Jared Bednar & Co. Discussion Thread

[Foppberg]

Washington's biggest problem is having to go through Pittsburgh the past 2 years.

 

[Bubba Thudd]

Sometimes I read a long post, not paying attention to who posted it, and I just know who it was by what gets said.

Not necessarily directed at anyone, and not necessarily a knock on anyone.

Just an observation.

 

[James G]

They have been a team with major flaws, and one whose best player is better suited for regular season, not to mention their goalie turned into a sieve every time playoffs rolled around.

So yeah, I've never seen them as a title contender under Trotz.

Dude, I'm not trying to pick a fight here...and I'm a newbie to this board, so I'll bow out after this.....but "Ovi is better suited for the regular season"?? I can't even imagine what that means. Aside from "Ovi sucked during the playoffs".

 

[S E P H]

Who has one of the greatest rosters? Caps?

In the modern era, the Caps team which got Halak'd was the greatest roster we've seen. Which is hilarious that they decided to change the entire focus of the squad because of one goaler. Penguins got Halak'd too, so it's not like it was entirely a fluke.

Q is the one I'd cry about missing out on.

Q will go down as one of the most overrated coach's ever in history. He's good at keeping the players motivated, but those core players won the Cup much more than he ever did.

 

[Papa Francouz]

Is it true that the Avs don’t practice, like, at all anymore? I have to drive past Family Sports every day to get to work, and I never see the players’ parking lot full. There are only ever 4 or 5 cars back there. So either Bednar isn’t having them practice, or they all carpool. Which would be just adorable.

 

[Pokecheque]

Is it true that the Avs don’t practice, like, at all anymore? I have to drive past Family Sports every day to get to work, and I never see the players’ parking lot full. There are only ever 4 or 5 cars back there. So either Bednar isn’t having them practice, or they all carpool. Which would be just adorable.

Oh they practice, though I imagine it hasn't been as rigorous so as to hopefully preserve some energy down the stretch.

I'm curious as to what happened to the move to eliminate morning skates. Roy was pretty much on board with that when he started, though I don't believe he ever followed through on it. You still hear rumblings about it but that's about it. They seem kinda pointless to me except maybe give a player coming back from injury some extra warmup time.

 

[CobraAcesS]

Oh they practice, though I imagine it hasn't been as rigorous so as to hopefully preserve some energy down the stretch.

I'm curious as to what happened to the move to eliminate morning skates. Roy was pretty much on board with that when he started, though I don't believe he ever followed through on it. You still hear rumblings about it but that's about it. They seem kinda pointless to me except maybe give a player coming back from injury some extra warmup time.

I'm not sure the lack of practices was that smart of a move with how sloppy they look, but that's a fine line argument no one is going to win. They're sloppy because they're tired too obviously.

I'm just wondering how much better would they look with a touch less jump, and better passing?

 

[Pokecheque]

I'm not sure the lack of practices was that smart of a move with how sloppy they look, but that's a fine line argument no one is going to win. They're sloppy because they're tired too obviously.

I'm just wondering how much better would they look with a touch less jump, and better passing?

To be honest I'm not certain they are practicing less, just kind of assuming they're doing so. But if it's true, it might explain some of the sloppiness we're seeing.

Team speed is their biggest edge--it shows against clubs like Minnesota that simply can't keep up, but against teams that have the speed AND the size to really bully the Avs around, like Winnipeg. They're too easily boxed out. I've already, y'know... about the team need for better inside scoring and ability to get those ugly goals, hopefully they realize it's not just a personnel issue but also a coaching issue. They just don't crash the net often enough, and they have players who can do so. Milan Hejduk should be brought aboard as a consultant. If ever there was a guy who knew when to go for the fancy snipe or just park it in the slot and go for rebounds, it was him.

I also really don't like the hesitant forechecking scheme at present. Bednar has guys hovering way too high in the zone, which earlier in the season happened when the Avs were trying to sit on a lead, but last night they were doing it even when down a goal. I'm not saying they should all three go blasting into the zone down low, but so many times the puck would go in and come right back out because there was virtually no pressure, and some decent rebounds and other times loose pucks would just be sitting there, an Avs player couldn't capitalize because they just plain too far away. Compare this with SJ's defensive-minded system where it seemed like a support player was like 10 feet behind the guy with the puck on almost every single play. They moved together as a unit, whereas the Avs have been letting themselves get spread way, way too thin of late. This was definitely not the case earlier in the season, and incidentally they played much better defensively then too. A defenseman would get the puck and with a couple quick, short passes, get it moving out of the zone. There wasn't nearly as much running around as we're seeing right now.

