The Jets D

[Stumbledore]

Finns are weird.

they have a variety of sizes. All not as long as THE NHL 200 ft, 190-197 and some where in between international and NHL for width 92-98. Just interesting

But I 100% agree its a different game on the larger ice.

Americans are weird.

They have a variety of sizes for their baseball parks. The distance you need to whack the ball to get a homerun should be consistent.

 

[nobody imp0rtant]

Americans are weird.

They have a variety of sizes for their baseball parks. The distance you need to whack the ball to get a homerun should be consistent.

That's part of the game's charm. You sir sound like someone that would like to make baseball even more boring than it already is.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I'd think he was handled as well as could be expected.
He was under sized and lacked the strength needed to play against the speed and strength of NHL players.
It was obvious when watching him trying to defend - he was hesitant in how he handled play in his own end.
When you are over powered by most players to a point where you cannot or will not engage, you are in for a world of trouble.

He's come out and basically stated he needs to work on his speed and strength - without those two components, he would continue to struggle and it would make zero sense in leaving him out there until the issues where addressed.

The question I ask myself is, did the org fail to recognize the issues or did Ville?
When you consider the fact that they didn't play him, you'd almost have to think Ville was the one who wasn't prepared to make the necessary changes.
IMO, he shouldn't have been called up at all until he gained some ground with this strength and speed. I'd blame the org for that.

It will be interesting to see if he is making progress - his skill would be a huge plus

Funny how he could handle the size and strength of AHL players - who are just as big and strong as NHL players.

He was hesitant. That was the problem. He needed to assert himself and to play his game. Why didn't he?

I saw that he wants to work on size and strength and no doubt those things will help him. But if he is still hesitant he still won't make it.

I think the speed side of it is probably more important than the strength. He will always be a smaller player. No amount of strength work will change that. More speed will help him compensate though.

It's not every mistake - it's the body of play, every play on the ice. It's the way he handled himself on the ice.

2 players can make an equal amount of mistakes, but the play surrounding those mistakes is very informative. Samberg has had some real ooofs that stand out for me but the stuff in between - the poise, decision making, positioning, etc is far superior to Heinola.

Samberg was given the opportunity to have good play between mistakes. I don't think Heinola ever was.

 

[DRW204]

Speed sure. I don't buy the strength argument though. Anyhow we shall see how he looks next year.



Who knows but people have come up with metrics for it much like they have for the same thing in the NHL. It's just one piece of information but it shows he isn't a liability in his end at that level.

what do you mean who knows? you are the one that made the reference & the claim lol.

along with the assertion that the Jets are not letting him defend like how he does in the AHL.... which in itself is a whole other can of worms.

 

[DRW204]

It's not every mistake - it's the body of play, every play on the ice. It's the way he handled himself on the ice.

2 players can make an equal amount of mistakes, but the play surrounding those mistakes is very informative. Samberg has had some real ooofs that stand out for me but the stuff in between - the poise, decision making, positioning, etc is far superior to Heinola.

ill agree that heinola hasn't had as long of a rope as others, and he's had some solid games but his bad games just somehow get glossed over on here, like one of his last games against either MTL or TOR this year where he was disaster. when you have good or better options, why wouldn't you go with the better player especially at that point of the regular season. has he played well enough to get afforded a longer rope? not sure, but seems the answer is no across a couple coaching staffs now.

Samberg imo has never had games as bad as those, and has had strings of games w/ higher level of play, reliability and consistency, so he will of course get the longer rope.

 

[surixon]

what do you mean who knows? you are the one that made the reference & the claim lol.

along with the assertion that the Jets are not letting him defend like how he does in the AHL.... which in itself is a whole other can of worms.

I have seen metrics posted by people but I don't know specifically how they are determined. Seems like an AHL version of some of those percentage based charts that are posted about NHL players. They all use a distribution type model.

Well he plays differently in the NHL vs. AHL. Maybe it's confidence, maybe the NHL coaches are telling him to do different things.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

I have seen metrics posted by people but I don't know specifically how they are determined. Seems like an AHL version of some of those percentage based charts that are posted about NHL players. They all use a distribution type model.

Well he plays differently in the NHL vs. AHL. Maybe it's confidence, maybe the NHL coaches are telling him to do different things.

Or maybe his confidence was shaken when he was press boxed after 1 bad game?

I don't think playing 1 game, then sitting for a couple is a good way to build confidence in a young player.

But maybe he gets a little more rope if he comes to camp faster and stronger.

