Player Discussion Tony DeAngelo (MOD WARNINGS: Post #12/#900)

[UnSandvich]

He definitely made a couple bad plays last night, but he's also a significant upgrade from the likes of McQuaid and Staal, and should remain in the lineup

 

[True Blue]

Three, when you have a coach playing Adam McQuaid 18-ish minutes per night and Pionk playing 22+ minutes per night despite being a liability defensively, you scratch your head wondering why these guys are getting a pass for their so so play at best and why a guy whom the coach even said "had a good camp and preseason" can't get into the lineup and seems to always be on thin ice and given no slack.

I'm not sure if three is even the point I wanted to make, lol. But ultimately it's the "this guy passes the stats test, both regular and fancy, and passes the eye test at least as well as anyone else on the time why is he getting burried when this team should be developing talented young players and honestly evaluating their contributions".

But it is not about that at all. Quinn has laid out pretty clearly what players need to do to stay in the line up. Nothing mysterious about it.

I think Quinn is scrambling because he wants to be winning games and isn't comfortable feeding his young talented players minutes yet unless they fit a certain mold he has in mind. I don't agree with it at this point and think it's bad hockey. How will it turn out? Who knows. A rookie coach has to learn and develop as well and the team will change and develop as the season goes on, but currently there are some issues.

I do not think that he is scrambling at all. He wants to win. Of course he does. But he demands that the players play the right way (his way). That does not leave room to the imagination. I think that he will bench players who are not doing with is being demanded of them.

 

[True Blue]

4) The decisions Quinn makes with DeAngelo affect more than just DeAngelo. If he rewards DeAngelo despite him slacking off in practice and not committing to his own development, what kind of a message does that send to Chytil, Andersson, Miller, Kravtsov, etc? What's more important for the future of this team? That Chytil, Andersson, Miller, and Kravtsov develop in an environment that instills good work ethic and practice habits in them or that DeAngelo plays an extra 30 games this year? Some organizations are much better at developing prospects than others. My personal belief is that culture is an important component of that.

Very well put.

 

[Vinny DeAngelo]

He definitely made a couple bad plays last night, but he's also a significant upgrade from the likes of McQuaid and Staal, and should remain in the lineup

He also showed flashes of brilliance and probably should've gotten an assist on a pass to a open hayes in the slot(Shot went wide)....

These are the growing pains we expect with a offensive dman young guy

 

[aufheben]

Forget about the PP for now, let him get PK time and there will be no reason for McQuaid to come back in.

 

[East Coast Bias]

Forget about the PP for now, let him get PK time and there will be no reason for McQuaid to come back in.

Our PK sucks anyway. We're 25th in the league at 73.8%. Might as well - not like you'd be wrecking a good thing.

 

[Blue Blooded]

His results so far on the PK were very good, but a little over a minute does not even constitute a miniscule sample.

 

[Blue Blooded]

Speaking of the PK, Skjei-Smith have been dynamite as a pairing in terms of shot attempts and scoring chances against.

 

[McRanger]

Coaching a team and developing players is a lot more complicated than a lot of people are making it out to be.

1) Sure, DeAngelo is probably better than Staal. But if the whole argument is just about upgrading our defense a little bit from Staal this year, I mean, who even cares. What makes DeAngelo interesting to me is that I think he has the potential to be a very good defenseman for the team to years to come. I care about him reaching that potential, not just being a little better than Marc Staal.

2) In my opinion, DeAngelo makes an unusual amount of lazy or inattentive defensive errors. I don't think that is controversial. Sure, he might be able to get away with doing that and be better than the 7th best defenseman on an NHL lottery contender, but a) if that's it, who cares and b) those issues should be the easiest ones to fix. If you're prioritizing his long-term development, why wouldn't you try to correct them?

3) There is more to developing players than just giving them ice time regardless of what they do. DeAngelo has played 250+ games since he got drafted. What are the next 50 games going to do for DeAngelo that those 250+ games couldn't? Especially since DeAngelo doesn't seem to have developed that much across those 250+ games. If Quinn thinks he can maximize DeAngelo's development by holding him to a higher standard in practice and forcing DeAngelo to improve his work habits, why wouldn't you want to at least give him a chance to do that?

4) The decisions Quinn makes with DeAngelo affect more than just DeAngelo. If he rewards DeAngelo despite him slacking off in practice and not committing to his own development, what kind of a message does that send to Chytil, Andersson, Miller, Kravtsov, etc? What's more important for the future of this team? That Chytil, Andersson, Miller, and Kravtsov develop in an environment that instills good work ethic and practice habits in them or that DeAngelo plays an extra 30 games this year? Some organizations are much better at developing prospects than others. My personal belief is that culture is an important component of that.

