1) it's his 20 year old season, and did you ever stop to think that maybe you are under exaggerating the risk of moving him to the #1 center role on a top team in the NHL? For me, Galchenyuk is one of the few high end young talents we have so I would much rather they not take risks then take them. More PP time wouldn't hurt since we need something to get the PP going.
did you ever stop to think you are over exaggerating it?
for me, the player himself has shown a compete & confidence level that renders further talk of the "need" to ease him in pretty moot.
he's already shown he can play and produce at the NHL level. He's shown (to himself most importantly) that he can handle the physical play and the targeted baffoonery.
his pretty consistent displays of holding himself to very high expectations reveal an athlete who is hungry for more, not less.
and yes, you can read these things out of an athlete's body language and reactions to vvarious in-game stresses.
not unlike Subban in his first pro season, you could tell from Galch's first few games at the NHL level that hte stage was not too big for him at all.
and the strongest evidence of all was his play when he did get moved to C… he showed more than enough performance and confidence to imply that there is no need to "shelter" him any more (beyond the potential benefit of having a big physical winger to run shotgun with him, but we don't have that luxury at this time lest we put him back with prust, which wouldn't be advisable).
2) playing wing is a lot less stressful then being a #1 center, look at the top centers on the playoff bound teams and that's who he's going to have to shut down come playoff time. Can he handle that? For me I don't know but I would rather not risk it and find out the hard way.
Stress is a good thing… nay, a NECESSARY thing for a young athlete to work through if there is any hope of them one day becoming elite level with any consistency.
sure, you don't want to "rush" or "overwhelm" a kid who isn't ready, but we are past that point with Galch. At 180 games in, and already relied on as one of our key offensive producers, there is no additional risk of having him C one of our top-3 lines… specially if his line is the 4th on the list in terms of matching up vs tough opposition.
and beyond that, he's already as, if not more, effetive than DD is as an "end-to-end" C.
3) not sure what you are talking about, of course injuries happen but does that mean Tok should be playing more in case Price gets injured? Seems silly to me. This is a top team in the NHL, every game is important, so we shouldn't he using rookies in roles they aren't ready for just in case someone gets injured.
completely difference scenario. Goalies getting injured is a far bigger rarity than a skater, and the need that top goalies have to play a high volume of games to stay at the top of their game, precludes any kind of "splitting". Terrible comparison.
Galch is not a rookie. eller is not a rookie. and as for the others, it is precisely because of the importance of each game that the coach should be looking to play the best lineup he can ice as often as he can.
That our lineup is/would be better with Andreghetto or Sekac in a top-6 role, both immediately and long-term/with-an-eye-on-the-playoffs, than it is using Weise there and those types of players in bottom-6 roles, is painfully evident.
but the "every game is important" rhetoric is not quite how coaches of top ranked teams operate. Loathe as they are to admit it, there is always an eye on the playoff prep in making their lineup decisions… wether it be to test out combos, get aging vets additional rest time, manage minutes of guys that will need to play massive minutes, or getting young players battle tested ahead of time.
either way you slice it, our current approach lacks any logical/strategic direction.
as for Thomas, don't agree that playing is the top 6 is better for him since it's less likely he would get scored on while on the bottom 6 because he would be on the ice a lot less then he would in a top 6 role.
- not sure how many games you do get to catch, but with our coach, this could never be an issue. He regularly changes lines up in-game. having a guy like Thomas play his minutes on a "top-6" line could easily be done without his minutes going over the 12-14mark. Weise started the game on the "top line", and finished the night with less than 10minutes despite not taking any penalties or getting hurt.
you can't get so caught up with the EA hockey notion of lines. It is quite easy for a coach to integrate a young player into the lineup while using them exclusively in select roles… wether it be a grinding guy being used only in "energy" shifts or PK duties, or an offensively gifted guy getting used opportunisitically in o-zone starts with top-6 caliber linemates.
not something you get into when you have a very solid/deep top-9… of course… but when you are as thin as we are at W in the top-9? AND you have an injury? Then it's a no-brainer.
You can believe whatever you want, but there's no way I am going to believe that Sekac is being told not to shoot more just because I don't know what MT is telling him. That just makes no sense at all. Not even a little. Do you think MT is telling him not to score goals and that's why he's not doing it? Why would you even question that sine you don't know what MT is or isn't telling him. Maybe MT is telling him to shoot more and since he's not he's taken him out of the lineup. I don't really care what MT is telling him, at the end of the day he needs to produce and just like a number of his fellow Habs he's not getting it done for whatever reason. I blame Sekac, feel free to blame whoever you want. I wouldn't give him 4th line minutes either but I don't see the harm in giving him a night off.
who spoke of "beliefs"? I stated repeatidely that we don't know. You are the onewho is emphatic that it MUST be the players fault. I'm simply pointing out to you that without greater knowledge, it's pretty difficult to make that claim with such certainty.
I don't know what MT is telling him, but i do know that he is using him extremmely poorly if his goal was to build the young/new-to-the-NHL player who shocked everyone and showed he deserved a top-9 slot out of camp.
again, to repeat, no issue with him getting "a night off". the issue is how he's being used when he is in the lineup. of which you oddly seem to agree with, yet don't seem able to connect the dots to the sole person responsible for how the players get used on the ice???
that's rich.
