Zero confidence in Laviolette

[Viqsi]

Willy - Joey - x(Arvy)
FF - Ribs - x(Neal)
Smith - Fish - Fiala?

Or flip Neal and Smith

I could totally go for that.

* * *​

Our roster isn't as talented as Carolina, or Philadelphia? Are you sure?

He's talking about back when Lavi coached them, not right now.

Even back then, tho, it's debatable. Carolina had comparable forward depth back then (a few guys hit career years in that Cup season), and didn't have anywhere near the blueline the Preds have. The Cup finals Flyers Had a comparable blueline and comparable forwards (they had better forward depth the next year as Giroux came into his own, but lost Pronger partway through, and did that radical reinvention trade shortly thereafter).

 

[triggrman]

Yeah, I understand that but outside of Staal, i dont remember that roster being that great up front.

And I agree our roster is on part with that Philly roster.

Remember this is one of the few teams that had 2 30+ goal scorers last season.

 

[Legionnaire11]

Yeah, I understand that but outside of Staal, i dont remember that roster being that great up front.

And I agree our roster is on part with that Philly roster.

Remember this is one of the few teams that had 2 30+ goal scorers last season.

Didn't they have Brind'Amour, Francis and Recchi? Maybe I'm a few years off on some of them.

 

[triggrman]

All of them were Fishers age, or older and a shell, .well not the forever young Rod.

They did have Cole though.

 

[Byrddog]

I could totally go for that.

* * *​

He's talking about back when Lavi coached them, not right now.

Even back then, tho, it's debatable. Carolina had comparable forward depth back then (a few guys hit career years in that Cup season), and didn't have anywhere near the blueline the Preds have. The Cup finals Flyers Had a comparable blueline and comparable forwards (they had better forward depth the next year as Giroux came into his own, but lost Pronger partway through, and did that radical reinvention trade shortly thereafter).

You are correct but I do not know how the Carolina team is debatable. They had a 100 point guy three more 70 point guys a 59 point guy and 3 more over 45 points. 40 goal scorer and 3 30 goal guys backing him up and secondary scoring. There has never been a Predator team with that type scoring. Granted the defence was not as good as some of the Pred teams but thats the whole thing Lavi wants to outscore teams defense is secondary. Now the goaltending advantage would go to the Preds. The first full year in Philly he had a deep team scoring more spread out but the goal production was pretty close to they year in Carolina the D in Philly was solid and they struggled in goal.

Lavi has had no where near the offensive power that he won the Cup with since he has been here and that is my point. Has been my point all along. Without blowing the Trotz team up Poile could not give Lavi what he has needed to make a deep run. And now the team is in as bad shape as it has been since 2003. FF, Neal, can not carry this team the rest of the forwards beside Arviddson for about 25 games have been a huge disappointment. WIth Lavi here two more years it is going to interesting to see what Poile or another GM can do to turn this team arround. Personally I think there is a good chance they trade Subban. Hes the biggest chip they have left now.

 

[nomorekids]

I have a hard time judging Lavy based on this season --

Like it or not, Subban is our best defenseman and had just started to settle in and hit stride in the system when he got hurt...and he's now been out for a month and a half.

Neal is our best forward, he's missed big chunks of time and played hurt for chunks.

Forsberg started the season on a near historical run of bad luck and uncharacteristic play.

Ellis missed a decent chunk of time.

Josi has missed and probably will miss a good chunk.

Ekholm has struggled at times.

Mazanec should NEVER have played a game in Nashville.

Rinne has been his usual up and down.

That's a lot of factors that I don't necessarily place entirely on the coaching staff -- or I put more on McCarthy and Housley.

I'd like to see Lavy pick two new assistants this offseason. I think Housley...whose responsibilities include a lukewarm PP that has the personnel to be the best in the league AND 3-3 OT...has been a disaster. McCarthy...again, PK has been up and down throughout his time, seems like an old school guy.

Lavy may be a or the problem, but realistically he's got a new 3 year deal starting next season...he'll get at least a eyar of that to right the ship. Assistants are a little easier to cycle in midstream.

