dudacek Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 We have long-term commitments to KO and ROR and Sam was a top 2 pick. They are (were?) important pieces of this rebuild. If they are to slow to play Housley’s system effectively, was Housley the right coaching hire? If they are now expendable, what value do they have? Don't know that they are too slow for this system, just that they haven't played well over the first two weeks. If a decision is made to shop them - and in Sam's case I wouldn't be surprised - they all have good value. A bad two-week stretch doesn't make them bad players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brawndo Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 JBot brought in Josefson, Pouliot, Griffith and Nolan as placeholders this year. Sadly, all have them exactly that. Sorry I can't remember who posted it, but the most astute observation I've read on here this morning was in regards to team speed. The fast guys - Kane, Eichel, Girgensons - have been very good. The slower guys - Okposo, O'Reilly Reinhart - have not. Does bode well for Nylander, Bailey and Baptiste moving forward. The thing is though, the larger problem is that three of our top five forwards are playing like fourth-liners. Yep and I believe that's why Reinhart only played 14 mins and much to the detriment to the team ROR wasn't on the final PK last night We have long-term commitments to KO and ROR and Sam was a top 2 pick. They are (were?) important pieces of this rebuild. If they are to slow to play Housley’s system effectively, was Housley the right coaching hire? If they are now expendable, what value do they have? That would be two systems they could not play well in, that's on the players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GASabresIUFAN Posted October 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 (edited) I’ve been wondering about what to do about this lousy start. I’ve mentioned benching star players, cutting others, and shifting lines. Others have made similar suggestions.I’m thinking that maybe the best thing to do now, is turn the season into a season long tryout for the future. Jbot and Wowie need to sit down and see who they think can be part of the team long-term and then feed them huge minutes. Try different lines combos, but basically only play certain players and see if you can develop chemistry between certain players in this system. That means no Moulson, no Gorges, no Tennyson, no Pouliot, limited play for Larsson, Griffith, Josefson, Nolan and probably Bogo.And I mean try every combo. Jack between ROR and Bailey or Reinhart. Try Z back in center. Try this for 20 games or so and see what if anything develops. On D also. I’m also talking about double shifting Jack and others. It can’t be worse. After this period, start making bigger moves. In season hockey deals. Maybe Kane or Reinhart gets traded. Maybe KO or ROR. Edited October 15, 2017 by GASabresFan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottysabres Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 We have long-term commitments to KO and ROR and Sam was a top 2 pick. They are (were?) important pieces of this rebuild. If they are to slow to play Housley’s system effectively, was Housley the right coaching hire? If they are now expendable, what value do they have? Okposo is a huge ? with the recent health issues. Sad really, he is a great player. Hope it pans out.O'Reilly has good value, even with that 7.5 aav. He won't be moved, at least this year. Reinhart has the most value given potential and cost. If, and I know it's just an if, but if JB were to target a high end 2/3 d man, 22 to 25 age range, I fully expect Sam to be the center piece going the other way. And given our d depth, I have a feeling we'll see some sort of trade in season as an attempt to address that, and that scares me a bit. For as crappy as we are d wise, Murray tried using assets as well, so far it looks like a failed strategy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dudacek Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 How would people feel if two of the three close games had bounced in our direction? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GASabresIUFAN Posted October 15, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 How would people feel if two of the three close games had bounced in our direction? But they wouldn't have. The team has given no indication that anyone but Jack and the players playing with Jack can score. If we had secondary scoring, maybe the results would have been different, but these games have shown continued flaws with the roster. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darksabre Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 How would people feel if two of the three close games had bounced in our direction? Last night was the first game we've played where I'll allow the bounces argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Flagg Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 Our PDO is 94.9, and it will finish somewhere very close to 100. We will get close games and bounces in our direction. