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oldnews

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Everything posted by oldnews

  1. Like Fantenburg did to Benn last year, Benn can do to Hamonic this year. But it's an ongoing competition - you have to continue to earn your minutes. Also - not sure about your source - but listening to "Flames fans" might not always lead you to the best decisions. How about they leave it to on ice performance here? Thus far, Benn would have the clear edge imo.
  2. Beagle, Sutter, MacEwen, Virtanen, Roussel are not 'weak' or inconsistent bottom six players. Wadr - it's the top 6 - particularly the top line - and Hughes- that have been getting beaten up on the defensive side of the game 5on5. Look at the 5on5 'possession' numbers and the goal differentials and it should be exceedingly clear. Gaudette is not a shutdown forward - that much is true - but with Miller back in the top 6, Horvat on the second, and those two veterans centering the bottom 6 - they don't necessarily need as much 'foundation', as desperately. At the same time - no, the they don't need to move Motte into the top 6 - he's arguably better used and more valuable where he is.
  3. these things don't tend to concern me. first - we don't know that he's healthy - he could have a flu, cold, whatever second - I always assume that Green has a lot of information we don't. Additionally - Benn has been playing somewhat unexpectedly well (relative to last regular season) - and Chatfield is entirely capable of holding down/platooning on a '3rd pairing' - so whatever the reasons, can't be bothered to question or argue with it. and if Juolevi is healthy - you make solid points as well - and there's also something to be said about the opportunity to coach him as he watches games - they can still work on his game when he's not in the lineup...
  4. I'm not sure I quite follow the point. But, if we're going to list Sedins, for example, as inherited - the same is true of Gillis - Gillis inherited a whole lot - and a whole lot more than Benning. Not even remotely close. Gillis inherited 2 Sedins Kesler Burrows Hansen Raymond Ohlund Edler Salo Bieksa Mitchell Luongo Schneider Gillis did a good job complementing the existing build. Hamhuis, Malhotra, Tanev, Higgins, Samuelsson, Ehrhoff, Torres types... Also made 'mistakes' - ie Ballard, renting Roy.. Drafting was poor/abysmal. Benning 'inherited' 33 yr old Sedins and Burrows, etc. But he also inherited a seriously Tortorella devalued lineup - a roster full of mostly veteran players coming off career worst seasons - many of them borderline unmoveable - or whose value would have to be 'rebuilt' before they can be used to retool. https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/teams/0000392014.html Have a look. 1 player in the top 13 scorers under the age of 27. Tanev was their second leading scorer under age 27 - he had 17 pts. Kassian was #1 under 27 - with 29 pts. 1 20 goal scorer there - Kesler (who gave a list of 2 - but brought a solid return imo). Anyhow - Gillis did a good job complementing the contending window. What was left can't be entirely 'blamed' on him - the Tortorella experiment only multiplied the complications of the following transition. Anyhow - I don't care to rehash everything that's been done in Benning's tenure - but any fair 'comparison' of Gillis and Benning needs to start from a realization of a completely apples and oranges set of circumstances. Gillis was a good GM for the stage he entered - Benning is a good GM for the one he entered (and in fairness to Benning, it is far more difficult to please a fanbase in his circumstances than the ones Gillis inherited. Burke/Nonis deserve a lot of credit in the core and 'foundation' of the contending teams as well.
  5. This doesn't make sense wadr. First, it's premature to cap a player's ceiling as you have, particularly a player that works as hard and has such a good skill foundation as Motte. Second, the idea that he wouldn't "look as good" against "top lines" is a contradiction/oblivious to who he already faces night in night out. Motte is a prinicipal penalty killer - an 'elite' one as you say - which is precisely facing 'top lines' - actually top pp units tend to be better than 'top lines' they are the hybrid of a team's most threatening offensive players. He plays hard minutes all the time 5 on 5 - as a principal shutdown forward - so the idea '5v5' doesn't hold water either - those are the players he is already counterpunching and producing against - up tilted ice - which when people truly think about it - is production in the hardest of roles for any player. Some people make the errroneous assumption that Horvat's is the 'real' matchup line - reductive in more than one sense. First - Horvat's is a dual role line - second, most/all opponents have a "top 6" - which means Horvat, even strictly in a matchup role, could only handle half the responsibility at best - and in the present NHL, many if not most teams look to have a 3rd scoring/secondary scoring line. If you're going to claim that he wouldn't look as good - imo the inverse is the truth - that if that were the case, it might be a result of not facing an opponent's "top line" - but instead facing an opponents top matchup/shutdown pairings and lines - but again, even that 'idea' has serious limits. While opposing coaches might tend to matchup particular units - against 'top lines' (assuming that opposing coach is a line matching coach -not all are) - the reality is that the ability to do so is still limited - particularly on the road - and in reality - most players face a range of opponent lines and pairings regardless of the intentions of each coach. One of the most meaningless - perhaps the most meaningless - and somewhat useless metrics - is the quality of competition metric - which pretends to assess the 'quality' of on ice opponents (and create an aggregate) while employing relatively elementary 'analytics'. An opponents 'quality' cannot be reduced to goal or shot differentials - it is nowhere near that simple - there are countless factors/elements to the game - and these kind of qoc metrics are hopelessly reductive/oversimplified. They have very strong production/"possession' biases - and generally result in the sandbagging of primarily defensive role players. Motte faces all kinds of "top lines" as it is - and he does so at a very weighted territorial disadvantage. Players like that - particularly younger ones - are actually your best bets to uptick - they are the ones whose production is generally deflated by deployment - and whose foundation of a defensive/two way game actually enables their offensive game - because it limits opposition possession. "Defense wins championships" is a truism in large part because it tends to have more continuity than offense - offense can come and go - true defensive engagement is and should be continuous. Even if Motte is not (perceived as) a high quality finisher (which would also not necessarily be an accurate assumption) - the possession advantage that high end defense brings is a mitigating/positive factor - and additionally, presumably when a player like him steps up in the lineup, it's alongside linemates whose strengths lean towards the offensive side of the game. Most people assume that stepping up makes a player 'look better' by virtue of their linemates (that depends, however, on the complete game - the 200ft game - because a highly talented offensive player that doesn't touch the puck enough - is not necesssarily such a (continuous) threat. It doesn't really hold water to assume that a player like Motte cannot emerge as a top 6. People in this market might remember the trajectories of Burrows, Hansen, Kesler types - who cut their teeth in bottom six roles before rising in the lineup - and whose 'bottom six' production would not appear to indicate a nascent 'top 6'. Those are the players you 'win with' imo. You can have a pair of Sedins/EP-Boeser and an Ehrhoff/Hughes - and be a bottomfeeder. Until you fill out your roster with 'quality' players of all types - two way middle six with players like these guys - fourth lines with Malhotra/Beagle types - hard minutes, pk specialists, high end faceoff guys - shutdown D like Tanev, Hamhuis....you're not really a well-balanced team - and not as likely to contend. For me it doesn't matter where Motte plays - because a 'bottom six' can be more valuable than a 'top 6' = a '3rd line' forward can be more valuable than a '2nd line' forward...
  6. If EP were a 5 speed, this is about 2nd gear.... Pretty good for a 2nd gear, though.
  7. Yeah they're producing, but the top line has been suspect without the puck again tonight.
  8. surprised to see Brown back in their lineup. he was brutal in the first game of this series. I guess Wolanin out didn't give them much choice
  9. it's funny how effective the drop back is and how much whining there has been about it on these boards...
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