Toggle sidebar

Player Discussion Tristan Luneau

"This guy looks great in the AHL and is developing nicely. Lets bring him up to the NHL level where he will be coached by a guy that everyone thinks is a terrible developer." :sarcasm:

Seriously though, bringing him up to the NHL has no upside. It means more kids are splitting time on the 3rd pairing in the NHL instead of playing a lot of minutes in a the AHL (AHL doesnt track TOI so I can't actually be sure).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mortal Wombat, Hockey Duckie, Firequacker and 3 others
mightyquack said:
Luneau needs to improve defensively first, his defense has not been good at the AHL level so far this season. No doubt his offense is very good, but I'd much rather see him getting lots of minutes in San Diego to work on his defense before looking to win an NHL job for the 25/26 season.

There isn't a spot for Luneau on the NHL roster right now, unless we want one of LaCombe/Minty/Zellweger having to be a defense first guy......which would be a stupid thing to do (see LaCombe last season). Dumo getting traded should mean that those three guys are every day NHL players the rest of the season and Luneau can continue to develop in San Diego.

For once we can actually let a guy develop in the AHL instead of rushing him through to the NHL, so hopefully we actually do that.
Click to expand...
I agree with this assessment.. I still think they trade Zellweger,. He seems to be struggling against the big bodies of the NHL... Not to sure PV is going to hold on to him.
 
  • Like
Reactions: robbieboy3686
CrazyDuck4u said:
I agree with this assessment.. I still think they trade Zellweger,. He seems to be struggling against the big bodies of the NHL... Not to sure PV is going to hold on to him.
Click to expand...
If you can see Zellweger's struggles so can every other GM in the league...
 
CrazyDuck4u said:
I agree with this assessment.. I still think they trade Zellweger,. He seems to be struggling against the big bodies of the NHL... Not to sure PV is going to hold on to him.
Click to expand...

Agree that Zellweger gets moved.

Eventually the left side will have LaCombe, Mintyukov, and Solberg.

The right side will probably have Luneau, surprisingly Helleson, and a top 4 RHD (where have I heard that before?).

Replacing Zellweger with Solberg will be a 180 as night and day.

John
 
  • Like
Reactions: robbieboy3686
Let's let our players cook some more before willingly want to trade them. It was just last season that a majority of this board wanted LaCombe traded b/c he had no value compared to Minty, Zell, and Luneau.

Luneau is similar to the other two OFD's from the CHL in Minty and Zell such that they're great offensively, but that defense needs a lot of work. Minty has a year of NHL experience under his belt and Zell had 26 NHL games last year. Minty and Zell are still struggling with the defensive aspect at the NHL level. Luneau just got his 26 AHL games this season.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mortal Wombat, 70sSanO, ducknuts and 1 other person
Deuce22 said:
Already trying to make Mintyukov a two way guy by giving him a bunch of D zone starts and reining him in. LaCombe has been freed up and we've seen the results. Not sure where Luneau fits in the lineup as Cronin seems to think it's too risky to play a "young guy" pair.
Click to expand...

You're partially correct about risky to play a young pair b/c if it doesn't include LaCombe. Last year, Minty-LaCombe was a good combo, albeit for seven games.

I dunno about Cronin thinking it's too risky to play a "young guy" pair. When Fowler went down to injury, we were forced to have a "young guy" pair with LaCombe-Zell at game 14. In game 16 was when Helleson was inserted into the lineup because Vaak fell to injury. This lasted until game 23, vs Ottawa. Afterwards, Fowler came back from injury.

In those 10 games with LaCombe-Zell, the team went 6-3-1 (13 points).

Minty-Gudas
LaCombe-Zell
Dumo-Helleson

The problem with the "young pair" is that LaCombe won't be part of it. We've tried the young pair before with Zell-Helleson or Minty-Zell and it didn't work out right. That was when Dumo-Trouba were our 2nd pair and LaCombe-Gudas our top pair. LaCombe would have to be with one of the youth D to work, but that would also put LaCombe into a non-top pairing role to help shelter the youth. That's bad for us b/c LaCombe is our best defenseman and has been playing a top-pairing role since Fowler was traded. Plus, I don't think Minty or Zell can carry Gudas like LaCombe has been.
 
Hockey Duckie said:
You're partially correct about risky to play a young pair b/c if it doesn't include LaCombe. Last year, Minty-LaCombe was a good combo, albeit for seven games.

I dunno about Cronin thinking it's too risky to play a "young guy" pair. When Fowler went down to injury, we were forced to have a "young guy" pair with LaCombe-Zell at game 14. In game 16 was when Helleson was inserted into the lineup because Vaak fell to injury. This lasted until game 23, vs Ottawa. Afterwards, Fowler came back from injury.

In those 10 games with LaCombe-Zell, the team went 6-3-1 (13 points).

Minty-Gudas
LaCombe-Zell
Dumo-Helleson

The problem with the "young pair" is that LaCombe won't be part of it. We've tried the young pair before with Zell-Helleson or Minty-Zell and it didn't work out right. That was when Dumo-Trouba were our 2nd pair and LaCombe-Gudas our top pair. LaCombe would have to be with one of the youth D to work, but that would also put LaCombe into a non-top pairing role to help shelter the youth. That's bad for us b/c LaCombe is our best defenseman and has been playing a top-pairing role since Fowler was traded. Plus, I don't think Minty or Zell can carry Gudas like LaCombe has been.
Click to expand...
Don't really see LaCombe as a "young guy" as he is 24 and had 4 years at Minnesota. One good thing Cronin has done this season is pairing LaCombe with a stay at home Gudas and allowing him to roam and attack. Last season being stapled to Fowler he was stuck in the D zone a lot and constantly defending. That isn't his game and that pairing was horrible.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Firequacker and Dr Johnny Fever
190Octane said:
Moving Zellweger has no possibility of backfiring.

Remember how bad Theodore and Montour turned out?
Click to expand...
Is it really so terrible that we hang on to our young dmen until we actually know what we have with them?

It’s not like this is a situation where they’ve gone AWOL in the playoffs multiple years in a row or anything. For now I’d rather just hang on to them and try to figure their chemistry out until things become clearer. We need as many chances at developing a no.1 defender as possible
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hey234, SmokeyDuck, lwvs84 and 1 other person
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Top Bottom