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwampD Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 (edited) Our PDO is 94.9, and it will finish somewhere very close to 100. We will get close games and bounces in our direction. I'll step forward and take one for the team. What, again, is PDO? Edited October 15, 2017 by SwampD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Flagg Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 (edited) I'll step forward and take one for the team. What, again, is PDO? It's the sum of your team's shooting and save percentages. As time goes on it converges sharply to 100 for pretty much every team, unless you have a terrible goalie, and even then I don't know that I've seen a team finish worse than a 97 or so. Actually, last year every team finished above 98 but Colorado who had the worst season out of any non-expansion team ever, I believe. We were at 99.8 last year. So, it's likely that we'll get some combination of 4% higher shooting percentage or save percentage as time goes on, which would imply going higher than that amount just to catch us back up to normal. If it was all in save percentage, that would be Lehner going from his sub-.900 to likely winning the Vezina. If it was all in shooting percentage, we'd have had six more goals in these last 5 games, Which would have likely given us a couple or even a few wins. Edited October 15, 2017 by Randall Flagg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scottysabres Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 FYI, Casey Middlesteadt is tearing it up right now. This kid went 8th? Unbelievable. He is unreal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwampD Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 It's the sum of your team's shooting and save percentages. As time goes on it converges sharply to 100 for pretty much every team, unless you have a terrible goalie, and even then I don't know that I've seen a team finish worse than a 97 or so. Actually, last year every team finished above 98 but Colorado who had the worst season out of any non-expansion team ever, I believe. We were at 99.8 last year. So, it's likely that we'll get some combination of 4% higher shooting percentage or save percentage as time goes on, which would imply going higher than that amount just to catch us back up to normal. If it was all in save percentage, that would be Lehner going from his sub-.900 to likely winning the Vezina. If it was all in shooting percentage, we'd have had six more goals in these last 5 games, Which would have likely given us a couple or even a few wins.So, it's only in relation to shots on goal? Because when I hear the "bounces" thing I think the entire game. Like, a battle at center ice where our guy just misses the puck and instead of a rush to their end, we're now on defense. Or a puck that bounces just out of reach of a guy in the slot so he never even gets a shot off. Not sure that kind of stuff is quantifiable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Flagg Posted October 15, 2017 Report Share Posted October 15, 2017 So, it's only in relation to shots on goal? Because when I hear the "bounces" thing I think the entire game. Like, a battle at center ice where our guy just misses the puck and instead of a rush to their end, we're now on defense. Or a puck that bounces just out of reach of a guy in the slot so he never even gets a shot off. Not sure that kind of stuff is quantifiable. Yes, it doesn't cover little things like that, you need the good ol' eye test for that. I don't pay attention enough to know if we've been getting those or not. But either Lehner is not going to continue to be this bad, or our shooters are going to get a lot better, or more likely some combination of both is going to happen. And if that isn't the case then we are going to have the worst non-expansion season in NHL history. I don't think that's especially likely. It's not so much a stat to use to analyze as it is a trend-marker. It's a huge reason why everyone predicted Calgary's downfall a couple years ago, and that of Colorado as well. They had really high PDOs (not as high as ours is low) which, when normalized by the time the next season was halfway through, saw them missing the playoffs the following season. I wouldn't use it to diagnose much of anything, but just to say "I don't think we're as bad as 0-5 suggests we are". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nfreeman Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 So, after a couple of creditable efforts vs LA and Anaheim, it looks like: - Howie still likes Kane on with Eichel and Pommer. - Pommer has been able to keep up with Eichel -- and has been making one smart veteran play after another. - Zemgus has played well as a top-6 winger. - ROR has struggled mightily in producing offense but may be coming around. - When KO returns, we'll likely see Zemgus-ROR-KO as the #2 line. - Larsson has seized the #3C slot from Reino and while he doesn't really create many chances, Bailey-Larsson-Reino looks like it has potential. - The move back to wing seems to have agreed with Reino -- he's created chances with both Larsson on the #3 line with Bailey and with ROR and Zemgus on the #2 line. - Bringing in whipping boy Gorges has undeniably stabilized the D, leaving Antipin as odd man out for now. - Scandella looks terrific and like an ideal partner for Risto -- who looks OK but not much better than that. - Beaulieu has great hands and feet and after a couple of trainwreck games has stabilized. - His partner, Tennyson, has come out of nowhere and is now a 16-18 min per night defenseman who gets 2nd-unit PP time. - As many of us suspected in the preseason, Scandella-Risto is the clear top pairing, with the minutes being allocated among the other 2 pairs on a game-to-game basis depending on how the game is going. