Post-Game Talk: We Blew a 3-0 Lead in the Third Period to the Oilers

[JT Kreider]

The only thing that changes is if someone has the balls to start taking ice time away. You wanna dog it 5v5 then guess what, you're not getting the pp time you want.

It's not complicated and it works. Either the player adjusts or he exposes himself as a selfish cancer in which case you cut it out and move on.

Too much entitlement here with this roster...


If you could trade panarin for 11.6m in cap space you do it. You absolutely do it. No one would touch that contract though for a one dimensional passing winger that is playing himself into a pp specialist role. Not at that money and term you can laugh all you want but a player making a top 3 or 2 cap hit should not and can not be a 5v5 liability.

Meanwhile there is a thread on the main board saying Tavares was the worst thing to ever happen to the Leafs. Tavares meanwhile has been their best player all season long and blown Panarin out of the water.

 

[CLW]

The good news, however, is we have Gerard Gallant at the helm. The coach that 90% of this board says was the guy we needed before last year.

The team needed to get rid of Quinn. Tell it straight.

 

[bleedblue94]

View attachment 613254

It is funny to think that had Dolan not had the tantrum St Louis may be coaching this team right now. Quinn would have inevitably been fired and gorts was trying to get Marty to coach. Marty acknowledged that when he was hired. Boy would things be different around here.

Meanwhile there is a thread on the main board saying Tavares was the worst thing to ever happen to the Leafs. Tavares meanwhile has been their best player all season long and blown Panarin out of the water.

Sorry what does that have to do with my post? I didn't mention taveras at all?

 

[Kravtsov420]

Jack Hughes with two highlight reel goals too, when it rains it pours

The ashes of the rebuild in our mouth

 

[bleedblue94]

No goals in 12 games and he was nowhere to be found after the second video review. Collecting a paycheck at this point

Guys kept shitting all over me this summer when I said this is the player we have after the injury and if we could move him just to get out of the contract it would be a win, yet here we are. 3 more years after this one at 11.6m and he just turned 31, it's only going to get better from here haha

 

[Machinehead]

It's not that they can't skate, it's that the STOP skating as soon as a Ranger D gets a puck on his stick. WTF is up with that?

I think @DanielBrassard touched on this. Nobody on this team attacks defenders.

You need to beat guys 1v1 to draw slides. That's what opens up cross-ice passes which are actually a good thing.

We don't open that space. That's really going to reflect poorly on your forwards, and you know who I'm talking about, who aren't getting the reprieve of open space on the powerplay.

Maybe Lafreniere can't beat defenders at this level. If an omniscient being told me the Rangers are f***ing up Kakko but Lafreniere just sucks, I would believe them. I KNOW Kakko has the hands to beat guys.

Nobody does it. And it's one of those things where I can't explain it, because we're not there, but something smells in the organization. Panarin's specialty was clowning guys 1v1 until he got into his second year with this f***ing team. Now he passes into shins as soon as the defender looks at him.

 

[CLW]

I don’t view Panarin as a cancer, but certainly am of the view his style and contract are becoming an obstacle in making this team better.

I don't know what to call him tbh. Panarin is a one man island on this team. That's the truth of it.

Whatever line he plays on becomes The Panarin Line that has to play Panarin Hockey. And if that hockey does not work for 12M USD + whatever else $ is on that line something needs to be done.

 

[LOFIN]

Jack Hughes with two highlight reel goals too, when it rains it pours

The ashes of the rebuild in our mouth

Why the f*** is Jack Hughes mentioned here?

1. While we all expect Kakko and Laf to eventually carry us, they are not currently paid nor deployed to do so. You need to look at Panarin, Zibanejad, Kreider
2. If Kakko had gone 1st, we could discuss about Hughes. We didn't get to choose, so quit complaining.

It's obvious that this team is not performing to the level they could. I refuse to believe this is what they are. Panarin, Zib, the Kids all have more to give. Especially 5v5. I don't even think it's a tactical problem at this point, though we have lacked structure for years. Gallant has simply outplayed his welcome. Not the first time this has happened with him either.