As I've said in other places, the winning had them developing some bad habits that only got worse as the season wore on. They're trying to get guys in behind the defense, especially MacKinnon, so the gaps between the blueliners and forwards has been getting steadily larger until it seems like every pass from the D is a hail-mary shot that ends up either getting intercepted or missing entirely, resulting in an icing. To a point I can understand it and have even defended it, but it better damn well get cleaned up for next season.

 

[Pokecheque]

One thing I disagreed with in the season finale was the deployment of the Soda line and a pairing of Nemeth-Zadorov to hold the lead, but in the end I guess it worked out.

Now we get to see how Bednar and his staff do in the postseason against a pretty formidable opponent. If they play it safe they're doomed.

Hopefully the refs catch the Preds doing their knock-the-net-off-the-pegs-when-they-get-in-trouble schtick and assess a penalty whenever it happens. That drove me absolutely nuts during the season.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

One thing I disagreed with in the season finale was the deployment of the Soda line and a pairing of Nemeth-Zadorov to hold the lead, but in the end I guess it worked out.

Now we get to see how Bednar and his staff do in the postseason against a pretty formidable opponent. If they play it safe they're doomed.

Hopefully the refs catch the Preds doing their knock-the-net-off-the-pegs-when-they-get-in-trouble schtick and assess a penalty whenever it happens. That drove me absolutely nuts during the season.

To be honest though, I think Bernier has made a few of those vet goalie moves too.

 

[Freudian]

From 2009-16:

PP: 17.7% (20th in the league)
PK: 80.6% (23rd in the league)

This year:

PP: 21.9% (8th in the league)
PK: 83.3% (4th in the league)

The special teams both look much improved and the stats indicate that they have actually improved. I give credit to both players and coaches for that. It used to be an area where Avs struggled, so hopefully they are able to maintain this going forward.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

^ I remember Scotty Bowman (who I do believe is the best coach ever) saying you had to be top 10 in both and top 5 in at least one to make any kind of noise. Special teams are just incredibly important over the course of a season and inside of a series.

 

[Pokecheque]

To be honest though, I think Bernier has made a few of those vet goalie moves too.

Has he? It can't be to the same extent. Rinne is almost Leggio-like in the frequency at which he does it.

 

[the_fan]

The difference between last years PP and this year's PP is 40 year old 27 point Iginla vs 22 year old 97 point MacKinnon.

The difference between last years PK and this years PK is Beauchemin-EJ pairing vs Zadorov-EJ pairing.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Has he? It can't be to the same extent. Rinne is almost Leggio-like in the frequency at which he does it.

Pretty sure he kicked it off against St. Louis the other night. You are right, he doesn't do it to the extent that Rinne does or abuse it....but he is capable of stopping the play from time to time when needed.

 

[Pokecheque]

The difference between last years PP and this year's PP is 40 year old 27 point Iginla vs 22 year old 97 point MacKinnon.

The difference between last years PK and this years PK is Beauchemin-EJ pairing vs Zadorov-EJ pairing.

That is a ridiculous amount of distillation. I don't believe EJ and Zads even played a majority of the PK minutes on the team. If you're gonna go that route you should state that the biggest difference in the PK is the fact that Varly managed to stay healthy this year. That would be more accurate.

And the earlier comparison took into account special teams performance from 2009-16, not just last season.

No, they changed both systems and it's obvious when you look at what they're doing this year as opposed to last year. The power play is mostly 4F/1D, I'm not sure if they did that last year but the majority of times Army was in charge of the power play he preferred 2 d-men to man the points. They also have a ton more movement as opposed to Army's style, which was more about passing. They stood still a lot more in previous seasons.

Also, on the PK, the forwards up front rotate in and out, the closest guy to the puckhandler goes out to try and force a pass/turnover, then rotates back in. A much more aggressive system than what Farrish/Army/whoever had, that was mostly just collapse-and-block-shots. They also swing wide when meeting the puck carrier to cover the passing lane.

