Fire Tocchet

[TheLegend]

L

Oh, I agree. To be honest, losing 1-0 to the Blues is not what I am upset at.

I am upset with the idea that this is the time when we need to turn it on and be at our best and most focused. With how tight everything is in the playoff race, I honestly thought that we needed to ratchet things up around mid-January. If we could have pulled off another 1-6 points immediately before and after the ASG break, that could mean the difference.

Instead, we look like we are not firing on all cylinders. Even at the early part of the year, I still didnt see us playing our best hockey. I figured that we were working our way into that. Turns out, we burnt ourselves out early, and didn't have a gameplan for how to alleviate that. Those games are just indicative of the season - start fast, and just kind of coast into the end. Well, while we are coasting, other teams are improving. And that's why we are where we are now. We've gone from being the team that scores first to the team that hopes to stay in it. And that's where we will stay until we get a coach who pushes the player's buttons.

Honestly, I think that each one of us with a subscription to the Athletic should bring one of these talking points each in a question during the Q&A sessions that happen with Craig. That way he is aware of how disgusted we are and I want to see him give reasons why we should not fire Tocchet.

Getting to our apparent lack of energy lately. Rich Morin popped this quote from Tocchet a little bit ago....



I’ve just asked him if the quote is from today or if it’s from much earlier. [Edit: Confirmed it was from this morning]

The subject of conditioning was brought up and I’m wondering now if a lot of these guys are getting burned out from not being in “82 games and more” shape?

 

[Jakey53]

Stepan is not as bad as you think. Kessel kind of has been.

But to that point, if not changing the way we do things to get these guys going, then is our coach really helping out?

You and others have been sticking up for Stepan for over a year. You were wrong then, and you are wrong now. If Stepan agrees to give back half his salary, play half his minutes given him, stays off the PP, and agrees to stay on the third line, I say keep him.

 

[TheLegend]

You and others have been sticking up for Stepan for over a year. You were wrong then, and you are wrong now. If Stepan agrees to give back half his salary, play half his minutes given him, stays off the PP, and agrees to stay on the third line, I say keep him.

Oh Jakey.....

Stepan and Ritchie are our two best defensive centers. I think that’s where a lot of Stepan fans (like me!) see his value. Dvorak is getting there and once that happens Stepan will certainly be expendable.

 

[Jakey53]

L


Getting to our apparent lack of energy lately. Rich Morin popped this quote from Tocchet a little bit ago....



I’ve just asked him if the quote is from today or if it’s from much earlier.

The subject of conditioning was brought up and I’m wondering now if a lot of these guys are getting burned out from not being in “82 games and more” shape?

RT is using anything for an excuse, pointing his fingers at the players instead of himself. Players take fitness tests at the start of the year, and during the year. I know Edmonton monitor their players during practice. I wonder if he will put his finger on Kessel? RT will tell Chayka some of the players are not in shape, Chayka will believe him and trade half the team, and then give RT a 4 yr. contract extension.

 

[Jakey53]

Oh Jakey.....

Stepan and Ritchie are our two best defensive centers. I think that’s where a lot of Stepan fans (like me!) see his value. Dvorak is getting there and once that happens Stepan will certainly be expendable.

Ritchie is on the fourth line making 1.4 mill. Stepan making 5 mill. I'm sure we can find a player better than Stepan making half of what he makes. DVO is already better than Stepan in every phase of the game, and that gap is getting larger by the day. Keep on pumping Stepan's tires, one day you will realize how wrong you were. He should have been traded long time ago.

 

[XX]

The subject of conditioning was brought up and I’m wondering now if a lot of these guys are getting burned out from not being in “82 games and more” shape?

It's the system. It asks them to skate full tilt nearly the entire game. There is rarely if ever any calm cycling and their offensive possession time totals must be among the lowest in the league per game. That's a lot of time chasing.

Only a few guys look anything like out of shape. Jakob Chychrun is not hurt because he's out of shape, for instance.

 

[BUX7PHX]

You and others have been sticking up for Stepan for over a year. You were wrong then, and you are wrong now. If Stepan agrees to give back half his salary, play half his minutes given him, stays off the PP, and agrees to stay on the third line, I say keep him.

He is responsible defensively. Knows where to be on the ice and sounds like a surrogate coach out on the ice. Hard to do your own job and the coach's job.

 

[BUX7PHX]

Ritchie is on the fourth line making 1.4 mill. Stepan making 5 mill. I'm sure we can find a player better than Stepan making half of what he makes. DVO is already better than Stepan in every phase of the game, and that gap is getting larger by the day. Keep on pumping Stepan's tires, one day you will realize how wrong you were. He should have been traded long time ago.

He was. To us.

 

[justin323032]

Keller will not be an above average forward unless he is paired with a very good center and a big winger that can dig the puck out of the corners. He is a player above the dots that needs space to be affective. He will not crash the net. Won't set up screens and thus get close in rebounds. Unable to circle behind the net because he does not have the drive or strength to hold on to the puck.

