CBJWerenski8
Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
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Line Combos: Roster Discussion/Line Combos
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was gonna post this in the GDT as part of a tirade about jiricek's ice time (i know, i know), but it felt more appropriate here. the last four games have been very different, and yet his TOI has been almost identical.
identical usage despite wildly different in-game situations/outcomes is a sign of a coaching staff that refuses to make any kind of adjustments to its gameplan, which… seems bad! and not just because of jiricek's ice time, but because of the ripple effect.
by not playing the third pair, pascal vincent is forcing all of the top four defensemen to play the type of minutes you'd expect from a #1 defenseman. problem is, he only has one of those (werenski) on the roster. i'm a big severson/gudbranson defender, but neither guy should be playing 22+ minutes a night in what has long been a lost season.
it's abundantly clear that a different allocation of ice time (whether that's more shifts for the third pair or giving jiricek 3-4 extra shifts a game with werenski/provorov) would be a win-win-win.
| Opponent | Game type | Jiricek TOI |
| NYI | Toss-up loss | 12:49 |
| PHI | Blowout win | 12:56 |
| CAR | Blowout loss | 13:21 |
| TBL | Close-ish loss | 13:00 |
identical usage despite wildly different in-game situations/outcomes is a sign of a coaching staff that refuses to make any kind of adjustments to its gameplan, which… seems bad! and not just because of jiricek's ice time, but because of the ripple effect.
by not playing the third pair, pascal vincent is forcing all of the top four defensemen to play the type of minutes you'd expect from a #1 defenseman. problem is, he only has one of those (werenski) on the roster. i'm a big severson/gudbranson defender, but neither guy should be playing 22+ minutes a night in what has long been a lost season.
it's abundantly clear that a different allocation of ice time (whether that's more shifts for the third pair or giving jiricek 3-4 extra shifts a game with werenski/provorov) would be a win-win-win.
- better for jiricek's development (more ice time)
- better for the team beyond this year (facilitates growth for jiricek, gets werenski acclimated to playing with him and vice versa)
- better for severson/gudbranson's performance (role-appropriate deployment = more efficient minutes)
CBJWerenski8
Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
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Double-Shift Lasse
Just post better
Guys are going to start passing on being called up. It's like a guaranteed injury.
- Dec 31, 2017
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I don't see any of that.
They barely lost to a team that may or may not make the playoffs, beat a team that has fallen apart, lost to two very good teams that play much better hockey than the Jackets.
Bottom line is that the Jackets are a bad team. They were bad last year and bad this year. Calling out Vincent is about as senseless as calling out Larsen. Both were given situations where they had no chance of succeeding.
Iron Balls McGinty
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Here is the question from the other side.
Would you trade FOR a player in the program?
No. Everyone assumes it to be the case because of the seeds planted by Portzline and Hedger in the media in their reporting.
One point that is related to throwaway that they didn't articulate in so many words. Part of Jiricek's low TOI is Vincent utterly refusing to use him on special teams. This is garbage time. The PP is well-established to be awful. Jiricek has exactly the skillset to succeed on the PP. Why not use some PP opportunities during garbage time to see what he can do? Instead, Vincent coaches not to lose. Let's see that booming shot from the point.
Cyclones Rock
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Looks to me like they're giving him 3rd pairing minutes with no special teams. Nothing wrong with that.
The idea that 3 extra minutes per game (or so) of extra ice time in 4 games would be material in his long term development is ludicrous. He got 4 more games of experience at the NHL level.
they've tried* nothing and they're out of ideas!
*they have not and will not try putting the guy who was built in a lab to clap bombs on the PP on either of the power play units
a few rebuttals:
first, 13 minutes a night is not "3rd pairing minutes" – if he was playing 17-18 minutes a night this wouldn't be such a contentious point. look at how other teams distribute ice time among their 5th and 6th most-used defensemen. a couple examples picked entirely at random:
- carolina: 17:12 (orlov) and 15:07 (chatfield)
- florida: 18:35 (OEL) and 16:25 (kulikov)
- chicago: 17:30 (megna) and 17:19 (kaiser)
- montreal: 17:25 (harris) and 16:27 (kovacevic)
second, jiricek has actually played less per game (13:02) since the call-up than he had before (14:47), which is ridiculous seeing as they said they sent him down specifically so he could get more ice time. either the extra minutes matter, or they don't. (spoiler: they do)
btw the exact same thing happened with kent johnson (sent down to get more ice time, called back up, given less ice time than before) earlier this year. wouldn't be an issue if the team was actually good, but they're not, so instead it is a massive indictment on the coaching staff's competency.
