GDT: 10/23/15 - 8:00PM EDT - Tampa Bay @ Winnipeg

[DFC]

I think the whole Lefty - Righty thing gets thrown out the window if the player is too good to not play. Right now Koekkoek is knocking on the door and if he get's in later this season or makes the team next year, I don't see how Coop can deny him if he deserves to play. Coop has also broken this system before like he had to in the playoffs with a Coburn-Garrison pairing and he's trying to do now with Carle-Garrison.

Sustr I guess is honing everything. He's a master of no particular thing, who wants to keep his game simple. If in the end he can be more reliable, make good decisions on the ice, eat more minutes, and keep the puck out of the net, I'll take it. I see him trying to be more like a Mike Lundin.

NHL coaches like to use the 300 games mark as the point where a Dmen has enough experience to come into his own. Sustr could reach that in the year 2018, but who knows what the roster looks like by then.

Lefty-Righty is a big Yzerman thing though. It's why PK Subban nearly didn't make the Olympic squad, and why he was a healthy scratch most of the time. He was better than some of the lefties on that squad--not the righties.

Coburn and Garrison are both unique situations because they both trained to play the other side. Coburn, in particular, is a lefty that spent most of his career on the right. Those guys exist, but they're rare. (I think Nesterov might actually be one of those guys in the making, but that's up to management.)

There's a little bit of leeway because it's the third pairing, so it's a tad bit more relaxed and you'll see guys get into the lineup on their off-side for a game or two (Nesterov). But I think the days of giving full time spots to guys playing their off side are over.

With Sustr, yeah--he's honing nothing. He's trying to be an average defenseman who doesn't really do anything above average. Average skater, average shot, average everything. He's not going to wake up one day and have these basic skills somehow implanted in him. The only thing that's going to improve is his decision-making.

 

[The Gongshow]

Because he's a righty, he probably has until DeAngelo is ready.

This could be sooner than people expect, with the amount of talent that kid has. Specially with a few D contracts coming up soon. I'm 50/50 on keeping Coburn. He's only 30 if he doesn't ask for buckets of money, maybe sign him for a couple more years just to give some of the kids more time to develop.

I hope we resign Garrison in a few years when his contract is up, he's been solid and underrated imo. He'd be 33 and could be a solid veteran 3rd pairing guy (depending on how his game is in 3 years, long ways away)

Hedman - Stralman
??? - ???
Garrison - Sustr

could make room for Koekkoek and DeAngelo and Nesterov. We really have to dump Carle tho

Just thinking out loud, still a few years away to think about some of this stuff.

 

[DFC]

This could be sooner than people expect, with the amount of talent that kid has. Specially with a few D contracts coming up soon. I'm 50/50 on keeping Coburn. He's only 30 if he doesn't ask for buckets of money, maybe sign him for a couple more years just to give some of the kids more time to develop.

I hope we resign Garrison in a few years when his contract is up, he's been solid and underrated imo. He'd be 33 and could be a solid veteran 3rd pairing guy (depending on how his game is in 3 years, long ways away)

Hedman - Stralman
??? - ???
Garrison - Sustr

could make room for Koekkoek and DeAngelo and Nesterov. We really have to dump Carle tho

Just thinking out loud, still a few years away to think about some of this stuff.

I think there's 0 chance we keep Coburn. It's going to cost at least the $4.5m he makes now, and with the big, huge, massive contracts we have coming up, he's a pretty clear cap casualty. (And his play, right now, doesn't even justify his current deal.) We need to find a cheaper option, probably from outside the organization.

I think we leave DeAngelo for the year and we're going to start hearing reports about how much he's improving in the D zone. Next year will likely be his transitional year, kind of like what Koekkoek is going through now. Right now I think management is very likely trying to see if Koekkoek is ready to replace Carle, and next year I think they'll be looking at DeAngelo vs. Sustr. If DeAngelo looks ready, Sustr walks at the end of that year.