Obviously the biggest factors involved are MacKinnon on one end and Varlamov/Bernier on the other. Can't have successful special teams if you don't have guys like that. But they've made pretty extensive changes that helped them get to that point.

 

[ArWKo]

Pretty sure he kicked it off against St. Louis the other night. You are right, he doesn't do it to the extent that Rinne does or abuse it....but he is capable of stopping the play from time to time when needed.

He backed into it sliding left to right and it came off, but not during a particularly dangerous chance from what I remember so I wouldn't call it gamesmanship or anything just one of those things that does happen from time to time.

 

[the_fan]

That is a ridiculous amount of distillation. I don't believe EJ and Zads even played a majority of the PK minutes on the team. If you're gonna go that route you should state that the biggest difference in the PK is the fact that Varly managed to stay healthy this year. That would be more accurate.

And the earlier comparison took into account special teams performance from 2009-16, not just last season.

No, they changed both systems and it's obvious when you look at what they're doing this year as opposed to last year. The power play is mostly 4F/1D, I'm not sure if they did that last year but the majority of times Army was in charge of the power play he preferred 2 d-men to man the points. They also have a ton more movement as opposed to Army's style, which was more about passing. They stood still a lot more in previous seasons.

Also, on the PK, the forwards up front rotate in and out, the closest guy to the puckhandler goes out to try and force a pass/turnover, then rotates back in. A much more aggressive system than what Farrish/Army/whoever had, that was mostly just collapse-and-block-shots. They also swing wide when meeting the puck carrier to cover the passing lane.

Obviously the biggest factors involved are MacKinnon on one end and Varlamov/Bernier on the other. Can't have successful special teams if you don't have guys like that. But they've made pretty extensive changes that helped them get to that point.

I disagree.

Varly had his share of injuries again this year, if you gonna factor in goaltending for the improved PK, I'd mention Bernier who has been more than a capable back up something Avs did not have last year. Bernier was responsible for the 10 game win streak too.

 

[Pokecheque]

I disagree.

Varly had his share of injuries again this year, if you gonna factor in goaltending for the improved PK, I'd mention Bernier who has been more than a capable back up something Avs did not have last year. Bernier was responsible for the 10 game win streak too.

He played 24 games last year, and was pretty much injured in all of them before they finally shut him down. He played 51 games this year, pretty much double the amount. But that's all beside the point--goaltending was the biggest factor in the resurgence of the PK along with a much better and more aggressive system, not which defensemen were on the roster. Switching out Beauchemin for Nemeth/Zadorov wouldn't have made much difference at all if the netminding and system were still as bad as last year.

And this is coming from someone who was once a Francois Beauchemin fan who now can't even look at the guy on TV without throwing up a little.

 

[Pokecheque]

Good write-up on Bednar from The Athletic.

After nightmare first season, Avs coach Jared Bednar is...

For Bednar, it was simple. He couldn’t control what Sakic was going to do but he could control how he prepared the team through those final weeks of the 2016-17 season in preparation for the 2017-18 season.

“There comes a certain point where that season is out of reach and you’ve got to start making sure that you’re laying the foundation for the next year, especially with the players that you know are back and under contract, so you’re always, the wheels never stop turning when you’re a coach, you’re always trying to get better, and we took that approach even last year, we got to keep making our team better,” Bednar told The Athletic.

 

[Foppberg]

Was just about to post that, really good article. What a difference a year makes.

 

[Pokecheque]

There's something to be said about how one faces adversity, and Bednar and the core of this team (minus one now) faced about as much adversity as you could ask for. I do love the fact that this team simply refuses to lay down. Yes, they're making some terrible mistakes, but those are correctable.

 

[CobraAcesS]

There's something to be said about how one faces adversity, and Bednar and the core of this team (minus one now) faced about as much adversity as you could ask for. I do love the fact that this team simply refuses to lay down. Yes, they're making some terrible mistakes, but those are correctable.

I'm impressed they've even made a game of it with the roster the way it is..

 

[RockLobster]

I've said it before, but I will say it now.

I will give Bednar the kudos he deserves. This season has been a marked turn around, and given how everything unfolded last year (and the role he played), I wasn't sure that was possible...yet he did.

So he deserves the praise he's getting.

 

[Pokecheque]

That still seems awfully backhanded but praise is praise I guess.