Speculation: 2018 Off-Season: We fell short again... now what do we do?

[DMB06]

We've blown 3-2 ECF leads two of the last three years. We also blew a 2-1 lead against Chicago in the Finals. We, realistically, should have at least two Finals appearances and one championship since 2015. Our top players don't play like top players in crucial games, maybe it's time SY got creative and made a blockbuster trade this offseason. I don't even know what stars would be available if we decided to package Stamkos with picks/other players, but something needs to be done. Our core just doesn't get it done when the games matter most, that's proven and it's time for a change.

 

[DaBolts]

After sobering up, getting rid of my hangover, and being depressed all day, here is what we do:

Nothing.

In Yzerman we trust.

 

[Todd1a]

Just being honest, this isn't a rhetoric question. Does anybody ever remember Cooper taking responsibility for anything? He throws a lot of blame on his players (justifiable at times), seems to blame destiny in this case. Does he ever say, "I wasn't good enough" or "that's on me".

No cooper does not and flat out cooper and his players both were not good enough

 

[Machinehead]

If Gourde hits -quite literally- a wide open net, this could have been a different game.

Not blaming him of course, but sometimes it's just that simple. Such is hockey.

 

[Machinehead]

that MSL trade was one of the worst trades ever for the Rangers.

You lie

 

[Stammertime91]

Not like being a favorite wins you a cup but I doubt we are many people's favorite going forward. This roster uninjured underachieved this postseason. We are definitely in Sharks territory now sadly. I hardly even noticed the Sharks made the playoffs this year until it started. My eyes just skip past their logo as I immediately think "nope - not winning." That's almost a mirror image of what we've become. Silver lining is that we at least have one cup but I can't imagine people look at us with regard like they've done (and even then people doubted us in 2015 and 2016) in the past.

Not to be ridiculous as we are a successful team the last 4-5 years but the ultimate prize of "getting it done" has to be a bit of humor to most people's ears going forward.

 

[Lindberg Cheese]

Move to Orlando?

 

[These Are The Days]

This whole thing just pisses me off more and more as time goes by. I'm borderline on Coop getting fired despite that he does not deserve to. I don't think he had the horses to adjust in the most ideal fashion but it does not change the fact that somehow he can't get our best players engaged to put the puck on net. Kucherov in particular was AWOL. Coop needs to screaming, lecturing these guys to go out there and even somewhat attempt to score and create rebounds up front. For once in your damn life get into someone's head, figure out what makes them tick and make them go out there with the same conviction as Ovechkin. No mistake, I find it pathetic that we need a coach to sufficiently motivate our players this late in the playoffs but if Cooper didn't know that by now then it's sad that it can be so obvious to everyone else but him. Your best HAVE TO be your best and they were not. I'd like to believe there is more he could have done with that than any other gameplan he wanted to implement.

Shit piss damn f*** hell and fart

 

[Stammertime91]

This whole thing just pisses me off more and more as time goes by. I'm borderline on Coop getting fired despite that he does not deserve to. I don't think he had the horses to adjust in the most ideal fashion but it does not change the fact that somehow he can't get our best players engaged to put the puck on net. Kucherov in particular was AWOL. Coop needs to screaming, lecturing these guys to go out there and even somewhat attempt to score and create rebounds up front. For once in your damn life get into someone's head, figure out what makes them tick and make them go out there with the same conviction as Ovechkin. No mistake, I find it pathetic that we need a coach to sufficiently motivate our players but if Cooper didn't know that by now then it's sad that it can be so obvious to everyone else but him.

**** piss damn **** hell and fart

What? Who the flying f*** does he need then?

His defense is Hedman, Sergachev, Stralman, McDonagh, Girardi and Coburn. He had the #1 offense. Even being smaller, we could have put up a better fight against them.

