Gabe Kupari
Registered User
Don't hate that lineup but not sure why Dillon is on the right side.
Could be we see a demelo trade?
Could be we see a demelo trade?
Player Discussion: Winnipeg Jets Defense
- Thread starter voyageur
- Start date
jokesondee
I’m not fat. I’m cultivating mass.
Not awful, but man there isnt a lot of scoring potential on those bottom two lines.....
DeMelo is the Jets'most consistent and versatile defender, capable of working to a high level with JMo and other true top-4 D, and also able to carry less competent and/ or experienced D to a decent standard. He's also on a reasonable, eminently tradeable contract -- there are better options, IMO, starting with Dillon and maybe Stanley. Chevy was all in Schmidt -- don't see him moved unless there's backs close to the wall.
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demelo might be the last dman id trade on this team.
right now i think there's 0 urgency to trade a dman. there's 0 cap pressure ive reaching the cap. so if we have a 5M+ player on the 3rd pair, it doesn't make a difference really.
based on chevy's latest comment i think we will be going in w/ the d personnel as is and everyone has basically a "clean slate" under a new coaching staff.
this team had a great top pair w/ demelo-morrissey.... demelo's talent/effect would be wasted on the 3rd pair since the 1st pair is being used more in TOI & critical situations.
my hope is that we go with
Morrissey-Demelo
Dillon-Schmidt
X-Pionk
X: best out of heinola, stanley, samberg.
right now i think there's 0 urgency to trade a dman. there's 0 cap pressure ive reaching the cap. so if we have a 5M+ player on the 3rd pair, it doesn't make a difference really.
based on chevy's latest comment i think we will be going in w/ the d personnel as is and everyone has basically a "clean slate" under a new coaching staff.
this team had a great top pair w/ demelo-morrissey.... demelo's talent/effect would be wasted on the 3rd pair since the 1st pair is being used more in TOI & critical situations.
my hope is that we go with
Morrissey-Demelo
Dillon-Schmidt
X-Pionk
X: best out of heinola, stanley, samberg.
Romang67
BitterSwede
Heinola-Schmidt looked really good in limited time last season. I think the biggest problem with our D, except for a lack of top end talent, is that the Dillon-Pionk pairing was such an abject failure last season.
I’m just guessing but I would think they go into training camp and whoever the best defenseman are get put into the lineup, then they’ll rotate in/out the other defenseman so they can get a decent idea of who they want to keep and end up trading one, depending who that defenseman is and what trade can be worked out is anyones guess.
If it ends up being one of Heinola/Samberg I’d guess it’ll be for a NHL ready forward “prospect”, if it ends up being say Stanley/Dillon I’d expect a decent middle six forward.
If it ends up being one of Heinola/Samberg I’d guess it’ll be for a NHL ready forward “prospect”, if it ends up being say Stanley/Dillon I’d expect a decent middle six forward.
i had high hopes for dillon-pionk, based on pionk's previous year, & that dillon was probably his best partner to-date (vs Forbort, Kulikov, Sbisa). ultimately thought they could be our best pairing (w/ the assumption that demelo wasn't top pair). pionk was real good in the canadian division. but i recognize that was an anomaly set of opponents or schedule, & that was the outlier of his career as far as defensive play. perhaps it was unwise to expect that as the norm going forward.
dillon-schmidt seem to have performed fine last year. i don't think i was following/watching as attentively when they were paired though (must've been later in the year).
im bullish on that top-4 if that's how that shakes out. of course, defense is a team effort though, so fwds will need to do their part.
voyageur
Hockey fanatic
- Jul 10, 2011
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I hope the plan is to keep 8 defensemen out of training camp, and at least see how the season and injuries go before making any moves. Might be right where Samberg-Pionk becomes a 3rd pairing. It wouldn't be surprised if Schmidt played ahead of #4 in the lineup. First pass is a strength for several of the Jets defensemen and if they can play to that strength more under new coaching, I think there's some potential for improvement.
Love all that secondary scoring on that third line. Harkins is going to bust out and pot at least 6 this year.
Agree.
….and agree. Pionk was dismal. Here’s hoping for a rebound to the high bar of not being utter crap nearly all the time.
When he’s playing at speed, with an edge, and with some discipline on the puck and positionally he’s effective and a ton of fun to watch.
Arthur Fonzarelli
"aaaaay"
I took that comment to mean he wouldn't be actively shopping a defensemen until Bowness evaluated them. Clearly someones gotta go.
Forgetting the Jets for a moment, there's not enough enough positions available on the Moose regarding defensemen.
Jets (5)
-Morrissey, Pionk, Schmidt, Dillon, Demelo
Waiver eligible (2)
-Stanley, Kovacevik, Copabianco
Waiver exempt (8)
-Samberg, Heinola, Chisholm, Gawanke, Lundmark, Salomonsson, Kuzmin, Bauer
15 players, 7 to make the Jets including the healthy scratch leaving 8 prospects competing for 6 positions on the Moose.
I can see one of Samberg / Heinola returning to the Moose, but not both, leaving Stanley as the scratch which also isn't optimal considering the organizations investment in him. Assuming Kovacevik & Copabianco pass thru waivers you'd have 9 defensemen on the Moose, many of which are prospects that need ice time.