 

[Hobble]

Has Bones considered pulling every defensemen we have and telling them he needs them to play Norris caliber? Could be worth a shot.

 

[DRW204]

Has Bones considered pulling every defensemen we have and telling them he needs them to play Norris caliber? Could be worth a shot.

Nah he's to busy telling them to stink defensively apparently

Has Bones considered pulling every defensemen we have and telling them he needs them to play Norris caliber? Could be worth a shot.

Nah he's to busy telling them to stink defensively apparently

 

[Stumbledore]

That's part of the game's charm. You sir sound like someone that would like to make baseball even more boring than it already is.

Nope, don't want to meddle with baseball at all, especially since I have no interest in it.

I was merely responding to someone who said Finns are weird because their rinks have a variety of non-standard sizes.

 

[BoneDocUK]

ill agree that heinola hasn't had as long of a rope as others, and he's had some solid games but his bad games just somehow get glossed over on here, like one of his last games against either MTL or TOR this year where he was disaster. when you have good or better options, why wouldn't you go with the better player especially at that point of the regular season. has he played well enough to get afforded a longer rope? not sure, but seems the answer is no across a couple coaching staffs now.

Samberg imo has never had games as bad as those, and has had strings of games w/ higher level of play, reliability and consistency, so he will of course get the longer rope.

IDK about that -- the relevant GDTs contain plenty of eye-rolling and cusses and "he's a tiny bust, cut him loose" rhetoric. I feel like both Heinola and Stan's flubs were magnified while Samberg's were often -- rightly -- put down to a lack of experience and a steep learning curve.

And while I like Samberg and think of him as someone who has both been solidly developed and someone who has taken the best possible advantages of that development, he had some absolute howlers, a few of which resulted in benchings and games off -- rightly or wrongly.

Ville's longest recent stretch, IIRC, was in early 2022, when he played 8 or so games and was starting to put things together after a few scary games early on. Playing smarter defensive hockey, starting to connect consistently on his passes and breakouts -- and Lowry sends him back to the A, noting that he was "playing good hockey and we want to make sure that he continues playing good hockey. " WTF? Enter Nate Beaulieu, rocking his usual brutal stats and on an expiring contract, who plays exactly to form in a losing effort.

Does keeping Heinola in (or Stanley, also platooned at that point) make the Jets a playoff team that year? No, but it was a doomed stretch run anyway, and it might have made a significant difference to his (or Stan's) development path and given the Jets a clearer idea of what they had in him (or Stan).

I think there's far too much emphasis on the player in terms of awarding credit or blame to development arcs, and too little on external factors like coaching, org preferences and even luck.

I also think it isn't a zero-sum game. Had Stan, Heinola and Samberg all hit, the Jets are in a far better position going forwards with this D corps. Should Stan and Heinola both miss, that's 3 first-rounders (along with KVes) that the Jets don't have adding to their team depth, draft locker and cap efficiency.

I want all Jets prospects to succeed. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to those paths to success, and I don't think it's always a case of "Prospect X was too lazy / too selfish / too stupid / too small" to make it -- especially in the cases of Stan and Ville, since there's tons of evidence that both these guys have trained like hell and done what was asked of them.

If it doesn't work out, then so be it. But I don't think the Jets are that rare NHL team that does absolutely everything right in its drafting and development such that any prospect who doesn't click has only himself to blame.

 

[surixon]

IDK about that -- the relevant GDTs contain plenty of eye-rolling and cusses and "he's a tiny bust, cut him loose" rhetoric. I feel like both Heinola and Stan's flubs were magnified while Samberg's were often -- rightly -- put down to a lack of experience and a steep learning curve.

And while I like Samberg and think of him as someone who has both been solidly developed and someone who has taken the best possible advantages of that development, he had some absolute howlers, a few of which resulted in benchings and games off -- rightly or wrongly.

Ville's longest recent stretch, IIRC, was in early 2022, when he played 8 or so games and was starting to put things together after a few scary games early on. Playing smarter defensive hockey, starting to connect consistently on his passes and breakouts -- and Lowry sends him back to the A, noting that he was "playing good hockey and we want to make sure that he continues playing good hockey. " WTF? Enter Nate Beaulieu, rocking his usual brutal stats and on an expiring contract, who plays exactly to form in a losing effort.

Does keeping Heinola in (or Stanley, also platooned at that point) make the Jets a playoff team that year? No, but it was a doomed stretch run anyway, and it might have made a significant difference to his (or Stan's) development path and given the Jets a clearer idea of what they had in him (or Stan).

