GDT: Aves @ Hawkes | 6:30pm MT | All I want for Christmas is Cale and a 2C

[dahrougem2]

I would love to know what makes a guy like RyJo tick. What motivates this guy in life? Or is he the most nonchalant person to ever exist?

Strange, because he is PUMPED to score goals more often than not. And we've seen him get on his horse when he wants to - it just happens like once every 10 or so games.

Such a waste of natural talent honestly. Guys like he and Alexei Kovalev are such weird cases to me.

 

[henchman21]

I agree with a lot that you wrote here, however, I can't see how he was the blame yesterday. Avs should be beating a team like the Hawks by two goals at least. The powerplay is more of a concern to me, than Georgiev because even if he's allowing one soft goal per game, Avs shouldn't be 20th in the league on the PP with their talent. Granted it has been a lot better in the past 5-7 games, but Rantanen's lack of production on it is another big problem on this team. Maybe I am overvaluing this Avs team in terms of talent, but Georgiev's soft goals are being exposed by you and other posts on the premise because Avs are not providing goal cushions. I know it won't happen every single game, but Avs should win by a 2+ goal margin against at least 16 to 19 teams in the league.

There will be a lot of one-goal games, but I argue that this season there have been way too many. Some of that has been Georgiev allowing stinkers, some of that has been due to a eunuch powerplay, but the biggest problem has been overall team defence. I haven't chequed in a minute, but when Avs went on their six-game winning strike, Georgiev was top 3 in the most dangerous shots against in terms of the amount and area of said shots (only JoJo had more against). That simply isn't a recipe for success. For me, the defensive core has been the biggest fall from grace more than any thing else including goaltending and Rantanen/RyJo.

I'm not saying it is all his fault, but he is certainly in the top 5 issues the team is facing. Whether it is fair or not, goalies make a large difference when a team can't dominate... which I'll argue the Avs are not built with enough depth to do it consistently (so we disagree on the talent level). Yeah you'll get some nights where the top guys go off... but any night they only contribute 1 or less goals (you could probably even argue 2), the Avs have to then win tight games. That's where you need George to not be leaky.

I don't see Rantanen's production as an issue. The rest of his play is... but he is pacing right around 40g-65a. That would be a career high in assists and tie for points... while being his 2nd best season in goals. That's about as much as we can reasonably expect from him. Same with MacK and Nuke. Makar is probably above what we can reasonably expect. The top guys are producing about all they can. It is the rest of the lineup can't do enough (this is largely on the 2nd line).

 

[dahrougem2]

Mikko needs to be stapled to the 2nd line if he's going to continue putting in these lazy ass efforts and expecting Nichushkin and MacKinnon to do the heavy lifting. Reward Drouin with some top line minutes for how hard he's been working lately.

Stick Mikko with RyJo and tell them both if they continue to half-ass this (or worse) then they won't be seeing many 5v5 minutes.

 

[henchman21]

Mikko needs to be stapled to the 2nd line if he's going to continue putting in these lazy ass efforts and expecting Nichushkin and MacKinnon to do the heavy lifting. Reward Drouin with some top line minutes for how hard he's been working lately.

Stick Mikko with RyJo and tell them both if they continue to half-ass this (or worse) then they won't be seeing many 5v5 minutes.

RyJo after telling him he can work less.

 

[forsbergavs32]

Maybe not feasible with the injuries but I’d even go as far as calling up Pavel and letting RyJo sit for a couple games. Lineup would still look ugly but at least someone would be in the lineup that tries.

Drouin-Mack-Nuke
Wood-Colton-Rantanen
Kivi-Pavel-LOC
Meyers-Olofsson-MacDermid

 

[Balthazar]

I would love to know what makes a guy like RyJo tick. What motivates this guy in life? Or is he the most nonchalant person to ever exist?

Strange, because he is PUMPED to score goals more often than not. And we've seen him get on his horse when he wants to - it just happens like once every 10 or so games.

Such a waste of natural talent honestly. Guys like he and Alexei Kovalev are such weird cases to me.

Kovalev was producing though.

