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Could The Playoffs Be Possible and Is That A Good Thing Right Now?


TheGuardian_

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2 hours ago, mll said:

- Knowing how to play and win in the post-season requires experience

- The team needs to know if they have the right core.  Not everyone is a playoff performer and some might surprise.  They also need to know who buys into team concept vs individual success.

- There are so few opportunities to go 4 rounds and win a Cup.  Never waste an opportunity - it might never come back.  Salary cap, players hitting UFA, unexpected injuries.

 

Sometimes coming in as the underdog has less pressure and can surprise.  Nashville barely qualified as the 16th team when they went to the finals despite losing both their C1 and C2 on the way.  What if Poile had brought in C depth at the TDL that season.  Last season they were among the favourites and talked about how they didn't handle it well mentally.  The Jets were patient with their rebuild but may not be able to keep their group together for much longer with the salary cap and the Trouba situation.

 

When Laviolette took over in Nashville he insisted on playoff experience.  He talked about how it's a roller coaster of emotions.  Scheifele said it surprised him how tough it was mentally.  There's a huge gap between the highs and the lows and players can get caught up in the emotions.

 

Learning how to stay even keeled - not just game by game but shift by shift.  If you have a bad shift you have to put it behind.  If you are leading you can't think you will win the game.  Some players also want to be playoff heroes and instead of trusting the system and their teammates, try to do too much on their own.  They no longer play the right way or as a team.  Others can't control their emotions and end up taking bad penalties or get thrown off their game too easily.  There's going to be bad referring and players have to learn how to deal with it and stay focused.  Everything is amplified in the playoffs and a lot is about having the experience to deal with it.

 

The play itself is also more intense.  Not all penalties are called anymore so it's also the physical part of the game that is different.  Some guys can't get that easily to the net anymore while in the regular season they can be helped by how penalties are assessed.  It's not the same in face-offs either.  It's a different game and the team needs to figure who can play in that kind of environment - mental strength and on ice efficiency.

 

They don't want to end up being caught in no man's land like the Wild - a solid team in the regular season but not a team that wins in the post-season.  The Wild are one of only 3 teams that have made the playoffs in the past 6 seasons.  They have kept pretty much the same core.  The further they went is the 2nd round.  Niederreiter, Zucker and Coyle are core players but each had no points last post-season and didn't do any much better the year before.  Each time they found excuses to bring back the same group back because they did well in the regular season.  

 

Michael Jordan popularised the saying 'players win games, teams win championships'.  Several Washington players talked about how this year they were finally sacrificing for each other and became family.  Hynes was saying you can't just be a friendly group of guys who play hockey together you have to become a brotherhood.

 

In the playoffs it's about trust.  Playing to the system, trusting that if you make a pass your teammate will bury the puck.  Already in the regular season there are often guys calling for the puck and being ignored despite being in a prime scoring position.  Others cheat or decide to try and do it on their own.  Those are all things that get exploited in the post-season.  

 

There's too much benefit of making the playoffs and so much to learn for the players but also management re assessing the make-up of the team.

Very well said, this team has been guilty as well at building a great regular season team which always faultered in the playoffs. Even a team that was built to win a championship in 2011 failed. Why? There are a lot of excuses presented throughout the years but some could say that the team just didn't have the right "character" to fight through all of that adversity that they had to go through that year. Whether it was the reffing, of the injuries, or whatever, the team was not able to overcome them.

You look at this team now and you see Boes getting nailed into the boards last year and then he gets right back up and scores. You see the team go through another bout of multiple injuries, and this year, all of a sudden, fight through it and actually win a few games. You see EP get body slammed and concussed and then gets back up and acts like nothing happened and is fighting for pucks along the boards with no fear.

This is much different then what we have become accustomed to in the last couple of decades for sure.

If these guys can keep this type of "character" in the playoffs, we will finally be able to cheer IN THE PLAYOFFS and finally win a championship.

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Avoiding the emotional roller coaster should be drilled into the heads of every professional athlete.  Fer chrissakes, they've been taught about it since they were kids.  I coach high school sports and the main thing I teach kids other than the skills themselves is how to maintain emotional balance.  Don't get too excited when you score.  Don't get too upset when you get beat.  Think about the play and think about how it went well and picture what would work better next time.  Visualisation is key.