third, for the 'extra 3 minutes per game in 4 games' thing:
- that's an extra 12 minutes of NHL ice time which, at his current (paltry) TOI number translates to another entire game lol
- saying that they shouldn't correct his usage because the season's almost done already is a bleak, defeatist attitude even by cbj fan standards
- if anything, there's even less reason to play gudbranson/severson 22+ minutes a night for the next four games when their draft place is set in stone + the season is done. they have nothing to gain or lose.
- Dec 31, 2017
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They could put him on the PP. I don't see how that helps him. He needs to be better defensively so why not have him work on that part of his game without having to worry about other duties. It's gotten to the point where people want to just throw mud things at the wall to see what sticks instead of actually having the player learn what is expected of him.
In Cleveland his offensive numbers are fine, his PP numbers are fine, but that is just offense, which his takes a big hit when he jumps up a leage.
Defensively though, I believe he still has work to do to be better and I just don't see how giving him PP time in Columbus will help him. I see him making bad decisions with the puck, and turning it over. I think he struggles transitioning to offense from defense where he tries to rush the play and will make poor passes. He can get away with it more in Cleveland, but not in Columbus.
I just feel he needs to work on some things before they start throwing 20 minute TOI at him. He is still young and has time to round out his game without being pressured.
Cyclones Rock
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Exactly. It's called proper development.
Little anecdotal story:
A player named Anthony Bitetto was sent down to Cincinnati from our then AHL affiliate in Milwaukee. He was at "The Coach's Show" as the guest and I had a chance to talk with him for quite a bit.
He said he was sent down to work on his defense and that the Nashville organization was not concerned at all about his offensive numbers. He was in Cincinnati for 23 games and ultimately reached the NHL as a #7/#8 dman for several teams.
Anthony Bitetto Hockey Stats and Profile at hockeydb.com
Statistics of Anthony Bitetto, a hockey player from Island Park, NY born Jul 15 1990 who was active from 2007 to 2023.
www.hockeydb.com
He was a 6th round pick and certainly didn't have the expectations of a #6OA like Jiricek, but the developmental principles are the same.
Some people get so caught up in numbers/analytics that they can't see the bigger picture.
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getting experience running the power play at the NHL level seems like it may help the guy who [checks notes] is the presumed power play quarterback of the future for this franchise
if the goal is to develop jiricek, putting him in a position to use/refine his obvious (and loud) offensive tools at the NHL level is a good thing.
conversely, if the goal is to win games right now (ostensibly the reason his 5v5 and pk time are being limited), why not trot him out there on the PP to use those tools, instead of severson/provorov, who could then absorb more of the 5v5/PK time?
on that note, the way PV is deploying his defensemen right now is horribly misaligned to their actual abilities, save for werenski. and "sheltered third pairing defenseman who gets power play time" is a common role – and the one jiricek should very clearly be playing right now.
in no way are "playing on the power play" and "working on defense" mutually exclusive.
both of those improve, in part, by getting more reps. sure seems like playing, say, 16-17 minutes a night instead of 13 would be better in either case, seeing as:
- more frequent shifts = easier for him to get into the flow of the game and settle in
- more regular shifts (they skip his pair a lot right now) = not sitting around a ton between shifts = more experience playing at the intervals they'll need him to in the near future
- more TOI = more opportunities to play while fatigued, which is a good thing for a hopefully-top-pair defenseman to learn (playing 13 minutes a night does not prepare someone to play 25+
no one is saying he should be playing 20 minutes a night in the NHL. the problem is that he's getting 30% less ice time per game than the average third pairing defenseman does.
i'd argue that playing 13 minutes a night is adding pressure because he's barely getting any shifts. that leads to players trying to force things.
giving him a legitimate third pairing role and the reassurance that he's going to play those minutes will reduce the pressure more than babysitting or micromanaging, which is what PV is doing now.
The consistency of Jiricek's minutes, in blowout wins and losses, would lead me to believe that this is an intentional strategy for his development. It suggests this is not coach's cowardice, kind of strange that you came to that harsh conclusion from consistent ice time for the player.
It's odd you think Severson and Gudbranson can't play 22 minutes, that's a piece of cake for them.