Bowness will evaluate from a win now perspective & then Chevy needs to
1) trade a vet creating considerable cap space for some bottom 6 scoring
2) packaging some prospects and use his existing cap space for bottom 6 scoring
Obviously the more cap space at his disposal the better the return.
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if you have schmidt elevated, i think demelo at worst is your 2nd pair RD. when down in games, id throw out schmidt more for sure than demelo, given his puck skills/offense. but imo demelo needs to be somewhere in the top-4 playing 20mins a night.
I'm hoping in our new systems the defense is encouraged to be a bit more aggressive, and in that case, I think having a guy like Demelo paired with Morrissey might allow him to use the offensive side of his game more.
That would allow Pionk to be countered with Samberg, and the same with Dillon and Schmidt.
Buffdog
Registered User
- Feb 13, 2019
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Not to belabour my point, but I think that out of necessity, Morrissey has been tasked with focusing on playing defense. I think we saw a more balanced Morrissey earlier in his career, and there might be some wasted talent offensively. Considering our D struggled to contribute offensively last year, we should be trying to set our d with this skill up to be more free to produce offense.
Pionk in my mind is one of those guys, so I'd rather that he, Morrissey and Schmidt be on different pairs to exploit that.
- Jun 10, 2014
- 58,958
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wiebe's take on how the d shakes out. the fwd group is pretty predictable. few minor adjustment perhaps on the bottom 6 Wing and 4th Line C. more interested in the defense.
Jets training camp preview: Who will survive the battle on the back end?
Winnipeg Jets training camp should feature a few more hotly-contested roster battles than we’ve seen during the past several seasons. Ken Wiebe provides a look at some storylines to follow as the team gets ready for a new era under Rick Bowness.www.sportsnet.ca
View attachment 586527
Hate that 3rd D pair. For that matter, I'm not wild about the other 2 pairings either.
- Jun 10, 2014
- 58,958
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Morrissey - DeMelo
Dillon - Schmidt
Samberg - Pionk
2nd and 3rd pairs get pretty near equal TOI.
lomiller1
Registered User
- Jan 13, 2015
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I hope not. I can't see that pairing working very well with both being smallish offensive D-men.
DeMelo is the Jets most effective D-man defensively and needs to be on the top pair, probably with Morrissey but if they can find someone else for that spot he'd really help Pionk or Heinola as well.
but if a cross-post from the TC thread
bowness referenced today offense from the back end & zone-denials. both 2 things i've been a proponent the Jets need major improvement imo
offense from the defense (5v5): we had 11 goals last year, over the last 3 seasons they're 2nd last in the league behind detroit & excluding seattle as well, this is while being 16th in SOGs, so not really a lack of opportunities.
the drawback of defensman from being engaged more offensively (ie: creeping in from the blue line, deeper in the o-zone etc) - and bowness brought this up as well - is our fwd group being ready & willing to cover and engage defensively..... evidently we've seen this has not really been a major strength of our fwds, notably in the top-6.
apparently we were 31st in zone-entry denials.... honestly other than demelo, i don't think many of our dmen have been consistently good at this. dunno if it's coaching telling them or what - we'll find out this year. but so far i think bowness at least publicly has highlighted a couple of the issues that has persisted for this team for years now. upto him to fix them though.
bowness referenced today offense from the back end & zone-denials. both 2 things i've been a proponent the Jets need major improvement imo
offense from the defense (5v5): we had 11 goals last year, over the last 3 seasons they're 2nd last in the league behind detroit & excluding seattle as well, this is while being 16th in SOGs, so not really a lack of opportunities.
the drawback of defensman from being engaged more offensively (ie: creeping in from the blue line, deeper in the o-zone etc) - and bowness brought this up as well - is our fwd group being ready & willing to cover and engage defensively..... evidently we've seen this has not really been a major strength of our fwds, notably in the top-6.
apparently we were 31st in zone-entry denials.... honestly other than demelo, i don't think many of our dmen have been consistently good at this. dunno if it's coaching telling them or what - we'll find out this year. but so far i think bowness at least publicly has highlighted a couple of the issues that has persisted for this team for years now. upto him to fix them though.
- Dec 29, 2016
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I hope by Aggressive, you mean defensively -
If the priority with this group is to find a way to drive more offense by being aggressive on the ozone blueline, we'll be in a world of trouble when things turn the other way.
I would like to see a more aggressive gap and a lot more aggressive pursuit when we're running around in our end.
As a few have noted, our forwards are not the best defensive bunch in the league - some of that is probably due to being bogged down in our end for extended periods - that'll drive the starch out of an O game every time - nothing left in the tank to do much of anything.
I like to see a better defensive effort everywhere by everyone - and that includes making defense a priority for our D. The offense is there if they can get out of their own end - the opportunities for JoMO, Pionk and Smitty to pick up points starts with learning how to defend and turn it up the other way.
Or it's more of last year.
I hope that is what Bowness is referring to -
I'm of the same mind. Tight gaps and aggressive pinches with F support actually improves defense because it limits zone entries and time spent in the d zone.
Of course it's a fine line which is why I like having a good balance on the pairs
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