Provost

This guy scored 22 goals in 49 games one season and has been solid offensively in stretches over his career. Kind of odd that he hasn't quite stuck anywhere. I wonder if someone will pick him up, the contract is right for some depth.

Bah

No better time to fix defence than next offseason. The expansion means there will be a lot of teams that can’t protect all the D they want, so would be willing to trade for relatively cheap instead of losing them for nothing. We can probably upgrade a couple of slots in that process.

If he has a great season he is probably looking at that kind of contract. a bad season probably starts with a 6 on a three year bridge.

Grabner on the 3rd line also means it doesn’t have to be sheltered so much and that could help the top two lines not have to play against the toughest competition ever shift. I am not saying he is an amazing player... there is a reason he isn’t signed yet. He would be cheap and actually plays the exact role we have a huge hole needing to fill.

Ya, the idea wasn’t to trade Jake for a 3rd line PKer. Jake simply has to move out to make roster and cap room to bring in a player for that spot who fits better. I think we could get a 2nd round pick or equivalent prospect for Jake or we could even package him with some cap dump.

So literally you agree with most of my post and then say it is making him a whipping boy? Jake has been bad defensively 5 on 5 so they aren’t likely to make him a PKer. The exact parts of your post about his usage are why we need to trade him. it also isn’t reasonable to put it all on the coaches.... they don’t tend to sit guys who can help them win. Green and his staff have been willing to give guys a chance, and Jake has had lots of chances... Thanks for (kind of) agreeing with me but managing to also sound like a jerk about it.

... and how does any player get 25 goals when not on the PP and playing 4th line minutes? Did you read my post before responding?

It is early but it still seems a big hole on our team is having reliable penalty killing forwards. I really don’t want us to have to resort to bringing Eriksson up for that role. He isn’t that good at it (just the best of bad options), and he needs to not get a sniff at the ice this season to pressure him to retire. Thankfully getting a 3rd line penalty killer isn’t as hard as trying to get a high skill guy. Grabner actually became a really high end PKer after he left us and he is sitting unsigned. He can also bring sole offence and that could complement Sutter/Beagle in a Pk pair where there is also a threat of a counter attack that the opposition has to worry about. There are probably a lot of other options out there as possibilities that wouldn’t cost a lot. To make space on the roster and under the cap, trading Jake seems like it needs to happen. He has some residual value after scoring 18 goals last season, but is almost certainly going to keep dropping down the roster, and that will get worse when Podkolzin arrives. Jake won’t become worth more in trade value after a season of playing at the bottom of the lineup or being benched in favour of rookies and fringe NHLers. That seems like the direction things are going yet again. He just isn’t cut out as a PKer and isn’t a fit on our top two lines so there just isn’t much of a role for him left. Nothing has led me to believe that Green will change his mind and suddenly be filled with trust playing Jake in a regular role ... and nothing that Jake has really done to force Green to change his mind. Even if you think Virtanen is going to blossom into a great player, it doesn’t seem at all likely that it will be here. Each year it has been the same dance between him and Green and it hasn’t yielded results. Just purely as asset management, trading him soon is likely the best bet to get the best return. If he follows up an 18 goal season with an 8 goal season (having spent most of the season on a 4th line), then he isn’t worth anything.

Hedman is one of the best skaters out there... that isn't the same league. Same with a guy like Pietrangelo... one of his key assets is his speed.

I am not saying it is the right or wrong decision to sit him... but if they do, they should just go ahead and pull the trigger to trade him. It hasn't been a fit for either side since the beginning and it would be better for both to move on. Jake has had Green as his coach for years, since the minors, and obviously the messaging isn't being heard and the coach doesn't know how to get what he needs out of the player. There will be teams who are quickly deciding they need to tweak their rosters as well, same as us. We can either swap projects or get some futures and sign a placeholder like Grabner for cheap. At some point this saga needs to be done. Cut the cord or stick it out and leave him in one spot in the lineup to figure it out. He hasn't shown he smart enough to play on the top line one night and the 3rd line another with entirely different expectations in each role. It makes him worse at both roles, he is the opposite of a guy like Hansen who was a swiss army knife.

Yes it has. In incredibly short order, the big bruising type of defencemean role has evaporated or become a marginal role. Listen to any of the hockey people talk and it has become all about speed now.

Damn it.... I was hoping they plugged in Baertschi or Bailye for an audition. We know what Eriksson brings (doesn't bring). Maybe they plan on bumping Hoglander up to the top line and making Bo's line a shutdown again. I don't know that it is necessary to change game plans though just because the best player on the planet beat us. Hoglander-Petterson-Boeser Pearson-Horvat-Eriksson Roussel-Gaudette-Virtanen Motte-Beagle-Sutter

It is a valid question.... lots of D men have completely become obsolete when the game spend up. Gudbranson is a great example... he went from being serviceable to being terrible. He didn't get worse, the rest of the league got faster and he didn't. There is every possibility that Tryamkin is downright awful and can't play in the NHL. The KHL is a slow league without a lot of pace. The thing we we have no idea if Tryamkin can play until he does. There is enough in the package there to absolutely give him a chance. If he can keep up, he is a unique type of player nobody else has.. like a Byfuglien was. He doesn't even have to be a top 4 guy to be valuable for us, especially since he is already our property. If we think we are going to have to get by some top heavy talent teams like Edmonton to make it to the Cup finals for the next several years, having a behemoth who can lean on them and wear them down over a series is a big piece of the puzzle. We saw how the Sedins wilted after enough Chara treatment, he was always just on top of them during play and after the whistle and wore them down. Not many players have more heart than the Sedins but by the end of that series you saw them pull up and dump the puck in to avoid being hit again by Chara rather than make plays in the offensive zone.