 

Saying that the 2011 team didn't have emotional toughness is a bit of a lame argument.  The only thing they could have had a bit more of was physical pushback, but even that would backfire due to the double rulebook in place in the NHL.  The Bruins took liberties and weren't penalized.  The Canucks (Rome) got suspended for clean hits.  With more pushback in 94, we still ended up a goal short.  In both years, our star players were hacked, whacked and in pretty rough shape by the end of the playoff run.  The fact that many of them were still playing and playing well is a testament to their mental toughness.

 

For the current team, I say let it continue organically.  Draft at whatever position we end up in (my guess is we finish between 14th and 24th and I've said it since September.)  We could probably sell a couple of assets at the trade deadline.  We've passed the stage of having to play AHLers on our starting roster and no depth to call up for injuries.  If we're out of a playoff spot by the trade deadline, maybe trade one D and one or two forwards that are surplus to needs and easily replaced by someone maturing in Utica next year.  Don't make too big a change of direction, however, because things are coming along very very nicely thanks to Jim Benning and company.  Pettersson is one of the best players in the league if his first 9 games are anything to go by (up with Matthews, Crosby, Malkin, McDavid and Ovechkin).  Boeser, when healthy, is up there with Panarin or Kane.  Bo is one of the best two way forwards out there with Bergeron potential.  It's likely that we see Quinn Hughes next year.  While it's great to dream of getting his brother Jack too, it's not a likely scenario.  The team is improving.  Guys like Leipsic are now fillers rather than top 6 like last year.  Our PK when the team is healthy is one of the best in the league.  Our goaltending is still not consistent, but it's showing flashes of brilliance at least.

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Everyone is way to worried about picks. !!  It drives me nuts. Media plays up the draft for viewership over the last decade but its manipulated everyone into thinking its the be all end all. 

 

Sure a Connor Macdavid comes along once every 10-15 years. And maybe your lucky that’s the year your team sucks otherwise you have to play your team to have a winning mentality or loosing can become a part or your organizations mentality over multiple decades. 

 

Yes yes making the playoffs any year is a good thing. !!! It helps players gain confidence gives them experience and also sets a tone for free agent signing wether players want to play for your oganization in the long term. Branding of winning matters. !!!!

 

You never know now what your getting with a pick regardless of scouting so don’t bet on the draft to improve your team but rather it’s but one piece. 

 

Other pieces. Good coaching. Giving players time to develop. Team Maturity and continuity. 

 

Trades. 

 

We have have the youth we need. We have the pieces in a build you require. Time to get back a winning mentality. So far so good!!!

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I wouldn't be using a few weeks of performance in the absence of Tanev, Sutter, Edler, Beagle, Baertschi as a cue to dump the rest of the higher end veterans on the team.

I think that's getting carried away.  It's a long grind of a season, and moreover, there's another group of youth on the way and having one or both of those D to pair with them and shoulder hard minutes is every bit as good an idea as moving them for futures in what is not necessarily a balanced 'asset management' mentality.

 

Dealing one of Edler or Tanev imo is conceivable - both of them is pushing it towards regression imo.

Dealing one of Baertshi or Granlund - reasonable given the forward depth - I'd absolutely lean towards keeping the swiss-army Granlund - a highly under-rated player around here that probably doesn't return the kind of value he himself represents.

Moreover - this team is not hard up for futures - anything but.  They have an extremely healthy group of talented youth at the NHL level and a few more waves on the way.

Absolutely not in favour of moving Sutter - of course you listen if teams come banging your door down, but hopefully people are starting to realize what Benning meant when he referred to him as 'foundational'.    They've won some games in his absence - with Horvat shouldering an unsustainable (imo) amount of hard minutes in the absence of Sutter/Beagle - with the help of a very strong group of defensive forwards, but if the intent is to actually enable the top 6 as much as possible over the longer run, we're not going to be moving a handful of players like Sutter, Edler, Tanev, Granlund.....

 

I prefer the steady transition approach.