I think there's far too much emphasis on the player in terms of awarding credit or blame to development arcs, and too little on external factors like coaching, org preferences and even luck.

I also think it isn't a zero-sum game. Had Stan, Heinola and Samberg all hit, the Jets are in a far better position going forwards with this D corps. Should Stan and Heinola both miss, that's 3 first-rounders (along with KVes) that the Jets don't have adding to their team depth, draft locker and cap efficiency.

I want all Jets prospects to succeed. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to those paths to success, and I don't think it's always a case of "Prospect X was too lazy / too selfish / too stupid / too small" to make it -- especially in the cases of Stan and Ville, since there's tons of evidence that both these guys have trained like hell and done what was asked of them.

If it doesn't work out, then so be it. But I don't think the Jets are that rare NHL team that does absolutely everything right in its drafting and development such that any prospect who doesn't click has only himself to blame.

Yeah sending him down at the end of 2022 was a real head scratcher. He was finally getting some traction but nope we need to play crappy vets and mess with Ville's growth.

 

[Buffdog]

Americans are weird.

They have a variety of sizes for their baseball parks. The distance you need to whack the ball to get a homerun should be consistent.

That reminded me of the years the Goldeyes played at the old football stadium (which you'll note was in Canada)...

Super short porch in left. Very similar dimensions to Transcona Stadium if I recall from my Junior Baseball days (although memories from that era are foggy at best... I though our MMJHL team had a drinking problem, but then you take a bunch of 18-20 year olds on summer holidays instead if enrolled in university... yikes)

nlfan.com: Goldeyes Goldeyes "Deformity Field" Remembered

 

[BoneDocUK]

Yeah sending him down at the end of 2022 was a real head scratcher. He was finally getting some traction but nope we need to play crappy vets and mess with Ville's growth.

Yep. Versions of that with Stan also.

This won't be news to most here, but an interesting para from a recent piece in the A on re-evaluating prospects from years past, relating to Big LS:

Bigger, taller defencemen, in particular, are coveted by NHL teams and prioritized in their development by NHL teams in ways that smaller defencemen aren’t. When you’re 6-foot-7, you also, inherently, have kinks to iron out at 18 years old that, if ironed out, make you that much more appealing. So are you evaluating what you see in a player at the time, or should you also consider what NHL teams, and NHL head coaches, see and desire — and then include those tendencies in your own evaluation? In general, I have tended to argue against doing the latter. My lists aren’t supposed to cater to the way others see the game, they’re supposed to stay true to my vision of the way the game should go. But maybe when those things are really strongly diametrically opposed, I ought to close the gap a little more by considering the way an NHL team might treat a player.

Wheeler: NHL prospects I was wrong about — Jan Mysak, Tyler Kleven, Peyton Krebs and more

Which prospects rose and which prospects fell since their draft years and how did Scott Wheeler originally rank them?

theathletic.com

 

[Jet]

I have seen metrics posted by people but I don't know specifically how they are determined. Seems like an AHL version of some of those percentage based charts that are posted about NHL players. They all use a distribution type model.

Well he plays differently in the NHL vs. AHL. Maybe it's confidence, maybe the NHL coaches are telling him to do different things.

I think it's the former and you nailed it on the head earlier. I think he plays scared, not to make mistakes in the nhl. In the ahl he plays confidently and assertively, like he belongs and knows he's a top level player in that league.

The problem is that depending on the opportunity in the nhl, your chance to establish yourself can be very limited.

For a team that believes (rightly or wrongly) that they are a legitimate playoff contender, it's not going to be a learning environment. You need to be a net positive on the ice in order to get playing time.

If you're a team that's rebuilding, there's far more opportunity to get your reps, make mistakes and develop.

It just really hasn't been a conducive environment for Heinola in Winnipeg.

The argument can be made that we've been a bubble team for years and should have just inked him in and seem what we have with him, but I don't think our performance has been indicative of our roster strength.

We've had a top half of the league forward group on paper most of those years, a top 5 goalie, and a solid if not remarkable d corps. That's a team that, if played to expectations, with good coaching, should be a perennial playoff team, and one that could do damage once they get there.

It's really hard for a young player who is struggling to make the jump to get a lot of opportunity and that's what i believe were seeing here.

If Heinola would have came in in the Jets first 5 years of existence I think he would have had a much better opportunity

 

[Stumbledore]

The problem is that depending on the opportunity in the nhl, your chance to establish yourself can be very limited.

