The Paul Maurice Pitchfork Thread (MOD Warning Post #1)

[Mogo]

This board is getting F N stupid ! It's incredible !!

I feel like its turning into facebook group idiotism

 

[Chaos2k7]

So all the posters who are over the top negative every season, to the point of being an annoyance, are now annoyed THIS is too premature?

LOL, cant make this stuff up....

 

[Mogo]

So all the posters who are over the top negative every season, to the point of being an annoyance, are now annoyed THIS is too premature?

LOL, cant make this stuff up....

Nah. Most of us dont expect much from this season. A transition season. Have to accept it.
I mean just look at the roster. Cant expect much. Hopefullu Zito makes the right moves next off season to get this back on track. If we made the playoffs Id consider that a huge win. I dont see a reason personally to panic yet with what Maurice has here to work with (gimme couple more weeks)

Not having our 1st rounder protected pisses me off.

 

[iam76]

no offense to Paul. but if bruins can sign Mitchell miller we should resign coach Q

 

[BabyBennettov]

I feel like its turning into facebook group idiotism

Or Twitter « discussions »…

 

[IceManCat]

I don't think Ekblad being injured has much to do with it. I think I'm gonna agree with Vendetta and others: Maurice has turned a fun, creative offensive group into a bunch of mud-slogging blockheads.

The good news is, there is still plenty of time for him to put his ego in check and have them open things up a bit.

He said this at the start of the season that he would play this style. It's a "playoff" style and we got beat last year because we didn't play a playoff style, according to him at least.

 

[BeezKnees]

The fact that we're bad/mediocre at this style of play is the point of why we're playing it. This is what we're going to look like in the playoffs again until we push through and learn to excel at this style

 

[Dr Beinfest]

The fact that we're bad/mediocre at this style of play is the point of why we're playing it. This is what we're going to look like in the playoffs again until we push through and learn to excel at this style

Say what you want about the 5 on 5 and the transition play needing to change, but there’s zero truth to that regarding special teams and the playoffs. And special teams doesn’t look particularly different. Just worse.

 

[KW]

Here are my longer term concerns
- PP
- PK
- 4th line (Staal)
- Replacing Hornquist
- Carlson and Kiersted
- Coach’s 2nd/3rd line combos

Here are my NOT longer term concerns
- 5v5
- Bob and Knight
- Barkov, at all
- Reinhart
- Lundell

Here are my question marks
- Bennett
- Balcers
- Cousins
- Coach

 

[pantherbot]

I'm not sure what you are criticizing exactly? That we're boring? I think it's fine to call out things you don't like about Maurice's style etc., but for some people to call for him to be fired 10 games into the season? I'm not even sure what the point is, he's obviously still going to be here for at least the next two years. Are we really going to have "fire maurice" calls after every loss or less-than-overwhelming win?

Yeah the power play % is awful, but again, we're shooting at an awful rate and it absolutely won't stay like that. The lowest power play shooting percentage in a season has been 8%, we're shooting at <6%. If we were shooting at 8%, that brings PP% back to 15% conversion. If we shot at a still-low 10%, our PP% would be 20%, which is pretty respectable. How many posts has Reinhart alone hit? And those don't even count as shots. And we're doing this without Ekblad.

The PK I agree isn't great, but also not basement awful. I think they can do better on denying entries and be better at defending cross ice passes, but we're also missing our best (or third best according to some people) defender.

And we're handicapped by the cap this year, that's just the reality of getting Tkachuk who looks great so far and the stupid Yandle buyout. Having the Staal bros hasn't been great and they seem almost net negative, especially Eric, but that's not on Maurice. He's got limited options. Fact is, our roster is pretty different from last year without Huber, Weegar, Marchment, Duke, and Ekblad. We aren't going to look like the same team and we have less depth this year.

 

[FrolikFan67]

I wouldn’t judge until we see how effective we look in the playoffs under his direction l. The point he keeps preaching is to consistently play this style since this is how they’ll need to play in the postseason. We know there are styles that work much better in the regular season than in the playoffs and vice versa. So even if we don’t set the world on fire during the regular season it may serve us better in the playoffs. We’ll just have to wait and see, but this is all playoff training in my view. And then we’ll see if it actually looks good when that time comes. Not comparing us to the kings but didn’t they barely make the playoffs as an 8th seed before steamrolling to a Stanley cup? I don’t think we’re at a Stanley cup level right now but trying to illustrate the point that so-so regular season teams can look a lot different when the playoffs begin.

It’s promising that our already thin D looks decent even with Ekblad out. Essentially not Ekblad or Weegar and still hanging in there. That’s no small feat. Goaltending hasn’t been terrible but it could certainly be better. 5v5 play looks solid, we just need some of our key guys to get it going. The biggest point of improvement will simply be the special teams, they’ll need to think of something to make both the PP and PK effective. Obviously with our talent there’s no excuse to not have a good PP and with guys like Barkov, Lundell, and luostarinen we should have a better PK too

 

[Felidae]

no offense to Paul. but if bruins can sign Mitchell miller we should resign coach Q

No.

Some things are bigger than hockey.

Just because one organization f***s up on a collossal level doesnt mean we should too.

Besides, last year proved we can win without Q.

 

[CanePanther]

Nah. Most of us dont expect much from this season. A transition season. Have to accept it.
I mean just look at the roster. Cant expect much. Hopefullu Zito makes the right moves next off season to get this back on track. If we made the playoffs Id consider that a huge win. I dont see a reason personally to panic yet with what Maurice has here to work with (gimme couple more weeks)

Not having our 1st rounder protected pisses me off.

How do you get that we are predicted as one of the top 3 teams to win the cup ?????

