Thorny

Both Cozens and Mitts can pass and snipe

And they were pretty strict with keeping Cozens at C, as far as I can remember. I’d actually be pretty surprised if he moved to wing, his game is perfect for the middle 200 foot wise

Jack follows up a top 10 mvp finish by...getting hurt...battling back from intensive surgery...and then immediately winning the cup while *checks notes* leading the entire playoffs in scoring the Utter weirdness. Of course people will take it the wrong way. Anyone with a shred of objectivity. If you watched the playoffs, you’d have seen the burst. Dude dominated McDavid head to head. Enough of this manufactured narrative

You are getting way too hung up on trying to determine who’s “better”. I already said, my initial contention wasn’t to claim one was better than the other. Go back and read what I was responding to. I was simply taking issue with the idea presented that “Eichel never had that big breakout season”, because that was objectively false. How many times do I need to clarify this? That was my contention. You are trying to compare and contrast their entire careers for some reason. My point, which wasn’t even a little bit of a stretch by any lengths of the imagination, wasn’t that Eichel was better, it’s that it was being argued Thompson HAD that breakout season where Eichel did not: and I chimed in to say, Eichel finished higher in league scoring in 19-20 than Thompson did this season. That’s not a stretch, that’s the definitive point: Thompson finished 15th in scoring this year. Jack finished 10th in 19-20. He also finished higher than Thompson in the MVP vote. Again, im not saying Eichel is better. What I’m saying is that if this was a “big breakout season” for Thompson, Jack’s was also a “big breakout season.”

Vladdy!

you

It’s unanimous because people like to use the new names when making their configurations haha. I know I do lol. Remains to be seen if the new guys push out old faves like HJ in actuality In the minds of Granato

That’s a great point. Looking at the stats I keep reminding myself that removing the output of a rookie Quinn isn’t that big of a deal. But it’s what I thought he’d get to this season. His name popped when reading the line configurations, and it feels weird to just not replace him I have to start hoping for that from Krebs when I wasn’t before, what would have been found money is now a bit of a wager placed

Hold up... Let Brawndo cook. - - - Samuelsson is half man half concept. It’s not Samuelsson’s reasonably ok game that allows Dahlin to do all star stuff on pair one, I keep saying it: it’s Dahlin’s ridiculous all star ability on the top pair that allows a player of Samuelsson’s talents to find a niche on said pair. Dahlin allows him to focus purely on the easier stuff, that he does do well. You can get more Samuelssons. He’s a good player but you literally had people calling him the team MVP last year. Dahlin’s a unicorn. The record without Samuelsson last season was both a commentary on the depth of our blue line leaving us unable to withstand even a Samuelsson sized loss on D (Which KA certainly took steps to address this off-season: in fact, my perhaps slightly below-average reckoning of Samuelsson’s game as it currently stands lends credence to the fact KA’s defensive additions this offseason were more than satisfactory), and a reflection of small sample size, imo.

People forget lol

I don’t need to debate any of that to stick with my initial contention w/your post, which was that Eichel did, in fact, have that big breakout season, your statements to the contrary notwithstanding Didn’t say JE was a top 10. Haven’t really put together a formal list tbh He’s another guy that would need to maintain his current level over a longer period I’ll tell you this: neither, on their best day, is Sid Crosby.

I kinda thought so too. Which is kinda odd cause it’s just switching Krebs with Greenway. Take out one guy like Quinn and it’s funny how fast that kinda happens. Not advocating for that set up though, I’d keep Krebs on L3 and try to get it some easier matchups, and it’d be the line with the least ice time I think

There are fans who go to hockey games and wear random jerseys from teams not even represented in the game, because presumably their thought process went something like, “going to a hockey game, I think I’ll wear a hockey sweater.” I know you’ve seen them. It’s kinda funny but if hockey jerseys are really sweaters, a sweater is a sweater in a cool arena, and a sweater on an engagement based platform like YouTube means a little less sweating when perusing that bank account

Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Mittelstadt - Cozens - Krebs Greenway - Jost - Peterka Rousek - Girgensons - Okposo .. with Krebs in top 6

I like the Krebs - Peterka combo, it’s just that the Quinn injury throws a wrench into who their other winger is considering we decided this far to simply..not replace him. So it’s Rousek or Olofsson or you are bumping up KO The other thing is trying a Mittelstadt - Cozens - Krebs second line but I’m guessing they lean Greenway and his size for that spot. But in that case i think we’d be short a centre

“...What?”