I think a very likely scenario for next season is:

Hedman-Stralman
Garrison-UFA
Koekkoek-Sustr
Nesterov

But, ideally, by mid-season, it actually looks like:

Hedman-Stralman
Koekkoek-Garrison (can play the right)
UFA-Sustr
Nesterov

And, if Yzerman's feeling risky, maybe even:

Hedman-Stralman
Koekkoek-Garrison
Nesterov-Sustr
Witkowski

But I don't think we're going to hand Koekkoek a top 4 role... UNLESS he proves something big later this year.

I think Carle's just gone. If we can't trade him, I think we'll buy him out. In every other case where we on this board have seen a clear problem with a player, it has always turned out, in hindsight, that management saw the same thing. Sometimes they just like to let the situation play itself out a little longer than we would, being impatient and all. Maybe to get the pieces set up right.

Whatever the case, I think the exodus stream we've seen in the past few years will include Carle as early as this year's trade deadline, and before the draft at the very latest. We could swallow his contract this year. Next year, it's not possible.

Malone, Purcell, Connolly, Morrow. We all wondered why management valued these guys until it became clear they really didn't. (In Purcell's case, we literally gave him away just to get him off the roster.)

 

[The Macho King]

I think we'll do with Carle what we did with Purcell(Gagner). Instead of buying him out - trade him and retain his buyout cost. Him at 3.75 has some value, and it saves us two years of 1.88 of cap.

 

[Lord Stan 2020]

I think the whole Lefty - Righty thing gets thrown out the window if the player is too good to not play. Right now Koekkoek is knocking on the door and if he get's in later this season or makes the team next year, I don't see how Coop can deny him if he deserves to play. Coop has also broken this system before like he had to in the playoffs with a Coburn-Garrison pairing and he's trying to do now with Carle-Garrison.

Sustr I guess is honing everything. He's a master of no particular thing, who wants to keep his game simple. If in the end he can be more reliable, make good decisions on the ice, eat more minutes, and keep the puck out of the net, I'll take it. I see him trying to be more like a Mike Lundin.

NHL coaches like to use the 300 games mark as the point where a Dmen has enough experience to come into his own. Sustr could reach that in the year 2018, but who knows what the roster looks like by then.

bolded top agreed

bolded bottom no way in hell he gets 300 games playing as he has so far i personally think hes devolving if anything and starting to feel is like keith aulie

tooo many other options to give him 300 if has 150 its big enough window when have guys like nesterov and koekkoek pushing him out

 

[Volodya Krutov]

It's too bad he had that brain fart last week when he got suspended, because the momentum was totally going in his favor but I still think Nesterov beats Sustr sooner than later for the 6th dman spot, he's just a much better hockey player and Cooper can't avoid addressing the Sustr question forever, unless Sustr gets back to his form during the DRW's series (god was he good !). Nesterov has all the tools to become a decent dman in this league, it only depends whether he can open that toolbox to get them together but I'm personally optimistic, his improvement over the past 10 months demonstrates a real commitment to address his weaknesses and that's 50% of the job IMO.

 

[The Macho King]

The fact that we're healthy scratching Sustr is pretty big in how Coop and the org as a whole feels about him. He's not lasting long.

 

[Volodya Krutov]

The fact that we're healthy scratching Sustr is pretty big in how Coop and the org as a whole feels about him. He's not lasting long.

He wished he wouldn't do it because the man is ****** obsessed with handedness (or is it SFY) but it's just proving they're well aware Sustr doesn't provide the necessary reliability for a defensive dman.

 

[HoseEmDown]

The fact that we're healthy scratching Sustr is pretty big in how Coop and the org as a whole feels about him. He's not lasting long.

Who else are we going to scratch so Nesterov can get a game in? We have 5 that are set with Sustr the 6 and Nesterov replacing him to stay fresh, not because he's better then Sustr.

 

[DFC]

Who else are we going to scratch so Nesterov can get a game in? We have 5 that are set with Sustr the 6 and Nesterov replacing him to stay fresh, not because he's better then Sustr.

Brown, apparently.

7D tonight.