Excellent point. It's even worse in the NFL where potentially great quarterbacks are tossed aside because of very limited opportunities, or the weather, or a minor injury, or whether the coach saw a few of the great plays you made. Or whether the coach had his mind made up before you even joined the practice roster.

For every Rourke, there's a dozen Strevlers.

 

[Howard Chuck]

Funny how he could handle the size and strength of AHL players - who are just as big and strong as NHL players.

He was hesitant. That was the problem. He needed to assert himself and to play his game. Why didn't he?

I saw that he wants to work on size and strength and no doubt those things will help him. But if he is still hesitant he still won't make it.

I think the speed side of it is probably more important than the strength. He will always be a smaller player. No amount of strength work will change that. More speed will help him compensate though.



Samberg was given the opportunity to have good play between mistakes. I don't think Heinola ever was.

Bones needs to have the same talk with Heinola that he had with Morrissey. Tell him to play his game and it’s ok to play through some mistakes. Look at the difference in Morrissey’s game after he was told to play his game.

It doesn’t mean it will be the same, but I still think there is a very good defenseman in Ville.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

Bones needs to have the same talk with Heinola that he had with Morrissey. Tell him to play his game and it’s ok to play through some mistakes. Look at the difference in Morrissey’s game after he was told to play his game.

It doesn’t mean it will be the same, but I still think there is a very good defenseman in Ville.

I agree. But it is still hard to see where he fits with the Jets unless some roster moves are made.

 

[DRW204]

IDK about that -- the relevant GDTs contain plenty of eye-rolling and cusses and "he's a tiny bust, cut him loose" rhetoric. I feel like both Heinola and Stan's flubs were magnified while Samberg's were often -- rightly -- put down to a lack of experience and a steep learning curve.

And while I like Samberg and think of him as someone who has both been solidly developed and someone who has taken the best possible advantages of that development, he had some absolute howlers, a few of which resulted in benchings and games off -- rightly or wrongly.

Ville's longest recent stretch, IIRC, was in early 2022, when he played 8 or so games and was starting to put things together after a few scary games early on. Playing smarter defensive hockey, starting to connect consistently on his passes and breakouts -- and Lowry sends him back to the A, noting that he was "playing good hockey and we want to make sure that he continues playing good hockey. " WTF? Enter Nate Beaulieu, rocking his usual brutal stats and on an expiring contract, who plays exactly to form in a losing effort.

Does keeping Heinola in (or Stanley, also platooned at that point) make the Jets a playoff team that year? No, but it was a doomed stretch run anyway, and it might have made a significant difference to his (or Stan's) development path and given the Jets a clearer idea of what they had in him (or Stan).

I think there's far too much emphasis on the player in terms of awarding credit or blame to development arcs, and too little on external factors like coaching, org preferences and even luck.

I also think it isn't a zero-sum game. Had Stan, Heinola and Samberg all hit, the Jets are in a far better position going forwards with this D corps. Should Stan and Heinola both miss, that's 3 first-rounders (along with KVes) that the Jets don't have adding to their team depth, draft locker and cap efficiency.

I want all Jets prospects to succeed. I don't think there's a one size fits all solution to those paths to success, and I don't think it's always a case of "Prospect X was too lazy / too selfish / too stupid / too small" to make it -- especially in the cases of Stan and Ville, since there's tons of evidence that both these guys have trained like hell and done what was asked of them.

If it doesn't work out, then so be it. But I don't think the Jets are that rare NHL team that does absolutely everything right in its drafting and development such that any prospect who doesn't click has only himself to blame.

i have seen enough of your posts on this forum to see how you casually dismiss heinola's bad play and magnify others in some attempt to uplift heinola. idk why it's difficult to understand the distinction b/w samberg and heinola. samberg has been good or reliable in the nhl and is therefore afforded more leeway.

if heinola wants similar sort of rope perhaps play more than a couple good games in a row? or limit the bad ones/mistakes? as a prospect or young inexperienced player trying to break in the nhl, you probably need to make it impossible for the coaches to move you out. he has not done that, nor has he shown he's overall better than any of the current 6 Dmen the Jets ice. maybe he could have started by outplaying kyle copacabana last year before we get to comparing him and samberg in the NHL at this point?

samberg got raked over the coals whenever he made grave mistakes. maybe you don't see them b/c they're few and far between compared to heinola, not sure. but i remember lots of commentary when he served up an OT winner in the POs. i thought heinola would definitely be better than samberg in the nhl, he still may be, however it seems like the chances of that have dwindled substantially.

at the end of the day most NHL dmen warts to their game. pionk, schmidt, morrissey, samberg... they all have weaknesses or bad games. the "perfect" dmen are few and far between... do the strengths outweigh the weaknesses though? in heinola's case it doesn't seem like the Jets view him that way unfortunately. i liked him a lot as a prospect, but prospect stats dont mean much anymore when your nhl play has not been much to write home about.

i dont disagree on that he probably should have been playing at the end of 21-22... however i really think ppl overstate how missing a few games in a lost season like that killed or changed his chances of being a great NHL player by a large degree. although would be willing and interested to see the stats or info that supports that it does.

