GDT: 10/17/15 - 7:00PM EDT - Buffalo VS Tampa Bay

[The Macho King]

The most impressive with Bishop is the vast majority of the goals he allowed were either on the defense or unlucky bounces. Solid is not strong enough of a word to describe Bish so far.

Stars game is an exception, but yeah he's been fantastic.

 

[DFC]

I think all that separates Bish from an elite goalie is he has more bad games than an elite goalie. When he's "on," he's good as anyone other than Carey Price. He was on last night. Thankfully. He was the only reason we didn't get blown out.

Sometimes it might not look like he's making huge saves because the saves aren't coming out of athleticism so much as reading the play a split second before your average goalie would. That 2-on-1 save last night was ridiculous. I think it was on Eichel. It happened so fast that I actually thought they'd scored for a moment.

He reads the play and gets into position. So you rarely see the flailing limb saves that we so often associate with greatness.

Unfortunately, those bad games do happen (usually on the road).

 

[These Are The Days]

I think all that separates Bish from an elite goalie is he has more bad games than an elite goalie. When he's "on," he's good as anyone other than Carey Price. He was on last night. Thankfully. He was the only reason we didn't get blown out.

Sometimes it might not look like he's making huge saves because the saves aren't coming out of athleticism so much as reading the play a split second before your average goalie would. That 2-on-1 save last night was ridiculous. I think it was on Eichel. It happened so fast that I actually thought they'd scored for a moment.

He reads the play and gets into position. So you rarely see the flailing limb saves that we so often associate with greatness.

Unfortunately, those bad games do happen (usually on the road).

The save on ROR at the end of the game with about 2 minutes left was as good as it gets too

 

[Vasilevskiy]

That was a brutal game.
But we won... something we didn't do other seasons.

The only positive I take from this shitty game (and Bishop)

 

[xteesy]

Oh BTW...

4-0-0 when Sustr plays. Lol

f***ing hell.... We're never going to hear the end of this now... lol...

Stamkos for the rocket, Drouin for the art ross.

Not if coop coops. Lol

Honestly, pulling Drouin very well could have helped his growth/mentality just as much as people think it hurt it. Imagine if he had given up the game-winning goal? Sure it's against the Sabres, but it doesn't matter... You've got a 19 year old who knows he was off that night and just needed to sit back and rest a bit. He'll come out stronger for it with a better mindset.

I think everyone forgets the kid is still a kid, and Coop knows a thing or two about helping his "kids" develop. Like I've said before, TKO is proof of that.

Then again, he let TKO get fat and lazy over the summer so.... thanks a lot dad?

 

[Leonardo87]

f***ing hell.... We're never going to hear the end of this now... lol...






Honestly, pulling Drouin very well could have helped his growth/mentality just as much as people think it hurt it. Imagine if he had given up the game-winning goal? Sure it's against the Sabres, but it doesn't matter... You've got a 19 year old who knows he was off that night and just needed to sit back and rest a bit. He'll come out stronger for it with a better mindset.

I think everyone forgets the kid is still a kid, and Coop knows a thing or two about helping his "kids" develop. Like I've said before, TKO is proof of that.

Then again, he let TKO get fat and lazy over the summer so.... thanks a lot dad?

Lol sorry about the Sustr post.

As per Drouin, yeah it's growing pains he has to learn and think with the line he is on has someone to teach him that two way game.

 

[DFC]

f***ing hell.... We're never going to hear the end of this now... lol...






Honestly, pulling Drouin very well could have helped his growth/mentality just as much as people think it hurt it. Imagine if he had given up the game-winning goal? Sure it's against the Sabres, but it doesn't matter... You've got a 19 year old who knows he was off that night and just needed to sit back and rest a bit. He'll come out stronger for it with a better mindset.

I think everyone forgets the kid is still a kid, and Coop knows a thing or two about helping his "kids" develop. Like I've said before, TKO is proof of that.

Then again, he let TKO get fat and lazy over the summer so.... thanks a lot dad?

TKO was developed a lot differently than Drouin.

And the fact remains, we've never seen Coop actually give a younger player a shot to overtake an established player until he's been absolutely forced to. Drouin, right now, was the first instance of anything else, and now we see the leash he's on.

A lot depends on the next game. If Coop goes back to Stamkos-Drouin, then fine. But if Drouin's playing on the fourth line and we see Namestnikov up on the top line, it will in all honesty make this team hard to watch for me. Because the coach is actually THAT frustrating.

 

[Leonardo87]

TKO was developed a lot differently than Drouin.

And the fact remains, we've never seen Coop actually give a younger player a shot to overtake an established player until he's been absolutely forced to. Drouin, right now, was the first instance of anything else, and now we see the leash he's on.

A lot depends on the next game. If Coop goes back to Stamkos-Drouin, then fine. But if Drouin's playing on the fourth line and we see Namestnikov up on the top line, it will in all honesty make this team hard to watch for me. Because the coach is actually THAT frustrating.

It's hard for a player to be excellent in 82 games straight. Going to have off nights. Some of our players have taken off too many nights where as some others have had maybe one bad or just meh game. I understand coop wants to shake things up and last night he had to since no one was really getting it done except an unassisted goal by Vladdy who got PP time over Drouin.

I think next game the lines should be back to what they were beginning of this game with Condra being back in the lineup.

 

[Sky04]

I wonder what Patrick Kane's development would've looked like if he was punished for every mistake his first 2 years.

 

[2020 Cup Champions]

I wonder what Patrick Kane's development would've looked like if he was punished for every mistake his first 2 years.

If Cooper doesn't bench him, he goes on a cabbie beating spree.

 

[Hoek]

I wonder if we wouldn't be complaining about Stamkos' hockey IQ so much if he had gotten that treatment earlier in his career, though. I mean yeah Melrose just straight up scratched him like a moron, but after that I don't remember him getting punished much.

 

[Sky04]

I wonder if we wouldn't be complaining about Stamkos' hockey IQ so much if he had gotten that treatment earlier in his career, though. I mean yeah Melrose just straight up scratched him like a moron, but after that I don't remember him getting punished much.

It's not his hockey IQ, he has never been a great playmaker or been able to see the ice well.

The first time you could see his flaws was last season because Tampa has never played a possession type game before, puck never used to be on his stick for long and for some reason he forgot how to stickhandle like he used to earlier in his career. I'd argue that if you wanted those kinks out, Cooper should've sent a message and scratch/reduce his icetime for the numerous mistakes he made/makes, instead Stamkos is given a freepass for all errors and is spoonfed ice time.

His system would make sense if there was consistency among all players but MSL and Stamkos were given free passes for playing one-dimensional games and causing turnovers, Filppula gets lazy in the defensive zone many times, and don't even get me started on Matt fricken Carle. Doesn't make sense that you only punish certain players for mistakes and then let your "leaders' get away with them, terrible example to set.

 

[The Macho King]

For the record - I don't buy that Stamkos has a low hockey IQ. He has an amazing awareness of where goals are scored from, and how to get open despite being the target of defenses. He lulls defenses to sleep - Ninja-style as it were. That takes hockey smarts.

His issue isn't lack of IQ as much of wanting to be something he isn't. He thinks - maybe because of the C, maybe because of the press - that he should be Crosby. He passes up good chances to try and create tap-ins from other players, without realizing that a good chance for him is as good as a fantastic chance for anyone else.

One of the few promising things I took from the last game was - when it was just him and the goalie on the PP, he elected to shoot instead of try the cross ice pass through traffic. Normally he tries for the pass in that situation, and while his chance wasn't the best - not in a great position to score - he made the goalie make a save.