If Vrana was still around he might be getting the Sprong treatment given Lavi's third line decisions and his general mentality. One can debate the merits of that and whether it's viable. It's possible they end up purging their two fastest finesse top sixers in Vrana and Kuznetsov for a coach whose shelf life may not last very long (and whose systematic approach with skilled players looks at least a bit questionable).
The bolded is a prescient point. Lavi's results don't get better over time. His best results are produced in the first 1-2 years with a team. If this is our Lavi bump, the future years might be ugly. Making roster decisions around who he's agreeing with in the locker room may prove to be a mistake in the long run.
Moreover, discipline is important. But the point is use discipline to improve results and develop players. It's not to alienate your players with it. I don't want to speculate too much about events we have scarce details on, but there are some flashbacks here to Lavi's time in Philadelphia, and him losing faith in core players there that went on to have success elsewhere.
Lavi should have been able to work with Kuzy and develop Vrana's play, rather than causing regression.
As for Mantha to me his 5-on-5 hockey IQ and anticipation remains better than his linemates most of the time. Mentally he seems a step ahead whereas for Backstrom much of the time it's just a slog these days. You'd like for Mantha to just take over with his size now and then but his playmaking is still valuable. His linemates often haven't had much to contribute, mainly due to lacking pace to open up ice to attack more dangerously. The price was rich but even as more of a cycler/playmaker and PP2 shooter the value is fine IMO. A lot of things could be better from an execution standpoint from the top-six to get in better positions to produce. He's had chances he needs to bury but at least he's getting them. I'm a lot more concerned with the core play from 8, 19, 74 and 92 regardless of whatever injuries they're nursing. It's mind over matter season and their ability to control play looks all but lost much of the time.
I don't really buy that Mantha's hockey IQ is one of his stronger assets. In game 1 in this series, in particular, he was far far too passive. He always plays somewhat similar to Ovie, in the respect that he gets to open or high danger ice and wants his teammates to feed him the puck. And that simply wasn't working on a line with Ovechkin. There were plays in which he could have elongated a cycle by skating beneath a goal line to provide Backstrom an outlet, and instead he just camped the crease with Ovie and let Backstrom get swarmed by 3 Bruins. He finished G1 with 0 attempted shots. His play improved in games 2 and 3 (before regressing again in game 4), but most of his scoring opportunities were coming off the rush. That's a definite improvement (and he was one of the few generating chances), but rush chances aren't exactly high IQ plays. And even his powerplay decision making seems awfully unsure right now. In each of the past 2 games he's had moments where he's isolated on the half wall and just freezes up for 10+ seconds hoping for something to happen rather than cycling to the down low option or changing the angle to get a pass to the point.
Not to mention his zero IQ play of running Rask in the 3rd.
I'm absolutely concerned with the play of the core as well, but that's not going to change the diagnosis of Mantha either.
