Do the teams that added “toughness” improve?

bl02

Registered User
Jan 13, 2014
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I just announced my appreciation for Coleman, Foegele, Garland and Hyman who all forecheck like mad and dig in the boards.

They can also transition the puck, make plays in the offensive zone beyond forechecking and even score goals, which is what wins games.

Hard forechecking is great, but NHLers, by and large, are not intimidated by getting hit. The Bruins certainly aren't. The "fear" of forechecking is turning over the puck.

The problem with players who are simply tough is that they don't do much after the turnover.
Absolutely tough forechecking with some skill.
I don’t think Martin and clutterbuck are All that skilled but I think they made a huge impact against Boston.
I have to disagree I think d men in the playoffs don’t like getting nailed into the boards every time they touch the puck. Especially if they are playing with nagging injuries.
 
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Romang67

BitterSwede
Jan 2, 2011
29,604
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Zadorov, Ceci, Poolman?
Only Zadorov out of those three adds toughness.

I guess my overall point was this perceived gun race to pay “big and tough” RDs regardless if they are tough or not.
So it's more of a question of adding size, not necessarily toughness?

I mean, even Tampa turned around and signed human lamp post, Andrej Sustr, so if nothing else they seem to believe height = wins as well!
 

Man Bear Pig

Registered User
Aug 10, 2008
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I guess my overall point was this perceived gun race to pay “big and tough” RDs regardless if they are tough or not.
I understand, and if we're looking at a guy like Ceci specifically, hes plenty overpaid. But I dont think its about being big and tough; I think it's more about GM's trying desperately to fill holes on the right side blueline. It's not anything new. Right defenders have been a unicorn for over a decade.
 

pandro

Registered User
Dec 7, 2014
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The Rangers basically traded Brett Howden for Ryan Reaves so that answers your question.

Forget toughness, Ryan Reaves is is Jaromir Jagr compared to Howden and the move was a 1-for-1 hockey upgrade, period.

Same thing with Nemeth. He's replacing Libor Hajek. I'm better than Libor Hajek.

The Rangers making a couple of straight upgrades is being mischaracterized as purely a toughness move.

As for the rest, I think Buchnevich going out and Goodrow and Blais coming in adds a needed element to a team that can already score, but has had trouble defending and forechecking. The development of Lafreniere, Kakko, and Kravtsov should easily pick up the lost points and the Rangers still have a ton of skill.

I'm sorry man, but all I can think of after reading your posts in response to recent Rangers' trades is this:
17m63c.jpg
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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Buchnevich is better at defending & forechecking than either of those guys
He's better at penalty killing. His 5v5 defense is average (Goodrow's is elite) and Buchnevich has never forechecked ever.

Buch is gritty and gives a ton of effort away from the puck but the dude's Zherdev in the offensive zone.
 

Siludin

Registered User
Dec 9, 2010
7,304
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To answer OP's question about Vancouver, they got better because they added Garland and OEL, not because they added Poolman and Schenn, but Poolman and Schenn are absolutely the types of defensemen Vancouver needed to target to round out their pairings.
 

Pavel Buchnevich

Drury and Laviolette Must Go
Dec 8, 2013
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The Rangers basically traded Brett Howden for Ryan Reaves so that answers your question.

Forget toughness, Ryan Reaves is is Jaromir Jagr compared to Howden and the move was a 1-for-1 hockey upgrade, period.

Same thing with Nemeth. He's replacing Libor Hajek. I'm better than Libor Hajek.

The Rangers making a couple of straight upgrades is being mischaracterized as purely a toughness move.

As for the rest, I think Buchnevich going out and Goodrow and Blais coming in adds a needed element to a team that can already score, but has had trouble defending and forechecking. The development of Lafreniere, Kakko, and Kravtsov should easily pick up the lost points and the Rangers still have a ton of skill.

You are making this a false dilemma. There was unanimous agreement that Howden and Hajek had worn out their welcome. All moves Drury made aren’t good for the reason that those two players won’t be in the lineup.
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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You are making this a false dilemma. There was unanimous agreement that Howden and Hajek had worn out their welcome. All moves Drury made aren’t good for the reason that those two players won’t be in the lineup.
If it's a given that they've worn out their welcome, who fills those spots that are better than Reaves/Nemeth and also come at a reasonable price?

And it's not really a false dilemma when I'm seeing posts on the main boards acting like the Rangers nuked their roster, and meanwhile, the roster got objectively better.
 
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Pavel Buchnevich

Drury and Laviolette Must Go
Dec 8, 2013
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If it's a given that they've worn out their welcome, who fills those spots that are better than Reaves/Nemeth and also come at a reasonable price?