 

Possibly move one of Edler or Tanev - or not.  It depends of coure entirely on what is offered - and imo those types of deals ideally involved a limited term placeholder coming back, ideally on that enhances the ability of the team we're dealing with to make a deal.  Ie - to Tampa with Coburn (reportedly wanting to move him) coming back.

 

Possibly move Baertschi - or Leipsic - or Goldobin - if they're unable to move Eriksson's contract.  One of the skilled LW is probably not going to own a spot.

 

Of course it's a no-brainer to move Gagner - but let's be realistic about expecting asset value in return - and unless MDZ regains the form he's had in recent years, it may be unlikely to expect a return - although GMs don't tend to view player value on the short-term goldfish perspectives that we fans tend to.

 

I wouldn't be expecting this team to be selling as hard as some folks here seem to anticipate - I think expectations are more likely reasonably limited to possibly one defenseman, one skilled forward - if they sell at all -  and the previous trio of placeholders (if they're even moveable).

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23 hours ago, SID.IS.SID.ME.IS.ME said:

Making the playoffs is always a good thing.

 

The experience it would provide for our young guns would be hugely beneficial to their development. And if we manage to maintain current performance levels, it will mean that guys like Pettersson, Boeser, and Horvat are truly thriving as young star players in this league, and we're also getting positive returns from other younger guys like Virtanen, Mottle, etc, and improved play from the likes of Hutton, Pouliot, and the goalies. That kind of overall improvement from our current assets is worth far more to the team, and to the overall rebuild, than gaining spots on the ladder from tanking for draft position.

 

The only danger IMO would be if management decided not to sell off the expiring contracts and some of the surplus veteran players at the TDL.

 

I think if this team makes it to the postseason, it will be on the backs of our emerging young players, and not the veterans. Most of our biggest wins this season have been driven by the young core. The vets help stabilize this group, but they have not been nearly as crucial to our success as the kids and the improvements from younger vets (like Hutton). No matter what spot we're in at the TDL, we need to try to recover some sort of assets on guys like MDZ and Gagner. And we probably should look to trade at least one of Edler/Tanev, possibly one of Baertschi/Granlund, potentially Sutter (if Gaudette and Gaunce are looking NHL ready), Nilsson (if Demko is healthy and pushing for an NHL spot), and even the younger depth guys like Leipsic and others, if our AHL prospects start pushing for spots. We absolutely should not hang on to any expiring contracts or players that aren't going to be part of the future core, just because they might help us in the playoffs.

 

I'm not worried about losing draft position while winning this season. This year's draft is really deep and there are plenty of good options deep into the first round and continuing into the second and beyond. We should be more worried about acquiring some extra picks in this draft than maximizing our draft position.

 

Benning had this quote before the draft: "Look at the playoffs. It's that age group, from 26-32, that you win with".  Listening to him it doesn't sound like they want to continuously start over by selling contributing players for draft picks unless UFAs that are not returning.  They will keep the better players and move on from the lesser ones to create room.  It's not about draft pick return but about improving the team they have.

 

If a prospect proves to be ready and if the choice is only between Beagle/Sutter I think it's more likely that Beagle is the one to be moved rather than Sutter.  Sutter is the best defensive F on the team and he can score which is still the hardest thing to do in the league.  Every team is trying to push their lines down a rank.

 

Players are also not under team control indefinitely.  How many more years will the Jets be able to keep their group together.  It also takes quite a bit of time to develop players past the lottery picks.  They don't want to be like the Oilers wasting McDavid's years - Pettersson and Boeser are already impressing now.

 

McKenzie before the season said he talked to both Benning and Green - they are well aware that teams are moving on to 3 or even 4 scoring lines.  They don't have enough skills yet.  Kane plays at times on the Sharks 3rd line - it creates matchup problems.  NJD barely scraped into the playoffs - they had 10 Fs with 12 goals.  That's 4 lines deep.

 

I think it's Linden that said a skilled team with a blue collar mentality.  A grinder is not going to become a scorer but a scorer who has a blue collar work ethic - that's hard to contain.  It's the guys who don't bring a bottom line who are more likely to be moved out first and not the skilled players who can produce and fit the system.  