 

[DRW204]

Bones needs to have the same talk with Heinola that he had with Morrissey. Tell him to play his game and it’s ok to play through some mistakes. Look at the difference in Morrissey’s game after he was told to play his game.

It doesn’t mean it will be the same, but I still think there is a very good defenseman in Ville.

heinola is not the same level as morrissey, or the elite nhl dmen. there's no go play in the NHL and expect great results like morrissey this past year, or NHL-path like makar, fox (couple players brought up earlier). he's closer to replacement level than the elite tier.

he was not going to be afforded the same margin of mistakes and whatnot as those elite dmen b/c his strengths, production, or when he's playing at his best is likely going to be nowhere near theirs. if he had a game or production similar to those aforementioned players then there would be more leniency. you can live w/ Makar or Fox, (or Morrissey this year) making a grave mistake or 2... why? because they're putting up almost yearly 70+ pts/PPG, or 20 goals in Makar's case, as well as consistent Norris caliber Dmen, while being overall net positives at 5v5.

if there's one thing that i think posters (& including myself) sometimes need to realize is bowness has probably forgotten more about NHL defense than we will ever know. there's been 3 NHL coaches who have had eyes on heinola in games + practices + off-the-ice work + stats in the NHL and AHL. the one w/ the highest Defensive acumen doesn't believe he's ready to be a net positive contributor over and beyond what we currently have on defense. but somehow posters on here think it's as easy as - oh yea just go play like X star defenseman, or play his game (which is open to so much interpretation or variance), or quote some ambiguous AHL stat (which id like to see if there's high transference to the NHL) that they have it all figured out. i don't think it works that way.

i had high hopes for heinola, and perhaps he can turn it around there's lots of his career left. but so far there hasn't been much to write home about w/r/t his NHL play as of late. for fringe players they need to make the most of their opportunities, and a team needs to ice players that they feel are net-positives if they're in win-now/compete years.

 

[Buffdog]

if there's one thing that i think posters (& including myself) need to realize is bowness has probably forgotten more about NHL defense than we will ever know. there's been 3 NHL coaches who have had eyes on heinola in games + practices + off-the-ice work + stats in the NHL and AHL. the one w/ the highest Defensive acumen doesn't believe he's ready to be a net positive contributor over and beyond what we currently have on defense. but somehow posters on here think it's as easy as - oh yea just go play like X star defenseman, or quote some ambiguous AHL stat (which id like to see if there's high transference to the NHL) that they have it all figured out. i don't think it works that way.

While I realize this is a "fan forum", I think everyone who posts here needs to read this paragraph from time to time. Well said.

We all may disagree with some of the decisions of the coaches and management but the amount of info they have to make those decisions with compared to what we see in game play alone is huge.

I've made the same sort of post in the past and have had the "appeal to authority" folks come at me hard.

It's also ironic that the more a guy like Bowness knows about hockey, the longer he stays in the game, and that leads to terms like "dinasaur" and "old boys club" being thrown around.

To some people, it's almost like the old, experienced, knowledgable coach somehow becomes LESS qualified with the more knowledge and experience he accrues - and he should be replaced with someone who is less knowledgeable and experienced (but somehow more qualified?).

 

[Whileee]

i have seen enough of your posts on this forum to see how you casually dismiss heinola's bad play and magnify others in some attempt to uplift heinola. idk why it's difficult to understand the distinction b/w samberg and heinola. samberg has been good or reliable in the nhl and is therefore afforded more leeway.

if heinola wants similar sort of rope perhaps play more than a couple good games in a row? or limit the bad ones/mistakes? as a prospect or young inexperienced player trying to break in the nhl, you probably need to make it impossible for the coaches to move you out. he has not done that, nor has he shown he's overall better than any of the current 6 Dmen the Jets ice. maybe he could have started by outplaying kyle copacabana last year before we get to comparing him and samberg in the NHL at this point?