And it's not really a false dilemma when I'm seeing posts on the main boards acting like the Rangers nuked their roster, and meanwhile, the roster got objectively better.

It's a crutch to bring up Howden and Hajek. I think everyone knew that those two not being in the lineup next season was a formality. Are we going to give the GM a pass on the whole rest of the offseason because we can say those two not being in the lineup makes the team significantly better, which it obviously does?

Because if you look at these other moves in a vacuum, I think most of them have been subpar/mediocre/ bad.

Buchnevich for a second and Blais is objectively a bad trade. I don't think anyone has disagreed about that. Goodrow is a good bottom six forward, but at what cost? I don't think anyone disagrees that we objectively overpaid, and we're a team that has enough cap problems that we are rationing players at this point. Reaves is simply not worth a third. He's, at best, a good bodyguard that isn't a bad 12th forward at hockey. Unless you see an intangible value in paying picks for bodyguards, he doesn't improve wins/losses, and we paid a pick for what will be a sideshow boxing match 10 times per year. He probably doesn't get in our lineup on hockey ability, and it might take away from the development of someone like Barron or Blais.

The draft was pretty unanimously viewed as weak. Almost all reputable rankings had us not getting good value. And while Othmann isn't a fighter, how could we not look at it as we were targeting certain types of players? With that rumor that we wanted Boucher, he ends up not available and we take a guy with a reputation for being gritty. Let me guess, was L'Heureux next up if Othmann went 15 to Dallas? Nemeth in a vacuum is probably the only move/series of decisions that wasn't bad, but I think when the best thing you can compliment is that you signed a good enough third pair defenseman that you are likely starting at a pretty big deficit.

What could we have done differently? How about not make panic moves that suggest Slats is running the team and making all the decisions for Drury? This team could've also gotten a lot better staying the course, not overpaying for grit and toughness, and letting the kids become better at NHL hockey. What's keeping this team from being a contender is continued development of our young players. The grit and toughness stuff is a sideshow, but I guess no one will say its missing anymore. Drury could've also made bigger moves like trading Buchnevich and Strome. Trading for Eichel. Trading a few of the younger kids like Schneider, Lundkvist, Jones, Kravtsov, Chytil for a roster upgrade. He could've even traded Zibanejad. There were many different avenues. What he did was hammer home the grit and toughness angle, so much so that it seems clear that Slats ran this offseason, not Drury.
 

Machinehead

GoAwayKakko
Jan 21, 2011
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It's a crutch to bring up Howden and Hajek. I think everyone knew that those two not being in the lineup next season was a formality. Are we going to give the GM a pass on the whole rest of the offseason because we can say those two not being in the lineup makes the team significantly better, which it obviously does?

I'm not brining up Howden randomly. We basically traded Reaves for Howden. It's a straight upgrade. Replacing players with other players is a real thing. Roles are a thing. Who should we have acquired to replace a 4th liner and a #6 defenseman?

You obviously don't care for Reaves or Nemeth, so who?

Because if you look at these other moves in a vacuum, I think most of them have been subpar/mediocre/ bad.

You can't look it in a vacuum. Every player we acquired is going into a specific spot in our lineup for a specific reason. Why would you look at it in a vacuum?

Buchnevich for a second and Blais is objectively a bad trade. I don't think anyone has disagreed about that. Goodrow is a good bottom six forward, but at what cost? I don't think anyone disagrees that we objectively overpaid, and we're a team that has enough cap problems that we are rationing players at this point. Reaves is simply not worth a third. He's, at best, a good bodyguard that isn't a bad 12th forward at hockey. Unless you see an intangible value in paying picks for bodyguards, he doesn't improve wins/losses, and we paid a pick for what will be a sideshow boxing match 10 times per year. He probably doesn't get in our lineup on hockey ability, and it might take away from the development of someone like Barron or Blais.

We're rationing players due to our cap problems? Dude, literally what the tap-dancing f*** are you talking about??? We currently have $13m in cap space.

The Buchnevich trade was absolutely necessary. It's not a contract we could afford to take on with NHL-ready prospects like Kakko and Kravtsov on the roster. The revisionist history since the trade of Buchnevich being a Rangers legend is hilarious. The guy has been an ok middle sixer 90% of his career.

Everything we've done makes sense and it will improve wins/losses because while they were talented, the Rangers were one of the most one dimensional teams in the league and absolutely needed to add defense and checking to their lineup.

You could fairly criticize the cost of these moves but you could say that of literally any move that isn't drafting a player and signing him to an ELC. The whole league is overpaid. HF as a whole is obsessed with this toxic mentality of having all the cap space and all the picks and never actually using them to have a good hockey team. The rebuild is over. The Rangers have Fox, Lafreniere, and Kakko. They're sinking or swimming with that as the core, and need to start focusing on specific areas. Sometimes you have to pay to fill holes.