 

[Boris Zubov]

So let's be real here, if you are tweaking out bc of the third period today then you need to sit down and stop bc the game today was NOTHING different then the games we have seen from this team all season since opening night. This game was another where they played in spurts, thought they were going to win by tying their skates, made an average to below average goalie not even work for a win, and then tried to skirt by with that half effort to a win.

Many people have been expressing the same concerns all season that came to manifest themselves in that third period into an unescapable colimination of the issues with this roster AND of the attitude/intensity of this group.

This team needs TWO top 7 d men. Neither Jones now hajek is going to cut it in a playoff run this year.

The whole Miller fox this is a flaw and even the coaches saw that when they put Miller back with trouba and put Schneider with fox

Offsides review is still a joke and ANYONE who gives it the old "they got the call right that's most important" is a hypocrite unless you want EVERY zone entry reviewed at all times to ensure the washout was the correct call. Simply making it subjectively important when a team scores a goal is contradictive.

For the love of God make an adjustment on pp1. For the crowd that asked during preseason and during October "why is it important to have a pp2 working and when would you even need to use it" I point to exhibit A which is a pp1 that is floundering and now ranked outside of the top 15. I am not picking on trocheck, he is a great player is the right role, but he does not belong on pp1 and panarin needs to be moved off the halfwall. If Connor mcdavid can be successful in a bumper position as a distributor via fast tough passes and movement then there is no reason why panarin can't be allowed to make a shift. Right now our pp is simply get the pick to the right side and eventually force it over to zib for him to one time it on goal or backdoor to Kreider. Even Joe said that in the broadcast today. It's so stale, this isn't 1960s where pro/advanced scouting isn't a thing. Other teams know what we are doing. Panarin's non goal was a muffin let in by an backup goalie playing at an AHL level.

Furthermore it is becoming obvious to more that although trocheck is an upgrade on strome he is not a 5v5 2c answer, he was picked to try to offset panarin's weaknesses which is a flawed way to construct a team. As I said at the time of the signing he is a terrific 3c on a real contender that has the proper depth to win. If he is a 2c on a contender then that team is going to be lacking.

Campbell looked like a disaster out there and we let him off the hook. We had as many shot attempts as edm had shots on goal. Pathetic.

We always look tired. For weeks it was "travel" and "back to backs", but this group is not in the condition to constantly push pace in games.

The mentality isn't there. They look lost. No one has the killer instinct going. This summer if someone said Turk would be fired this year I would have laughed, but the product, body language, and consistency in the negatives we keep seeing game after game are alarming. Someone said coaches dont get fired in the NHL unless the team tunes them out, and that is kinda true, but when the coach keeps saying "we talked about it many times" "we addressed it already" "we keep making the same mistakes" then it appears the coach is saying the players aren't listening to him. This is an issue with this group bc we have heard the same things through multiple coaches now.

The Gauthier goal was probably my favorite moment in the game bc it felt like one of the first times in forever that align was actually digging right on the crease and wouldn't be denied. Usually there's two guys standing off to the side waiting for a loose puck to maybe pop out while one guy is digging. There was a desperation and a hunger on that goal which was great, but we don't have that through this lineup.

Panarin is really becoming a 5v5 black hole. A player making his money and of his stature and talent isn't a player that you sign guys to compensate for, nor is it supposed to be a player that you have to constantly juggle to find a match to get him going 5v5. He's supposed to be the player you put a struggling player with to help get a lesser player going.

Anyone complaining about laffy's penalty for pulling the helmet of is being silly bc no one here criticized him for when he did it in the playoffs. People celebrated it. He did the same thing again but he has a rep now and he got caught. Don't cheer it when he gets away with it and then call him an idiot for doing the same thing but getting caught.

