bad moments. I think he more bad moments then some players, but not nearly as many as others --- especially some of his peers.

Within the context of his performance, compared to said peers, I don't think he did amazing, but I don't think he did worse than player who aren't here right now. I think he was fairly middle of the road, maybe bottom middle.

When I looked at the forwards who should've been sent to the AHL, there were names ahead of him. That doesn't mean he was at the top of the keep list, but it doesn't mean he was at the bottom either.

But beyond what I saw, I can also comment on what I'm seeing. And what I'm seeing is that we aren't spending a ton of time focusing on a lot of players who didn't perform better than Howden, or questioning where their game was this preseason. So to me, that signifies that we aren't looking at all players the same way.

With Howden, I feel like certain comments read as if the person making them has already arrived at the conclusion and is going back to find aspect to support their conclusion. As opposed to observing aspects and then arriving at a conclusion based on those elements.

Maybe discussion on those players not making the roster hasn't been as lively because posters are in general agreement that they shouldn't start the season in the NHL? And maybe Howden has come up for the opposite reason: that is, that he is on the roster and people feel he shouldn't be. You don't think Howden was that bad and you think others were much worse. Some people disagree.

I can debate an actual issue and be perfectly fine having different opinions.

For example, I can debate someone on the Panarin or Trouba issues, dedicate pages upon pages to it, and be perfectly okay disagreeing with that person. Likewise, I can debate someone and still see the logic in their perspective.

In all the talk today I haven't seen one disparaging comment about Howden's potential. I've seen at worst some concern voiced by some who have seen think he's stagnating; I've seen frustration with the coaches and management because some people disagree with Howden's usage and placement in the lineup--or his being in the lineup at all. None of it has come with any hard line stance about his not having any merits or promising attributes, though plenty of it is focused on how best to nurture those.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Que the pitchforks

They out.

 

[DanielBrassard]

Maybe discussion on those players not making the roster hasn't been as lively because posters are in general agreement that they shouldn't start the season in the NHL? And maybe Howden has come up for the opposite reason: that is, that he is on the roster and people feel he shouldn't be. You don't think Howden was that bad and you think others were much worse. Some people disagree.



In all the talk today I haven't seen one disparaging comment about Howden's potential. I've seen at worst some concern voiced by some who have seen think he's stagnating; I've seen frustration with the coaches and management because some people disagree with Howden's usage and placement in the lineup--or his being in the lineup at all. None of it has come with any hard line stance about his not having any merits or promising attributes, though plenty of it is focused on how best to nurture those.

You hit the nail on the head with the bolded. There's been general agreement that the players who were sent down should have been, not so much with Howden and for obvious reasons.

 

[TheDirtyH]

Here's the thing though, within the context of Howden, I've said the following:

1. His mid-year last season was abysmal.
2. He should've gone down to the AHL.
3. His performance has both good and bad.
4. His preseason was middle of the road, maybe bottom middle.

But you're leaving out how much of you're posts have been about:

5. Howden is being treated like a whipping boy.

That's been the point that's most pushed back against.

 

[Edge]

Maybe discussion on those players not making the roster hasn't been as lively because posters are in general agreement that they shouldn't start the season in the NHL? And maybe Howden has come up for the opposite reason: that is, that he is on the roster and people feel he shouldn't be. You don't think Howden was that bad and you think others were much worse. Some people disagree.



In all the talk today I haven't seen one disparaging comment about Howden's potential. I've seen at worst some concern voiced by some who have seen think he's stagnating; I've seen frustration with the coaches and management because some people disagree with Howden's usage and placement in the lineup--or his being in the lineup at all. None of it has come with any hard line stance about his not having any merits or promising attributes, though plenty of it is focused on how best to nurture those.

I think I would have more a tendency to believe that there wasn't a bias, if it wasn't a subject that people really go out of their way to emphasize. It's disproportionate and it goes back to already arriving at a conclusion and then commenting to back it up.

For the people who are commenting on Howden, many of their feelings have been frequent and vocal for a while. So it's really a continuation of that narrative, as opposed to reacting to what they see and also reacting to other scenarios. They aren't ignoring those other topics because they are in some agreement that said players shouldn't be here, it's because it takes them away from a narrative they are really trying to hammer home.

Beyond that, the "general agreement" defense doesn't really stick for me personally because I do see posts about other players losing out because of Howden. And frankly, in many cases, the people making these comments don't agree that those guys shouldn't start the season in the NHL.

But here's the thing. Let's assume for a second it's all on me. Let's play devil's advocate and say I'm biased, arrogant, resistant to change and misguided on my approach about Howden. At the end of the day, there are a number of people who see it as well and are commenting on it.

So in the end, it's not just a "me" thing. Others have noticed a pattern when it comes to the subject of Howden. Others have noticed how it mirrors past examples. It's not a unique concept that I've brought to the table. It exists with or without me.

 

[Gardner McKay]

I don't see any good reason why we can't groom one of the other defensemen to PK in this transitional year we are having.


"hyperbole mountain" is not the only way someone can be frustrating to engage with.

Sure. I don't disagree with that. People can be frustrating in a number of ways.

 

[Edge]

But you're leaving out how much of you're posts have been about:

5. Howden is being treated like a whipping boy.

That's been the point that's most pushed back against.

But here's the thing, it's not just me who sees it.

And the people who everyone knows are the pushers of that narrative, make up a very good percentage of the people who are pushing back against it.

So essentially it's a situation where:

A lot of people notice a handful of people are focusing a lot on Howden. Said people push back.

The smaller group of people doing the initial pushing, push back against the push back.

So the root of all of this is identifying a group of people exhibiting behavior that, quite honestly, they've become known for.

And understandably, these people don't really like being called out for it. Maybe they don't realize they're doing it. Maybe it's a defense mechanism.

But it really does tend to be the same people who focus on a particular player and then beat fixate on him. It just becomes more obvious when it's so disproportionate.