Gawdzukes

Exactly, I love a feel good story too and a great kid like Burroughs. However the choice between these two guys is blatantly obvious. One guy is struggling just to have NHL relevancy and we saw it for 48 games last year. He shouldn't even be getting top 6 minutes with a team who has playoff aspirations. He is lucky SJ is going full tank and he got some long-term security.

I see Soucy stepping up physically, being in control, and very hard to play against. He provides positive value more often than not when he's on the ice and helps create offence. I see Burroughs try hard but he's always a step behind and has a lot of trouble making good hockey IQ plays. As a result we end up scored on or running around in our own end half of the game. Burroughs adds nothing offensively or towards tilting the ice in our favor. Soucy has a far better understanding of time and space and what he himself is able to accomplish without doing too much. He understands his limitations, is confident, and he has over 250 games of experience to Burroughs 95. Burroughs looks like a kid in the candy store just happy to be out there playing. In addition, he probably got into 30 games this year simply due to us not having any other options. It seemed to me Soucy took on a tonne more responsibility in Seattle, and Minny, and played in top 4 situations all the time, where as Burroughs was a guy forced into the line-up that played when there were no other options. It seems blatantly obvious to me if you watch them play who I would choose. Not to take anything away from Burroughs. I love his attitude and compete. Soucy is just a far better, more well rounded player, with size. Again, stats are extremely limited and that's why they are no substitute for watching the games. This is a good example of that if indeed their stats are equal. Edit: The biggest problem with stat watching is that for the most part they don't actually measure what people claim they do. For example sometimes letting the other team take control of the puck and reversing pressure is more advantageous than trying to waltz your way through the opposition and getting stripped as the last man back. Yet it gets recorded as a negative. Other times they call a shot on goal a high danger chance when in fact the player was tied up and had zero chance of scoring. Until they actually break down every play and analyze it on it's own merits the cumulative results we see now are overly simplistic and often not representative, and therefore pretty useless. NHL teams actually keep track of more detailed stuff like this and don't use the simple advanced stats we as fans have access to. As a fan who watches the games this is basically what we're doing by keeping our own more detailed, more meaningful statistical analysis. https://thehockeynews.com/news/secret-formula-analytics-in-the-nhl

Ah yes. This makes a lot of sense. I agree for the most part, I long for the days when we had Murzyn, Diduck, Gino, Linden, Momesso, Brashear, etc. Even a guy like Gus Adams played hard and heavy, Courtnall and Bure too. I get what you're saying now. I always appreciate your deeper understanding of hockey past ... kudos to your memory on a lot of these things ... across the entire league as well. You are a wealth of knowledge. For myself I like Maroon, and also a guy like Perry, or Kolesar, Kostin, Carrier, Lomberg, this year. Those guys actually know how to play hockey and deter the other team where as Reeves doesn't. He was only effective against teams who lost their composure. Even Lucic is a far better player and contributes to the game outside of the rough and tumble. Personally I think Gadj is in the Reeves category myself so we differ on that one. Very little to add hockey wise he's just a total pylon out there waiting for his 2 minutes of glory every 12-18 games. I wish we had another pick and had a guy like Barlow (maybe) in the pipeline. These types of players are far more effective when they can play hockey too. Agree though, we need to find this type of element but it's more of a finishing move on our team at this point. Miss the good old days. Cheers!

I think it's also a reflection of just how poor the management group was. With the state of the team and lack of quality they should have brought in a veteran to lead an otherwise young team. Not thrust it upon a kid who was going through his own challenges hockey wise (skating, scoring, etc.). Now Bo didn't grab the bull by the horns and lead them to greatness but like @spook007 said, in all fairness I don't think that was all his fault. A very poor decision from management imo.

I think you need to spend some time watching hockey games. The difference is night and day if you watch them. Stats don't tell the whole story ... they don't even tell half the story. What @aGENT said is completely obvious if you've watched both players for any amount of time.

You add Nylander to that team and they'll be competitive within 2 years. They have the potential to get good quick with a lot of quality prospects at top positions. Obviously they have to actually do it but they are in a good position.