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huckleberry Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) Still would like to see Kane - Samson - Bailey as our 3rd line. And damn Scandella was good last night, he broke up a lot of attacks. Edited October 16, 2017 by Huckleberry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sabills Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) Still would like to see Kane - Samson - Bailey as our 3rd line. And damn Scandella was good last night, he broke up a lot of attacks. Girgensons - Eichel - Pommers Pouliot - ROR - Okposo Kane - Samson - Bailey Larsson and some combination of Moulson/Nolan/Josephson/Griffith? I could get down with that, but Benoit up with ROR and Okposo is a pretty slow line. Edited October 16, 2017 by sabills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LGR4GM Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 Id like to see Antipin in for Tennyson. Tennyson is so mediocre at everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GASabresIUFAN Posted October 16, 2017 Author Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 With Josefson injured but KO likely back on Tuesday, what about this? Z Jack Pommers Kane ROR Sam Bailey Larsson KO Pouliot Griffith Nolan FYI Griffith is a natural center. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doohickie Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 Interesting concept but I see KO where you put Sam, Sam where you put Larsson, Larsson going to 4C and either Griffith or Nolan moving up to Sam's wing on the 3rd line. Not sure I like that, but that's what I see happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LGR4GM Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 With Josefson injured but KO likely back on Tuesday, what about this? Z Jack Pommers Kane ROR Sam Bailey Larsson KO Pouliot Griffith Nolan FYI Griffith is a natural center. I might put KO on his off wing instead of a rookie. But I kinda like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MattPie Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 (edited) FYI, Casey Middlesteadt is tearing it up right now. This kid went 8th? Unbelievable. He is unreal. He played Minnesota High School hockey last year and tore it up (64 points in 25 games (!!!)) and USHL (30 points in 24 games), but that's lesser competition than Canadian Juniors or NCAA, so scouts were wary that he was a big fish in small pond. Edited October 16, 2017 by MattPie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drunkard Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 With Josefson injured but KO likely back on Tuesday, what about this? Z Jack Pommers Kane ROR Sam Bailey Larsson KO Pouliot Griffith Nolan FYI Griffith is a natural center. Not bad, but I'd personally rather see O'Reilly on Reinhart's wing than Reinhart on O'Reilly's wing. Reinhart needs to get acclimated to the center position and this is the perfect year to do it because we're not going to seriously contend for the cup this year. 1. New Coach 2. Bad start to the season 3. Still plenty of cap anchors on the roster (Gorges, Moulson, Bogosian) If they envision him as a Patrick Sharp type that's fine, but he has to learn the center position first in order to do that effectively. The only way to do that is for him to get the bulk of his time at center. If we waste the chance to do it now, it will be more difficult for him to do it later when he's force into the center position because of an injury, suspension, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shrader Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 He has 3 points in 4 games. I'm not sure how that fits with the "he's tearing it up" idea. Are we factoring in the exhibition game against the canadian university? There's nothing wrong with those early numbers, but they're hardly the stuff of legend. But yes, I realize that he only has 3 points because he wants to have exactly 3 points so far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LGR4GM Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 He has 3 points in 4 games. I'm not sure how that fits with the "he's tearing it up" idea. Are we factoring in the exhibition game against the canadian university? There's nothing wrong with those early numbers, but they're hardly the stuff of legend. But yes, I realize that he only has 3 points because he wants to have exactly 3 points so far. hahahaha Just try to remember everyone Casey might take 2 years at college and that is perfectly ok. 18 and 19 year olds aren't suppose to make the NHL on mass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inkman Posted October 16, 2017 Report Share Posted October 16, 2017 FYI, Casey Middlesteadt is tearing it up right now. This kid went 8th? Unbelievable. He is unreal. The next Paul Kariya :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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