What player for this franchise I'm the last 20 years has missed more open nets than kakko? Guy is playing so hard and I just want to see him rewarded. It seems like it's nerves at this point.

Chytil is out best 5v5 center and it's not even close at this point. I have been hard on him for years but he's improved tremendously while our other centers seem confused as to what they are trying to do at 5v5.

The zib Kreider 5v5 marriage needs to end for the good of the team. They can be buds in the locker room, share a hug after a win, and work magic on the pp but 5v5 it is just too vanilla.

I'm sure people will come in criticizing this things but people flipping out about a 20 min manifestation of the issues some posters have been bringing up all season in the face of ridicule is pretty ridiculous. This is the team we have and there should be no hiding from the flaws and issues, it isn't always about puck luck, there are real issues. A championship aspiring team with structure and discipline does not leave their own network talking heads literally speechless with that kind of display. If Drury can't make a player move of some substance (which is incredibly hard around the league right now) then I won't be shocked if turk is in trouble if this continues 3 more weeks. After Thanksgiving they are out of a playoff spot and it can slip away quickly.

Excellent summary.

 

[SA16]

If Panarin wants to be a generational C talent for his $12mm that displays that level of success no matter who he plays with, in the regular season or POs, then he can have 50% of his pts on the PP.

My argument is much more nuanced than that, highlighted by the fact he can’t seem to develop any chemistry at ES with anyone but Strome, is a turnover machine that can’t (or simply refuses to) adjust his game.

He also happens to be 98th in ESP/60 this season after a horric PO performance that left us all concerned.

Then you should talk about 5v5 and not the PP because saying he scores x% of his points on the PP but does not say anything close to what you think it does when the majority of top scorers do the same thing. He has 37% of his points on the PP since 2020. The median of the top 50 scoring forwards in that time frame is 34%. Hardly a big difference.

 

[Glen Sathers Cigar]

Coming into this season I thought no way Gallant would be fired during or right after this season but it’s becoming increasingly (sadly) more likely by the day. An ultra players coach like him really should be the guy you bring in after the team has strong veteran leaders and play a good structure, basically like when we went from Torts to AV.

But we went from a guy out of his element with not structure to another guy who can be a good coach for a group that has structure in place but he brings nothing to the table X’s and O’s wise. This was the knock on Gallant and it’s showing up here in spades.

Without Igor being .936 the flaws are abundant. The veterans are dogshit. The only one playing up to his potential is Fox. All the other big ticket guys are underperforming, some staggeringly so (Trouba, Panarin lately). Mika, Kreider and Igor have not beeen good enough. Trocheck has been good but he’s still trying to find chemistry. The vibe is entitled country club. It sucks.

 

[CLW]

If we got Bedard he’d be centering the 3rd line and playing pp2. Let’s be honest

Because the Rangers are a BiG cLuB that must make a splash in the post season (never mind winning). That's the ONLY thing management cares about. Everything else follows.

 

[McRanger92]

Fox was not on the ice late in the 3rd. Trouba and Miller. Hmmmm.

How’d that work out?

 

[TopShelfSnipes]

I was one of the biggest proponents of hiring Gallant. Hell i wanted him before we hired Quinn. It's uhh, looking like i was wrong. He's proven he's really not good at ice-time management. Like worse than I had realized.

The lineup i'd like to see when everyone's healthy is:

Panarin-Zibanejad-Kravtsov
Laf-Trocheck-Kakko
Kreider-Chytil-Vesey
Blais-Goodrow-Gauthier

Lindgren-Fox
Miller-Trouba
Jones-Schneider

Shesterkin
Literally anyone but Halak

What I want to see right now:
Panarin-Chytil-Kravstov
Kreider-Trocheck-Kakko
Laf-Zibanejad-Gauthier
Vesey-Goodrow-Blais

Top 3 lines all play close to evenly at ES.