I can understand if other people don't agree with my specific views on those issues, but my point is moreso that coaching a team and developing players is complex and there are a lot more factors that go into the decision to play DeAngelo than just "is he better than Staal?"

1) I would hope Quinn cares. The whole "Meh that's that just one small problem, why fix it?" is a mentality that should never exist. It may be less asinine when we're a bottom feeder or also-ran than a team in the ECF, but its still asinine.

2) DeAngelo makes noticeable lazy or inattentive errors. If at the end of the game he's on for less goals against and less shots against and spends less time in his own zone etc. etc., than a different "defensive D" would, does it really matter? Are we playing to win games or playing to avoid Don Cherry's blooper reels?

3) I mostly agree with this, though at some point the better players should be playing. Even if Quinn really really REALLY believes the better player should be even more better-er than he already is.

4) Saying "we need a hard working culture" sounds great, but the reality is outside of a few legitimately poisonous cultures (and we've certainly seen some on the Rangers) most team or business "cultures" are going to have a mix of all different types of people. Every team or office has the doofus who works his butt off to achieve mediocrity and the guy who should be a star but is content to just be above average. No one ever looks at those guys and says "hey, I should do that too", and if one of our prospects did I would be more concerned about the prospect than anything else. A good manager or coach can squeeze a little bit more effort (or production etc) through threats or cajoling or trickery or whatever, but a good coach or manager also needs to do whatever it take to attain success. And ultimately find a balance between the two. Like for instance if the Rangers had a defenseman who really didn't take practices or fitness very seriously and was basically lighting up cigarettes on the bench, but was great on the ice I would hypothesize trading him to, say, Pittsburgh for a really hard working but seriously less talented and effective defenseman would be a horrendous mistake. Even if he might be setting a poorer example then some, maybe just get your hard-working-get-er-done culture elsewhere and just let him help the team win? I don't know, luckily its all just hypothetical and hopefully we wont ever see that happen.

The funny thing is I'm not even a huge fan of ADA. Or Buchnevich. And I love a coach who holds players accountable. But holding rigid views of how a player should look or act and discarding anyone who doesn't fit that narrow view, all the while replacing them with lesser players, is not a recipe for success.

Lord Stanley's cup isn't going to descend to the center of the Garden if the team collectively bikes 1,000,000 miles during training sessions.

 

[Inferno]

I thought last night was adas weakest game in the d zone and with his reads. Puck on his stick tho I felt like he made some excellent passes.

 

[Hi ImHFNYR]

the real issue. Why is Buchnevich scratched several times for having a mediocre game, but Vesey can stay in the line-up no matter what? It happened under AV, and now it happens under Quinn.

The source of your confusion is (to be blunt) I think that you are refusing to be honest. It's been very heavily implied and shown repeatedly that "mediocre games" are NOT what has resulted in these benchings.

But you are pretending like it is a fact that this is about mediocre games.

Lazy play and poor practice habits are resulting in a lesser leash. Everything points to this. There is a possibility that the coach has some strange bias that causes him to bench ADA and Buch. But to assume this and treat it like fact...to treat it like the most reasonable conclusion, at this point, is wrong.

Here's a thought: Maybe the NHL should look at diversity behind the bench in addition to on the ice. How is it possible that 30% of the players in the league are European, but none of the coaches are? The KHL has 2 Canadian coaches, a Czech coach in Magnitogorsk, a Latvian coachin Nizhny Novgorod, Belorussian coaches in Novosibirsk and Vladivostok (Not counting non-Russian coaches who coach a team from their country like Jokerit, Slovan and Riga). How come the NHL is so stuck in the 50s when it comes to coaching? Maybe that is the underlying issue. I am not saying it's all going to be resolved when we see some Swedish, Czech, Russian and Finnish coaches in the NHL but it's a start.

Replace all of this with information about who should've been hired, why and when and I can buy it a bit more. The KHL is inferior (vastly) to the NHL. It's very easy to buy that coaches who couldn't hack it in the NHL are good enough for lower tier leagues elsewhere.

We replaced one coach who annoyed people with his decisions by another coach who makes the same decisions.

Some of them are the same. Many of them aren't. We also don't know the message/reasoning given to the players.

JT Miller claimed he was benched and given no feedback. Hayes, Shattenkirk, Buch, ADA have ALL been benched and had been told why, what to improve on, etc. What's more, most of those players came back and have played better since.

The mantra seems to be "As long as you try hard enough, you're safe" which is an awful way of building a winning team.

I don't think this is a correct assessment. Effort is clearly a big part of the puzzle but McLeod has been benched or scratched a ton. I don't buy that the coach turns a blind eye to pure awfulness and stupidity simply bc of effort.

