GDT: 2022-23 season game 21 LA Kings vs Seattle Kraken @7:00pm 11/19/22

[Raccoon Jesus]

There is no muscle. No one to kill an opponent and then eat their remains

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We need an O'Donnell, Mitchell, Regehr, or Chuck Norris

When did Clifford grow his hair out

 

[SettlementRichie10]

One thing I won't blame Blake for is deviating from Dean's setup. Not because DL "did it wrong", but teams have been successful with different identities and compositions.

Blake had to set up the team to fit his vision. If he wanted more skill, he had to get it.

Of course, every setup has its drawbacks.

But where I will have fault in Blake is trying to focus more on skill but insisting players to play heavy. It's like if DL drafted King, Shore, Nolan, MacDermid/etc and bring in a coach whose system expects they play more risky and flashy.

I would give Blake more credit if he had a vision at all. Just look at the blueline he’s constructed. Almost every single defenseman in the system is around 6’0, a good skater and puck mover, with some varying degree of offensive upside. Doughty, Roy, Walker, Durzi, and Clarke are all the the exact same defenseman, even if each of them is slightly better or worse at specific areas of the game.

We don’t have anyone like Mitchell or Regehr or Scuderi in the system. Even players like Anderson and Bjornfot, while less offensively inclined than the others, still play the same mid-size skating dominant style of defense.

The forward core suffers from a similar issue: far too rich on speedy, skill wings, and pretty barren at center. Some of that isn’t entirely Blake’s fault. Both Turcotte and Byfield were top five center picks, and neither has panned out.

Maybe Blake is content to just let the clock run out on Kopitar and Quick so he can have more cap to start packaging all these aforementioned redundancies for some Fiala-esque trades. Who really knows.

After seeing his choice in coaches over the years, I don’t think he’s ever had much of a long term plan. And why should we think otherwise? In four short years, he’s gone from “let’s run it back with Stevens and the same core and contend” to “okay we’re not ready to contend but Kovalchuk will put us over the edge” to “okay yeah we need to rebuild, and the perfect coach to oversee that is one famous for favoring veterans over youth.”

Not very inspiring.

 

[King'sPawn]

I would give Blake more credit if he had a vision at all. Just look at the blueline he’s constructed. Almost every single defenseman in the system is around 6’0, a good skater and puck mover, with some varying degree of offensive upside. Doughty, Roy, Walker, Durzi, and Clarke are all the the exact same defenseman, even if each of them is slightly better or worse at specific areas of the game.

We don’t have anyone like Mitchell or Regehr or Scuderi in the system. Even players like Anderson and Bjornfot, while less offensively inclined than the others, still play the same mid-size skating dominant style of defense.

The forward core suffers from a similar issue: far too rich on speedy, skill wings, and pretty barren at center. Some of that isn’t entirely Blake’s fault. Both Turcotte and Byfield were top five center picks, and neither has panned out.

Maybe Blake is content to just let the clock run out on Kopitar and Quick so he can have more cap to start packaging all these aforementioned redundancies for some Fiala-esque trades. Who really knows.

After seeing his choice in coaches over the years, I don’t think he’s ever had much of a long term plan. And why should we think otherwise? In four short years, he’s gone from “let’s run it back with Stevens and the same core and contend” to “okay we’re not ready to contend but Kovalchuk will put us over the edge” to “okay yeah we need to rebuild, and the perfect coach to oversee that is one famous for favoring veterans over youth.”

Not very inspiring.

I understand your point, and overall I agree. My disagreements with management and processes are well documented.

My overall point is, I'm not going to fault Blake for having a largely smaller defensive unit if that's what his focus is. Is it what *I* would want? No. But if he was focusing more on skill, I can at least appreciate the intention.

I do genuinely think Blake expected to be competitors up until December of 2019, which is when we started seeing Pearson and other younger core players go.

With McLellan, I think he has worked with some gifted young players and think there's merit to giving him a shot. But I don't know if this "prospects need to pay their dues in the bottom 6" is stemmed from Blake, McLellan, drafting, development, or just a combination of all of them. It's just looking inflexible. While I've given an A+ on all their top picks (I'm happy to discuss that in a separate post), I am questioning how they're being handled.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

I understand your point, and overall I agree. My disagreements with management and processes are well documented.

My overall point is, I'm not going to fault Blake for having a largely smaller defensive unit if that's what his focus is. Is it what *I* would want? No. But if he was focusing more on skill, I can at least appreciate the intention.

I do genuinely think Blake expected to be competitors up until December of 2019, which is when we started seeing Pearson and other younger core players go.

With McLellan, I think he has worked with some gifted young players and think there's merit to giving him a shot. But I don't know if this "prospects need to pay their dues in the bottom 6" is stemmed from Blake, McLellan, drafting, development, or just a combination of all of them. It's just looking inflexible. While I've given an A+ on all their top picks (I'm happy to discuss that in a separate post), I am questioning how they're being handled.