Does Reaves ever do anything in the playoffs though ... except for the one (fake) year the Canucks let him get in their heads Ferland style? Better teams than ours show if you ignore him he has nothing else to give and dissapears. https://hockeywilderness.com/news-rumors/minnesota-wild/wild-wise-to-pass-on-ryan-reaves-contract-r29476/ With the Wild having a smaller team, many have wanted Minnesota to employ an enforcer like Reaves for years. The Wild got a Reaves-type in Nic Deslauriers, which ended up working out poorly. Maybe it was just because they got the Shasta version of Reaves. This time Guerin traded for Coca-Cola Classic. Reaves' reputation for being a deterrent was so great that few in the NHL were even brave enough to take them on. The thinking was, if opponents didn't want to answer to Reaves, they'd be on their best behavior. That demonstrably did not work out. 6-foot-7 giant Logan Stanley fell on 5-foot-9 Kirill Kaprizov, taking him out for weeks and reducing his effectiveness in the playoffs. Reaves' response? Nothing. He didn't deter Stanley from touching their superstar, and he didn't dish out any consequence for doing so. This continued in the playoffs, where Reaves was helpless to stop the Dallas Stars from taking liberties with the Wild throughout their six-game set. This includes Ryan Suter in particular hacking away at Kaprizov with such intensity that you'd have thought the Russian superstar said something truly awful, like that Suter should play on the second power play unit. The idea is that giant, physical players like Reaves are what get you through the playoffs. The Wild played the gritty identity that they wanted, with Reaves being a key part of that, and the result was the same: Out in the first round, in the same six games the skilled, high-flying Wild of 2021-22. And again, if he's not that deterrent for other teams, and definitely not that in the playoffs at age-36, how is that going to be better at 37, let alone 39? Pretty useless in my books. I remember watching a playoff series after he destroyed us in 2019 and getting ready to watch him unleash the terror. Eventually even the announcers were making fun of how ineffective and useless he was as long as you don't get mixed up in his antics.

I like Hronek quite a bit but elevating him to Hughes level is a bit much. I'm not saying directly you are doing this but I'm seeing this more and more. Let's see what Hronek is for us before deciding we only need two D.

If they can beat then yes Maybe some sticky Mozza D.

Reaves is 36 I think. Who knows maybe he adds that harder to play against style in the playoffs, but can he play the minutes? Vegas seemed to blend just enough skill to go with toughness. I think we're a couple of those players away in our top6/top 9 but our identity is forming and we're getting there.

The whole gist of the post I was replying to was about fighting in hockey in which I pointed out it's not really a deterrent anymore. Yeah we definitely need to be able to win the physical fight player vs player or you're not going to win in the NHL. We really need to have some more toughness/aggressiveness throughout our roster. No question about it. I don't really think Reaves is the answer. If you don't engage Reaves and force him to play hockey he is very ineffective. I don't think he is going to change anything there.

Good eye and props to you for mentioning it. I've noticed this as well.

Schenn was so slow. I like our signings way better. It's nice to have a frequent and heavy hitter ... but at what cost? Schenn is a good 6/7 guy at this point in his career not playing every game. Like you said the quality of the hits is probably far more important than the #. A lot means you're doing a lot of chasing.

As players and coaches grew smarter it became unanimously realized that adhering to the old fighting code was detrimental to winning hockey games. Nowadays players just skate away instead of engaging and all of the sudden fighting is borderline useless. Both Gadj and MacEwen are both pretty useless throwbacks who are terrible at using their teammates to create plays. I personally was fine with losing both. MacEwen had an uncanny way of gaining the puck through the neutral zone but so frustratingly individualistic, couldn't pass to his teammates for anything so very one dimensional player in my mind. He had only 1 assist in half of his NHL seasons. It was no wonder both played on bad hockey teams. I think Toronto is showing their desperation with Reeves and just taking a wildly hopeful stab that he fixes their weaknesses. I doubt it works myself.

I think I would rather have Blueger than Suter tbh. Sundqvist has size but I'm not sold on us having to upgrade there unless it's a definite upgrade. If the cap space comes then sure but how long is an issue too.

Is Suter that much better than Blueger though? I confess I haven't seen him much. 24 points, 5'11", 175 lbs. The key with Blueger is his defensive acumen. I would wonder why they didn't just sign one of these other guys instead though if that was the intention. We already have Aman ... it doesn't seem to be a wise decision to throw $1.9 in random cap at Blueger without a set position to play and already a surplus of players.

