Alexis Lafreniere disappointing season start? PART 2

No he's not. And it's not even close. There's a reason Fox is playing over 25 mins a night.

 

Because Brenden Smith and Anthony bitetto are not good?

 

Lol time on ice has zero to do with how good a player is, look at Seth Jones. Seversons underlying numbers show he is better than fox right now.

Rangers are also down Trouba so obviously fox is gonna get a ton of ice time. And this isn’t me saying he’s not a good player, he absolutely is. He’s just not better than Severson currently.

 

This is true. Severson has been one of the best d-man in the league this year. He is #2 in both corsi and fenwick for % (both behind Makar), scoring at higher rate, preventing shot attempts at higher rate.

"not close" may be true, but it wouldn't be Fox.
(Also, Severson is playing 24 min/g)

I said earlier that I'd take Fox going forward, but Severson has been certainly better than Fox thus far this year, especially at even strength.

 

Rasmus Ristolainen has been amazing his whole career. There's a reason he averages 24 minutes a night over his career... Fox is really good (Severson has been better this season) but just going "look how many minutes he's playing" is lazy and not even a good point

lol This thread has been so derailed from the start. Just rename it to "Devils fans vs Rangers fans pissing match"

 

For the record, I didn't create this thread. It was a comment I made in the previous thread which was appearently split up.

But to add my 2c to Lafreniere's struggles, it could be partly due to coaching and partly to him being overhyped?
Hughes showed flashes last year of star potential. You could just see it. And of course now we are starting to see it even more.
Has Lafreniere shown any flashes?

 

Developing chemistry would be nice, but I think it's related more to the Rangers' "system" cause they're f***ing atrocious to watch. Like no offense but watching the Rangers play hockey this year has been a snoozefest. There's no creativity.

 

Severson better than Fox is based on a very small sample size. So I would say we aren't there, yet.

Else I advise other Devils fans to ignore a certain poster in this thread. Talking about bias and others being haters, while he was the Speaker of the SchmakkouseQuinnright fraction of the NYR fan base, who was telling us, among Hughes and Kakko that Kakko was the better player with the higher ceiling after 2019 draft.

 

Lol hilarious. If I had to pick between Hughes (who has made a complete transformation from last year & looks like a complete star), and Hischier vs Laf and Kakko I pick the devils center duo all day. Simply put you don't draft around wingers and Jack Hughes is gonna be the best player of all mentioned. The rangers desperately lack young centers. Until they aquire those pieces which are the hardest to get thats when they can say that there rebuild is almost over.

 

gotta go with the Devs over the blueshirts rebuild. Getting stud guys up the middle goes a looong way. Time will tell. Uncanni, there is not a 'fastest rebuild ever thread" for the Devils. Good debate though

 

Yet, you have to score x amount of goals and x amount of points with relatively high +/- and your team needs to quali to the play-offs
to win a Norris, soooo....those numbers there, mean nothing

Cool to look at, that is all, even thou i don't understand a damn thing what those numbers even say.

 

Yeah, he's not winning a Norris, this year or probably ever, but it's interesting to see some stats that put him in that group.

FWIW, those stats essentially mean that Damon Severson is on the ice for a lot of shots on the offensive side, and far fewer on the defensive side. Those kinds of stats can be a little wonky though. Do I think he's taken a big step forward and can legitimately be considered a #1 defenseman at this point? For 13 games so far or whatever, yeah. Do I actually believe he's now at the same level with Victor Hedman and Charlie McAvoy? Nah.

@WhiskeyYourTheDevils my point here is not to insist that Severson is better than or even as good as Fox. I respect your opinion on that. I think it's accurate to say that the Rangers's rebuild is significantly ahead of the Devils's rebuild when it comes to defense. Just think it's worth noting that if Severson can maintain this level of play it will be a lot easier for the Devils to build around a legitimate top pair than it would be if they just had a single promising young blueliner in Smith.

 

Agreed on Severson, he's been excellent this year. Hopefully he can keep it up. He's shown some flashes over his career, only to faulter. But it feels a bit different this go around. So I'm cautiously optimistic.

 

ANIEC

 

Thank you for your input. It's much valued.

 

No.

 

So doesn't it stand to reason that Laf could make a complete transformation and become a complete star as well?

Having two centers is a valid reason to like what NJ has. That said, sometimes you never know where a C is going to come from.

The first season under Brind'Amour, the Hurricane's centers going into the season were Jordan Staal, Victor Rask, Lucas Wallmark and Jordan Martinook. Probably the worst in the NHL. Rask gets hurt and they are forced to put Aho at C. He was drafted as a winger and had always played winger in Finland except for the WJC tournament. Then they traded for Trocheck and Paquette and now look pretty solid down the middle with Aho, Trocheck, Staal, Paquette along with some solid C prospects in the system with Jarvis, Rees, Suzuki, Geekie, Drury, etc...

Boston has made a long run off of two guys drafted later on (Bergeron 2nd round, Krejci 2nd round) as their centers, but had some elite wingers in Marchand and Pastrnak.

Same goes for STL. Their top 2 Cs for their cup win? ROR and Schenn, both acquired in trades.

My point is that yes, you need strength down the middle, but there are more ways to achieve that and the Ranger's will likely have those opportunities.

 

The Rangers don't even have such huge center problems. They are mild concerns. It's not like the center concerns of a team like Minnesota or Arizona or Detroit.

If Zibanejad wasn't ill from COVID, no one would even be talking about the Rangers center problems. Chytil is coming along well, and Strome is an okay enough stop-gap for now. It's highly realistic that next season Zibanejad and Chytil are a good 1-2 punch at center, and the Rangers center problems are no longer a talking point.

Our center problems are much more question marks than blanks.

 

How long is he gonna be ill from covid?

 

I do wonder if Chytil has the consistency to his game to be a legit #2 center one day. Many questions the rangers have that only time will tell. This is his D 4 now correct?

 

Not getting into this argument of who's better but ice time isn't a great way to judge. Cody Ceci regularly played 20+mins and Ristolainen either led or came close to leading the whole NHL...

 

How would anyone know?

 

Chytil was really good this season before being injured. He's not lacking consistency, he's lacking opportunity. He was outplaying Strome, and was about to take his spot. People suggest the Rangers are so bad at center, but production-wise, Strome and Chytil performed okay for a 2/3C center combo last season. They probably will do the same this season.

There's this thought-process out there from the outside that Strome is a product of Panarin, so he's a pretty underwhelming 2C. If you want to say that, be fair that Chytil is also a player who firmly projects as a 2C once he gets that opportunity. Making it a proposition where Strome sucks and can't be the long-term solution and Chytil is inconsistent is being patently unfair to the situation where you take the worst-case scenario viewpoint on both players instead of some middle-ground view on the players.

 

Of course its not - just look at every other metric if you want to see how dominate he is.

Here's how he ranks among defenseman at 5v5 since the start of his career:

1st in rel CF%
1st in rel FF%
1st in rel SF%
1st in rel xGA/60
2nd in rel xGF%

Source