Was just gonna say that. Guy has alot of hidden offensive potential. Wouldn't mind trying him in front of the net on the PP.
I wouldn't say Zadorov's offensive potential is necessarily "hidden". Heck, the guy scored twice as many goals as Quin last year. lol. He's got an absolute howitzer of a shot and he's been pretty clear through his entire career that he just loves to score goals.
So it's not really "hidden". It's just...inconsistent. Many teams have tried to bring this out of him over the years. But the reality is, he's been at his best when he plays more within himself...and just happens to have random games like today where he's totally feeling it. He's certainly got all the tools for it. He's just not always a guy you want gambling because some nights, he's not going to be "on" the same way and that's not great.
Proud of our leaders who stepped up at the end with Miller leading the front.
Zadorov with his best game as a Canuck. Suter, Garland, Blueger, PDG, Hughes, Myers, Demko were all solid.
I thought Juulsen and Hronek had a so-so game.
The bad
Cole needs load management, I’d sit him for a couple of games and perhaps rotate Woo/Freidman in. He needs some rest.
Lafferty has been very inconsistent the last 10 games. He’s not finishing his checks, he doesn’t seem to have his speed, and has a hard time moving the puck. Just needs to find his rythym.
This game showed Bains still has some work to do before he becomes a full time NHL’er. His reaction times are a step behind and as a result has cost the team some penalties. Great story though, and should be sent back down once Joshua is healthy. I like what I’m seeing from him.
Mikheyev - He needs to go. Feel for the guy, but he’s useless out there. I honestly don’t think he’s going to be around much longer. He’s gone before March 8th.
Totally agree with everything about this except for the Mikheyev thing. I still just don't think he's been as bad as people make it out to be. He's gone ice cold in terms of goal-scoring, but that's gonna happen when you have a ~20G Middle-6 Complementary Winger. Even if you toss them into a consistent Top-6 Role.
Even when he's not scoring, he still does a lot of the other things very well. Heck, he had some golden opportunities tonight too. Those will come when he plays the right way. But it's like Higgins or Hansen where...the finish just isn't always going to be there. 20G scorers are streaky by their nature. It's an indication that they've got a lot of ability to but probably not a lot of consistent finish. It doesn't mean that over an 82 game season they're gonna score a goal exactly once every 4th game. It means sometimes they'll score a few in some games and then will go cold and "whiff" for maybe even 10 games or whatever he's working on at other points. Then next week, he might score a couple more goals again. When he's contributing positively overall, that's still worth having.
Trying to get defensively responsible 20G scorers at the deadline tends to get more costly than it's probably worth to this team, when they already have one.
The only way that makes sense to me, is if they're bringing in a bona fide Top-6 30G sort of winger to replace him. Upgrading to that next, more consistent tier of offensive players without significantly downgrading the two-way ability and all the little things that Mikheyev does to help free his linemates up to try to make plays offensively.
In terms of the offseason? Yeah...there's gonna have to be some soul searching in a lot of areas trying to prioritize and sort out who they can afford to pay, who could be moved to make room and what is most important moving forward.
But in the meantime...major upgrade on Mikheyev or just keep him. And that major upgrade doesn't seem super likely. Supremely expensive time to be shopping for that if you can even get it.