Keller just never needs to gain the zone with the puck. He is so weak, he just coasts to the boards before losing the puck. Now look at hall, and he loves gaining the zone because he actually dekes and cuts back, trying to create the space. Keller is both too slow and mentally too weak to put the defender on the defense as opposed to just letting them dictate the play.

 

[Jakey53]

He is responsible defensively. Knows where to be on the ice and sounds like a surrogate coach out on the ice. Hard to do your own job and the coach's job.

Keep pumping his tires. He needs all the help he can get.

 

[Jakey53]

He was. To us.

The Rangers are still laughing.

 

[GiveAFlyingPuck]

I have it figured out. It's been the curse of Tim Peel. Ever since he broke his ankle in our barn, it's been all downhill. Lift the curse, Tim.

 

[justin323032]

I like this thread!

 

[BUX7PHX]

The Rangers are still laughing.

Yep, quite the humorous situation when your pick from that draft leaves the team...

Aside from that, yes, I understand that we gave up the #7 OA pick and Deangelo for Stepan and Raanta. If anyone in their right mind interprets Stepan as the value of the #7 OA pick, then you don't understand trade value. Deangelo was not going to do anything for us - he was talented, but we wouldn't put up with the attitude.

Stepan was bridging the gap for Strome. Would it have been incorrect for our C depth to be envisioned as something like this:

2017-18 season: Stepan/Strome/Dvorak/Richardson
2018-19 season: Strome/Stepan/Dvorak/Richardson
2019-20 season: Strome/Dvorak/Stepan/Richardson

Guess what? Strome didn't pan out for us. The replacement is Schmaltz, who is not a natural C. Perfect world, Strome develops into a useful player for us and he overtakes Stepan and Dvorak. Because he doesn't do that, Stepan has to play bigger minutes than we may even want him to. Sorry he is the option because Strome didn't work here.

 

[TheLegend]

Blues went into Dallas tonight and kicked their ass 5-1.

 

[Fuhrious]

Blues went into Dallas tonight and kicked their ass 5-1.

So? You're blatantly just moving goalposts around at random, now...

 

[Muppet]

Looks like St. Louis had enough JUICE for a back to back.

 

[Fuhrious]

Looks like St. Louis had enough JUICE for a back to back.

Or maybe one of the Blues' assistant coaches sister in law is friends with Austin Stars equipment manager from last season...?

I guess Berube told them to "train for 82 games" and they actually did it? Not like it's literally his job to uphold a fitness standard or anything, when a shrug of the shoulders will apparently suffice around these parts...

 

[Fuhrious]

RE: the fitness quote again...

Imagine being the manager of literally anything, coming right out and admitting "the employees don't/won't listen to me" and somehow keeping your job...

 

[rt]

RE: the fitness quote again...

Imagine being the manager of literally anything, coming right out and admitting "the employees don't/won't listen to me" and somehow keeping your job...

Simple as that. Damn.

I just really wish we could fire Chayka and Tocchet and Allen and Housley and hire Dean Lombardi to take this mess over and clean it up.

 

[Fuhrious]

Keep pumping his tires. He needs all the help he can get.

He's laughing all the way to the bank. Earning that wage to be a bottom 6 center, with a superfriend HC that doesn't ask you to actually DO anything but still curates your TOI and utilization to put you in "prestige" slots like PP and OT deployment despite little to no contribution in return.

Guy is living the dream, man... "Help" is the probably the last thing he cares about.

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

Simple as that. Damn.

I just really wish we could fire Chayka and Tocchet and Allen and Housley and hire Dean Lombardi to take this mess over and clean it up.

I know you already know it but I'll say it just because... MacLean and Housley...Allen already got unjustly let go after last year.
Almost no one deserves to get fired more than MacLean. I wanted to make sure his name was brought up haha.

 

[rt]

Yeah meant MacLean. Liked Allen quite a bit. Newell Brown too. That’d be a great duo of assistants right there.

 

[Canis Latrans]

Keller will not be an above average forward unless he is paired with a very good center and a big winger that can dig the puck out of the corners. He is a player above the dots that needs space to be affective. He will not crash the net. Won't set up screens and thus get close in rebounds. Unable to circle behind the net because he does not have the drive or strength to hold on to the puck.

At least he's young and shows the potential to get there. He needs to get bigger and take more charge for sure, hopefully he can get there. It's also possible that Tocchet is not the right coach for him and that his results his rookie year were more of him coming in playing his own game and less him adapting to what Tocchet wanted, but I don't have anything to back that up.

 

[TheLegend]

So? You're blatantly just moving goalposts around at random, now...

Nope.... just posting a score. Relevancy being we just played both teams back to back. I figured it to be much closer than that.

Looks like St. Louis had enough JUICE for a back to back.

They didn’t need to spend that much against us.