 

[Roboturner913]

Canes had a great forward group that year, easily the best of any Cup winner in the last decade. The names weren't sexy but the production sure was. Staal at 100 points. Cole was a PPG player through 60 games until he got hurt. Brind'Amour and Justin Williams were both 30 goals, 70 points and both Selke caliber. Stillman was hardly washed up, in fact he was at pretty much the peak of his career. 76 points which was the 2nd-best year of his career. Ray Whitney was also near a PPG, 55 points in 63 games. Matt Cullen was 25 goals and nearly 50 points. Their leading scorer from the prior season, Josef Vasicek got hurt early on, he was about a 40-50 point player at the time. They also had an early-career Radim Vrbata, who they traded for peanuts for some reason. And an early-career Andrew Ladd. And then they traded for two HOFers in Doug Weight and Mark Recchi, both of those guys were still highly effective and scored despite only getting 3rd line minutes. When you have a Doug Weight and Mark Recchi populating your 3rd line you're doing alright at forward. Hell even the 4th liners scored on that team. Kevyn Adams had 15 goals and was a great defensive center and faceoff man. Craig Adams had 10 goals 21 points. They also played Tverdovsky at forward at times for poops and giggles. That was an all-star forward group, the defense was just good enough but we're not likely to see a stacked group of forwards like that again anytime soon, not with the salary cap the way it is anymore.

 

[braindead]

Without blowing the Trotz team up Poile could not give Lavi what he has needed to make a deep run. And now the team is in as bad shape as it has been since 2003. FF, Neal, can not carry this team the rest of the forwards beside Arviddson for about 25 games have been a huge disappointment. WIth Lavi here two more years it is going to interesting to see what Poile or another GM can do to turn this team arround. Personally I think there is a good chance they trade Subban. Hes the biggest chip they have left now.

Understand your point but don't agre on how this team stacks up to his Canes and Flyers teams. Setting that aside, my view is that Poole DID blow up the Trotz team, as that group had the following that played 40+ games: Weber, Jones, Horny, Cullen, Clune, Legwand, Spaling, Bourque, Nystrom, Stalberg, Bartley, Hendricks and Klein. Plus Hutton. Pretty crazy turnover in an attempt to get younger faster and more offensive.

 

[drwpreds]

I have a hard time judging Lavy based on this season --

Like it or not, Subban is our best defenseman and had just started to settle in and hit stride in the system when he got hurt...and he's now been out for a month and a half.

Neal is our best forward, he's missed big chunks of time and played hurt for chunks.

Forsberg started the season on a near historical run of bad luck and uncharacteristic play.

Ellis missed a decent chunk of time.

Josi has missed and probably will miss a good chunk.

Ekholm has struggled at times.

Mazanec should NEVER have played a game in Nashville.

Rinne has been his usual up and down.

That's a lot of factors that I don't necessarily place entirely on the coaching staff -- or I put more on McCarthy and Housley.

I'd like to see Lavy pick two new assistants this offseason. I think Housley...whose responsibilities include a lukewarm PP that has the personnel to be the best in the league AND 3-3 OT...has been a disaster. McCarthy...again, PK has been up and down throughout his time, seems like an old school guy.

Lavy may be a or the problem, but realistically he's got a new 3 year deal starting next season...he'll get at least a eyar of that to right the ship. Assistants are a little easier to cycle in midstream.

And despite all of that mess, and that is ALOT of mess, we still are basically tied for the last playoff spot and have a better record than last year at this point.

That is almost a miracle if you really think about it. Just shows me that despite everything this is a good team- if it wasn't, that much adversity would cause us to be where the Avs or Coyotes are.....

 

[triggrman]

All fair points.

 

[Scoresberg]

Yeah, I'd fire Housley first. Then if it still doesn't work I'd fire Lavy. All the things Housley coaches are not doing good, although he's a great developer for our defensemen.

 

[GeauxPreds]

If Housley is in charge of the Pp and 3v3 squads he has to be on thin ice by now.