Mike Sullivan took over and had Daley, Dumoulin, Letang, Cole, Maata, Lovejoy and Schultz. That's nothing to ride home about. They got it done. They got the puck out, the got shots on net and none of them are on par with Hedman. I'd say none are even as good as McDonagh (When he isn't huffing paint), and then Stralman, Sergachev, Coburn and Girardi is no slouch of a remaining 4/6 defenseman. Sullivan in 2017 had Schultz, Cole, Hainsey, Maata, Dumoulin, Daley and Ruhwedel. He didnt even have Letang at hus disposal. Vastly inferior defense that got the job done.

Not to mention him having Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Gourde, Johnson, Miller, Palat, etc on his team up front. In comparison to Mike Sullivan and Gerard Gallant, Jon Cooper is out of his league. There's no excuse for what happened this season. Personnel is more than enough. Sure the Caps were great, but we got smoked and looked pedestrian all series bar 3 periods. I don't know what you think he needs. He need Karlsson, Tavares, etc in order to get it done?

 

[These Are The Days]

What? Who the flying **** does he need then?

His defense is Hedman, Sergachev, Stralman, McDonagh, Girardi and Coburn. He had the #1 offense. Even being smaller, we could have put up a better fight against them.

Mike Sullivan took over and had Daley, Dumoulin, Letang, Cole, Maata, Lovejoy and Schultz. That's nothing to ride home about. They got it done. They got the puck out, the got shots on net and none of them are on par with Hedman. I'd say none are even as good as McDonagh (When he isn't huffing paint), and then Stralman, Sergachev, Coburn and Girardi is no slouch of a remaining 4/6 defenseman. Sullivan in 2017 had Schultz, Cole, Hainsey, Maata, Dumoulin, Daley and Ruhwedel. He didnt even have Letang at hus disposal. Vastly inferior defense that got the job done.

Not to mention him having Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Gourde, Johnson, Miller, Palat, etc on his team up front. In comparison to Mike Sullivan and Gerard Gallant, Jon Cooper is out of his league. There's no excuse for what happened this season. Personnel is more than enough. Sure the Caps were great, but we got smoked and looked pedestrian all series bar 3 periods. I don't know what you think he needs. He need Karlsson, Tavares, etc in order to get it done?

Long story short the Penguins D can actually shoot the puck. If ours actually could there would have been zero need to play a forward high in order to generate shot attempts. Unless you're asking the likes of Stralman, Girardi and Coburn to stand perfectly still on the blue line -or better yet a few feet out, you are asking a miracle. The only players who can put a puck through traffic are a rookie who isn't ready for 20+ minutes and a Norris caliber defender who shoots wide 9 times out of 10. McDonagh is too hit or miss to be effective. It starts with shots on net and in the meantime. It HAS to be the defensemen that shoot or at least that is the ideal plan. Otherwise you are assigning forwards to take over the backcheck. If you endorse running that risk then you have a much bolder philosophy than I do. But as we all know, defensemen are not the only players who can shoot. That is why I am so pissed.

 

[GOAT AINEC]

Maybe the Lightning should stop trading for all the Rangers players.

Rangers and Lightning have combined for 4 ECF losses (shutout in game 7 in 2 of them) and 2 SCF losses since 2011.

My goodness..

 

[These Are The Days]

To directly answer your question: who does he need? Give me any moron who can move his feet to open a shooting lane and then put the puck through traffic. You're mistaking star power for a fundamental hockey skill It's not a super power... Nikita freaking Nesterov could do it and he even scored a few goals long long shots. Put a big body (lol who is the tallest forward we have btw? Miller or Stamkos at about 6 feet even?) in front of the net and someone who can scoop up the rebound and suddenly we've solved the Rubic's cube of a fundamental zone structure. I'm not trying to say Nesterov himself could have won the game either. I'm just saying getting the puck on net would have. I'm a purist who believes that is a task best left to the defense. Let the be the first ones back and let the forwards who are paid to score work down low.