I think they've judged correctly that Jiricek is not at the stage where we can talk about pairing him with Werenski, he's got to work on more fundamental stuff. Let's get the basics right first.
Teaching someone one thing at a time would make it mutually exclusive with learning another thing. They've decided to teach Jiricek one thing at a time, and I think that's legit. He's got a lot of years of development ahead of him, he doesn't have to do it all at once.
Learning to play fatigued is certainly a later step. When you're learning a skill you need your full mental capacity, with a high brain oxygen level.
We do know players can improve their weaknesses while still being put in a position to use their strengths right? Pretending Jiricek cant play PP and still improve defensively is... a thought I guess. Ill just be glad when we get a real head coach, been a few years already
At this point they'd all be weaknesses. He'd be learning how to play an NHL PP and learning how to defend and breakout all at the same time.
Jiricek has a great shooting and passing arsenal but walking the line and beating the shot blocker are going to take him some time.
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If this was a good team I could agree with this. They are an AHL team right now playing at the NHL level and I don't see how this helps him, and given the same situation, if I was Vincent, I would be limiting his minutes and trying to work him more in practices. Mostly though, I would rather he be in the AHL in a better situation, getting more game time minutes and working on his weaknesses.
I felt the same way about KJ also.
this board was tripping over itself all season to heap praise on anaheim for doing exactly this with leo carlsson lol but our skilled young players apparently have to earn the chance to use their skill on a very bad and deeply boring team!
kind of strange that anyone can look at the way pascal vincent has coached all season long and conclude that the man is driven by anything but cowardice.
both are – and historically have been – far more effective and efficient in role-appropriate usage.
it's not that they're incapable of playing those minutes in pockets, but it's a fruitless endeavor to make them do so on the 28th-place team in the league when they could simply both be playing ~19-20 minutes while the third pair plays ~17 a night (aka typical third pairing deployment).
why have him on the NHL roster at all, at that point?
wasn't the point of putting him in cleveland to let him play big minutes without it affecting the NHL team's outcomes? the jackets' spot in the draft is set in stone, playing him more minutes in the remaining games does not in any way impact the outcome of the season.
playing zero minutes isn't enough to learn the basics. playing 20+ minutes a night would be too much, i agree. but getting more consistent (in-game, not game-to-game) ice time is good for his development, and that's not what he's getting right now.
[citation needed]
Now that's a better question.
For someone who's argument is built entirely on conjecture, this is an odd request.
Cyclones Rock
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I wonder what all of the "put Jiricek on the PP" advocates expect him to learn on the CBJ PP. It's the third worst in the league and there's usually no decent flow to it.
I would think he's be better off not getting his NHL feet wet on such a dismal PP. Wait until next year would be a much better approach for his PP development at the NHL level.
I would think he's be better off not getting his NHL feet wet on such a dismal PP. Wait until next year would be a much better approach for his PP development at the NHL level.
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I guess if you have had NHL head coaching experience, you would be able to call him a coward. But if you did, and had more success at it, you wouldn't be here.
Whether he is a good coach or not, or he had it fall into his lap like it did, the fact is he worked his way into this position, and to do that and end up at this level is anything but being a coward. He is coaching how he wants to, if he fails, at least he failed doing it the way he wanted to. He may learn from it and move on, or we may never hear about him again, either way, he got there, and to say he is driven by cowardice is flat out wrong. He would have never got this far if he was scared to do it.
CBJWerenski8
Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
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Well I keep hearing that the PP sucks because of Werenski and almost only exclusively Werenski. So, why not give him a look?
Cyclones Rock
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Why this year? The scheme doesn't work. I suppose he could just bomb slap shots, but that's really not a productive learning experience.
The PP sucks for a number of reasons. Why not let Jiricek wait until there's (likely) a new coaching staff in place next season. This year's PP is a lost cause.
CBJWerenski8
Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
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It’s three games, why not give him some run? Even if it’s a lost cause, it gives him another learning experience.
I’m not saying plant him on PP1 and just let him go, but why not PP2?
Cyclones Rock
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I just don't think it's that big of a deal in terms of development. If they run him out there on PP2 (or 1) it's not going to make or break him.
CBJWerenski8
Formerly CBJWennberg10 (RIP Kivi)
- Jun 13, 2009
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No but it does throw him a bone in a season that they really ruffled his feathers.
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