GDT: Game 1: Carolina Bunch of Jerks @ Detroit Red Wings - 1/14/2021 - 7:30 PM - FSD

[TheMule93]

The world is ending

 

[Go Wings]

Seriously though, look at the roster turnover plus time off. These are humans out there so conditioning and learning the system is a real thing. Add in a lack of talent and having to outwork skill to win and this is what you should expect for the first few games. Let's see what we look like at game 10 before we judge too much.

What system does Blashill have? Dump and chase? Have Hronek on his wrong side taking one timers on the powerplay? Never changing his lines? Seriously.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

What system does Blashill have? Dump and chase? Have Hronek on his wrong side taking one timers on the powerplay? Never changing his lines? Seriously.

Don't like Blashill, never have. Yeah, his system sucks.

 

[Hen Kolland]

What system does Blashill have? Dump and chase? Have Hronek on his wrong side taking one timers on the powerplay? Never changing his lines? Seriously.

This is the first time I can recall someone being upset that Blashill isn’t juggling his lines enough.....

...in the first game...

...when people normally attack him on a nightly basis for changing his lines too much...

 

[ArmChairGM89]

Honestly thought our D was 100x better. The guy that looked the worst in his own end was hronek unfortunately. (To be fair, I missed the first 10 min of quarter 2)

the problem still seem to be our forwards defensively. And I still hold the opinion that larkin, while trying hard, is terrible defensively. Case in point his first period turnover. He hurried to get the puck back from the guy he gave it to when the D was already on him, ignoring his assignment of taking the guy rushing in on the far side for the cross ice pass.

but he isn’t alone here.

 

[raymond23]

Not sure why all the hate towards the effort level. These guys were clearly busting their asses. We just suck. Plain and simple. Would be nice not having Danny dekeyser on pp1 as well. Larkin had a rough game. Only real guy on the team that you could question the effort level is mantha.

I just don’t see the compete level. We had it for the first 10 minutes of the game and then the intensity and attention to detail completely went out the door. I watch games around the league and it’s a night and day difference simply on compete level alone.

Maybe it is just because these guys suck but even then you can stand out in a good way with your effort level. There are certain guys like Nielsen, Filppula and others that look like they are just going through the motions. Never playing through the body, no responsibility with the puck, slow to support the puck, never really digging in and battling.

It’s just one game after 10 months, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt, but that game was the same story as last year. If that doesn’t change soon Blashill needs to be out of here. Being bad is one thing, being soft and lackadaisical is another.

I will say the new guys competed well and stood out in a good way... that was a good sign.

 

[Run the Jewels]

You can replace him with anyone in the world and you still won't see an improvement. Some people just want to see a public execution, I guess.

No, just competence and a bit of player development.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Might be a dead horse at this point, but the stats are looking like Fabbri at center is a no.

2/14 on faceoffs last night. 14.3%

For reference:

Filpulla 3/7 42.9%
Glendenning 9/14 64.3%
Larkin 8/18 44.4%

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

You can replace him with anyone in the world and you still won't see an improvement. Some people just want to see a public execution, I guess.

If you don't think that coaching doesn't matter then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Might be a dead horse at this point, but the stats are looking like Fabbri at center is a no.

2/14 on faceoffs last night. 14.3%

For reference:

Filpulla 3/7 42.9%
Glendenning 9/14 64.3%
Larkin 8/18 44.4%

I didn't watch the scrimmages so I don't know if Rasmussen was just bad or what, but I definitely wish he would get the shot.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

I didn't watch the scrimmages so I don't know if Rasmussen was just bad or what, but I definitely wish he would get the shot.

I didn't get to either, and it's highly unlikely that Rasmussen is any worse than Nielsen.

I really like Fabbri as a winger and would gladly move him to Larkin's line while Namestnikov slots over to 2nd line center and Mantha on the wing.

Bertuzzi - Larkin - Fabbri
Zadina - Namestnikov - Mantha

 

[Run the Jewels]

Roster is bad but it’s really not this bad. I dunno how people don’t think a real NHL coach wouldn’t make a difference. Carolina has a good roster and all but what makes them a great team is how they play. How well they are coached. Everyone knows what they need to do, where to be or to go with the puck, who to pick up in the D zone, etc, etc. The whole is greater than the sum of their parts. You just never see that structure and synergy with blashills teams. It’s always a complete mess.

Yep, best example is Barry Trotz due to the fact he's coached three teams and all of them looked good when he was coaching them. Detroit has no structure whatsoever, add in some of the worst talent in the league due to awful drafting and you have a perennial bottom 5 team.

 

[TheOtherOne]

Hottakes, get your hottakes here!