As for the rest of it I'm not too worried, when we were healthy and gelled in November we were on fire. I think a lot of the growing pains this season is the complete transition to the lavi way, especially with the roster. The subban weber trade is going to be an interesting mark for this team because it signals the full buy in to the transition but poile also recognizing our core is still really young. Fisher ribs and rinne are the only guys that could retire soon (I guess McLeod if we are counting him now). I don't think we should panic after one streaky season particulalry when we did so well last season. I think we all need to calm down, ride it out and see how the season goes.

Yes we need to improve and assistant coaching changes probably need to be made but as long as poile is gm we're on the laviolette train for the next 4 seasons.

 

[TheOriginalJez]

Good luck on making the President's Cup mean anything. Sorry, but that's never going to happen in any sport.

Sorry to take this off point, but this comment made me spit out my beer in hysterical laughter... you think other sports don't classify the highest finisher in a league competition as the winner? Pretty much every sport everywhere but America that's exactly how it works. No playoffs, if there are cup competitions they're separate to the league and the team held in the highest regard with the most prize money and prestige is the one that wins the top level league on points.

To make my point while granted the Yankee's are the most valuable team brand in the world, second is Manchester United, third is Real Madrid, fifth is Bayern Munich, seventh is Barcelona, eighth is Arsenal and ninth is AC Milan (source: Forbes) - so six out of the top 10 biggest sports clubs in the world made their name directly by winning or consistently competing for their equivalents of the presidents trophy. Yeah, it'll never catch on...



As far as Lavy goes I don't blame him for our mess right now, or at least not entirely. Housley needs to take a lot of the responsibility and so does Poile, as much as I've warmed to PK that was not a good trade for us this season. I think it'll probably pan out better for us in the future but right now we've lacked a lot of leadership that Weber brought to us and that's really hurt us in fighting back or even keeping focus in games I think.

 

[Viqsi]

You are correct but I do not know how the Carolina team is debatable. They had a 100 point guy three more 70 point guys a 59 point guy and 3 more over 45 points. 40 goal scorer and 3 30 goal guys backing him up and secondary scoring. There has never been a Predator team with that type scoring.

You saw the part where I said "a few guys hit career years that season", right? Virtually none of those guys managed seasons like that before or since. They caught lightning in a bottle coming out of the lockout. That's not "lack of forward talent", that's "lack of serendipitous blessing by the Hockey Gods."

Granted the defence was not as good as some of the Pred teams but thats the whole thing Lavi wants to outscore teams defense is secondary.

That would suggest that Lavi doesn't know how to use the blueline to start offense. That is a very bad thing and if true would mandate his prompt replacement.

Lavi has had no where near the offensive power that he won the Cup with since he has been here and that is my point.

Again, that was a fluke year for most of those forwards.


EDIT: Let's look at the top six scoring forwards on that team, shall we?

Eric Staal: 100 points in 82 games at age 20; this was his second season in the NHL. He never reached 100 points again in his career (the closest he got was two PPG seasons a little while later).
Justin Williams: 76 points in 82 games as a 23-year-old. His prior high was 40. The year after that he had 67 points in as many games, and he never got anywhere close to that ever again.
Cory Stillman: 76 points in 72 games at age 31. The year prior he'd managed 80 points in 81 games with Tampa Bay. Those were far and away the best years of his career; he never got anywhere close to PPG any other time.
Rod Brind'Amour: 70 points in 78 games at age 35. Arguably an exception to the "virtually everybody had a career year" phenomenon as he'd had comparable years earlier in his career, but he'd looked like he was on the way down. This was a bounce-back year, and the year after even moreso.
Eric Cole: 59 points in 60 games at age 26. Had never been near-PPG before and never was again, although he did end up putting up two 61-point seasons in later years (with many more games played).
Ray Whitney: 55 points in 63 games at age 33. Definite exception to the "virtually everybody had a career year" argument, as this was arguably a down year for him due to missed games. Also, I'm still pissed that Doug MacLean let him walk from the Jackets, but that's not relevant here.

So, four guys with career years, one guy with a bounceback season, and Ray Whitney. And that's before we get into the Cam Ward story.