 

[Stammertime91]

Long story short the Penguins D can actually shoot the puck. If ours actually could there would have been zero need to play a forward high in order to generate shot attempts. Unless you're asking the likes of Stralman, Girardi and Coburn to stand perfectly still on the blue line -or better yet a few feet out, you are asking a miracle. The only players who can put a puck through traffic are a rookie who isn't ready for 20+ minutes and a Norris caliber defender who shoots wide 9 times out of 10. McDonagh is too hit or miss to be effective. It starts with shots on net and in the meantime. It HAS to be the defensemen that shoot or at least that is the ideal plan. Otherwise you are assigning forwards to take over the backcheck. If you endorse running that risk then you have a much bolder philosophy than I do. But as we all know, defensemen are not the only players who can shoot. That is why I am so pissed.

Stralman is perfectly capable of shooting the puck. So is Hedman when he can hit the net. Girardi did well early in the season and McDonagh can get pucks through as well. Sergachev is probably the best and Coburn isn't exactly a tire fire back there. I understand they aren't the greatest offensive bunch on the blue line at getting shots on net, but that's not really our style. Pens did it with Schultz looking like Karlsson some games and you had Daley, Dumoulin, Cole, etc all capable of doing it as well. Not exactly 10-15 goal scoring offensive defensemans either. The breakdown is that there's no stressing get pucks on net from the back end. Every time we got it, we hesitated and threw it down low or to Beagles shin pads. Again, we had the personnel. Whatever Cooper does and doesn't do resulted in an embarassing series where Vasy made it go 7.

There's zero reason to even have Rick Bowness right now and there's little reason to stick with a guy that couldn't get one player on the best offensive team to put one goal past Holtby in 8 consecutive periods. Players didn't hustle or perform isn't on Cooper. The lack of fire, the same soft dump and no retriever for 7 games is on Cooper. You lay out a system and make players buy in for a minimum 98 games in order to win a cup. We played 99 games this year - the last 7 were 7 to forget.

 

[Stammertime91]

A Jon Cooper team is like going to an opera. Watching Trotz this year, Gallant and even Sullivan is like attending a heavy metal concert. Quite the difference.

 

[These Are The Days]

Stralman is perfectly capable of shooting the puck. So is Hedman when he can hit the net. Girardi did well early in the season and McDonagh can get pucks through as well. Sergachev is probably the best and Coburn isn't exactly a tire fire back there. I understand they aren't the greatest offensive bunch on the blue line at getting shots on net, but that's not really our style. Pens did it with Schultz looking like Karlsson some games and you had Daley, Dumoulin, Cole, etc all capable of doing it as well. Not exactly 10-15 goal scoring offensive defensemans either. The breakdown is that there's no stressing get pucks on net from the back end. Every time we got it, we hesitated and threw it down low or to Beagles shin pads. Again, we had the personnel. Whatever Cooper does and doesn't do resulted in an embarassing series where Vasy made it go 7.

There's zero reason to even have Rick Bowness right now and there's little reason to stick with a guy that couldn't get one player on the best offensive team to put one goal past Holtby in 8 consecutive periods. Players didn't hustle or perform isn't on Cooper. The lack of fire, the same soft dump and no retriever for 7 games is on Cooper. You lay out a system and make players buy in for a minimum 98 games in order to win a cup. We played 99 games this year - the last 7 were 7 to forget.

Stralman capable of shooting the puck? I know what you mean by that and while true, I know you haven't forgotten how bad he was for all those years on the power play. He is probably the last player I want touching the puck near the blue line. We can't afford to let him stand perfectly still and try to shoot. He has poor lateral movement with the puck at best, forward on the other hand? Yeah different story. But you can't afford to pinch him in for those situations or have him stand still. Stralman would have to move, move, move and he is horrible at it. He fumbles the puck so much that the play dies on his stick regularly.