You're right about him being pumped when he scores. We have seen him skating as fast as he could on many occasions too, he's just not fast.

TBH I don't even believe he's lazy at this point, he doesn't have much left in the tank. There's no "playoff RyJo" left hidden in there IMO. Dude is cooked.

 

[dahrougem2]

Kovalev was producing though.

You're right about him being pumped when he scores. We have seen him skating as fast as he could on many occasions too, he's just not fast.

TBH I don't even believe he's lazy at this point, he doesn't have much left in the tank. There's no "playoff RyJo" left hidden in there IMO. Dude is cooked.

I mean outside of 00-01 and 07-08 they're relatively similar production players. They're both insanely lazy and insanely talented.

I'm not convinced Johansen is cooked. I'm convinced he's in even more DGAF mode than ever. Which is just so, so strange. He is so happy to score, he gets involved in all the scrums sticking up for teammates, he takes faceoffs so seriously. Yet he's SO lazy.

 

[Vk1ing]

If lekhys dad calling him out got him going for a game I wonder what toews calling him out will do for Mikko lol

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

If lekhys dad calling him out got him going for a game I wonder what toews calling him out will do for Mikko lol

3 rounds of boxing

 

[henchman21]

I think there is every chance RyJo is cooked... he's also shown this disappearing act many times before. Given his level of play and what should be the goals of the team, the Avs should look to upgrade him. Banking on his play suddenly getting better is just a risk the Avs should not be taking.

 

[chet1926]

Mikko needs to be stapled to the 2nd line if he's going to continue putting in these lazy ass efforts and expecting Nichushkin and MacKinnon to do the heavy lifting. Reward Drouin with some top line minutes for how hard he's been working lately.

Stick Mikko with RyJo and tell them both if they continue to half-ass this (or worse) then they won't be seeing many 5v5 minutes.

Agreed 96 needs to figure his own way out of his rut. Not fair to 29 and 13 to expect them to get him going. 27 deserves some extra mins.

 

[Pokecheque]

Come on Poke. Arrogant? The better play would have been to just chip it to an open area, but he had no passing options, so he froze a bit, and Bedard made a nice steal.

You didn't see any passing options either, because there were none on the screen.

I had a feeling you'd be one of the first to pounce. When it comes to EJ and now Byram, you're more fervent than I ever was with Duchene back in the day.

I said what I said, er, typed. It was lazy. It was arrogant, absolutely it was, because he thought he could dangle Bedard and rush it up the ice instead of making the simple play. And what's really frustrating is that up until that moment, he was having an excellent shift.

And yes there absolutely were options. He had Connor Bedard in front of him, not the Berlin Wall.

 

[The Abusement Park]

Come on Poke. Arrogant? The better play would have been to just chip it to an open area, but he had no passing options, so he froze a bit, and Bedard made a nice steal.

You didn't see any passing options either, because there were none on the screen.

Then he should chipped it out of the zone. Turned the puck back to regroup and reset the breakout. Ice the puck. Don‘t try and dangle some dude on the blue line… Just a ridiculously bad play from Byram. And a symptom of issues that are plaguing this team. It’s not only him tbf, but when a teams struggling like we are that’s just not the play to make.

 

[Pokecheque]

I agree with a lot that you wrote here, however, I can't see how he was the blame yesterday. Avs should be beating a team like the Hawks by two goals at least. The powerplay is more of a concern to me, than Georgiev because even if he's allowing one soft goal per game, Avs shouldn't be 20th in the league on the PP with their talent. Granted it has been a lot better in the past 5-7 games, but Rantanen's lack of production on it is another big problem on this team. Maybe I am overvaluing this Avs team in terms of talent, but Georgiev's soft goals are being exposed by you and other posts on the premise because Avs are not providing goal cushions. I know it won't happen every single game, but Avs should win by a 2+ goal margin against at least 16 to 19 teams in the league.