PP1: Zibanejad (LW hash)/Kreider (net front)/Kravtsov (RW half boards)/Panarin (low left point)/Fox (center/right point)
PP2: Trocheck (LW hash/faceoffs), Laf (net front), Kakko (RW half boards), Trouba (left point), Schneider (right point)

PP1 slumps, immediately swap the forward group with PP2 for a game.

D:
Lindgren-Fox
Miller-Trouba
SOMEBODY ELSE-Schneider

My logic:
Panarin's unconventional playmaking does not work well with a player like Vesey who has literally no idea what to do offensiely without the puck. Kravtsov knows what to do without the puck and can get to scoring areas as well as take defenders with him to open up other lanes. Krav has to be stronger on the puck for sure, but Chytil is pretty good at that and can do the work in the corners on this line. Chytil also knows where to go without the puck.

Kreider Trocheck Kakko puts 3 players strong along the wall but generally unconventional in their playmaking together and they can brute strength everything. Kakko can be the tank along the wall, Kreider can get down low for deflections and tips, and Trocheck is physical enough to battle down low or try and go up high for a high slot shot.

Laf Zibanejad Gauther is all about speed. Gauthier can carry the puck and since he favors the left side that'll create follow up opportunities for Laf when Gauthier gets checked. Zibanejad is enough of a shooting threat that will create space for Laf. Also, both Laf and Gauthier like to play to their off wing at times, this will allow both to do so and the other player can also.

Vesey/Goodrow/Blais is actually an above average 4th line.

PP1 - Get Trocheck off the first unit. Kravtsov on RW first gives you someone who can one-time from the circle which is a counter to Zibanejad. All he has to do is that and generally be capable and this is an upgrade over Trocheck on that unit. It also gets Panarin off the RW boards where he doesn't shoot nearly enough, and back on his offside where he's a second threat from the left side which buys Zibanejad space.

PP2: Trocheck just there to win faceoffs and try to get open for high slot shots. Put Laf in front of the net and let him get his nose dirty and let Kakko beast along the wall. Two righty shooters from the point = more one timers from Trouba in the middle of the ice instead of weak wristers from the right wall at the blueline.

 

[Machinehead]

The offense wasn't really the culprit today. They just played a piece of shit game which everyone does sometimes.

In regards to the offense, as annoying as Panarin can be at times, he's not the offender. The biggest offenders are the high draft picks with single-digit totals.

 

[CLW]

He's barely even a minor problem in the big picture.

Kreider came back to his reality.

Halak is a terrible goaltender who must be replaced or he has to magically get better.

Shesterkin has gone from a monumental season to being good.

It's almost amazing how bad Trouba looks. He's never been great, but he served a function of being by far the most physical Ranger. The've been saying on the broadcasts that he's nursing something that's hampering him, so I cut him slack.

The 3rd D pair is not good, at all.

One of the biggest letdowns is that no young stars are even on the horizon, other than Othmann, possibly.

All that said, the team is essentially the same quality as they were at this time last season, except for the goaltenders.

They became much better at the trade deadline and they'll likely do so again.

On the plus side:

Laf scores very well at 5x5 and it's still way too early to call him a bust, although he's never going to be the hoped-for superstar.

Kakko is still allergic to putting up points, but I still believe that will change big-time. I still think he might become an 80-point player and certainly a 60-point player.

I think K'Andre will return to near-star performance.

Boy, that was a depressing game and it's hard for me to picture even a competitive game against Jersey. To me, they're the best team I've seen this year, but there are a couple other real good ones.

I agree with everything but Panarin.

Trouba is consistently making the most boneheaded plays I've seen. At this point I see the injury talk as the MSG propaganda machine trying to cover his ass. Injured or not, unless he had a failed brain replacement surgery this off season, any injury does not explain him being deked out of his jocks in SJ by a player 25 feet away (1st SJ goal) or the bizarre play for Holloway's goal now etc etc etc.

 

[Bacon Artemi Bravo]

Hate how Gallant just “doesn’t know what happened today”. Call them out. Gutless performance by a team that couldn’t get the job done. Someone should have stepped up to the plate in the 3rd and done something to shift momentum. Where’s the leadership? What’s Trouba doing when the lead is slipping away?

