Speculation: 2023-2024 General Lightning Discussion - Part 2

[DFC]

Why would Calgary take on someone with a broken leg?

Because he's signed long-term and Calgary isn't making the playoffs this year anyway.

 

[ccman68]

"Roster player(s)" is a big thing. That's where most of the value would come, you would think. It's hard for me to believe we would part with Cirelli. Paul++?

roster player usually doesn’t mean anyone all that good. we traded foote for jeannot, raddysh and katchouk for hagel, joseph for paul and namestnikov for mcdonagh. so probably like sheary, chaffee or perbix

 

[Sky04]

Why would Calgary take on someone with a broken leg?

Do you think they're competing this year?

They've been looking for an offensive defenseman since Giordano left.

 

[DFC]

roster player usually doesn’t mean anyone all that good. we traded foote for jeannot, raddysh and katchouk for hagel, joseph for paul and namestnikov for mcdonagh. so probably like sheary, chaffee or perbix

These circumstances seem a lot different. An $8m defenseman.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

im willing to send them our beloved #2 RW (only behind kucherov, the best RW in the league) mitchell chaffee who is, a uhh, roster player.

 

[Lightning1995]

I think the roster player will be something like Lilliberg and Perbix or Crozier.

 

[Outl4w]

If only we could stop placing the blame for this team's poor performance on a third/fourth line winger and on the five high priced yet vastly underperforming star players taking up so much of the salary CAP space as we should.
Kuch get the obvious exception as he and he alone of the core six is even remotely meeting (in his case exceeding) expectations.
For a group that largely says draft picks are not as important as helping win now, some folks sure do seem to have a fixation on them with one comment and be willing to get rid of them in another.

Three core players have earned their check for the season. 1) Kuch 2) Hagel 3) Hedman
Debatable
Point
Paul
The rest of the overpriced core players are underproducing for their salary.

Vegas gets Mantha at 50% retained for a 2nd and 4th round pick. We paid for more Jeannot. I wish we kept those picks for mantha instead of Jeannot. Mantha is a top 6 power forward with a scoring touch. He isn't perfect but would help our top 6 and skill position. Mantha only counts as 2.75 million against the cap for Vegas ideally making more or less the same as Jeannot. Too bad we didn't offer Jeannot, a roster player, and a sheary dump instead of retainment with picks.

 

[RussianGuyovich]

mantha has a 5.7 milly cap hit and will be expecting a raise next season. i dont expect vegas to keep him longer than the post season.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

I think the roster player will be something like Lilliberg and Perbix or Crozier.

Crozier, Calgary native, I would guess they would love him for on ice play and hometown reasons. Would prefer to give up Perbix though.

 

[HoseEmDown]

mantha has a 5.7 milly cap hit and will be expecting a raise next season. i dont expect vegas to keep him longer than the post season.

He also sucked last year and is riding an extremely high shooting % this year. He's also soft as shit for someone his size. I'm taking Jeannot every time over him.

 

[Flat Ronnie]

The constant whining about Jeannot is insufferable at this point. Even when the conversation isn't about him lol

Let it go

 

[LightningStrikes]

 

[The Gongshow]

The constant whining about Jeannot is insufferable at this point. Even when the conversation isn't about him lol

Let it go

Let it go like all those picks JBB let go of for him

 

[JoVel]

Body maintenance = don't want him to get injured before he's traded?

 

[VinikToWinIt]

Looking at our left side kind of reaffirms that Hanifin is a necessity for this year. Not that it's a certainty that we go far with him, but more in the sense that it's a certainty we don't without him. And it seems like phoning in a year with an aging group is a mistake, no matter how mediocre we look at this year. If Vasy can get hot, you just never know.

JBB saw how far 3 studs on the left can take you with Hedman, Mac, and Sergachev. I wouldn't be surprised if he's targeting a long term outlook of Hedman, Hanifin, and Sergachev, but it's tough to make that kind of money work on defense without losing some real talent up front.

It'll be interesting to see what he prioritizes. Trading Sergachev is best for this year only, but our performance thus far gives me pause if we don't think Hanifin is the better defenseman outright. Trade offense and it almost feels like we'll need to swing another trade to replace what we lost at a slight downgrade. The futures are precariously low, and no guarantee that Calgary will have any interest in our prospect pool.

Let's see what JBB has up his sleeve.

 

[These Are The Days]

The amount of money tied up into our 4 primary defenders and Vasilevskiy is going to be absolutely crackers if this sign and trade gets done. I say this as Jon Cooper's most vocal supporter. If the Lightning come out next season playing like this again, he is done. This team has about as much pep and zest as that can of coke you didn't finish but put in the fridge and forgot about. Now it's been 8 days and it's like "Oh God this thing is gonna be gross"

There is gonna be too much cost for a team barely holding onto a playoff spot being lethargic the entire season. And suddenly BUTTHESWITCHTHO!! is supposed to just magically fix everything after coasting along for 6 months, indulging in every last lazy bad habit

 

[Flat Ronnie]

The amount of money tied up into our 4 primary defenders and Vasilevskiy is going to be absolutely crackers if this sign and trade gets done. I say this as Jon Cooper's most vocal supporter. If the Lightning come out next season playing like this again, he is done. This team has about as much pep and zest as that can of coke you didn't finish but put in the fridge and forgot about. Now it's been 8 days and it's like "Oh God this thing is gonna be gross"

There is gonna be too much cost for a team barely holding onto a playoff spot being lethargic the entire season. And suddenly BUTTHESWITCHTHO!! is supposed to just magically fix everything after coasting along for 6 months, indulging in every last lazy bad habit

They don't have the talent to play the defensive system that helped them win the cups. With Hanifin they probably feel they can implement and execute that system again. It should take the pressure off the guys up front, but they DO NOT want to get into Nashville territory.