 

Last year there were 166 Fs who played at least 40 games and produced at a 0.5 pace or more.  A top-6 is 186 Fs - i.e. not all teams had 6 Fs who project more than 40pts over a full season.

 

Re that age group.  Burmistrov had close to 350 NHL games but he is no longer in the league.  It goes back to Green saying some guys play 2-4 years and then are gone.  Using last season as a rough proxy and forwards drafted in 2007 to 2010 (draft+8 to draft+11) to get a sense of draft success.  IE is it worth getting rid of Baer, Sutter, Granlund for a pick.

 

Canucks have drafted high most years other than 2015 but that late 2nd round pick was used on Baertschi.  A player like Lind could have gone in the 1st round.  So breaking it down as:


- lottery pick (1 to 14)
- mid-1st to mid-2nd (15 to 45) - Lind (33), Dahlen (42)
- mid-2nd and beyond (46 and later) - Gadjovich, Palmu, Baertschi pick (53)

 

There were 481 Fs drafted from 2007 to 2010.  Out of those 481 Fs - 106 Fs were still in the league last season (22%) with 55 of them producing at a 0.5 pace or better (11%). Those numbers are heavily skewed towards the top of the draft and drop quickly past the lottery.

 

                                       min 40 games played      0.5 pace or better 
Lottery pick                               79%                              59% 
mid-1st to mid-2nd                   31%                              20% 
mid-2nd and beyond                15%                               4%

Overall                                       22%                              11%

 

I don't see them wanting to make that gamble with how long it takes to develop draft picks and the timeline before Horvat, Boeser are UFAs.  It would take for ages to build through the draft and the sheer volume of picks needed to find players makes it unrealistic with the contract limit and draftees generally under control for 2 years.

 

How long for a player taken in the 2nd round or later in this upcoming draft to become a contributing player.  Gaunce/Leipsic (draft+7) were drafted just 1 year after Baer/Granlund and have yet to show they can be regulars let alone overtake them.  Goldobin and Virtanen are in their draft+5 and they were 1st round picks.

 

 

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20 minutes ago, RogersTowell said:

Avoiding the emotional roller coaster should be drilled into the heads of every professional athlete.  Fer chrissakes, they've been taught about it since they were kids.  I coach high school sports and the main thing I teach kids other than the skills themselves is how to maintain emotional balance.  Don't get too excited when you score.  Don't get too upset when you get beat.  Think about the play and think about how it went well and picture what would work better next time.  Visualisation is key.

 

Saying that the 2011 team didn't have emotional toughness is a bit of a lame argument.  The only thing they could have had a bit more of was physical pushback, but even that would backfire due to the double rulebook in place in the NHL.  The Bruins took liberties and weren't penalized.  The Canucks (Rome) got suspended for clean hits.  With more pushback in 94, we still ended up a goal short.  In both years, our star players were hacked, whacked and in pretty rough shape by the end of the playoff run.  The fact that many of them were still playing and playing well is a testament to their mental toughness.

 

For the current team, I say let it continue organically.  Draft at whatever position we end up in (my guess is we finish between 14th and 24th and I've said it since September.)  We could probably sell a couple of assets at the trade deadline.  We've passed the stage of having to play AHLers on our starting roster and no depth to call up for injuries.  If we're out of a playoff spot by the trade deadline, maybe trade one D and one or two forwards that are surplus to needs and easily replaced by someone maturing in Utica next year.  Don't make too big a change of direction, however, because things are coming along very very nicely thanks to Jim Benning and company.  Pettersson is one of the best players in the league if his first 9 games are anything to go by (up with Matthews, Crosby, Malkin, McDavid and Ovechkin).  Boeser, when healthy, is up there with Panarin or Kane.  Bo is one of the best two way forwards out there with Bergeron potential.  It's likely that we see Quinn Hughes next year.  While it's great to dream of getting his brother Jack too, it's not a likely scenario.  The team is improving.  Guys like Leipsic are now fillers rather than top 6 like last year.  Our PK when the team is healthy is one of the best in the league.  Our goaltending is still not consistent, but it's showing flashes of brilliance at least.

