Dan Hamhuis - Will test FA; "We're still working through things, so we'll see"

[rypper]

He's gotta be hurt.

 

[Hyack57]

I think he's nursing a groin strain. He just doesn't seem to have the quickness and feel easily rushed because he knows he has to move the puck quick.

 

[CP]

If he can't right the ship, this will be a long season.

 

[Dissonance]

Back before the second San Jose game, Hamhuis admitted he's struggling with Tortorella's more aggressive system:

“Things are different, but I’m starting to get more comfortable with it every day and it’s showing up in the way the team is playing,” Hamhuis said of a three-game win streak. “The mindset is a little bit different. It’s more being aggressive and there’s also a time where you can’t be aggressive and have to be a little smarter in our defensive system. There’s more thinking involved now than earlier. Once we get it, it’s going to be easier to play man-on-man and be more reliable.”

As biturbo says above, that might explain some of his weirdly poor decision-making lately.

Still, he's a smart player and has been excellent the past two years. I'm betting he'll figure it out. He'd hardly be the first player in the league to flounder under a new coach for awhile before finally getting the hang of things.

 

[JuniorNelson]

I don't think last game was a systems failure. He looked like Ronald McDonald on the own-goal. He was having a genuine crappy night. I bet he stepped in dog poo on his way to the rink. Days like that happen to everybody. You shake them off. I don't think it helped that Bieksa was on the limp and Edler's suspension began.

On the broader topic of systems fitment, I was very surprised by the teams moves this last off-season. Shocked, really. I am not sure if they prepared a roster for Tortorella or not. Perhaps they thought the ideal roster was already here and just needed to be pared down? This weakened roster isn't much for the coach to work with. Forcing the coach to overwork some guys is the predictable result of an uneven roster. It's foreseeable. Yet....?

 

[TomWillander1RD]

This year, he's having more trouble handling the puck which has nothing to do with coaching.

 

[Carl Carlson]

I'm going with the battling injury crowd on this one. His consistent excellent play over the past few seasons can't just completely dissapear over a summer. Somethings wrong.

 

[Eddy Punch Clock]

Well at least he will most likely be fresh and ready to go for the playoffs as his Olympic dreams are rapidly fading away.

 

[Kirk Mclean]

Someone needs to make a loop of his own goal with the Benny Hill theme.

 

[vadim sharifijanov]

i've been saying hamhuis sucks since way back when harry snepsts played here.

 

[Canuckz]

I don't think last game was a systems failure. He looked like Ronald McDonald on the own-goal. He was having a genuine crappy night. I bet he stepped in dog poo on his way to the rink.

This just in, Hamhuis is playing on a line with Finn in practice this morning.

 

[Chubros]

What the **** happened?

The last two seasons, Hammer was BY FAR our best defensive defenseman, and so far this year he has been nothing short of terrible. Offensively, Defensively, all around.

Where did the Hammer of 2011-2012 go?

...

Simply not true. Hamhuis's play has not been great since he hurt himself hitting Lucic in the 2011 finals. He struggled for large stretches of games in each of the last two seasons and at the beginning of this year. He has been mistake prone in his own end, mostly due to being too slow moving the puck.

To be fair he made a lot of stupid mistakes last year but most people have man crushes on him so they overlooked it.

Yup, astute fans have been pointing this out. Criticizing Kevin Bieksa is the cool thing to do on here, but honestly KB has carried that pairing over the last 2 seasons.

With addition of Garrison and his strong play, and Edler seemingly starting to bounce back this year, Hamhuis is basically 4th on the depth chart based on performance alone. (Tanev has been good, too, but he doesn't get the tough minutes Hamhuis gets.)

Much of the team's success this year will be dependent on the defence stepping up this year. Hopefully Hamhuis can return to his 2011 form.

 

[Reverend Mayhem]

It doesn't seem at all suspicious to you that the 'Brain Cramp Kings' Bieksa+Edler have looked much better right off the bat, and handed their crown to the previous 'Mr.Consistency' Hamhuis? With the most blatant change being...a new coach and radically different system of play?

Correlation doesn't imply causation but this is a pretty strong correlation.

I mean Hammer hasn't been peaches and cake for awhile now but this is just sad. I like the poor ******* but it's sad. But like I believe RC said, not really fair to start this discussion after a Phillips-like blunder like that.

 

[No Face No Case]

Injured or not Hammer needs a few games off.

Get Alberts back in at least theres some physicality there.

 

[Lemmiwinks]

To me he appears to have a striking loss of mobility. He takes too long to turn his body around if the direction of play changes, and in general he is losing races to the puck. Honestly the only answer I have for this is that his groin is still hurt. If you watch him closely (which by now we all are) he's moving around preeetty gingerly.

Now, this doesn't account for his apparent bone-headedness in all other facets of the game not associated with mobility. Of this, I can only hope that Torteralla's system is at odds with Hamhuis's playing style.