samberg got raked over the coals whenever he made grave mistakes. maybe you don't see them b/c they're few and far between compared to heinola, not sure. but i remember lots of commentary when he served up an OT winner in the POs. i thought heinola would definitely be better than samberg in the nhl, he still may be, however it seems like the chances of that have dwindled substantially.

at the end of the day most NHL dmen warts to their game. pionk, schmidt, morrissey, samberg... they all have weaknesses or bad games. the "perfect" dmen are few and far between... do the strengths outweigh the weaknesses though? in heinola's case it doesn't seem like the Jets view him that way unfortunately. i liked him a lot as a prospect, but prospect stats dont mean much anymore when your nhl play has not been much to write home about.

i dont disagree on that he probably should have been playing at the end of 21-22... however i really think ppl overstate how missing a few games in a lost season like that killed or changed his chances of being a great NHL player by a large degree. although would be willing and interested to see the stats or info that supports that it does.

I thought Samberg was kept in the AHL and press box too long. He was ready earlier, maybe even right out of college, considering the dregs the Jets were using. Maybe he needed some AHL development to work on puck management, but generally I think good young players can adapt more quickly to the NHL than coaches allow, especially with the size and skating that Samberg has.

I think Heinola is ready for full-time NHL gig. I'd prefer it to be with the Jets, but if not,ayhe he's part of a bigger trade. The big question for me is whether the Jets prefer Chisholm or Heinola going forward. Chisholm is older, and lacks Heinola's creativity, but he's a bit bigger and faster. I can't see the Jets keeping both unless the Jets trade both Stanley and a vet D. I think a Stanley trade is likely. Dillon and DeMelo are the most tradeable vets, but are also very strong defensive D that can play top 4. If the Jets could find a trade for Schmidt or Pionk, that might be ideal, but I doubt they'll want to retain the salary with the 55 and 37 trade situations unresolved.

 

[Whileee]

While I realize this is a "fan forum", I think everyone who posts here needs to read this paragraph from time to time. Well said.

We all may disagree with some of the decisions of the coaches and management but the amount of info they have to make those decisions with compared to what we see in game play alone is huge.

I've made the same sort of post in the past and have had the "appeal to authority" folks come at me hard.

It's also ironic that the more a guy like Bowness knows about hockey, the longer he stays in the game, and that leads to terms like "dinasaur" and "old boys club" being thrown around.

To some people, it's almost like the old, experienced, knowledgable coach somehow becomes LESS qualified with the more knowledge and experience he accrues - and he should be replaced with someone who is less knowledgeable and experienced (but somehow more qualified?).

I don't disagree that fans (including me) too often underestimate coaches and their decision-making, but coaches also develop blind spots and lose the plot with players and teams, which is why even good ones move around.

Recall that Bowness favoured Stanley over Samberg last season, and only gave Samberg his opportunity when Stanley was injured. I (and others) thought that was a bad decision at the time, and I still think Bowness made a mistake in his evaluation of those two young D last season.

 

[surixon]

I don't disagree that fans (including me) too often underestimate coaches and their decision-making, but coaches also develop blind spots and lose the plot with players and teams, which is why even good ones move around.

Recall that Bowness favoured Stanley over Samberg last season, and only gave Samberg his opportunity when Stanley was injured. I (and others) thought that was a bad decision at the time, and I still think Bowness made a mistake in his evaluation of those two young D last season.

Agreed, things like contracts, waiver status also play a role here. Sometimes it's not always about the best player but managing assets and contracts.

I think Ville was given positive feedback at the end of the year and him and the org have come to an understanding.

While I think Bones is a good defensive minded coach he hasn't been amazing for every defenseman that has gone through him. Heiskinen for example was pretty stagnant under him and exploaded to a Norris caliber dmen the moment he was gone.

 

[WolfHouse]

Call me crazy but the forum could be overthinking all this just a tad... it might just come down to age - Stanley was one year older than Samberg so got more of a shot - Samberg's first real season was last year and he won't get his first big contract until he is 26... I think its an outdated view but that might be what's going on...

Dillon has to go at the TD - and I think Chevy will get a decent return - but Dillon is a solid player... DeMelo would be good for another two years

I'm also a big proponent of Samberg on the right side with JoMo - that opens things up but still not sure what the Jets D looks like in two years

JoMo-Samberg
Heinola-Lundmark
Chisholm-Salomondsson

Big gamble on a lot of guys hitting... Jets need to figure out a way to get players into the lineup this year - likely after the TD