Ok how about I just state FACTS then. The Twins, who were main point producers both 5 on 5 AND the PP performed BELOW their standards for both regular season and the playoffs for that SCF. They picked a bad time to do this by the way. The PP went something like 3 for 32. The Bruins DID get their penalties.

Linden, with 2 broken ribs, scored 2 goals in game 7. Bure I think had like 8 points for the 7 game series in 94'.

Daniel I think had 4 points for the series and I think Hank only had 1 point.

So when you say "mental and emotional toughness" do you really think these players were all equal? The numbers speak for themselves.

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Your op was actually quite good but you lost me at your criticism of OJ not being on the team yet and Hughes being too small for the playoffs.

OJ was getting over surgery this summer   and we could be seeing him later this season. 

Hughes won’t have to be a crease clearing defenseman in the playoffs. His role will be on the pp and in making crisp breakout passes to the forwards, as well as joining the rush. He won’t be the only smaller guy out there filling that role in the NHL.

He’s a smart player who will be an impact player in the NHL.

The kid is not even out of college yet and you want to write him off?

 

 

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1 hour ago, EdgarM said:

Ok how about I just state FACTS then. The Twins, who were main point producers both 5 on 5 AND the PP performed BELOW their standards for both regular season and the playoffs for that SCF. They picked a bad time to do this by the way. The PP went something like 3 for 32. The Bruins DID get their penalties.

Linden, with 2 broken ribs, scored 2 goals in game 7. Bure I think had like 8 points for the 7 game series in 94'.

Daniel I think had 4 points for the series and I think Hank only had 1 point.

So when you say "mental and emotional toughness" do you really think these players were all equal? The numbers speak for themselves.

Nobody scored in the finals, Kesler was a ghost or did you conveniently forget that part... 

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On 2018-11-03 at 1:56 PM, Rob_Zepp said:

My guess is until TDL to be honest.   He seems hungry for it which is excellent but right now, the dominant minutes and all situation deployment won't happen in NHL and having that under his belt before he arrives is what I think they are looking for.   I think he could easily play right now in NHL but I think he will be a better player if he does another 40 to 50 games in the AHL.

The Guardian will be crushed by this news. According to him the OJ pick is a fail.   

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1 minute ago, EdgarM said:

Oh was he on the #1 line or was he the leading point getter on the team? I must have missed that. :lol:

When an entire team stops scoring like that the blame falls, falls beyond just 2 players and it’s utter stupidity to think otherwise. 

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4 minutes ago, canuck73_3 said:

When an entire team stops scoring like that the blame falls, falls beyond just 2 players and it’s utter stupidity to think otherwise. 

Yeah who in their right mind would have asked them to score a few goals at that time in their career , what a silly thing to ask. :lol:

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1 minute ago, canuck73_3 said:

I love it when people with no understanding of a team game blame 1 or 2 players for a lack of team scoring. :lol:

So for those game that we were shutout, including the final, who on the team was responsible for those losses, Luongo?:rolleyes:

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9 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

Yeah who in their right mind would have asked them to score a few goals at that time in their career , what a silly thing to ask. :lol:

It's easy to shut down a top line when no other line is scoring. Especially when you have a selke winning shutdown centre and a norris trophy winning defenseman. You're clueless to a team game concept and your hatred for the Sedins is showing again. 

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2 minutes ago, canuck73_3 said:

It's easy to shut down a top line when no other line is scoring. Especially when you have a selke winning shutdown centre and a norris trophy winnjng defenseman. You're clueless to a team game concept and your hatred for the Sedins is showing again. 

SHUTDOWN for 7 games?

A "team game concept" involves EVERYONE playing their part. Penalty killers kill penalties, goalies prevent goals scored on them and point producers produce points. Do I have it right so far? So your beloved Sedins had no other responsibility but to score goals both 5 on 5 and on the #1 PP. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN!

They had 5 points between the 2 of them and even if they were just performing at normal standards they should have had around 14 points between them. Bure ,on the other hand, had 8 points in 94' by himself.

I don't hate them they are just not my favorite Canucks. If they brought us a Cup, they would be my heroes.::D

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