If Blake’s idea of a successful, contending blueline was a bunch of mid size right handed puck movers, yeah, he probably shouldn’t be a GM anymore.

 

[Mats26]

I would give Blake more credit if he had a vision at all. Just look at the blueline he’s constructed. Almost every single defenseman in the system is around 6’0, a good skater and puck mover, with some varying degree of offensive upside. Doughty, Roy, Walker, Durzi, and Clarke are all the the exact same defenseman, even if each of them is slightly better or worse at specific areas of the game.

We don’t have anyone like Mitchell or Regehr or Scuderi in the system. Even players like Anderson and Bjornfot, while less offensively inclined than the others, still play the same mid-size skating dominant style of defense.

The forward core suffers from a similar issue: far too rich on speedy, skill wings, and pretty barren at center. Some of that isn’t entirely Blake’s fault. Both Turcotte and Byfield were top five center picks, and neither has panned out.

Maybe Blake is content to just let the clock run out on Kopitar and Quick so he can have more cap to start packaging all these aforementioned redundancies for some Fiala-esque trades. Who really knows.

After seeing his choice in coaches over the years, I don’t think he’s ever had much of a long term plan. And why should we think otherwise? In four short years, he’s gone from “let’s run it back with Stevens and the same core and contend” to “okay we’re not ready to contend but Kovalchuk will put us over the edge” to “okay yeah we need to rebuild, and the perfect coach to oversee that is one famous for favoring veterans over youth.”

Not very inspiring.

For some reason this resonates with me because I thought of this as Blakes' "hidden" plan for a while.
Get Petersen under contract(paid like a #1). Let Quick, Kopitar play out their contracts and use the cap space and assets to build up the team. If none of the kids hit their ceilings, I can definitely see this happening.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

For some reason this resonates with me because I thought of this as Blakes' "hidden" plan for a while.
Get Petersen under contract(paid like a #1). Let Quick, Kopitar play out their contracts and use the cap space and assets to build up the team. If none of the kids hit their ceilings, I can definitely see this happening.

If that were the case, wouldn’t have it been beneficial for the Kings to trade Kopitar a couple years ago?

If the Hawks can consider moving on from Kane, there’s no reason the Kings couldn’t have moved on from Kopitar.

 

[Mats26]

If that were the case, wouldn’t have it been beneficial for the Kings to trade Kopitar a couple years ago?

If the Hawks can consider moving on from Kane, there’s no reason the Kings couldn’t have moved on from Kopitar.

Sure but who would take on that massive contract? Even with Kane it's just rumors, UFA this year so maybe it's possible with him. Kings will do what they did with Brown. Quick, Kopitar and Doughty will play out their contracts and replace them if possible with the cap space they have saved.

 

[SettlementRichie10]

Sure but who would take on that massive contract? Even with Kane it's just rumors, UFA this year so maybe it's possible with him. Kings will do what they did with Brown. Quick, Kopitar and Doughty will play out their contracts and replace them if possible with the cap space they have saved.

If the Kings retain 20%, there are a lot of teams interested in the summer of 2019, IMO.

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

I didn't watch, but it sounds like OT was coached perfectly yet again. F*** this team until they make real changes, we are not going anywhere until we do. laugh all you want at my posts, I'll keep posting, and I'll keep being right. Tmac is holding us back. It's that simple.

TM with another stellar performance last night.

 

[Schmooley]

TM with another stellar performance last night.

This thread is more than a month old quit being a f***in loser

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

This thread is more than a month old quit being a f***in loser

I think anyone who’s going to predict the future and claim they’ll ‘keep being right’ should be held accountable when it turns out they’re wrong. Call me crazy!

 

[SufferingSelfCreated]

I think anyone who’s going to predict the future and claim they’ll ‘keep being right’ should be held accountable when it turns out they’re wrong. Call me crazy!

You're counting your eggs before they hatch. TM still has plenty of time to f*** this up.

But I will happily eat crow at the end of the season if he gets us over the hump.

 

[Schrute farms]

I think anyone who’s going to predict the future and claim they’ll ‘keep being right’ should be held accountable when it turns out they’re wrong. Call me crazy!

One day later after you bring this (over a month old) thread back up to dance on - what about today? This is why you don’t do dumb things like this. Didn’t even last the weekend. Just stop with this kind of stuff. You are trying too hard - unnecessarily so.

 

[Axl Rhoadz]

I didn't watch, but it sounds like OT was coached perfectly yet again. F*** this team until they make real changes, we are not going anywhere until we do. laugh all you want at my posts, I'll keep posting, and I'll keep being right. Tmac is holding us back. It's that simple.

The time is NOW...time for change!

 

[kingsboy11]

The time is NOW...time for change!

The time is NOW...to stop bringing up old GDTs that are months old to try and prove a point. Closed.