GDT: G1 Ducks @ Sharks | 7:30 Pac

[Static]

I don’t think he is overpaid, but I do think his contract is 3 years too long. Name the last goalie who’s been good for 8 straight years, let alone the last injury prone one.

Lundqvist, luongo, rinne, Rask (at seven I think?), Quick (hurt one year), Fleury (two out of 10 split time).

And that's without really researching, so more than you'd think.

 

[duxfan1101]

Thornton and Pavelski looked useless in this game. Wouldn't be surprised if this is their last year in SJ.

 

[AngelDuck]

I don’t think he is overpaid, but I do think his contract is 3 years too long. Name the last goalie who’s been good for 8 straight years, let alone the last injury prone one.

So if we get 5 great years, a good one, a mediocre one, and a bad one...I don’t think that makes it a bad deal at all. Gibson wasn’t signing for less than 8 years..why would he? He just saw Fowler get 8 years and he is about double the importance to the team than Cam

And I think it’s likely that is how it plays out

 

[BiolaRunner]

I feel like most of the mainboards havnt really watched gibson... people love to single out the injuries

He has the "injury prone" label. The mains will point out the fact he missed games due to injury on 3 separate occasions but don't realize each injury last year was him being run over. Kes pushed someone into him against the Avs, a player lost an edge and took him out against Winnipeg and was run into against Vegas.

 

[BiolaRunner]

Gibson had a great game and got the win for us. Comtois and Sherwood were excellent. I was pleased with Rowney. Our PP looked really good, even with letting in a shorty.

We obviously didn't get a lot of shots on goal. When 1 in 4 shots go in, I guess you don't need all that much.

We had some trouble leaving our zone at times and made some bad passes and turnovers.

A win on the road during a nationally televised game to open the season...I'll take it

 

[ADHB]

That was an amusing NBC broadcast, all the fawning over Karlsson all night and his biggest highlights were getting put on his bum by Street and getting made to look silly by Montour. Also didn't think the game was nearly as tilted as NBC were claiming with all their but shotcount!1!1!!1 stuff felt like their shots were quite inflated with a ton of low percentage shots.

Have to say, was pleasantly surprised how Anaheim played - especially in terms of the breakout, there was a lot more speed and the least amount of sidewards passes I've seen from an RC coached team and tempo was noticeably higher but the big test for the team will be to see how they play when they face some adversity as hopefully they don't fall back into old habits like they have over the years. Gibson was pretty great, I had to laugh when McGuire constantly went on that Gibson looks calm and confident because of his new contract when Gibson was playing the exact same way last season, so much for being hockey experts.

Fowler-Manson were the worst two players on the ice for Anaheim, both were all over the place all night. Schenn I actually thought looked quite solid, given he should be in that 10-14 minute 3rd pairing range I think he might end up being a lowkey solid pickup for Anaheim as he seems a guy who knows his limitations and makes sure not to overplay it (something a certain other Anaheim #2 failed to do).

On the forwards I thought Comtois and Sherwood were the best of the new guys - I wouldn't be surprised if Comtois sticks for more than 9 games with the team his combination of size and speed is a pretty interesting proposition and if he's getting decent NHL minutes I'm not sure sending him back to juniors is the best move or at least sending him back to juniors for the vast majority of the season. Steel was pretty meh for me - he showed a couple of nice touches and obviously has great vision but unsurprisingly is quite a bit off physically to handle the NHL right now, I suspect he'll be in San Diego within a week or two. I hope Terry is told to stop trying to bring the puck inside in the defensive zone - given he is a stick figure out there and gets out-muscled easily it's way too risky. Rowney looked solid in the 4c role, but not getting my hopes up much on that front since it seemed his biggest issue was his consistency and going through stretches of looking like an NHL'er and then looking like an AHL'er but a decent enough start.

Overall a solid enough start from Anaheim and a good base to build on. Certainly hope this is the start of a 'new' Anaheim style of hockey and not a false dawn.

Yeah I was surprised to see that fans of the opposing team were falling all over themselves to say what a great game Karlsson had. He was basically what I expected to see, and have seen a lot of the times I’ve watched him play. You get a creative, dynamic offensive player who can do great things with the puck and in transition. But you also get a guy who looks like he couldn’t care less about actually defending. Or maybe he does care, and he just isn’t very good at it. He was completely lost on the Henrique goal, and he defended the Montour rush in sort of an olé manner. Granted, Jones completely botched that but it was an extremely weak effort by Karlsson as well.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Even if he has 1 bad year out of 8 would that suddenly make the contract bad? If you're expecting 8 straight years of good play from a goaltender then outside of some of the best goaltenders in history you'll struggle to find many who have that sort of consistency. Even the 'best' goaltenders in the current NHL (likes of Quick, Price, Rinne, Bobrovsky etc) have had a bad season here or there.