EDIT 2: Oh, and their top scoring D was Frantisek Kaberle - 44 points in 77 games, age 31. That's about double his usual production.

 

[triggrman]

Follow up on that.

That season, there were 41 players that scored more than 30 goals. Last season, there were 18.

That season 11 players scored more than 40 goals, last season 4

That season 5 players scored 50 or more goals, last season 1.

That season 7 players more than 100 points, last season, 1.

 

[David Singleton]

You saw the part where I said "a few guys hit career years that season", right? Virtually none of those guys managed seasons like that before or since. They caught lightning in a bottle coming out of the lockout. That's not "lack of forward talent", that's "lack of serendipitous blessing by the Hockey Gods."



That would suggest that Lavi doesn't know how to use the blueline to start offense. That is a very bad thing and if true would mandate his prompt replacement.



Again, that was a fluke year for most of those forwards.


EDIT: Let's look at the top six scoring forwards on that team, shall we?

Eric Staal: 100 points in 82 games at age 20; this was his second season in the NHL. He never reached 100 points again in his career (the closest he got was two PPG seasons a little while later).
Justin Williams: 76 points in 82 games as a 23-year-old. His prior high was 40. The year after that he had 67 points in as many games, and he never got anywhere close to that ever again.
Cory Stillman: 76 points in 72 games at age 31. The year prior he'd managed 80 points in 81 games with Tampa Bay. Those were far and away the best years of his career; he never got anywhere close to PPG any other time.
Rod Brind'Amour: 70 points in 78 games at age 35. Arguably an exception to the "virtually everybody had a career year" phenomenon as he'd had comparable years earlier in his career, but he'd looked like he was on the way down. This was a bounce-back year, and the year after even moreso.
Eric Cole: 59 points in 60 games at age 26. Had never been near-PPG before and never was again, although he did end up putting up two 61-point seasons in later years (with many more games played).
Ray Whitney: 55 points in 63 games at age 33. Definite exception to the "virtually everybody had a career year" argument, as this was arguably a down year for him due to missed games. Also, I'm still pissed that Doug MacLean let him walk from the Jackets, but that's not relevant here.

So, four guys with career years, one guy with a bounceback season, and Ray Whitney. And that's before we get into the Cam Ward story.

EDIT 2: Oh, and their top scoring D was Frantisek Kaberle - 44 points in 77 games, age 31. That's about double his usual production.

The combination of Laviolette's aggressive system and reinforced enforcement against obstruction coming out of the lockout would help explain much of those "career years". His system, given its speed and attack focus, should naturally be "fed" with the crackdown on obstruction.

 

[David Singleton]

Follow up on that.

That season, there were 41 players that scored more than 30 goals. Last season, there were 18.

That season 11 players scored more than 40 goals, last season 4

That season 5 players scored 50 or more goals, last season 1.

That season 7 players more than 100 points, last season, 1.

Reinforces the notion that scoring was up coming out of the lockout with the focus on eliminating obstruction due to either more PP opportunities or defenses avoiding the PP but not knowing how to defend the speed.

Offenses everywhere would benefit, but Laviolette's system would have been ideal to maximize capitalization on both accounts.

 

[Scoresberg]

Follow up on that.

That season, there were 41 players that scored more than 30 goals. Last season, there were 18.

That season 11 players scored more than 40 goals, last season 4

That season 5 players scored 50 or more goals, last season 1.

That season 7 players more than 100 points, last season, 1.

Yep, those crazy couple of years after the 04-05 lockout skews the numbers a lot.

 

[KurtAngle]

I may be in the minority but I don’t agree with that at all.

We are in the middle of season in which almost nothing has gone right:

· Most of our star players have underperformed, both offense and defense.
· We have been decimated by injuries to key players and because of that have used more players than any team in the league.
· And I would also say we have had some pretty bad puck luck this year.

Despite all of that, we STILL have a better record right now than we did at this time last year (when we had Weber and a healthy team). So compared to last year at this time there really actually hasn't been a decline, as hard as that is to believe.

I just don't think (at least right now) you can pin our troubles on not having Weber.