 

[McRanger92]

39% of McDavid's points since last year are on the PP. You want to say he's reliant on the PP? Fine. But try to use something actual to show it instead of a pointless stat that is true for many guys who are elite on the PP.

I'm also somewhat confused about how the player who is 20th in the league in 5v5 points and 34th in points/60 (McDavid is 33rd) since last year is a PP specialist.

Because he’s paid to be top 5

 

[UnSandvich]

I was joking lol but one thing that annoys the f*** out of me with him is how slow he is. There are so many times he has really lazy/slow backchecks. Doesn’t help we have an 8 million dollar traffic coke in Trouba. Our D could use a speedy puck mover like Quinn Hughes, we are the slowest team in the league

Let's be real here. If Fox was an above average skater, he'd be the perennial Norris favorite every year, not Makar. Actually wait, Fox isn't Canadian. Never mind, carry on.

 

[bleedblue94]

I don't think people realize how dire it is. Our chances of making the playoffs have plummeted.

We're in no mans land right now.... We're neck and neck with Montreal... THE f***IN CANADIENS ( technically they have better points%) Florida is there too.

I no longer believe in this team

And legitimately won't be surprised if the devil's run us out of the building Monday with their speed and skill.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

[Deleted, wrong forum, sorry.]

 

[Machinehead]

Kreider-Zibanejad-Vesey got absolutely nuked 5v5 today.

Last year, Kreider-Zibanejad-Lafreniere was one of the best lines in the league and Gallant put Vatrano there, making both lines much worse.

This year, Kreider-Zibanejad-Kakko was one of the best lines in the league and Gallant put Vesey there, making both lines much worse.

I know the kids have issues and you can't just cry usage. I know the coach isn't a panacea.

But when they just outright voluntarily make the team worse to fill platitudes like "the 4th liner on my 1st line opens up space" and satisfy the self-fulfilling prophecy of "the line I concocted is the line I feel safe with," results on the ice be damned, don't clutch pearls when people skewer the coach.

 

[bleedblue94]

"They better have a chat with them"

wtf is he even talking about? Does he... NOT talk to his players??

If you've played at any level then you know there needs to be accountability within the room player to player. It can't just be the coach all the time. The issue is the "leaders" here are not accountable. It is hard to stress accountability to other players from a leadership group that doesn't have it to begin with. Seriously, wtf is a guy like panarin saying about accountability?!?

 

[SA16]

Because he’s paid to be top 5

Meaningless. Good thing my numbers were wrong. He's actually 17th. And he's not "paid to be top 5" The powerplay counts. Here are the top 10 forward salaries this year and where they rank in pts/60 since 2020.

1. Seguin - 135
2. Panarin - 17
3. McDavid - 6
4. Barkov - 28
5. Skinner - 55
6. Barzal - 47
7. Ovechkin - 44
8. Forsberg - 35
9. Eichel - 114
10. Meier - 45

Not a single one is top 5. And in that time frame he is #7 in overall points/game anyway.

 

[Synergy27]

Guys kept shitting all over me this summer when I said this is the player we have after the injury and if we could move him just to get out of the contract it would be a win, yet here we are. 3 more years after this one at 11.6m and he just turned 31, it's only going to get better from here haha

I was suggesting this 18 months ago, if not prior to that.

Panarin is a great, fun to watch player, but he does not impact the game enough to warrant his salary. I wish his style was more aligned with winning NHL games because it’s frankly nicer to watch, but the fact of the matter is that it is not.

The fact that he is blocking a 1OA pick simultaneously is less important to me because that 1OA isn’t looking all that good, but I am more than ready to just bite the bullet.

I’d love to get more picks in this draft, and/or a speedy, skilled, north-south type of prospect in return for Panarin and then use his cap space to get a couple of established players in that mold to play in the middle six.