But I do agree with you that this is not our style. That's exactly why I'm not overly mad at Cooper putting a forward up high and why I would say we didn't have ideal personnel to adjust. Who is our tallest forward to screen Holtby? Who is physical enough to outduel Orpik? These are glaring questions the players have to answer. We are what we are.... a team that is undersized but can play with some speed and has great playmaking ability. We're a team backstopped by arguably the best young talent in the game and a defense that is decent at defending but not very good at shooting it. I hate to say it but the whole thing just screams recipe for failure against the system Trotz was running. But if I'm gonna be pissed at Coop it's that our best player in Kucherov want AWOL again late in the series. It doesn't HAVE TO be the D that shoot the puck. Nothing is stopping Kucherov from cranking a shot 20 feet away like Ovechkin did 62 seconds in for a goal. Get in his head and harass him until he starts doing it

late edit: agreed about Bowness. Fire him

 

[Stammertime91]

Stralman capable of shooting the puck? I know what you mean by that and while true, I know you haven't forgotten how bad he was for all those years on the power play. He is probably the last player I want touching the puck near the blue line. We can't afford to let him stand perfectly still and try to shoot. He has poor lateral movement with the puck at best, forward on the other hand? Yeah different story. But you can't afford to pinch him in for those situations or have him stand still. Stralman would have to move, move, move and he is horrible at it. He fumbles the puck so much that the play dies on his stick regularly.

But I do agree with you that this is not our style. That's exactly why I'm not overly mad at Cooper putting a forward up high and why I would say we didn't have ideal personnel to adjust. Who is our tallest forward to screen Holtby? Who is physical enough to outduel Orpik? These are glaring questions the players have to answer. We are what we are.... a team that is undersized but can play with some speed and has great playmaking ability. We're a team backstopped by arguably the best young talent in the game and a defense that is decent at defending but not very good at shooting it. I hate to say it but the whole thing just screams recipe for failure against the system Trotz was running. But if I'm gonna be pissed at Coop it's that our best player in Kucherov want AWOL again late in the series. It doesn't HAVE TO be the D that shoot the puck. Nothing is stopping Kucherov from cranking a shot 20 feet away like Ovechkin did 62 seconds in for a goal. Get in his head and harass him until he starts doing it

late edit: agreed about Bowness. Fire him

Well sure about Stralman but he wouldn't be running a powerplay. A system stressing to get pucks on net with forwards down low would have been better than what we saw. I'd say our defenseman can definitely get pucks on net but they dont. Instead they look around for an open man so we can attempt to zing a cross ice pass through 4 sticks, 8 legs and hope somebody can hit a one timer. It's atrocious. Pucks were flying off Holtby last night (Vegas is gonna love that) and there was nobody within 15 to 20 feet to get them. The size factor is true. We are just too small. Damn good, but too small when it comes playoffs.

Forwards not shooting the puck this round was disheartening. Every team snipes us, the Palat snipe was a perfect example of:

SHOOT THE PUCK

We went so long in each game it seemed without registering shots.

 

[Todd1a]

We need to make some changes and get bigger up front I’m not saying get rid of every small player we just need more balance up front. J.T. Miller is going to be interesting what we do with him this summer do we resign him for a one year deal ? Do we resign him long term 5-6 years ? Or do we trade him for a draft pick and prospect let another club pay him ? Then in fa try to get a guy like Patrick marron?

 

[Five Alarm Fire]

I think I can pinpoint our possession problems in the series to one common sequence.

• Being stuck in our own zone. We did a good job of keeping the Caps to the outside, I actually like the way we suppressed their high-danger scoring chances. The problem? Sacrificing possession to keep them on the perimeter. Lack of aggressive defensive pressure also hurt our penalty kill all year.
• The fatigue that resulted from being on defense for so long limited our ability to properly forecheck. We attempted to match their 1-4 zone with dump and chase, but all we were doing was dumping and skating to the bench or not skating hard enough. Even worse, we were icing the puck a lot. Our best entries came in Game 7 when we realized that their collapse freed up room for the trailing player to get an opportunity.
• This strategy also limited our transition game, which is something we absolutely SHOULD utilize with all of our speedy forwards.