I think the reason most have underperformed is Weber brought the physical presence and leadership needed. I think Josi has definitely missed him. Plus, until recently we had too many guys who are just supposedly high skill players and not enough physicality.

Good point about the record compared to last year. I guess it just seems worse since this year was the very high expectations.

I agree it's not 100% the loss of Weber, but I think it's the biggest.

Even if we have a better record than last year, just my feeling...I just don't have a lot of confidence this team has that X factor that will carry them far. They will probably make the playoffs, but I just don't have a good feeling they can do much. Something just seems missing.

 

[Drake744]

Follow up on that.

That season, there were 41 players that scored more than 30 goals. Last season, there were 18.

That season 11 players scored more than 40 goals, last season 4

That season 5 players scored 50 or more goals, last season 1.

That season 7 players more than 100 points, last season, 1.

In 05-06, 18 teams averaged 3 or more goals/game. Last season, 2.

 

[drwpreds]

Even if we have a better record than last year, just my feeling...I just don't have a lot of confidence this team has that X factor that will carry them far. They will probably make the playoffs, but I just don't have a good feeling they can do much. Something just seems missing.

I hear you, and only time will tell.

But I will just point out that last year at this time almost everyone on here was saying the exact same thing- and look what happened- you just never know.

 

[Gh24]

Willy - Joey - x(Arvy)
FF - Ribs - x(Neal)
Smith - Fish - Fiala?

Or flip Neal and Smith

Yeah something like that. Maybe a little far-fetched idea, but we know he can create opportunities for his linemates and draws players to him with those wide drives, so maybe Smith could work with Willy and Joey aswell, further loading the scoring responsibilities on Joey.

edit: Idea might be a byproduct of what I want those two - Smith and Wilson - to be, rather than what they actually have been lately...

Fiala - Fisher - Arvy
Could make an interesting and annoying (for opposition) line. The amount of hustle with serious scoring threat is almost unreal

 

[KurtAngle]

Sorry to take this off point, but this comment made me spit out my beer in hysterical laughter... you think other sports don't classify the highest finisher in a league competition as the winner? Pretty much every sport everywhere but America that's exactly how it works. No playoffs, if there are cup competitions they're separate to the league and the team held in the highest regard with the most prize money and prestige is the one that wins the top level league on points.

To make my point while granted the Yankee's are the most valuable team brand in the world, second is Manchester United, third is Real Madrid, fifth is Bayern Munich, seventh is Barcelona, eighth is Arsenal and ninth is AC Milan (source: Forbes) - so six out of the top 10 biggest sports clubs in the world made their name directly by winning or consistently competing for their equivalents of the presidents trophy. Yeah, it'll never catch on...



As far as Lavy goes I don't blame him for our mess right now, or at least not entirely. Housley needs to take a lot of the responsibility and so does Poile, as much as I've warmed to PK that was not a good trade for us this season. I think it'll probably pan out better for us in the future but right now we've lacked a lot of leadership that Weber brought to us and that's really hurt us in fighting back or even keeping focus in games I think.

Sorry, but I only follow American sports. Yeah, I know....throw the "Ugly American" label at me, but I couldn't care less about soccer or what is going on in sports in Spain, Russia, etc.

 

[nomorekids]

I also am fine with who ever manages the extra attacker situation--both when we pull the goalie and when opponent pulls--getting canned.

When we pull the goaltender it's sheer pandemonium that typically results in a very quick ENG(or two)

And going back a couple seasons, the conversion rate for teams with goalie pulled getting a late goal is remarkable as well.

 

[Mypetrobot]

Gonna Chirp here again.

Fiala on the third? Again for what reason? He's not a shutdown forward or a checking forward. He's a playmaker so that's just crazy.

Secondly I got laughed at the beginning of the season saying Phil should go, the writing was on the wall that he sucked at the PP and possibly the 3v3 area but I don't know if he runs that.

Again we aren't talking about Korn who's only responsibility was the goaltending. So as much development as he has done for the d corps he hasn't produced results and again he wasn't lavy's pick to begin with.