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GDT: 2/28/21, 3pm ET, Philadelphia @ Buffalo, MSG & ESPN+


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Cozens out for injury, or is RK just trying to keep "young" legs Okposo in the lineup?

Just now, Torpedo Forecheck said:

Cozens out for injury, or is RK just trying to keep "young" legs Okposo in the lineup?

Knowing Ralph he's probably disappointed in Cozens play so far, doesn't get his system!

Fire Krueger please! he'll ruin him too.

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There’s a posse like characteristic to this board. It provides insight into how stirred and singularly destructive a mob can be created from disappointment, an inflated sense of unfairness, and a real feeling of being on the brink of disaster if something, anything at all dramatic isn’t done. So we hear calls for “burn it down…” and all those other “wipe it clean,” psychotic endtime prescriptions.

 

Ralph Kreuger’s coaching strategy seems relatively sound. Faced with readying for a compacted regular season after an extended competitive layoff for most of his players, given a reduced preseason to evaluate and prepare his squad, recognizing that he had enough gifted goal scorers for two scoring lines and PK and PP specialists to effectively compete, an exploitable middling goaltending and defense, and understanding the uncertainty that Covid and injuries and the fatigue of a compacted schedule would have on his roster, he opted against playing a fatiguing uptempo, heavy forecheck game, for a conservative game reliant on simple puck management principles. 

 

The games would be close. The difference would come down to the effectiveness of special teams and  the expectation that with Tyler Hall and Jack Eichel and to  a lesser extent Skinner and Reino, the team would have enough to be a competitive team.  The others would chip in here and there. Seems reasonable. He knew we didn’t have a pest on the team. So being an “in your face” type of team wasn’t what he was provided on this roster. 

 

How different would Claude Julian coach this roster? Gallant, Boudreau, Babcock? 

 

When the mob’s screaming “tear it down” what replaces the what is? How would you conceive strategic plan for this season and these players?

 

Jack Eichel started the year hurt. He also does not win much confidence as a team game competitive player. He sulks. He fails the body language test that we have come to know looks much different in champions. It just does.

 

To bring up the most local comparison; Josh Allen.  I’m sure many of you saw the interview that Duffer conducted between the two – I think it was last spring? Josh seemed legitimately a thoughtful person. A socially apt and interested human. Seems like he likes people and acknowledges and appreciates the range of teammates and backstories and motivations that have brought them all together to comprise a team. He states that he has a lot to learn and benefit from that learning. We’ve obviously heard his teammates say how much they love him and we have all seen him play injured and gritty and giving his everything to win for the team. 

 

And then there’s Jack Eichel who gave canned bland answers, like he’d rather be anywhere else than that interview. Kinda like how he mails in games. Like he’d rather be elsewhere. Not in the now, in the moment, the moment being – for us fans, and should always be for the player – the game, that he is being paid a king’s ransom to win.  He is super talented, and now it should be super evident he needs to learn how to be a more competitive leader and player if this team will ever come to win with him. How does that get cultivated with him? Steve Yzerman used to take a lot of grief for lacking something or other as a leader – though he played with much for fire than Eichel – maybe it’s just getting better players alongside him, or for him to show more grit in order to in

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8 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I have never witnessed a coach, make so many blatantly stupid roster decisions in so short a period of time. Cozens benched and Okposo promoted... Jesus christ. There's no point watching until Ralph gets fired. This is the dumbest lineup ever. 

Okposo does everything Ralph asks.  Therefore he's the best option, ugh.

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8 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

I have never witnessed a coach, make so many blatantly stupid roster decisions in so short a period of time. Cozens benched and Okposo promoted... Jesus christ. There's no point watching until Ralph gets fired. This is the dumbest lineup ever. 

To be fair he has said multiple times that he is going to give young players some time off on back to backs or during weeks with a heavy work load.

That being said he needs to go. 

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