The draft was pretty unanimously viewed as weak. Almost all reputable rankings had us not getting good value. And while Othmann isn't a fighter, how could we not look at it as we were targeting certain types of players? With that rumor that we wanted Boucher, he ends up not available and we take a guy with a reputation for being gritty. Let me guess, was L'Heureux next up if Othmann went 15 to Dallas? Nemeth in a vacuum is probably the only move/series of decisions that wasn't bad, but I think when the best thing you can compliment is that you signed a good enough third pair defenseman that you are likely starting at a pretty big deficit.

This was the worst draft in my lifetime. I'm not gonna sit here and argue with you over which future 13th forward we should have drafted. Wake me next year when actual prospects are getting drafted.

What could we have done differently? How about not make panic moves that suggest Slats is running the team and making all the decisions for Drury? This team could've also gotten a lot better staying the course, not overpaying for grit and toughness, and letting the kids become better at NHL hockey. What's keeping this team from being a contender is continued development of our young players. The grit and toughness stuff is a sideshow, but I guess no one will say its missing anymore. Drury could've also made bigger moves like trading Buchnevich and Strome. Trading for Eichel. Trading a few of the younger kids like Schneider, Lundkvist, Jones, Kravtsov, Chytil for a roster upgrade. He could've even traded Zibanejad. There were many different avenues. What he did was hammer home the grit and toughness angle, so much so that it seems clear that Slats ran this offseason, not Drury.

The "Slats is making the decisions again" conspiracy theory doesn't even warrant a response.

You say development of young wingers is holding us back, but you desperately wanted to keep Buchnevich who was starving Kakko and Kravtsov of minutes. Can't have your cake and eat it too.

You're mad that we slightly overpaid to add role players, and then you suggest absolutely nuking the roster for Eichel.

You're all over the place. You want to develop but you also want to keep vets and trade young players for Eichel and other upgrades.

You keep harping on grit toughness but you absolutely refuse to acknowledge that we kept all of our skill players (sans Buchnevich) and replaced mostly 4th liners who were supposed to be doing that anyway. You call that a "crutch" and act like hockey moves are never related. We can't look at Reaves as an upgrade on Howden because...because...because reasons!!

You're all over the place because you're just flailing to be mad at this team because they traded Buchnevich. I like the kid and I think he's a good player, but he sure did have a weird cult that I didn't know about.
 

DJJones

Registered User
Nov 18, 2014
10,205
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Calgary
From what I can tell from Calgary's moves is that we are about to go back to a more traditional hockey scheme with Sutter. We've been dabbling in the rolling four lines idea for years with limited success.

I'd guess we are going back to scoring line, energy line, and shutdown line. I think it will work out because I don't think we've played our best players enough recently. The big tough 4th line should only get 8-10 minutes imo. So yes, that line will score less than a line with Derek Ryan but it should allow the top 2 lines to be given more minutes and better matchups.

Stack the scoring lines and give them their chances, then slow things down in the bottom 6.

If you can get Zadorov in the #4/#5 position he's just nice to have.
 

The Tourist

Registered User
Jul 11, 2008
7,673
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Not to hijack your thread but I think my favorite all time "adding toughness" offseason was the Dallas Stars in 2007. Anaheim had just won the cup with a team that had Pronger, Getzlaf, Shawn Thornton, Shane O'Brien, George Parros, Brad May, Travis Moen, Sean O'Donnell, etc. You get the point. So Dallas being in the Pacific at the time went out and got Brad Winchester, Todd Fedoruk, and Eric Godard in one offseason to go with Steve Ott, Krys Barch, and BJ Crombeen who were already there. Winchester, Fedoruk, and Godard combined for 52 total games in Dallas. Just an absolute waste of resources and all because they wanted to recreate the Ducks roster.

Sorry for the hijack and novel but I always laugh about that offseason.
 
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KirkAlbuquerque

#WeNeverGetAGoodCoach
Mar 12, 2014
31,695
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New York
The Rangers improvement will come from their young guys getting better, Panarin not missing time, and Zibanejad not suffering Covid aftereffects. It won't come from "toughness"
it will come from both. in 2020 Panarin and Zibanejad were destroying the league, Rangers still couldn't hang with real playoff teams when it mattered. But also, probably the most major improvement will come from behind the bench.
 

Confused Turnip

Registered User
Nov 29, 2019
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I just announced my appreciation for Coleman, Foegele, Garland and Hyman who all forecheck like mad and dig in the boards.

