GDT: #1 Part 2 - Devils/Flyers blown leads galore!

[Eric Sachs]

It also depends on the shifts leading up to the penalty. Not defending Pete on that draw. It was boneheaded. Not going to make blanket statements about his decision making either though.

Pete almost always has zajac take those draws too. Was there some reason he couldn't put him out there? If not I guess he honestly figured there was so little time left nothing could happen. Bad move either way.

Zajac had one shift on the PK the entire game.. in the 3rd period. Henrique and Elias had two each.

And the shift prior to the penalty was Henrique's line. Zajac was on the bench. To Pete's defense, Gionta hadn't played since three minutes earlier when he was on the ice for the 1st PP goal Philly scored. Maybe he thought it worked so well last time and he was well rested.. let's try again?

There's one reason I can think of. The draw itself was Pejorative Slured.. no reasoning to defend that at all. Throughout the game, maybe they wanted to limit the TOI they gave to their top 3 lines on the PK so they can play more on ES. That, to me.. is an acceptable (yet wrong, especially after it didn't work the first two times) decision. Not sure why you have Salvador still getting 18 minutes TOI at ES though.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Salvador was good on the PK the last two years, but last night he was even bad in that area.

I'm willing to give him more PK time before crucifying him in that area, because he was good on it the last two years, unlike at even strength.

He was scary in game 1 though.

He was really bad. Honestly I'm not convinced he is actually healthy. He played with a bum hip for 3 months and it really showed. That tough guy mentality to play through crap is strong with him.

He is going to have lots and lots of maintainece days starting in November. I would almost count on it. That's when the kids rotation will change because they won't call up Heg if Sal is just "resting".

 

[Emperoreddy]

Zajac had one shift on the PK the entire game.. in the 3rd period. Henrique and Elias had two each.

And the shift prior to the penalty was Henrique's line. Zajac was on the bench. To Pete's defense, Gionta hadn't played since three minutes earlier when he was on the ice for the 1st PP goal Philly scored. Maybe he thought it worked so well last time and he was well rested.. let's try again?

There's one reason I can think of. The draw itself was Pejorative Slured.. no reasoning to defend that at all. Throughout the game, maybe they wanted to limit the TOI they gave to their top 3 lines on the PK so they can play more on ES. That, to me.. is an acceptable (yet wrong, especially after it didn't work the first two times) decision. Not sure why you have Salvador still getting 18 minutes TOI at ES though.

Well Zajac was definitely looked a bit bothered to me from the injury he got a couple days before so it's possible they were trying to limit tough minutes for him.

I think Greene missed a few practices with something too and that might of contributed to the wonky ice time ES.

Doesn't explain why uou don't habe Henrique take that draw but then like you said might of just figured no need to defend it I guess. Idk.

Only thing I can think of for Sal's ES time outside of Greene being out of sync is Pete was easing the kids into heavier minutes (though even that I don't think is true since they all played heavy preseason minutes.)

 

[Eric Sachs]

I'll be clear. I'm not advocating for Salvador to be moved or anything like that. I don't think there's an even an option for that.. nor do I necessarily think we should because having four youngsters is probably not ideal right now.

What I do advocate for is Deboer realizing that these marginal NHL players (Salvador, Gionta) are just that.. marginal NHL players. They shouldn't be played as excessively as they were or in the situations that they were.

Salvador should see 13-14 minutes of ES play a night with about 2 minutes of PK time. Free up the pairing so Salvador can get some PK time (hopefully better since he's not as tired) and Zidlicky can get tons of PP time.

Gionta should see almost exclusively ES time and almost exclusively offensive zone starts. He's horrendous at faceoffs and putting him out there in the defensive zone means we are basically giving the other team scoring chances.

 

[Hockey Sports Fan]

I honestly thing Salvador plays so many minutes because he's stuck in his defensive zone for 2 minutes at a time. Look at the shifts. He didn't get any more shifts than Greene, he was just on the ice longer.

I had that same thought the other night. It's easy to rack up ice time when you're always hemmed in. There was also a fair amount of PKs too.

 

[Devils Unseen Hand]

Salvador will be out before the back-to-back games. Larsson will be in for extended periods replacing him.

Should Greene or Zids go down, we'll then see Harrold back or maybe Helgeson. If Tootoo or Clowe gets hurt, we'll see Helgeson up as he's one of the few "tough guys" we have at out disposal. (They'll move Gelly to the fourth line to make room & rotate Gelly in for the PP on the D)

 

[Bologna 1]

sunny mehta needs to plop the analytics numbers for gionta and salvador right on pete's desk