There will be a lot of one-goal games, but I argue that this season there have been way too many. Some of that has been Georgiev allowing stinkers, some of that has been due to a eunuch powerplay, but the biggest problem has been overall team defence. I haven't chequed in a minute, but when Avs went on their six-game winning strike, Georgiev was top 3 in the most dangerous shots against in terms of the amount and area of said shots (only JoJo had more against). That simply isn't a recipe for success. For me, the defensive core has been the biggest fall from grace more than any thing else including goaltending and Rantanen/RyJo.

I'm not as worried about the power play (even strength scoring is a much more concerning issue to me). As usual it took them f***ing forever to make adjustments, but they made them and the power play is starting to find its way back. Now instead of sitting back and just hoping a Makar shot through traffic will get deflected on its way to the net, they moved Drouin off the bumper spot and into the corner, and as a result have opened up some passing lanes (especially the seam pass, which was pretty much nonexistent for most of this year). Also, MacKinnon is doing a good job of getting PKers to move instead of just sitting back and ripping one-timers. It's still too dependent on the heroics of one big Russian but they're doing a good job of moving the puck down low instead of just passing it to Cale (who's obviously not there right now) and hoping he just solves it for them.

The second unit is a frickin' joke (and they appear to be double-shifting top unit guys as a result) but they're finally putting in the work to fix it.

 

[Pokecheque]

Yeah...don't tell me there weren't options. That forward looping back (I think that's Drouin but not sure) could've received a pass. Worst case scenario you just safely dump it off the boards to him to pick up or just dump it out the other side for an icing. There's only ONE forechecker, it's not like there's a bunch of red jerseys stacked along the blue line. You don't need to try and dangle through one of the most skilled rookies in the league. Like I said, arrogant and foolish.

Even worse, Byram completely loses the guy he's covering AFTER his supreme f***up and they score an easy rebound goal.

 

[The Abusement Park]

View attachment 787427

Yeah...don't tell me there weren't options. That forward looping back (I think that's Drouin but not sure) could've received a pass. Worst case scenario you just safely dump it off the boards to him to pick up or just dump it out the other side for an icing. There's only ONE forechecker, it's not like there's a bunch of red jerseys stacked along the blue line. You don't need to try and dangle through one of the most skilled rookies in the league. Like I said, arrogant and foolish.

Even worse, Byram completely loses the guy he's covering AFTER his supreme f***up and they score an easy rebound goal.

The more I see this picture the more infuriating it gets lmao.

 

[Foppa2118]

View attachment 787427

Yeah...don't tell me there weren't options. That forward looping back (I think that's Drouin but not sure) could've received a pass. Worst case scenario you just safely dump it off the boards to him to pick up or just dump it out the other side for an icing. There's only ONE forechecker, it's not like there's a bunch of red jerseys stacked along the blue line. You don't need to try and dangle through one of the most skilled rookies in the league. Like I said, arrogant and foolish.

Even worse, Byram completely loses the guy he's covering AFTER his supreme f***up and they score an easy rebound goal.

What the hell is this? Now you're cherry picking screenshots just to fit your narrative. He just got the puck there and stepped away from the forechecker. A split second later, that passing lane was covered. Drouin's circling up ice not even looking for the pass.

Watch the video. Watch it in real time. Watch the reverse angle from behind the net. He had a split second where he could have and should have chipped it to open ice, but he didn't have an open passing lane.

You guys have fallen hook line and sinker for this anti Byram narrative, just because a couple people who never liked him to begin with, criticize him over and over trying to get others to think like them. So much so you're calling that play arrogant and saying nobody on the team likes him which is nonsense.

I'm sorry Poke, but just like with EJ, you and a few others just don't watch these plays before you criticize. Every GDT I'm in I have to correct people because they literally see things that never happened. Like passing options.

 

[Foppa2118]

Then he should chipped it out of the zone. Turned the puck back to regroup and reset the breakout. Ice the puck. Don‘t try and dangle some dude on the blue line… Just a ridiculously bad play from Byram. And a symptom of issues that are plaguing this team. It’s not only him tbf, but when a teams struggling like we are that’s just not the play to make.

That's literally what I said in the post you quoted. I said he should have chipped it to an open area.

