Observations V

[Pred303]

i think jones is a good man to man cover guy, his speed and long reach make up for his lack of physical play. he can make athletic plays others cann't defensively.

the only knocks i have on jones are he needs to play more physical, he makes poor puck handling decisons at times skating into trouble, he makes careless bad decisions with the puck when his first option isn't there, when he dumps the puck into the zone it's usually too soft to ring the boards to the far wing or with no obvious plan on how we retrive the puck, that he tends to take his eyes off the puck trying to hold the point, and he tends to get caught up ice pinching down the halfboards more than our other d-men and giving up more 2 on 1's than he should with his skating ability. admittedly all young player mistakes that he will probably grow out of.

but his man to man in the d-zone coverage i have no problem with. my lack of patience with him right now is more the critical position the team is in than jones growing pains. it's a tough time to try to develop when your team is so close to things they've never achieved. i don't disagree that he has more than his fair share of criticism right now, but the fact is while others make the same mistakes (which i think they get called out for as well), he just makes them more often right now.

 

[deanwormer]

Moving Ellis to play with Franson made a lot of sense. Something needed to happen and that seemed to even the pairings out a little bit more.

Yep, although it creates an awfully slow pair, they both have pretty hi hockey-IQ and use it to make up for some of it. Only thing I don't like about it is it means more ice for Jones and less for Ellis, because Lavy is still going to Ekholm as his 2nd pair.

Of course, I still wanna' ask GMDP how come Ellis can play his off-hand this year and couldn't last - it's not like he's been practicing it......

 

[Pred303]

Josi should have covered the area between Weber and the short post, he should not have been behind the net period.

without a doubt weber and josi screwed the pooch badly on that play. josi thought webs had control of the puck and abandoned his position in front, and webs got beaten puckhandling too easily.

 

[Drake744]

Experience has a way of making ones IQ go up dramatically.

You can't teach someone to skate like Jones and his speed is a huge asset.

Answer this. Why is Jones the one to move to the left side? Why not Ellis, or Franson? I know the answer.

Defensively, on a 2-1, I'd take Jones over anyone on the team not named Weber (and it's close). He's one on one skills have improved dramatically and his gaps and pressure are way above Ellis and Franson and pretty close to Ekholm.

His big hang up is making the mistake with the puck, which he does way to often, he needs to learn to trust his first read and make the play. Last night, was a bad bounce, but he was put in bad spot to begin with.

And he does get a bad rap here. Ellis and Josi can make the same bad play and no one says a word, but let Jones make it and it's "here we go again".

Ellis is still our worst defender in the defensive zone. He's so slow he has to give a 10 foot cushion on the forward to keep from getting beat wide, it make zone entries way to easy and allows way to much freedom.

You know what can't be taught, size and elite speed, Jones has both, eventually his mind will catch up and he's going to be great.

I'm going to memorize and recite this speech to people who give me grief whenever Jones makes any mistake. He makes mistakes and as many have alluded to most of them involve moving the puck offensively but it is what it is. I realize it's the end of his second season but he's still an everyday NHL defenseman at age 20 with no league experience between juniors and NHL. Most of these mistakes will be overcome with time and that's how anyone should expect it to be. Personally I'm happy with how he plays his overall defensive game. I expected him to be the opposite. Productive offensively and weak on defense. The fact that it's the opposite is actually a good thing IMO.

 

[Pred303]

to be fair to both ellis and jones they are being asked to do an awful lot trying to play on the left side. very difficult to try to clear the puck as a righty playing the left side since your forehand is exposed to the middle of the ice. same true on making a breakout pass, everything is dangerous because your forehand is exposed to the middle of the ice. much tougher than some think.

 

[tampa pred]

I've been a Jones apologist, but I can admit that he has made a lot of defensive zone turnovers lately. They usually result in a high grade scoring chance (dang it Stu!). In his defense, he has been moved around a lot since the Franson trade. He has had to think too much playing on his off side. Like last year, the Jones on the left side experiment has proven to be a failure.

It seems like all of Ellis' recent goals have been of the fluky variety (i.e. bounce off of three people before going in). Can't take anything away from him though; if it was all luck, it would happen for everyone.

