Randall Flagg

Probably ~4 years total is the minimum

I think the stats community has an incredibly clear picture of what their stats can and cannot do. (Note, I don't consider the Athletic/TBN writers I've seen part of this community.) In fact, there are stats that tell us how meaningful the stats are ? Another note: I am not a member of the stats community. I am pretty bad at statistics, I am ashamed to say.

Pominville was in the one spot that I was okay with him in the top 12. Now he's next to Jack. Confirmed proof that Phil needs a ROR and his ROR is Sobotka Our two ES generators are together now, and the rest of the lines' jobs have just become "to survive" Not a fan. Hopefully that means they are guaranteed to play well now

Trocheck is a better player right now. I don't make the trade because of Eichel's ceiling, but Trocheck is a great, great two way player, forgetting about his 75 points last year to go with it.

Again, wasn't Bailey a healthy scratch in Rochester already? This kid isn't seeing Buffalo again. And Bogosian was better than both Risto and Scandy last night and the night before

I have no way to check against other teams, but I also get the same feeling that we're comically bad at doing this.

I think they were just short bodies, Bogo/Beaulieu had those nasty shot blocks that maybe have something to do with it

That is something

Boudreau and Quenneville could feasibly find themselves in trouble. I was reading Pens fans bitching about Sullivan recently, but I highly doubt anything happens there (tho JR has no issue firing big name guys) I don't think we're firing Phil though.

Ryan Miller never approached the tire fire that Lehner was last year. Lehner had a nice save percentage two years ago when we artificially inflated it by allowing 30 shots per game from the perimeter, but he was bottom 3 in the entire league in terms of saving shots from dangerous areas, even in that season. Ryan was never close to that bad on shots that actually meant something. There was no specific goaltending skill set that Lehner brought that comes within a light year of Ryan's positional abilities. Sure, he wasn't elite outside of one or two seasons, but this team would kill for goaltending as consistent as he brought, in a set of seasons that has a non-negligible difference in league save percentage compared to now. Miller's problem wasn't his play, it was that the team was built around him. Had this team had its focal point and calling card somewhere in front of him, where the actual hockey was played, there wouldn't be a single non-fond memory of the guy. Except for ppl who didn't like the WTF wave

Random unrelated thought to the conversation above: John Vogl is good for getting reported info, and sometimes great for certain types of articles, but I wouldn't miss a thing if I never read any of his actual hockey analysis ever again

But seriously, without rehashing any old arguments about the ROR trade or even mentioning ROR again in the rest of this post, those players need to be better. We have 1 goal and 1 assist in 17 games played from the guys that came back, one was healthy-scratched, the other has a 25% corsi, and the third needs to be in Roch yesterday. It's not always going to be this bad of course, and it's so early, so this isn't a sky-is-falling post, but we need these guys to play better as soon as possible. (Tage can do so while regaining his confidence in the AHL.)

*plays stairway to heaven*

Once the top unit got back together for good last year, from January 1st through April, or a little more than half the season, they continued to operate at the 24% that had them in first the season before.

It's certainly not 100% on coaching if our vet cap dumps are looking as bad as they sometimes did last year and it's hurting us haha There could very well be elements of bad coaching elsewhere, I'm not trying to argue that.

That's the key, like liger says he's in his own head. That's how you kill prospects

Careful you might make people mad

According to a Blues board ranking from before the trade they had Tage at 5 or 6 Bailey was healthy-scratched in Rochester, wasn't he?

Risto will be so much better on a second pair at 20 minutes per night, playing against Derick Brassard instead of Sidney Crosby. The bad things are way easier to hide than when he's out there for half the game against the best, and he'll have the energy and confidence to do those things we remember him actually doing well. The first two periods they looked the best I"ve seen them at ES this year, but they were crippled by a bonehead penalty 2 minutes in, a 4 minute double minor, that SJ scored twice on. They were snake-bit, hitting two posts, in a game that could have been 3-0 Buffalo going into the third. Then the third might have been their worst period of the season.

It's as if the low event players we added stopped being good at the defensive half of being low event

That would honestly make so much sense lol We STILL haven't had one of those 3-4 and all seven games had the winner picked by a multi-goal lead before the halfway point

Can somebody post the current percentages of each? It's still so early. 3 games ago our PP was like 40%. The lack of recent success sucks for sure, and they need to work on it, but these are things that get ironed over by father time. I don't think they'll settle in as being too bad.

What TOI are they counting and why is ours less than half of like everyone else's

They'll have it back in 2

Worth pointing out that Dan's Pens were out of a playoff spot when he was hired. I didn't like his coaching 7 years after that point, but you can't take that guy's accomplishment away from him in Pitt.