Also, we need to stop expecting the team will ever be as talented and deep as they were in the cup years. That kinda shit comes around once every 20 years at best.

 

[These Are The Days]

They don't have the talent to play the defensive system that helped them win the cups. With Hanifin they probably feel they can implement and execute that system again. It should take the pressure off the guys up front, but they DO NOT want to get into Nashville territory.

Also, we need to stop expecting the team will ever be as talented and deep as they were in the cup years. That kinda shit comes around once every 20 years at best.

This is not to criticize Cooper here. But Stamkos, Kucherov, Point, Hedman and Vasy are once every 40 years. The way the Lightning won a Cup isn't the only way to do it. We're going on 4 years of the team playing rope-a-dope at 5 on 5 and saying "Oh we're up a goal. That's good. 3-1-1 forecheck EVERY SHIFT. EVERY TIME" and the ENTIRE league knows what we are doing at all times. This is by far the most predictable team in the league. I am not seeing us lose games because our plugs aren't up to snuff. A team goes up 2 goals and it feels like a death sentence because only Kucherov can produce a play that ends up in the other team's net.

The problem is that the team as a whole doesn't have enough motivation to roll "Death by structure" every second of 5 on 5 and the collective is so worried about defense they suck at it now. When this year is over its going to be time for Coop to change the recipe back to something along the lines of 2018 where we roll 2 scoring lines and focus on sheltering Vasy against his weaknesses

We rolled our way to our 1st SCF with Ryan Callahan and Val Filppula eating top 6 months and a pairing of Carle and Sustr. Our current offensive talent is 25x that lot. We lost pre 2020 series because our scoring dried up at the top. Our bottom 6 now is dog shit but it's not why we are losing

 

[Sky04]

Looking at our left side kind of reaffirms that Hanifin is a necessity for this year. Not that it's a certainty that we go far with him, but more in the sense that it's a certainty we don't without him. And it seems like phoning in a year with an aging group is a mistake, no matter how mediocre we look at this year. If Vasy can get hot, you just never know.

JBB saw how far 3 studs on the left can take you with Hedman, Mac, and Sergachev. I wouldn't be surprised if he's targeting a long term outlook of Hedman, Hanifin, and Sergachev, but it's tough to make that kind of money work on defense without losing some real talent up front.

It'll be interesting to see what he prioritizes. Trading Sergachev is best for this year only, but our performance thus far gives me pause if we don't think Hanifin is the better defenseman outright. Trade offense and it almost feels like we'll need to swing another trade to replace what we lost at a slight downgrade. The futures are precariously low, and no guarantee that Calgary will have any interest in our prospect pool.

Let's see what JBB has up his sleeve.

lol that doesn't work when all 3 of them are going to average 8M+.......we also had excellent depth up front during those years.

 

[Felonious Python]

 

[LTIR Trickery]

You actually believe that Cooper would be done next season? I don't buy it even slightly.

I'm curious to see zone exit statistics, anyone have any idea where I could find that? I'm out of the loop on fancy stats. I'm going to say though based on eye and smell tests that the bottom six is drastically worse at defensive zone exits and NZ transition play compared to the last 4-5 years. It doesn't matter how good your defenders are when forwards are incapable of both collecting and skating the puck out of the zone (let alone generating offense) which means turnovers, which means extended zone time, which means you put a magnifying glass over all the defenders on the team.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

You actually believe that Cooper would be done next season? I don't buy it even slightly.

Out in 4 or 5 in the playoffs (or even miss the playoffs) and then a 6-10-2 type start to next season, wouldn't be surprised

 

[These Are The Days]

You actually believe that Cooper would be done next season? I don't buy it even slightly.

It depends on this year. Say we clowned in 5 games this year after pulling teeth to get Hanifin and at mid point next year we go 18-23-2 with all that talent and blow 7 leads and lose in the process. At the very least the question of "Whats going on and how are you fixing it" is gonna come up

 

[The Gongshow]

It depends on this year. Say we clowned in 5 games this year after pulling teeth to get Hanifin and at mid point next year we go 18-23-2 with all that talent and blow 7 leads and lose in the process. At the very least the question of "Whats going on and how are you fixing it" is gonna come up

This year is a write off at this point. JBB might try for a push/spark to get them into the playoffs but the level of play from everyone isn't clicking this year. Hedman is having a good offensive year, kind if mid on the defense. Hagel is producing well, and Kuch is obviously in god mode. Stamkos could just be due to contract distraction stuff, I can almost guarantee that. Not sure what's up with Point and Vasy this year, specially Vasy.

Next year is when they have to tell the roster and coaching stuff enough of this coasting or lack of effort bullshit. One last ride, get your act together. If they still underperfom then they gotta shake things up with coaching staff, maybe of our big contracts are moved and maybe JBB is relieved of duties.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

This year is a write off at this point. JBB might try for a push/spark to get them into the playoffs but the level of play from everyone isn't clicking this year. Hedman is having a good offensive year, kind if mid on the defense. Hagel is producing well, and Kuch is obviously in god mode. Stamkos could just be due to contract distraction stuff, I can almost guarantee that. Not sure what's up with Point and Vasy this year, specially Vasy.

Next year is when they have to tell the roster and coaching stuff enough of this coasting or lack of effort bullshit. One last ride, get your act together. If they still underperfom then they gotta shake things up with coaching staff, maybe of our big contracts are moved and maybe JBB is relieved of duties.

Point has looked better/more engaged the last week or two, but yes he hasn't been great for most of it.