Fiala looked great offensively. Should of probably had a goal and an assist. It was nice having someone exciting to watch on all three lines. Heck, Beck even makes the 4th line fun to watch. Keep him up for a few more games to see if he continues to look dangerous. If so, it gives us another weapon for the playoffs.

Looking back at the Franson and Santo trade, it looks like it will be terrible for us. Franson isn't needed and Santo should be in the pressbox. The trade that I was pushing for (Smith, Fiala, 1st, Beck for Kessel) looks even worse now though. Smith has been our top scorer since the trade deadline, Beck has provided a spark, and Fiala looks like a future game changing talent. In retrospect, the Jones + 1st for Kessel and Franson would have looked pretty good right now.

 

[ThirdManIn]

well, well. had almost forgotten what a big win against a good team felt like. this one reminded me of things past. probably the best game we've played in the past six weeks. maybe there's still some fight left in this old dog yet. a few thoughts;

..fiala. the kid wasn't intimidated. the kid has talent. a couple of the plays he made didn't work not because he wasn't ready for the big time, but because smith and fisher weren't quite ready for him.
..having said that. he is the one that blew coverage on the guy wide open in front of rinne on their 2nd one. rookie mistakes.
..arvidsson wasn't bad. he wasn't as strong as his first game, but he didn't embarrass himself or us.
..our defensemen offense once again saved our bacon. has many times this year. when jones is your worst offensive defenseman, well you have a pretty good group of offensive d-men.
..can't say enough about the eckholm goal from his knees. probably our toughest goal this year.
..on the other hand, ellis slow hopper goal was probably our luckiest, lol. sort of balanced the cosmos out for us.
..what a jug screw on the first goal allowed. jones with a good mid-air deflection on net. unfortunately it was our net. the kid is snakebit, in that so many of his mistakes wind up in our net. or maybe that's because so many of his mistakes are in our end.
..fisher, smith and Wilson. thought to win this one we would have to get offense from these guys. wrong.
..ribs played an absolutely bad game... right up until the game winning pass.
..rinne was sharp. very sharp. at least 5 difficult saves with us trailing by one or tied late.
..great to see Forsberg finally get one, maybe this breaks him out of trying to do everything himself. still stickhandling far too much.
..when you're playing for your first ever division title, you don't have patience for 'potential' from young players. it's what can you do for me right now, this minute. when wins aren't as critical is when you can 'live with' mistakes that cost you points. it's why I have no patience with jones. I could last year, not right now.
..gaustad. an absolute black hole of offense. that 2 on 1 with beck wide open and the d-man not taking the pass away. the stone hands on a wide open tap in on the far post off a good pass.
..bourque with his once a game obligatory wide open mid-low slot shot. if Forsberg got the same shot each game he gets he would have 40 goals by now.

..we played ourselves a heck of a game tonight. was great to see the jump. the first goal. the comeback. the great goaltending. the timely scoring. the pp win one. now don't get cocky and go play like that the next 8 games.

Hell, that's how I left them

Admittedly, I've been rather busy so I've missed a lot of games. Those games happened to coincide with the losing/bad games streak. I told my fiance last night that the boys must've known I was watching

P.S. those of us in the Boro still need to meet up for a beer and a game.
Here's to not missing a damn game the rest of the season!

 

[SavageSteve]

I'm feeling good about tonight for some reason. Partly because I have good seats tonight (http://www.seats3d.com/nhl/nashville_predators/#/p_102_6/) and partly because my back is better after almost falling on the ice during the ice storm that aggravated my sciatic nerve. The team has gone into the tank since I hurt my back so the karma around my injury must be to blame! I'm better which should mean the team is all better!! I'm sorry for the distress I've caused!

I was right for trusting my superstitious gut! Pray I stay in good shape through the end of June folks!!

 

[Drake744]

Unless Poile can pull some kind of jedi magic and trade someone away like Ellis instead, I'm starting to get the feeling we'll trade Jones. It's all coming together when you think about it. A first line of Forsberg-acquired center- Fiala for years to come. Man.....