They can also transition the puck, make plays in the offensive zone beyond forechecking and even score goals, which is what wins games.

Hard forechecking is great, but NHLers, by and large, are not intimidated by getting hit. The Bruins certainly aren't. The "fear" of forechecking is turning over the puck.

The problem with players who are simply tough is that they don't do much after the turnover.
If you're talking about guys like Reaves there, then there's also the fact that you can't give them more than 2-3 shifts a period without their turnovers and mishandlings killing your team.
 

Confused Turnip

Registered User
Nov 29, 2019
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If it's a given that they've worn out their welcome, who fills those spots that are better than Reaves/Nemeth and also come at a reasonable price?
The guys you already had, despite not living up to your expectations, were better than Reaves. I'm not sure how you think downgrading in hockey skill will make the team better, but the usual response to Reaves is to casually skate around him and treat the shift like a powerplay, even a peewee could do it.
 
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FerrisRox

"Wanna go, Prettyboy?"
Sep 17, 2003
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Going from Hajek-Smith to Nemeth-Lundkvist is night and day and their bottom six will be much stronger compared to last year.

That may be true, but at the end of the day, the Rangers still have a pretty weak third pairing, so I'm not sure that it really makes much of a difference.

Opposing teams are still going to be very happy to get their scoring lines out against Nemeth-Lundkvist just like they salivated at matching up against the Rangers previous third pairing.
 

bl02

Registered User
Jan 13, 2014
31,979
21,882
That may be true, but at the end of the day, the Rangers still have a pretty weak third pairing, so I'm not sure that it really makes much of a difference.

Opposing teams are still going to be very happy to get their scoring lines out against Nemeth-Lundkvist just like they salivated at matching up against the Rangers previous third pairing.
We shall see but I am willing to bet that Lundkvist is a big upgrade over Hajek and Nemeth has to be as good if not better than Smith. If they gel that is a big upgrade over the previous bottom pairing.
 

North Cole

♧ Lem
Jan 22, 2017
11,351
12,585
Did we really add toughness? I think we just added players who work hard and ousted floaters like Kharia/Kahun/Turris, etc. I don't think I would call our additions "toughness", certainly not to the degree of the NYR.

Yes I think we did improve up front, maybe slightly worse on the back end, but I find Bear a bit overrated. Larsson also only had 2/4 good years here. Ceci is likely a bit worse defensively, but we'll have to wait and see how he and Keith do. I really think Bouchard will be an upgrade on Bear and hoping Sammy impresses and makes the team over Russell.

Russells reduced cap hit basically paid for Ceci, since he dropped from 4M to 1.25M, which is why I don't get all the clowning about the Ceci signing. Sure he doesn't replace Larsson 1 for 1, but it's not really Larssons cap hit that was used to get Ceci. Larsson was technically replaced by Keith, since that's the guy we went out to get and protect in the expansion draft when it became evident to Holland that Larsson was not resigning.

Quite disappointed we did not improve Goaltending, but I think the team is better than last year.
 

Pavel Buchnevich

Drury and Laviolette Must Go
Dec 8, 2013
57,230
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New York
You're all over the place because you're just flailing to be mad at this team because they traded Buchnevich. I like the kid and I think he's a good player, but he sure did have a weird cult that I didn't know about.

This is a bad faith argument.

Do you realize that about 90% of the fan base is mad that we traded Buchnevich for scraps? I don't think most even said that he shouldn't be traded under any circumstances, so it's a completely bad faith argument.

I'm not going to make a bad faith argument towards you. It's obviously easy to make one though when Howden and Hajek are a main focal point towards discussing our offseason.

The actual moves, i.e. the ones where there was some real choice to be made (Buchnevich, Woodrow, Draft, Reaves, Nemeth), have mostly all been bad on an individual basis analyzing whether those moves make us better. There's actually been almost unanimous agreement from Ranger fans, opposing fans, media that this series of moves was more bad than good, but somehow it's good because there's a chance this new direction for the team could be successful?

I have always been consistent. I don't think you sacrifice skill for grit and toughness. We didn't make the playoffs last year because we had a young team that wasn't yet good enough. You don't change course because the owner throws a tantrum due to his buddies on the Island where he lives giving him a hard time about getting his ass kicked by the Isles all last season. If you don't see a complete changing of course with the direction of the team, I don't know that there's anything more to say. I thought there were many potential moves to be made. I don't however think the answer is trying to become Islander-lite or Habs-lite. When you start trying to mold your team towards grit and toughness at the expense of putting the best hockey players on the ice, you narrow your chances for success. Thats exactly what Drury has done this offseason.
 

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