Yet coaching has stayed the same. That is my real issue here. I am not saying European coaches are better than NA coaches. It's just different styles which, in my opinion, would work well with different styles on the ice.

I can agree that NHL coaching and coaching in most pro sports has never been shittier.

Like i was saying before, I'd love to know some examples (In terms of bringing in foreign coaches) of who, when and why

 

[Vinny DeAngelo]

I thought last night was adas weakest game in the d zone and with his reads. Puck on his stick tho I felt like he made some excellent passes.

I actually thought he had a good game in the defensive zone, mainly by not being in it for long. He and Skjei are good at making a break up and getting out of the zone very clean.

 

[True Blue]

Lord Stanley's cup isn't going to descend to the center of the Garden if the team collectively bikes 1,000,000 miles during training sessions.

Not according to Mike Kennan

 

[McRanger]

Not according to Mike Kennan

Gretzky was always lousy on the bike. It was his fault STL lost in '96.

 

[UnSandvich]

I don't really have the stats to back it up, but it feels like DeAngelo's been exceptional w/ controlled zone exits this season. Skjei definitely looks miles better with him than a guy like Pionk for example

 

[Blue Blooded]

I don't really have the stats to back it up, but it feels like DeAngelo's been exceptional w/ controlled zone exits this season. Skjei definitely looks miles better with him than a guy like Pionk for example

I don't think we have numbers for this year yet, but last year he was literally Karlsson/MacKinnon/McDavid-tier at exits and entries (in a small sample).

 

[Rempe73]

We've been missing a player like DeAngelo for a long time. An agitator that actually has skill to go along with it. Plus he's played very well the since finally being put back in the lineup.

I don’t think he’s an agitator. I think he’s just a hothead. An agitator is smart, and knows when to agitate. As much as I love ADA, and as much as I think he’s highly skilled, I’m not sure he picks his spots well. But I don’t know.

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I don’t think he’s an agitator. I think he’s just a hothead. An agitator is smart, and knows when to agitate. As much as I love ADA, and as much as I think he’s highly skilled, I’m not sure he picks his spots well. But I don’t know.

Agitator is just someone who pisses off other players and gets under the skin..which he does. Don't think it has anything to do with picking spots or being smart.

 

[Harbour Dog]

Agitator is just someone who pisses off other players and gets under the skin..which he does. Don't think it has anything to do with picking spots or being smart.

I dunno, I think it's a bit of a grey area. Right now, he may do some agitating, but I wouldn't consider him an agitator. Just look at how Avery was a constant thorn in the other team's side.

In the same respect, a guy might stand up and fight for his teammates but never be considered an enforcer; or a guy like Zucc may dish out a scatter face wash and hack but never be considered a pest.

ADA has the potential to become an agitator, but right now he's too fiery for me to consider him as that. And really, it doesn't matter how he channels his personality into his game as long as it's effective.

 

[tradenashnow]

DeAngelo has taken over Buchnevich's spot for the love child of this board. As usual, Staal is the whipping boy no matter how well he is playing.

 

[Rongomania]

DeAngelo has taken over Buchnevich's spot for the love child of this board. As usual, Staal is the whipping boy no matter how well he is playing.

To be fair, at the times when ‘love child’ status was invoked for each of these guys, it has been well deserved. Enjoy the play of our KIDS and KEEP IT MOVIN’ , man. If this is the type of **** you’re going to be getting into this early into the year, it is going to be one incredibly arduous season for you. Watch these guys grow, hate Marc Staal with everyone else and hope we come out of the other end not in Edmontonland.

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

To be fair, at the times when ‘love child’ status was invoked for each of these guys, it has been well deserved. Enjoy the play of our KIDS and KEEP IT MOVIN’ , man. If this is the type of **** you’re going to be getting into this early into the year, it is going to be one incredibly arduous season for you. Watch these guys grow, hate Marc Staal with everyone else and hope we come out of the other end not in Edmontonland.

In 10 years on these boards , I have NEVER seen "love child" status well deserved, and as social media has rapidly shaped group think, it has only gotten worse.

This doesn't mean that Buch or ADA are busts either.

 

[Rongomania]

In 10 years on these boards , I have NEVER seen "love child" status well deserved, and as social media has rapidly shaped group think, it has only gotten worse.

This doesn't mean that Buch or ADA are busts either.

Hey, they weren’t my words...

These guys deserve to be hyped when they play well. That is all. Not blowing things out of proportion, but with tempered expectations.

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

Hey, they weren’t my words...

These guys deserve to be hyped when they play well. That is all. Not blowing things out of proportion, but with tempered expectations.

I vehemently disagree.

 

[Rongomania]

I vehemently disagree.

Cool ?