 

[Armourboy]

There was a part of me that never liked the idea of trading Jones, but lets face it, if we are going to go for it, it needs to be soon. If the return is a valid #1 center then at this point you do it all day long. While Jones will probably have a better future than anyone you get, you can only worry about the future so much. When things start fitting together you have to do the things you need to while that window is open.

You get a 1C and it suddenly creates a forward core down the middle ( assuming you re-sign everyone) that is pretty damn good. Ribs on the 2nd, Fisher on the 3rd, with a legit 1st guy. That's pretty damn good if you if you ask me.

 

[Drake744]

I still don't like the idea, I'm just starting to acknowledge its possibility and rationale behind it.

 

[dougie1107]

Experience has a way of making ones IQ go up dramatically.

You can't teach someone to skate like Jones and his speed is a huge asset.

Answer this. Why is Jones the one to move to the left side? Why not Ellis, or Franson? I know the answer.

Defensively, on a 2-1, I'd take Jones over anyone on the team not named Weber (and it's close). He's one on one skills have improved dramatically and his gaps and pressure are way above Ellis and Franson and pretty close to Ekholm.

His big hang up is making the mistake with the puck, which he does way to often, he needs to learn to trust his first read and make the play. Last night, was a bad bounce, but he was put in bad spot to begin with.

And he does get a bad rap here. Ellis and Josi can make the same bad play and no one says a word, but let Jones make it and it's "here we go again".

Ellis is still our worst defender in the defensive zone. He's so slow he has to give a 10 foot cushion on the forward to keep from getting beat wide, it make zone entries way to easy and allows way to much freedom.

You know what can't be taught, size and elite speed, Jones has both, eventually his mind will catch up and he's going to be great.

That's not even close to true. I have a hard time believing that the guy who has been leading the Predators' defensemen in pretty much every advanced statistic is also our worst defensively. He has been our best possession player on the blue line all year.

Also, you're dead wrong when you say no one says a word about Ellis. I'll give you Josi. But everytime we get scored on and Ellis is on the ice, someone, somewhere is blaming it on his size regardless of what happened. Last season the roles were pretty much entirely reversed since everyone was still in their honeymoon period with Jones (even though Ellis was having the better season).

And nobody is arguing against Jones' potential. Everyone here sees it. But his ceiling on this team looks to be a #3D, which Ellis does a great job of. So that's why more and more Preds fans want to see Jones traded to give us a future down the middle, which is the one place where our future is very much in question on this team.

 

[MrJoshua]

And nobody is arguing against Jones' potential. Everyone here sees it. But his ceiling on this team looks to be a #3D, which Ellis does a great job of. So that's why more and more Preds fans want to see Jones traded to give us a future down the middle, which is the one place where our future is very much in question on this team.

I'm not sure I agree that Jones' ceiling with this team is #3D. He's what, nine years younger than Weber? He ought to be coming into the realm of top-pairing defender just as Weber is leaving it. I think the projected progression for Jones is more that as he gets better he'll force his way onto the second pair, and then eventually he'll end up on the top pair as Weber gets into the late years of his career and moves down to the second pair. Shea can't eat nearly thirty minutes a game for the next ten years.

Either way, an argument can certainly be made that having Weber, Jones and Ellis (and now Franson I suppose) on the right side is a luxury, not a necessity, making one of them expendable. I'm just not convinced Jones is the right one to trade unless the return is pretty massive and helps the team out a lot in the near term. And I'm not sure that player is really out there to be had, for Jones or anyone else.

 

[dougie1107]

I think Weber has more elite/top pairing years left in him than most realize. He's the closest we're going to get to a Pronger in this generation, and even with all the injuries he had towards the end he was still a top pairing defender until that last injury, when he was 38 I think.

 

[Drake744]

I don't think there's a lot of people who think Jones won't realize his potential, whether it be in 1, 2 or 5 years, etc. They just don't want to wait that long when he's easily viewed as a major trading chip at this point.

 

[Pred303]

i agree, in about 4-5 years jones would probably be ready to take over for Weber. unfortunately i don't think we will have jones in 4-5 years as he will walk the second he gets a chance i believe. Suter 2.0 is the fear in my mind.