It’s all good, I’m not sure exactly why our readings are differing. I SAW that electric game changing guy in the playoffs. Easily the most dangerous guy with puck on stick in final. He set the pace when on the ice. I’m not sure how a guy could have been the best player in the playoffs, the hardest point at which it is to do so, WTHOUT displaying the best hockey of his career. It would defy logic. Maybe there’s some flash traded for D but his trajectory for me in on the up. 200 foot game. For posterity Tage Thompson MVP finish, 22-23: 14th Jack Eichel MVP finish, 19-20: 8th Ive gots me lots of fun numbers..

Honestly, I’m not seeing that Fade His haircut sure 19-20 was assuredly a breakout. Anything saying otherwise is objectively revisionist. Finished top 10 league scoring. Much improved defensively. MVP convo. Breakout season

Eichel, as a Sabre, finished *higher than Thompson league wide for points*.... twice Eichel had *two* seasons better offensively, league wide relative, than Thompson did Jack has finishes of 11th and 10th place in league scoring, Tage’s highest finish was 15th

Dude Eichel totally Son’ed Barkov in the final. I know it’s not just about one series but with that coming out party Eichel is definitively better than Barkov, and he’s not the only guy there he eclipses

7 and a half more seasons at 82 points per season to catch Dave. A tall order. Though, he’s a tall guy. I do like that you save up all your positivity into several bold takes Crosby was better Not very close either imo. Crosby might still be the best player in hockey It’s far too much of a points based take. Even points, Crosby outscored Tage at even strength last year by 7. No one is taking Tage before Sid freaking Crosby lining up to win a game, let’s be honest with ourselves. Tage was a PP fiend: 20 pp goals to Sid’s 9. Everywhere else Crosby was better, or in a few cases ~ tied

There’s one guy you missed above a few on that list, ya. - - - Tage certainly arguably had a top 10 offensive season for a centre last year, finished 8th for centres in points. Whether or not I’d have the season itself top 10 overall depends on your analysis of his 2 way game I suppose, which isn’t his best attribute. Is he a better player than Crosby? No, I’d definitely have Sid ahead despite Sid notching 1 point less. Did he have a better season than Bergeron? I don’t know. His season was right around the top 10 C line and that’s a pretty cool thing. I don’t have him as a top 10 C league wide yet. Need to see it over a body of several years before I’d say that, for example I’d still have Matthews ahead and Tage finished with more points.

Nice write up considering we essentially ran back the roster, I don’t think we need very much tea leaf reading. expect the lines to look pretty much like last season ie the guys who got a lot of usage will continue to do so. Ie, don’t bump Casey out of your top 6 configs, and dont forget about Jokiharju. I expect they slide Rousek in as the Quinn replacement and jumble the lines as little as possible in doing so: that seemed to be how Granato approached it last year. They went out and got Greenway, he’ll be the big new Top 6 addition. Skinner - Thompson - Tuch Mittelstadt - Cozens - Greenway Rousek - Krebs - Peterka Girgensons - Jost - Okposo Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Clifton Stillman - Jokiharju Levi UPL (VO, Johnson, Lyubushkin) ...I’d be pretty surprised if it’s much different than that. Basically, it’s a “let’s do it again, but this time, we’ll have more depth on D, and Levi will be our x-factor” set-up. Like people like John have been saying, this strategy has kinda been earmarked for a few years now. We’ll live and die by the Levi timeline and it starts now. Adams didn’t avoid adding to the position at the NHL level in a meaningful way for 3 full years just to go back on it now - the runway has been cleared.

I buy that logic way more with Gibson than say, Comrie, at least. With Gibson he’s actually perhaps delivering a solid enough raw amount of good games, he’s capable of that output, it would just be about reworking his usage to decrease the bad games that somewhat torpedo the rest. The fit could be good. With Comrie, we were banking on him actively producing a net amount of good performances he had never in his career to date managed to deliver. His numbers were likely to suffer when trying to increase the sample size. Gibson as a case of potentially instead deceasing the sample size is potentially good strategy, I’d argue, for the opposite reason. I hope it’s true they are still actively looking. Certainly flies in the face of the repetitive chants of “he’s comfortable with Levi/UPL”, that’s always nice

Great list. I have the same top 7 if I include Levi (if you take him and Rousek out I believe there’s 0 NHL games in the whole 20) and probably the same top 10. Exceptionally strong hand to play here, considering the youth of the actual roster/graduated, as you mentioned. Lots of outs.