Personally I think the 8 year contract is actually less of a risk then a 5 year contract then hoping you can extend him again when he's 31 as a free agent as then you'd be looking at giving him a Price type contract which is disastrous. Despite the narrative seemingly being these days you don't 'need' an elite goaltender these days I'd much rather have one than not have one especially given Anaheim has struggled to find a consistent top level goaltending for the last decade since Jiggy declined.

I don’t care about one bad year. I care about 3-4 bad years.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Lundqvist, luongo, rinne, Rask (at seven I think?), Quick (hurt one year), Fleury (two out of 10 split time).

And that's without really researching, so more than you'd think.

Luongo got replaced by Schneider then run out of town, Rinne had several bad years where the team was propped up by the D, they couldn’t wait to get rid of Fleury (because he’s crap in the playoffs), and Quick has several years where he was merely average for a starter - winning the Cup in his first season of that contract then exactly 1 playoff game since (and I think is also at least partially a product of the Kings D system).

Lundqvist I’ll give you, and Rask isn’t through that contract yet but he’s also good.

Not a lot of Cups in that list though, and (the other caveat) none of those guys routinely get injured.

 

[Static]

Luongo got replaced by Schneider then run out of town, Rinne had several bad years where the team was propped up by the D, they couldn’t wait to get rid of Fleury (because he’s crap in the playoffs), and Quick has several years where he was merely average for a starter - winning the Cup in his first season of that contract then exactly 1 playoff game since (and I think is also at least partially a product of the Kings D system).

Lundqvist I’ll give you, and Rask isn’t through that contract yet but he’s also good.

Not a lot of Cups in that list though, and (the other caveat) none of those guys routinely get injured.

Eh, this is a little disingenuous. Rinne did not have several years when he was bad, he has at most two that could be considered "bad", and one of those he only played in 24 games.

Luongo's play was never in question, they just had another guy who was cheaper and almost as good. He still was really good.

Same thing with Fleury, who still won two cups as the starter.

And quick's save percentage has been under .915 three times in 11 years, and one of those it was .914.

The best thing about Gibson's contract is that it's going to capture his elite years. With almost every elite goalie playing they are almost all early into huge contracts after they have already delivered 10 years worth of top tier goaltending. Bobrovsky is next.

 

[Ducks DVM]

Eh, this is a little disingenuous. Rinne did not have several years when he was bad, he has at most two that could be considered "bad", and one of those he only played in 24 games.

Luongo's play was never in question, they just had another guy who was cheaper and almost as good. He still was really good.

Same thing with Fleury, who still won two cups as the starter.

And quick's save percentage has been under .915 three times in 11 years, and one of those it was .914.

The best thing about Gibson's contract is that it's going to capture his elite years. With almost every elite goalie playing they are almost all early into huge contracts after they have already delivered 10 years worth of top tier goaltending. Bobrovsky is next.

Rinne has season of .902 (43 of 48 games), .908, and .910 (66 of 82 games) in the last 6 years,. That’s not the kind of performance you want to be spending more than 1-2M on. His career playoff numbers are .911, .907, .929, .909, .906, .930, .904. Those are not elite numbers, and I personally think they are “bad”. YMMV.

Luongo was not getting starter games at the end of his time in Vancouver. That’s got nothing to do with cost. He did do quite well at first in Florida (and is still quite good for his age)

Fleury lost the team far more playoff series than he won them. We don’t have 2 generational players.

Quick’s SV % has also only been above .918 twice in his career.

It’s not disingenuous to point out that there are very few goalies who are legitimately elite for 8 years in their play and not just their reputations.

I’m not saying Gibson WILL be an issue. I’m saying it’s pretty easy to find reasons why long term goalie contracts are a bad idea, especially with a goalie with a groin made of glass. Clearly, I’m hoping he proves me wrong.

 

[quackquackquack]

Not to be a Debby Downer coming off a great win but what is wrong with Cam Fowler? He was absolutely terrible last night. Might be late to the party but did anyone else notice that?

