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What does Laviolette have against Chris Drury?

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Hockeyfan02 said:
The "clutch" Drury has one assist so far in the tournament so it's not like Laviolette is benching a hot offensive player. If Drury wasn't a Sabre, you wouldn't have made a thread or mentioned anything about it.
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He hasn't had enough icetime to do anything. The fact that he managed a point playing 4th line minutes with 4th line players is pretty impressive.

Maybe I wouldn't, but a lot of non/Sabres fans have agreed with me in this thread.

Grahame has clear ties to Laviolette that most likely influenced his selection to the team and possibly his starting job. I can't recall saying Waddell/Laviolette had anything against Miller or the Sabres in particular (although earlier Atlanta/Buffalo trade frustration probably didn't help), that issue is dead to me right now. Ricky D is the best Team USA has and he has earned the right to be the starter on merits, not connections.
 
sabresrat said:
He hasn't had enough icetime to do anything. The fact that he managed a point playing 4th line minutes with 4th line players is pretty impressive.
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Oh com'on man, how is that impressive?
 
sabresrat said:
He hasn't had enough icetime to do anything. The fact that he managed a point playing 4th line minutes with 4th line players is pretty impressive.
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Yeah 4th liners like Bill Guerin, Knuble, Blake, etc. He's getting 4th line minutes (I'd like to see the total ice time stats in games, I was looking for them the other day), but he's not playing with total scrubs. You act like he got a point playing on a line with Chris Dingman and Andrei Nazarov. Should he get more ice time? Sure, anything at this point is worth taking a look at with the team struggling. Is there a conspiracy with Laviolette hating him? No.

Grahame has clear ties to Laviolette that most likely influenced his selection to the team and possibly his starting job. I can't recall saying Waddell/Laviolette had anything against Miller or the Sabres in particular (although earlier Atlanta/Buffalo trade frustration probably didn't help), that issue is dead to me right now. Ricky D is the best Team USA has and he has earned the right to be the starter on merits, not connections.
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Or maybe Grahame made the team because he's played better than Dipietro and Esche this season, not like that's saying much considering all three have struggled. Maybe Grahame earned a start (a starter was never named by the US, just Esche when he was pouting about being the 3rd goalie) on merit by coming in last week off the bench for Burke in the 2nd and stopping 28 shots (no goals allowed) from the league's hottest offense in front of Laviolette. Dipietro has played well this tourney and should be the starter. But to say the only reason Grahame is on the team is Laviolette thinking "well Grahame is terrible, but he was my AHL goalie so he should be on the team" is laughable. Give the guy some credit(although reading previous threads, that probably won't happen).
 
Hockeyfan02 said:
Yeah 4th liners like Bill Guerin, Knuble, Blake, etc. He's getting 4th line minutes (I'd like to see the total ice time stats in games, I was looking for them the other day), but he's not playing with total scrubs. You act like he got a point playing on a line with Chris Dingman and Andrei Nazarov. Should he get more ice time? Sure, anything at this point is worth taking a look at with the team struggling. Is there a conspiracy with Laviolette hating him? No.



Or maybe Grahame made the team because he's played better than Dipietro and Esche this season, not like that's saying much considering all three have struggled. Maybe Grahame earned a start (a starter was never named by the US, just Esche when he was pouting about being the 3rd goalie) on merit by coming in last week off the bench for Burke in the 2nd and stopping 28 shots (no goals allowed) from the league's hottest offense in front of Laviolette. Dipietro has played well this tourney and should be the starter. But to say the only reason Grahame is on the team is Laviolette thinking "well Grahame is terrible, but he was my AHL goalie so he should be on the team" is laughable. Give the guy some credit(although reading previous threads, that probably won't happen).
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Drury has the same production as Erik Cole with worse linemates, a third of the ice time, and playing mostly on the PK.

Grahame was not playing well at all when the intial selection was made. To say that Laviolette's familiarity with him played no part in the decision is questionable at best.

Thanks for actually replying to the content though :handclap:
 
I'd like to see more of Drury and Knuble as well. I'd also like to see Tkachuk dropped from Gomez-Gionta line, he was given a few games to produce there but hasn't done anything, it's time to move on. I'd like to see Cole moved to play with Gionta and Gomez, and then have Drury moved up to play with Modano and Rolston.

Whatever happens, I think we can all agree that Laviolette needs to try mixing up the lines, cause what he currently has isn't working too well. Also, they had better work on their power play during practice tomorrow, they should have had at least one goal out of all those chances today.
 
It's funny how Gomez, Gionta and now Rafalski are getting all the blame from the Devil haters. Granted, Gomez had one bad game, but he's played excellent in the other three. Come to think of it, I don't believe Gomez and Gionta have been on the ice for a goal aganist. And how come the three of Doug Weight, Billy Guerin and Thacuk who should have had a hat-trick in the first game with all the feeds Gomer and Gionta handed him are getting a pass. As for Drury, he probably deserved more ice time. And after Canada getting shut out again, maybe the North Americans aren't as good as the Euro's on the big sheet. Well, at least some of you can't blame Gomez and Gionta for Canada's scoring problems!
 
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After reading this thread, I now remember why I stopped going to hockey message boards for a long time.
 
Dobermann said:
After reading this thread, I now remember why I stopped going to hockey message boards for a long time.
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Couldn't handle opinions different from yours backed up with stats, historical observation, and fact?
 
sabresrat said:
Couldn't handle opinions different from yours backed up with stats, historical observation, and fact?
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:biglaugh:

How do you even know what my stance is?

You're very adversarial, you know that?
 
sabresrat said:
Grahame was not playing well at all when the intial selection was made. To say that Laviolette's familiarity with him played no part in the decision is questionable at best.
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Grahame had a streak from mid November to early December...9 wins in 10 starts. To say he wasn't playing well at all is false. He was playing better than Esche and Dipietro at the time of his selection. If he was a questionable selection at best, what does that make of the selection of those two?
 
Hockeyfan02 said:
Grahame had a streak from mid November to early December...9 wins in 10 starts. To say he wasn't playing well at all is false. He was playing better than Esche and Dipietro at the time of his selection. If he was a questionable selection at best, what does that make of the selection of those two?
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I think you know my answer already, but I have no desire to fan a flame war that was fought long ago.
 
I wish he'd get more ice time but he is killing a lot of penalties. I think that's cutting into his 5 on 5 time.

We got to get the power play going.
 
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