You're right it's not only him, but he's the only one we ever talk about making mistakes for some reason. It's crazy.

Toews has been making the same mistakes for a year and a half, and many of you just started noticing it and talking about it recently.

 

[The Abusement Park]

That's literally what I said in the post you quoted. I said he should have chipped it to an open area.

You're right it's not only him, but he's the only one we ever talk about making mistakes for some reason. It's crazy.

Toews has been making the same mistakes for a year and a half, and many of you just started noticing it and talking about it recently.

You get on everyone here for conformation bias but are falling for it yourself. Byram isn’t the only one getting crapped on at all this year. People have literally been talking about shipping off RyJo already. People have been complaining about Mikkos effort this year. Complaining about how Toews looks like shit despite just singing a new long term deal. About how Georgie has been a problem in net. Or how Coltons fell off recently after a good run of play. Or earlier in the season when Mack and Nuke werent playing well.

Byram isn’t the only getting criticism at all. You’re just paying attention to the byram criticisms more than all the criticism. The team looks like shit this year and most everyone’s been getting shit this year.

 

[CobraAcesS]

Quite concerning if the message isn't getting through from Bednar. This happens to all coaches so it wouldn't be shocking especially given how long he's been here but it would still suck to see this organization's greatest coach lose the room and get fired by the end of this season.

I think they're more likely to ship out the players than actually fire Bednar.

Also I'd fire Cmac first for not finding a way to address the 2C issue.

 

[Foppa2118]

You get on everyone here for conformation bias but are falling for it yourself. Byram isn’t the only one getting crapped on at all this year. People have literally been talking about shipping off RyJo already. People have been complaining about Mikkos effort this year. Complaining about how Toews looks like shit despite just singing a new long term deal. About how Georgie has been a problem in net. Or how Coltons fell off recently after a good run of play. Or earlier in the season when Mack and Nuke werent playing well.

Byram isn’t the only getting criticism at all. You’re just paying attention to the byram criticisms more than all the criticism. The team looks like shit this year and most everyone’s been getting shit this year.

Not true at all. Obivously I was exagerrating by saying he's the only one we talk about. Not a single one of those players receives the same amount of criticism as Byram, and the rest have mostly been criticized fairly. Byram has not.

People are constantly saying things that are objectively not true about him. Like he's arrogant or his teammates don't like him and won't fight for him, when LOC just did.

I mean you didn't even read my post before criticizing it. You literally said the same thing I did, but you were telling me I'm wrong. You guys just jump to conclusions constantly with Byram.

 

[henchman21]

You get on everyone here for conformation bias but are falling for it yourself. Byram isn’t the only one getting crapped on at all this year. People have literally been talking about shipping off RyJo already. People have been complaining about Mikkos effort this year. Complaining about how Toews looks like shit despite just singing a new long term deal. About how Georgie has been a problem in net. Or how Coltons fell off recently after a good run of play. Or earlier in the season when Mack and Nuke werent playing well.

Byram isn’t the only getting criticism at all. You’re just paying attention to the byram criticisms more than all the criticism. The team looks like shit this year and most everyone’s been getting shit this year.

Yup… plenty of guys getting shit on and not in the way that you pay for.

(Also glad I’m getting one side of this whole conversation )

 

[Freaky Styley]

funny thing is that if Rantanen buried any of his 3+ clean looks none of these discussions would be happening. Probably better that they are now though

 

[AvsCOL]

Toews deserves his share of the blame too. He’s been good, but we’ve been accustomed to him being great. When Makar goes down, you need one of these guys to step up, and no one has. I’d be trying Byram on PP1 next game to try something new. Get Bo’s confidence going.

 

[henchman21]

Toews deserves his share of the blame too. He’s been good, but we’ve been accustomed to him being great. When Makar goes down, you need one of these guys to step up, and no one has. I’d be trying Byram on PP1 next game to try something new. Get Bo’s confidence going.

Byram would try to toe drag all 4 PKers, go to take a huge slapper, get poke checked, and give up a breakaway that George promptly stops and slashes Bo in the face.