TLDR: The same habits in our own zone that has hurt our penalty kill all year failed us 5v5.

From this, I think a coaching change is justified. Either change of strategy or change of personnel. Personally, I'd like to get another voice in and get rid of Bowness. Cooper showed he could adjust last summer, perhaps we see another adjustment over the course of this offseason. I don't have the high-level hockey experience to come up with a solution for how we're supposed to play in our own zone, but there should be someone out there who can.

Other contributions to our fatigue was the sheer size difference. We simply don't have the personnel to out-hit teams built like Washington. I think this is why Cooper played our 4th line so much, it was the only line who could match the physicality (well, at least 2/3rds of the line could). I think the only reason this wasn't a problem vs Boston is because of the speed difference. I was surprised with the speed of some guys on their bottom six.

Finally, in the playoffs, the finesse game is easily neutralized as the refs put their whistles away. That's probably one of the biggest reasons we were so dominant in the regular season (and why goal scoring was up so much in general). It's cliche, but in the playoffs we need to throw more pucks on net, and it's something we only really started doing in Game 7.

(disclaimer: I don't intend on ignoring the dog-shit performances of some of our players. Obviously the effort level was embarrassing and the mental make-up of this team needs to be addressed)

 

[Todd1a]

Bring in Thomas Vanek on a one year deal finally so Boston or Toronto don’t pick him up

 

[T REX]

It was Cup or bust for me. So I look at this year as a failure especially after that hot start we had.

caps switch>bolts switch

 

[PhysicalGraffiti]

lol I knew what your number 1 was going to be.

At least I'm consistent lol. My hatred will never change

I half-agree. I love the logo, hate the uniforms.

We're confirmed to be getting a third jersey next season, and the survey they put out last summer leads me to speculate that we're getting a throwback third. If people buy that uniform, we could see changes to the primaries.

I just feel the logo is so weak and lacks any depth. It's like they wanted to find the most generic lightning bolt they could find and steal a bit of the Electric Brand logo. This is a 90's team, the uniform and logo don't need to make us look like an original 6 team. I miss having something unique and something awesome to go with out cool nickname to be proud of. I'd love to be able to buy gear for my team, but I refuse to purchase this crap.

 

[PhysicalGraffiti]

It was Cup or bust for me. So I look at this year as a failure especially after that hot start we had.

caps switch>bolts switch

Totally agree. You don't have that kind of year without expectations to win it all. Anything less is a failure. I get that the motivation is similar each year and the goal is the Cup, but being a Sabres fan that would insane to wish for. We had reasonable expectations after seeing what they could do.

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

It was Cup or bust for me. So I look at this year as a failure especially after that hot start we had.

caps switch>bolts switch

Not sure how anyone can look at this any other way, really.

 

[Todd1a]

It was Cup or bust for me. So I look at this year as a failure especially after that hot start we had.

caps switch>bolts switch

The biggest disappointment is that this was probably the healthiest we have been in a eastern conference finals? Off course guys are banged up but we had all our players playing every game . Will that happen next season probably not

 

[Stammertime91]

Some really damning stats:

Miller had 2 goals in 17 games after having 10 in 19 regular season games. Out of his two goals, one was at even strength.


Our blue line had a combined 6 goals across 17 games. Two from Sergachev and two from Girardi - one which was an OT GWG. Girardi scored more than McDonagh (and Hedman - combined)

The players who played top 6 minutes for the majority of the post season were all a minus. Recall 2015 where TKO was absurdly high at like what, +20? Kucherov and Point were both -6.

Stamkos 6 out of 7 goals were on the powerplay.

Our leading goal scorer even strength was Ondrej Palat with 6. Kucherov had 5. Yanni Gourde did not score a single goal 5v5 in 17 games.

Chris Kunitz had one point.

Morrow and Kunitz have been two terrible signings when it comes to postseason performances.