 

[RobertKron]

To me he appears to have a striking loss of mobility. He takes too long to turn his body around if the direction of play changes, and in general he is losing races to the puck. Honestly the only answer I have for this is that his groin is still hurt. If you watch him closely (which by now we all are) he's moving around preeetty gingerly.

Now, this doesn't account for his apparent bone-headedness in all other facets of the game not associated with mobility. Of this, I can only hope that Torteralla's system is at odds with Hamhuis's playing style.

If it is a mobility thing, that will seep into every other element of your game. If you're not sure you can get there, you end up thinking when usually you'd be doing, and hesitation is a defenseman's worst enemy.

 

[nuckfan insk]

He looks like he's lost all confidence. With ny sucking and the coaching factor I thought of Callahan for hamhuis....

 

[Lemmiwinks]

If it is a mobility thing, that will seep into every other element of your game. If you're not sure you can get there, you end up thinking when usually you'd be doing, and hesitation is a defenseman's worst enemy.

True that; being less mobile means having less time to make decisions with the puck. I sincerely hope this is the case with Hamhuis, but if it is I have to wonder why he's even playing right now. It's not like his playing through an injury is helping the team. We'd be much better off letting him heal while Corrado plays up with the team.

 

[StIllmatic]

Simply not true. Hamhuis's play has not been great since he hurt himself hitting Lucic in the 2011 finals. He struggled for large stretches of games in each of the last two seasons and at the beginning of this year. He has been mistake prone in his own end, mostly due to being too slow moving the puck.

Hamhuis was playing great hockey in the second half of last season and was our BEST defenseman in 2011/2012. People have short memories.

 

[Lemmiwinks]

He looks like he's lost all confidence. With ny sucking and the coaching factor I thought of Callahan for hamhuis....

I don't think we should be looking to trade him yet. If it's an injury problem, time heals all wounds. If he hasn't gotten used to the system yet, a guy like him eventually will.

Hamhuis doesn't play like this because of low confidence alone. It seems to be one (or both) of these two aforementioned problems + a deflation of confidence which is inherent in those problems.

 

[SighReally]

I would want to get Hamhuis to sit a few games to heal (if that's the case) but iirc, our roster number is full and we can't call up Corrado (I assume that Corrado is waiver-exempt?).

I would really want to risk waiving Alberts but I guess GMMG wants to keep him for injury insurance purposes.

 

[Hammer Time]

Simply not true. Hamhuis's play has not been great since he hurt himself hitting Lucic in the 2011 finals. He struggled for large stretches of games in each of the last two seasons and at the beginning of this year. He has been mistake prone in his own end, mostly due to being too slow moving the puck.



Yup, astute fans have been pointing this out. Criticizing Kevin Bieksa is the cool thing to do on here, but honestly KB has carried that pairing over the last 2 seasons.

With addition of Garrison and his strong play, and Edler seemingly starting to bounce back this year, Hamhuis is basically 4th on the depth chart based on performance alone. (Tanev has been good, too, but he doesn't get the tough minutes Hamhuis gets.)

Much of the team's success this year will be dependent on the defence stepping up this year. Hopefully Hamhuis can return to his 2011 form.

That might be going a little too far. To my eyes Hamhuis did look like the best defenceman in 2011-12, although Bieksa certainly wasn't bad. Last year he got off to a poor start but eventually settled down (although you could probably credit Garrison a lot for that). But the thing is, Bieksa/Edler has been consistently a trainwreck throughout the years, while Bieksa/Hamhuis has always looked better (and has usually been the tough minutes pair) - that makes it difficult to conclude that Bieksa is the better defenceman in that pairing.

 

[PG Canuck]

Not worried.

 

[Hammer Time]

He looks like he's lost all confidence. With ny sucking and the coaching factor I thought of Callahan for hamhuis....

Yeah, even though he's given us 200 games of solid play over the last 3 years, let's trade him due to 6 games of horrible play.

 

[Chubros]

That might be going a little too far. To my eyes Hamhuis did look like the best defenceman in 2011-12, although Bieksa certainly wasn't bad. Last year he got off to a poor start but eventually settled down (although you could probably credit Garrison a lot for that). But the thing is, Bieksa/Edler has been consistently a trainwreck throughout the years, while Bieksa/Hamhuis has always looked better (and has usually been the tough minutes pair) - that makes it difficult to conclude that Bieksa is the better defenceman in that pairing.

Maybe carried is putting it too strongly. I certainly think Bieksa has been the better of the two, though.

Looking at other pairings is less useful than actually looking at the two individual players in the Bieksa/ Hamhuis pairing when together. KB, imo, has had more of a positive impact while Hamhuis has been the more mistake prone of the two.

Comparing pairings confounds the issue because now there are 3rd parties introduced into the equation. Edler did not play well at all in either of 2011-12 or 2012-13, so it is no surprise (or coincidence) that any pairing he was involved in did not perform well.