 

[datsyukfan]

I think I’d like to give Rass a shot especially with helm and Ryan out right now. Also if Larkin line isn’t working and needs to be split up. Wouldn’t mind:

Bert-Larkin-Zadina
Mantha-Vladdy- Brome
Fabbri- Rass- gagner (spot for Ryan)
Erne/fil/gagner- glenny- fil/Nielsen/gagner

 

[Mister Ed]

Take out Nielsen and put in Rasmussen to play at 3rd line C, like @datsyukfan said.

The game was fine, for a 310 day break 1st game back.

 

[TheMule93]

Might be a dead horse at this point, but the stats are looking like Fabbri at center is a no.

2/14 on faceoffs last night. 14.3%

For reference:

Filpulla 3/7 42.9%
Glendenning 9/14 64.3%
Larkin 8/18 44.4%

you dont have to be good at faceoffs to be a center, though obviously it helps. Worse case scenario you have someone else take the draw in place of Fabbri

 

[Scottgaf1]

Brome looked like a guy who could stick. Nice game from Greiss.

Defense was more steady. Not much else positive to say.

 

[Henkka]

you dont have to be good at faceoffs to be a center, though obviously it helps. Worse case scenario you have someone else take the draw in place of Fabbri

It's as important as getting takeaways, avoiding giveaways, or winning loose pucks. Everything affects on puck possession.

You can't be that abysmal on them (won 2/14). He had 25 shifts (11 on the fly), and those fly-in shifts proably went 50/50. So he had puck control on 5,5 of them. Then he had puck control from 2 faceoffs. Lost puck control in 12 faceoffs.

That already makes his puck control percentage at start of the shift to 7,5/25 = 30%. Maybe there was a takeaway, that changes the control, or maybe opposite team controlled the puck whole shift. 70% of shifts you will be chasing the puck, get exhausted, frustraded, just destroyed.

 

[GMR]

What system does Blashill have? Dump and chase? Have Hronek on his wrong side taking one timers on the powerplay? Never changing his lines? Seriously.

Dump and don't chase. Haven't you been watching the last several years?

 

[FMichael]

Dump and don't chase. Haven't you been watching the last several years?

Blashill has never had any system as far as I can tell.

Just as some players are career AHL'ers with a call up to the NHL - I feel Blashill is no different...Just doesn't have the ability to coach at the NHL level...There's no team in the past handful of seasons that appear as clueless as the Red Wings under Blashill.

He'll end the season in Detroit, but come summer the entire coaching staff is likely to be let go (contracts expire), and my guess is either Gallant/Lambert will be Yzerman's choice behind the bench.

 

[RedWingzz]

Bert Mantha and Larks gotta be split up can't put our only good players on 1 line lol

Agreed, but these guy were nowhere near our good players last night. Mantha was literally floating the whole game, and looks much slower than last year. It's 1 game, so I'm trying to not look too much into it, but Mantha needs to up his compete level by 1000 times. He already has that reputation, when he's on, he's almost unstoppable, but he is only "on" once every couple games.

Bert looked like he was trying last night, but just wasn't getting anything done. Larkin also looked lost at times, and was trying to do WAY too much on his own. He had some dumb giveaways.

Our best forwards last night were Brome by far, and Adam Erne. No disrespect to Adam Erne, but if he's one of our better forwards in any given game, we are losing the game.

All in all, it was 1 game. But I was extremely underwhelmed by the compete and the effort. Yes, we haven't played in months. Yes, Carolina has a deep roster. Still, that wasn't good enough in my opinion, and we looked exactly like we did last year when we were the joke of the league.

 

[TheMule93]

Why would we split up a proven great line after 1 game where none of them have played for almost a year?

 

[Henkka]

Blashill once had a system, that we went to playoffs with him.

He also had better players. Co-incidence?

It's the player material.

Player. Material.

Not Blashill.

 

[RedWingzz]

Why would we split up a proven great line after 1 game where none of them have played for almost a year?

If they play the same way they did yesterday on Saturday, I would shake things up.

That effort last night was unacceptable, plain and simple. They were not engaged enough at all.

 

[Henkka]

Why would we split up a proven great line after 1 game where none of them have played for almost a year?

Because there's no other line to push transition to other end. When first line has to do it, they'll fight from the defenzeive zone faceoff to offensive end. Maybe get a scoring chance. Then faceoff.... and any of our other 2-3-4 lines will lose the game back to defensive end. Then repeat.

There has to be 2-3 lines which can push the possession to offensive end. Then our 1st line can come in and play full shift in OZone and score. When we are missing zone-entry players, we should split best two of them (Mantha and Larkin) up. Those can do the entries through neutral zone. Helm is the 3rd best guy when healthy again. If Larkin-line makes the transition, then Mantha-line comes next in to OzoneFO, and can have longer shift there. Or vise versa.