I think at this point our 2024 first should possibly be on the table for something like that or better. We just need to hope/wait for that winger trade to hopefully happen somehow ... hopefully without giving up anything substantial. What a difference though. Hughes Pesce Cole Hronek Soucy Myers/Johansson/UFA/Woo D.Petey/Willander/Mynio/Brzustewicz in the pipe ... now that's what a defence and a prospect pipeline looks like Mr. Jimmy. Good/capable players on the big club that compliment each other, and good prospects at each position, with a succession plan that doesn't completely neglect one side of the ice. Finally, this is what it feels like to be whole again.

I know they are both very offensively orientated, aren't overly currently committed to defence, and Karlsson plays like a 4th forward at times. I don't need a number to tell me that though and not sure how I should interpret a 0% or what that says to anyone. I'm also not sure they are the worst defenders in the league either. I would rather have one of them than Myers, Bear, or Stillman. Is there a number that tells you when they are good at defending or should a person just base all hockey decisions on the higher WAR # through comparison between two players? It doesn't really bother me all that much I just find them so useless they're misleading and silly. Kind of a crutch for people that don't watch or don't have the experience to interpret/describe what they're seeing. I won't comment on them any more though.

I haven't seen these comments but that's disgusting. I'd love to see these clowns out there on skates and then have this conversation. Kudos indeed!

F Yeah

Good post all around but I think the big takeaway is where you mention that our needs were probably not all getting fixed in one year. We've addressed some major size concerns, PK concerns, and compatibility issues. Now it's time to see how improved we are, how effective these moves are and what the next steps should be. I'm pretty much happy even if they don't do anything else all summer. I've always been of the stance that our true contention begins once Myers is gone and his money redeployed ... so this year is a good test run for next year where we should be close to icing our best team in probably a decade in 2024/25. Imo we have this year and next offseason to fill that top RD spot beside QH, and to fill the 3C moving forward.

Couldn't agree more. Natural fights that break out are good for the game, they add entertainment and keep everyone honest. I absolutely detest fighting because someone made a good hit. It's cowardice to the extreme in my books. One has to look no further than the playoffs when fighting completely disappears. It's not a helpful tool towards winning games. Making hard hits, finishing your checks, and pushing back is what helps winning, not a couple goons dancing on skates.

Yeah that's the hope. A real possibility our glut of wingers are untradeable without a sweetener. If that's the case I'm happy to roll with Blueger. Who out there is even available ... I'm not seeing a real viable path to getting a better 3C. Sturm is quite good at face-offs as well but is he that much better than Blueger? 26 points and a bigger body ... is that really that much of an upgrade. I think I would almost prefer Blueger and his defensive acumen. Seems a bit redundant. Colton has already been signed by someone hasn't he? I would say at this point we have made some significant upgrades ... maybe it's time to chill and see how the year goes before trying to do too much and end up trying to undo things we just did.

O% defence from a defenceman that played 67 games in the NHL? Yeah right. I know Klingberg isn't the best but this chart tells hockey people absolutely nothing except maybe this player is not as good as some of his peers. Maybe ... I guess possibly, it's pretty generically useless. Obviously the method is horribly flawed and lacking in any relevant description of the player except to maybe for 5 year old. But why would a 5 year old that doesn't understand hockey be looking at a JFresh card in the first place? Why don't you explain to us in detail everything this tells us about Klingberg and how you read this card? Like a lot of these flawed advanced stats they attempt to take really simplistic stats (which aren't even gathered uniformly) and try to bend them into something else. Most of these numbers don't actually measure what they are represented to. Like high danger chances they count everything in close or to the sides of the net, or when the goalie moves from side to side. However lots of those chances are not high danger in reality.

I think with Blueger, we have enough guys that can cover the spot. I am willing to go with Teddy and play the third line as a shutdown line. Lines 1 and 2 can play a lot and suck up all the offensive opportunities. We can always hope we dump a winger for a better 3C but I think the team is basically set now. Vast improvement over Dries, or Studnicka. We will also have Raty in the wings.