Thorny

Kulich and Rosen were both ranked 21 in consolidation and 18 by McKenzie? Kinda wild. How do you get the average rankings?

Recency bias imo, those guys were touted a lot in their younger days

So, trying to figure out what to do with the guy who hasn’t managed to lock down a consistent role. Seems about right

Agree. I come into these discussions a lot with my initial instinct being “look his production is literally replacement level maybe we should replace him” but then when the discussion turns to who and we hear the endless parade of usual suspect rookies, because that’s the sole mode KA fitted the team with of supplementing the roster, it’s just like…why bother lol If we are just going to get even younger by replacing him, I’d rather have Krebs

He ain’t going to Rochester, people way, way too many beyond blue and gold vids of him firing up the locker room. He’s a core player under the Adams regime no doubt there’s an internal evaluation of him that’s higher that we’d mark it and the only way Krebs isn’t on the roster is if someone eclipses that value in a deal, straight up

I know you didn’t. To me you described slightly below average that’s why I used that term haha

Kulich isn’t the improvement droid we are looking for but sure, try it

I agree with you but he isn’t going to do that. There’s what we would do, and the timeline for success we believe to be fair, and then the other side of the equation is KA’s plan and the timeline he has been granted from on high I’ll evaluate based on my criteria ie We need to make the playoffs this season and within that context I agree, the time to be proactive is now But I’m beginning to think KA’s plan is exceptionally rigid in that the now won’t ever be prioritized before the long term. I think the job is his as long as we wants it and maintains the budgetary constraints Pegula wants. The attendance has been the attendance and it hasn’t made any difference in the urgency we’ve seen so I believe the proof is in the pudding

They are exceptions that prove the rule not the other way around. For every Tage there are 10 who don’t randomly explode It’s not a good defence for keeping a player. In the end you have to evaluate and project each individually too many “ifs” here. Subservient, supposedly, this season to actual results. what Krebs MIGHT become should be secondary this season to what he is actually providing. Can we ever prioritize the now? Like ever?

12 years into a playoff drought lol. For the love of god can we aim higher than slightly below average Yes he could have Just like Hasek would still be really good here. Any time these guys are brought in for an extreme example it falls flat

Ah, of course. My mistake

Pacing for 0 goals, 5 assists over a season. This isn’t a substantive disagreement with your post I just couldn’t figure out how you came up with those figures

Bah

True lol

Laine is terrible imo

Could have addressed Quinn before the season if they felt it was an issue. We aren’t very banged up, we’ve got 1 F down relative to the team KA willingly iced to enter the season Par for the course injury wise - again, yet another area where hindsight need not apply: said all last year we were suffering well above average injury luck last season and couldn’t assume that coming into this one

All off-season and entering into the season itself we heard about how there’s “no room” in the forward ranks, and now there are multiple spots where..players go to die? None of it jives. We are clearly still lacking NHL forward depth and Krebs is a part of that issue if the expectations aren’t more less what we are seeing the team amount to currently I’m not comfortable saying Krebs would be adequate if we simply didn’t play him with KO. There’s A) a reason that’s where he’s lined up and B) we haven’t seen anything to suggest otherwise when he’s been with other players this season

I just mean that I can’t pass judgment on it (as if my judgment matters one iota) until I see the result. If they are kinda disappointing all year but go on a run in the last few weeks and make it: that’s a success for me. I’ve been pretty consistent that playoffs are THE line

Honestly? We won’t know till the playoffs lines are drawn

Krebs is like Johan Larsson but with significantly weaker defensive abilities, but also a Johan Larsson we acquired for our franchise C, which changes his internal positioning

I think they prefer it

Ya, he’s not the type of player that can be the best player on a line. He’s the guy who can fit in as the least effective player on a line in a pinch, and not actively torpedo said line

Lots of factors we can point to to attempt to alleviate the blame from Krebs himself. He’s likely just not very good. He seems the type of player than can provide the bare minimum useful role if every effort is made to accommodate his success. Not the type of player you want on a good team, but fits ok on a team lacking expectations

I don’t even need the “window to be open”. I just want to have a window to look through, at all, in this dreary never ending basement

Why such a quick 180?