Speculation: Offseason Roster Building Thread 4 - All Your Blackhawks Are Belong To Us

[tarheelhockey]

I made a meme.

Avatar material.

 

[Unsustainable]

Avatar material.

No more Cthulhu avi. Lol

 

[Roboturner913]

Personally, I don't really give a crap, but I wonder how much differently our center situation would be perceived if it was:

Aho-Staal-Williams
Skinner-Lindholm-Teravainen
Stempniak-Rask-Ryan
McGinn-Kruger-Nordstrom

or

Skinner-Aho-Williams
Teravainen-Staal-Lindholm
Stempniak-Rask-Ryan
Mcginn-Kruger-Nordstrom

 

[DougieSmash]

BP really likes Aho/ Staal/ Lindholm line. I like what we see from Skinner with Rask and TT but that's leaves Williams with Stempniak and Ryan lol.

 

[Wolfpuck]

BP really likes Aho/ Staal/ Lindholm line. I like what we see from Skinner with Rask and TT but that's leaves Williams with Stempniak and Ryan lol.

Peters said he's a big fan of Skinner-Ryan-Stempniak, fwiw.

 

[DougieSmash]

Peters said he's a big fan of Skinner-Ryan-Stempniak, fwiw.

Yeah, they work good together.

In ideal world, Wallmark would become good two-way third line playmaker for the third line.

 

[Unsustainable]

We are looking at:
TT - Rask - Williams
Aho - Staal - Lindy
Skins - Ryan - Stempiak
Nord - Kruger - McGinn

That 3rd line is deceptive.

 

[Roboturner913]

Point is I don't think our supposed "weakness" at center is all that big a deal, it's just all in how you arrange things. I do agree it would be ideal for Wallmark to win that 3C spot though - and I say that as one of the few people here who thinks Ryan is a worthwhile player.

 

[raynman]

We are looking at:
TT - Rask - Williams
Aho - Staal - Lindy
Skins - Ryan - Stempiak
Nord - Kruger - McGinn

That 3rd line is deceptive.

It's a 3rd line C and RW with a 1st line LW carrying their *****.

EDIT: Ass is allowed but the plural is not. Weird.

 

[Roboturner913]

It's a 3rd line C and RW with a 1st line LW carrying their *****.

Is that really so different from say, Crosby carrying Bryan Rust and Connor Sheary, or McDavid carrying Patrick Maroon or Kane carrying Anisimov? The only difference is Skinner has a LW instead of a C next to his name.

It's not at all realistic anymore to have a lineup of three first-liners, three second-liners, etc. Salary cap and current emphasis on defensemen mean that pretty much cannot happen, even on the best of teams.

 

[bleedgreen]

Point is I don't think our supposed "weakness" at center is all that big a deal, it's just all in how you arrange things. I do agree it would be ideal for Wallmark to win that 3C spot though - and I say that as one of the few people here who thinks Ryan is a worthwhile player.

I like Ryan. He's got enough game to put up some points. Just don't know if he has enough to make us more dangerous. He definitely raised the skill level of the teams depth this year.

 

[Vagrant]

I don't hate Ryan, I just really see him as a placeholder at best. Someone you should be actively trying to improve upon. I just don't see it ending well for him considering how much he leaned on Skinner for his production and the fact that he shot 15.7% or something like that last season. We probably should have let him go and tried to shore up that spot somehow.

 

[Big Daddy Cane]

What was the alternative? The trade market didn't materialize. Stepan was available, but Carolina probably didn’t have the expendable assets required to match Arizona’s offer plus the premium needed to convince the Rangers to trade within the division. The asking price for Duchene was still prohibitively high. Tampa couldn’t afford to trade Johnson, after dealing Drouin. The Oilers chose to move Eberle as opposed to RNH.

The UFA market was weak. Not that he would have been a realistic target, but Thornton re-signed in SJ. Fisher is Nashville or retirement. Cullen is Pittsburgh, Minnesota or retirement. Bonino and Hanzal signed contracts that may not have fit in with Carolina’s mid-term salary structure for a 3C and realistically, chose more attractive situations.