Just looking at about a 5-6 week stretch in the middle of the season when he went on a heater is really cherry picking things when compared with a huge sample size of rest of his career including the way the rest of his season and his playoffs went. There is a lot more than just scoring goals, especially if you are allowing just as many goals against and have a ton of defensive warts. In another post you mentioned that this year's playoffs was too small a sample size. You take out the same 5 week playoff length from that good statistical blip in the middle of the season where he scored most of his goals... and everything says this guy isn't really much of a player. Why do you disregard 5 years of play and give lots of weight to a particular 5 weeks? As for a long career because of scoring 18 goals. Baertschi scored as many goals and points in a season in as many games, the next year he was again on an even higher PPG pace than before and higher than Jake has ever had... and Baertschi ended up in the minors. One 18 goal scorer isn't even on the taxi squad and getting a chance. Over their NHL careers which are a similar number of games... Baertschi has outperformed Jake in basically every metric both offensively and defensively. One of them keeps getting chances and one isn't in the league. There isn't a double standard here, at least one that goes against Virtanen. The only double standard seems to be that former 1st round picks get a whole lot of opportunities. When players like Eriksson, Roussel, MacEwan, etc keep getting slotted into the lineup ahead of a guy... it is pretty reasonable to detect a lack of trust from the coaching staff. Maybe Virtanen "gets it" on a next stop in the league like Kassian did... but maybe not. Maybe he is just a dummy

Yep it is kind of stunning how different one guy can be from game to game. The coaches must get so annoyed. Like the first game he really looked like he was keeping up with the play mentally. He was in the right spot for defensive plays. The next night he looked like some random guy who had never played a hockey game before. I wonder if they are going to give someone else a try in that spot. Baertschi would likely be more effective and if he actually had a good stretch of a few games you could showcase him for a trade. Some team is going to realize they need some more secondary offence or that one of their prospects isn’t ready and they need another winger.

Ok... I can take back my last comment. He looks completely lost again.

Miller has been amazing for us... but anyone should do that deal. Miller had a career year, but they are called career years for a reason... he might not repeat it. Just the age difference and years of club control seals the deal. Even if Miller is better now, he won’t be soon... and we only have him under contract for a couple more years after this one.

As much as I ride Virtanen... he actually played well in a different way than he normally does when he has a good game. He was just pretty solid, made good defensive plays, and just seemed like he was following the game better. Maybe some of it is their defensive structure being simpler and easier for him to know where to be. I don’t remember many games when his play without the puck is how he stood out. If he can turn into a dependable high end 3rd liner who can just play like that every night while potting in 15-20 goals and 30-40 points a year... that makes a big difference to our fortunes. Maybe Hoglander taking the top 6 spot could be the best thing to happen to Jake. It makes it clear he doesn’t have to be a hero and do too much. Of course I still think he needs to show that over a long stretch of time before people believe he can do that.

Green has to get some credit for not only playing Hoglander but using a 5’9” guy as a net front. Those tips are going to go in sometimes.

The other two were named Sedin Not exactly “today’s” NHL but close enough

Wow... I know it is just the start and he is in mid season form compared to the rest of the guys... but he looked like a player out there in his first period of actual play. He was dishing the puck and showing his skill. Probably one of the most noticeable forwards on the team I thought. I will do my best to not get too excited, but if he can stay on that 2nd line (he doesn’t have a lot of competition) we could have another of the better rookies for the season.

Unfortunately it is a different deal for players who aren't signing their first contracts. They have to sign before Dec 1st (or whatever equivalent date this season) or aren't eligible to play for the rest of the season. Tryamkin could play here at the end of his season when he signed on his ELC, just as Podkolzin can... but not now that he isn't signing his first ELC. We don't really want to sign him now anyways as it means he would need to be protected in expansion whereas he doesn't now. If we can get him for a 2 year deal at reasonable money in the summer... that would be perfect for us. D will be at a little bit of a premium since Seattle will have stolen some from other teams.

Haha... that was a great smack down! My fault for assuming just the normal CDCer method of lecturing people without any actual experience to back it up. I don’t actually disagree with your post itself. In the army it was the same, guys in the same unit scrapped with each other fairly regularly and it rarely turned into anything serious.

The reference was posted in the Taxi Squad thread, players are subject to escrow and deferral regardless of whether they are on the taxi squad or in the AHL. That changed the decision process