 

[KyleJRM]

I agree that 8 years on a goalie makes me nervous.

But the problem is, you don't have a lot of choice. Your choices are to either sign him for more years than you're comfortable with or lose him.

 

[Mallard]

It was ugly but getting a dirty road win like that is always good. Would like to see Steel with more offensively gifted players - it is too bad Kase got concussed.

Would also like to see Lindholm-Manson and Fowler-Montour as pairs like last year.

 

[Paul4587]

Not to be a Debby Downer coming off a great win but what is wrong with Cam Fowler? He was absolutely terrible last night. Might be late to the party but did anyone else notice that?

Yeah it was picked up on. He had an off night, it happens. Manson was also terrible and Lindholm had some pretty bad moments too.

 

[91Fedorov]

I think as a whole, our game was pretty sloppy. This new system seems like it's going to take a while before everyone's comfortable in it. I'm kind of expecting the D (and the whole team actually) to show growing pains for a little bit.

 

[Sojourn]

It was ugly but getting a dirty road win like that is always good. Would like to see Steel with more offensively gifted players - it is too bad Kase got concussed.

Would also like to see Lindholm-Manson and Fowler-Montour as pairs like last year.

I'd like to give Lindholm-Montour and Fowler-Manson a longer look. Lindholm-Manson is a great pairing for a pure shutdown role but, but having Montour with Lindholm, and Fowler with Manson gives it more flexibility, especially in away games. It should, in theory, give Fowler and Montour more opportunity to skate and create in the offensive zone.

In an ideal world, we'd see Carlyle put Lindholm and Manson back together when there is an elite #1 line where you really need to focus on shutting down, but most nights it probably makes sense to have that extra flexibility and balance in the top 4. That is, if the two pairings click and there is chemistry.

Last night really wasn't a great start if we're looking at that, but it's just the one game.

 

[Dirk316]

For 2 years this entire board was screaming how stupid Carlyle is not playing Manson and Fowler and now that he does for one game everyones want to go back to his original pairings

 

[Sojourn]

For 2 years this entire board was screaming how stupid Carlyle is not playing Manson and Fowler and now that he does for one game everyones want to go back to his original pairings

Everyone, huh?

 

[Dirk316]

Everyone, huh?

OK the majority of the board

 

[Sean Garrity]

For 2 years this entire board was screaming how stupid Carlyle is not playing Manson and Fowler and now that he does for one game everyones want to go back to his original pairings

I rarely agree with Dirk, but he's right in this case. It was one game, and even more to the point it was the first damn game of the season. The overreaction on this board is hilarious, like Toronto of the West Coast. Burns was far more atrocious, and no one is predicting his demise.

 

[WhatTheDuck]

OK the majority of the board

Sure if there were only 5 posters here

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

For 2 years this entire board was screaming how stupid Carlyle is not playing Manson and Fowler and now that he does for one game everyones want to go back to his original pairings

I want to keep it together... i think when they get used to each other those pairings will get most out of all 4 players. If fowler wasnt such ass vs san jose everyone is prob fine

 

[Zegs2sendhelp]

I rarely agree with Dirk, but he's right in this case. It was one game, and even more to the point it was the first damn game of the season. The overreaction on this board is hilarious, like Toronto of the West Coast. Burns was far more atrocious, and no one is predicting his demise.

Every teams boards are like that, if you take the time to read and post on hockey forums your prob very passionate bout hockey. You put all those fans together and there will be some over reactors , and doomsday posters

 

[91Fedorov]

It's actually kind of odd. Much of what this board was asking for was delivered on. Fowler/Manson and Lindholm/Montour, rolling 4 lines, not playing Getz on the PK, an actual faster style of play and not icing a useless punching bag. When these things were talked about last year the feeling was, "RC is still the head coach. I'll believe it when I see it". And here it is. Do you think Randy is reading this???

 

[mightyquack]

It's actually kind of odd. Much of what this board was asking for was delivered on. Fowler/Manson and Lindholm/Montour, rolling 4 lines, not playing Getz on the PK, an actual faster style of play and not icing a useless punching bag. When these things were talked about last year the feeling was, "RC is still the head coach. I'll believe it when I see it". And here it is. Do you think Randy is reading this???

It's been one game and this team has a knack for going back to horrible old habits when the going gets tough. He'll get the credit he deserves if he gets this team playing in this new style for the whole season.