I’m having a tough time being critical of how GMRF approached this. As ridiculous as it may sound, Ryan was one of the top centers on the market. He got him on a low risk 1 year deal at a salary that didn’t prevent him from making other moves. GMRF is in a good position to try again at the deadline.

At least he isn’t twisting in the wind right now like JR up in Pittsburgh.

 

[Roboturner913]

What's interesting is he shot 14.8% in the AHL in 79 games, and that's a league where goalie save percentages hover a bit above NHL goalies, about .917-.918 as compared to .910.

That doesnt mean he's some great goal scorer with a super accurate shot, obviously. Look at the NHL career shooting % leaders and there quite a few unremarkable names there in the 14-16% range.

Some day soon I'll try and do a league-wide comparison with other 3rd line centers. I expect to find he's average/respectable within that group - I know for instance he compared pretty favorably with Nick Bonino when I was looking at UFA centers in that realm.

Doesn't mean we couldn't do better obviously. If not for his faceoffs I'm sure TT would probably be the hands-down favorite for the 3C spot.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

The more I think about it, the Chad LaRose comparison is an apt one. Ryan isn't good enough to really drive much of anything on his own, but does enough good things to be a "safe" option for a coach. That means he'll be over slotted, almost out of necessity, much like LaRose was. Don't like him in the top 9 regularly, but that's likely what we are going to see.

What I saw last year is that he has the skill to make plays, but not the speed, strength or skill to create enough space to make those plays 5v5. Seems to me that the 1 year deal is a safety net for RF that allows for the prospects to stay another year in lower leagues.

If he proves me wrong and turns in a 45+ point season, then maybe things will be different.

 

[Roboturner913]

Larose is a good comparison, because people ragged on him too, but when you look at his numbers in those years he was over-slotted, it's hard to argue that he wasnt at the very least a good passenger.

19 goals, 31 points in 81 games
11 goals, 23 points in 58 games (pro-rate to 32 points in 82 games)
16 goals, 31 points in 82 games
19 goals, 32 points in 67 games (pro-rate to 39 points in 82 games)

And yeah, it sucked that we didn't have somebody better at the time, but it couldve sucked a lot worse, considering that when LaRose left that role was kinda taken over by Pat Dwyer who wasn't nearly as good at it. Or the seemingly endless parade of Trevor Letowski and Keith Aucoin types.

 

[geehaad]

Every team deals with an over-slotted player, and not just after injury.

If he proves me wrong and turns in a 45+ point season, then maybe things will be different.

Really. Maybe you'll change your mind when Ryan puts up 45 points. Isn't 45 points mostly what we expect out of our top-6 forwards? Even high-dollar 3rd line center wish list prime target Nick Bonino only had 37 points last year, and has only ever once scored more than 40.

 

[GoldiFox]

Ryan could put up 40+ points if his lines get hot for a good part of the year. Part of Ryan not being strong or skilled enough to drive offense is that he relies on a guy like Skinner to create the opportunities.

Ryan scored 19 of his 29 points in three separate 5 game stretches (15 games total). That is 2/3 of his points in 1/5 of his GP. I haven't looked at this metric for any other player but that seems high and I would guess it coincides with Skinner's hot streaks.

It's not a terrible thing if Ryan (and Skinner) are beasting for 5 game stretches and winning games. He just likely won't start piling up points on his own at his age and build. Which, to be fair, you don't expect out of someone making $1.5 million a year.

 

[bleedgreen]

I would bet one of those stretches is when he and McGinn tore up LA and got hot for a few games.

 

[FreshSeabass]

Ronnie on NHL network last night.

 

[NotOpie]

We are looking at:
TT - Rask - Williams
Aho - Staal - Lindy
Skins - Ryan - Stempiak
Nord - Kruger - McGinn

That 3rd line is short.

Fixed

 

[Unsustainable]

Fixed

 

[Svechhammer]

Fixed

Its not the size of the 3rd line that matters, its all in how you use it,

 

[Unsustainable]

Its not the size of the 3rd line that matters, its all in how you use it,

Might be about the motion in the ocean; but it takes for ever to get there in a row boat.

 

[MinJaBen]

Might be about the motion in the ocean; but it takes for ever to get there in a row boat.

Well, in this case the ocean is frozen, so there is clearly the chance for shrinkage at play with the 3rd line.