 

[Pred303]

I don't think there's a lot of people who think Jones won't realize his potential, whether it be in 1, 2 or 5 years, etc. They just don't want to wait that long when he's easily viewed as a major trading chip at this point.

i'm one of those that think Jones will develop into a good d-man over the years, but won't live up to the expectations many have of him.

 

[Predsboro]

I agree, what a weird play. I think a lot of guys were expecting Weber to not cough up the puck do easily. Alot of breakdowns on that play.

Ribeiro mentioned, and I noticed it on the replay at home, that he felt Weber was hooked on the play. Indeed he was but I can see why no call was made ... it was quick and ticky tack ...

ETA: btw ... what a freaking awesome goal by Matty Ek ... out-freaking-standing! Loved the look on his face as he was lying on the ice. Looked as even he could not believe it!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155378702880525&set=gm.1042907992403489&type=1&theater

 

[Predsboro]

i agree, in about 4-5 years jones would probably be ready to take over for Weber. unfortunately i don't think we will have jones in 4-5 years as he will walk the second he gets a chance i believe. Suter 2.0 is the fear in my mind.

Totally agree with this Steve ... as much as I'd love to see him here long term, I also think he'll walk when the opportunity arises. Now, only if Poile sees this and makes the necessary move to avoid Suter 2.0 ...

 

[Armourboy]

Its possible Poile won't even be around by that point. That said what we need is a 1C, and about the only player that could get close to returning that will be Jones, well at least outside of our top guys now.

I really don't want to trade the guy, but if trading him gets you a really good shot at the cup in the next 3-4 years then you have to take it. He is a 2nd/3rd pairing guy at best for the next several years. You don't throw away a chance at the cup for that imo.

 

[dougie1107]

i agree, in about 4-5 years jones would probably be ready to take over for Weber. unfortunately i don't think we will have jones in 4-5 years as he will walk the second he gets a chance i believe. Suter 2.0 is the fear in my mind.

To be honest, I'm not convinced he'll walk. He is great friends with Josi and Beck. And if Poile wants him that badly in 4-5 years, he will keep him because Jones won't be a UFA. The reason I want to trade him now is because the window with Rinne is closing. I know we all have high hopes for Hellberg and Saros, and I do as well, but I don't expect them to perform quite at Rinne's level, and I definitely don't expect them to come in and be elite right away in the first couple seasons. With his injury history I could see Rinne's decline start in a few years, although I hope to god that doesn't happen.

I've said this quite a bit already but I'll say it again. We are more likely to win a Cup in the next 3-5 years by trading him and getting something down the middle rather than holding onto him.

 

[MrJoshua]

I will say, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Poile traded for Franson at least partly with the idea in mind that if he could re-sign him in the off season he'd have a really good trade chip in Jones or Ellis to use to try to land a young top-line center.

 

[Armourboy]

I will say, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Poile traded for Franson at least partly with the idea in mind that if he could re-sign him in the off season he'd have a really good trade chip in Jones or Ellis to use to try to land a young top-line center.

I've been saying this for several weeks now that the trade may have been as much about getting time to sign Franson over everyone else. That said I think it probably doesn't work out as something tells me he is probably going to go for the biggest contract he can get.

Even if it doesn't work out you are basically looking at trying to fill the two 3rd pairing slots if you trade either Ellis or Jones. I'm pretty sure you make a trade if you can what you need if that is the major downside short term.

 

[Drake744]

Totally agree with this Steve ... as much as I'd love to see him here long term, I also think he'll walk when the opportunity arises. Now, only if Poile sees this and makes the necessary move to avoid Suter 2.0 ...

Even if that's the case, that's an issue far down the road unless you're counting the small percentage chance of him leaving as an RFA. Who knows what kind of player he'd be at that point.

 

[Filip Forceberg]

To be honest, I'm not convinced he'll walk. He is great friends with Josi and Beck.

This means absolutely nothing. Suter was great friends with Weber and look at how that ended up. Having a wife who wants to move >>> having good friends on the team.