 

[FrolikFan67]

How do you get that we are predicted as one of the top 3 teams to win the cup ?????

Vegas odds and other sites have put up their odds and many have us at 3rd or 4th

 

[CanePanther]

Vegas odds and other sites have put up their odds and many have us at 3rd or 4th

Exactly

 

[letsgrowcactus]

Not a fan of the Maurice hiring at all, but let's see where we're at by the end of this month.

I do wonder, what's the plan if this season is a bust? How much rope will Zito give Maurice? If we miss, do you fire him? If we don't miss but bow out in round 1 in an embarassing fashion, I guess you cross your fingers and hope next year's better? Fingers crossed they figure out the special teams soon, regain their swagger and this is just some idle speculation.

 

[KW]

Not a fan of the Maurice hiring at all, but let's see where we're at by the end of this month.

I do wonder, what's the plan if this season is a bust? How much rope will Zito give Maurice? If we miss, do you fire him? If we don't miss but bow out in round 1 in an embarassing fashion, I guess you cross your fingers and hope next year's better? Fingers crossed they figure out the special teams soon, regain their swagger and this is just some idle speculation.

When total amateur players like me can see some things that are glaringly wrong with the PP and PK, it really makes me wonder what these total pros do when they practice PP and PK. Like really, w t f.

 

[scholl]

Nah. Most of us dont expect much from this season. A transition season. Have to accept it.
I mean just look at the roster. Cant expect much.

He said this at the start of the season that he would play this style. It's a "playoff" style and we got beat last year because we didn't play a playoff style, according to him at least.

Besides, last year proved we can win without Q.

In my opinion the biggest problem is that we lost Q. He would have been able to adjust the style and win in playoffs. The team just continued its thing and Brunette seemed to be a spectator. Now with Maurice the style is totally different but it's not the Florida way. In markets like SE Florida hockey needs to be offense oriented, otherwise fans don't like it. They get used to action and scoring when they watch NBA games and don't appreciate defensive hockey. Of course, the game changes in playoffs but in my opinion it's not acceptable that the team plays boring hockey 82 games in the regular season just to be ready for playoffs.

I agree that the roster isn't as good as it was last season. There is quite a lot scoring skills missing when Hubie, Frankie, Marchment are gone and Duclair injured. It's also much more difficult to turn plays when Ekblad and Weever aren't there. Of course Thatchuk brings something that was missing in that team. Something, however, needs to change to get some comfortable wins. PP must be better and the team needs to attack with more confidence and risk. It's tough with those d-men but still...

The team has played much more away games compared to home games. Therefore I'm not ready for giving my verdict yet but as I mentioned earlier the Florida style should be offensive hockey no matter who is the coach.

 

[Marco 85]

When total amateur players like me can see some things that are glaringly wrong with the PP and PK, it really makes me wonder what these total pros do when they practice PP and PK. Like really, w t f.

Good point. It drives me crazy to see who is on the PP and what positions they are in. If our coaching staffs over the last 2 years. Were coaching the Caps.
They would move Ovi over to the right side so he wouldn’t be able to 1 time the puck.

 

[Chaos2k7]

Since when before last season, was Florida Panthers hockey, firewagon hockey?

Our MO since incepetion has been losing.

Score lots, score little... just win.

 

[Dr Beinfest]

Since when before last season, was Florida Panthers hockey, firewagon hockey?

Our MO since incepetion has been losing.

Score lots, score little... just win.

And this isn’t about scoring more goals. We’re losing at 2-3x rhw rate of last season. The loss of Weegar and Marchment doesn’t make a 122 pt team a .500 team, and I refuse to believe swapping Huberdeau for otherwise our best player right now with Tkachuck is why we are losing at the rate we are.

 

[Felidae]

Here are my longer term concerns
- PP
- PK
- 4th line (Staal)
- Replacing Hornquist
- Carlson and Kiersted
- Coach’s 2nd/3rd line combos

Here are my NOT longer term concerns
- 5v5
- Bob and Knight
- Barkov, at all
- Reinhart
- Lundell

Here are my question marks
- Bennett
- Balcers
- Cousins
- Coach

Agreed except I'd put Bob as a long term concern.

Fact is, his track record with us is more bad than good. He'll need more than one good year to cancel out 2 seasons of abysmal years of regular and postseason play to the point im not concerned about how he'll play for a full season going forward.

 

[FinlandPanther]

Agreed except I'd put Bob as a long term concern.

Fact is, his track record with us is more bad than good. He'll need more than one good year to cancel out 2 seasons of abysmal years of regular and postseason play to the point im not concerned about how he'll play for a full season going forward.

He’s not very good and hasn’t been his whole time here. If we just wanted adequate goaltending we could ride Spencer and let him learn on the job. He’s getting paid 10 mil to be a difference maker and he’s just isn’t.

 

[Dr Beinfest]

He’s not very good and hasn’t been his whole time here. If we just wanted adequate goaltending we could ride Spencer and let him learn on the job. He’s getting paid 10 mil to be a difference maker and he’s just isn’t.

This is an awkward situation of “you really can’t blame him for not living up to $10 million.” He isn’t necessarily disappointing so much as “well, Dale, what did you expect?”

 

[KW]

This is an awkward situation of “you really can’t blame him for not living up to $10 million.” He isn’t necessarily disappointing so much as “well, Dale, what did you expect?”

The undeniable truth is that Dale Tallon kept this franchise from achieving higher during his time, and eventually set us back as a long term effect. He really screwed up the team. And I don’t want to hear how he picked Barkov (which wasn’t his idea anyway) and a couple of others. Bolland, Yandle, expansion draft, Bob, list goes on… totally f’d us up.