GDT: Game 17: Coyotes @ Penguins - 5PM - FSAZ

[Heldig]

Ideally, Stepan is a 1st line placeholder and mentor to Strome and/or Dvorak.

 

[Bonsai Tree]

Ideally, Stepan is a 1st line placeholder and mentor to Strome and/or Dvorak.

Neither of whom are thriving in Tocchet’s “run and gun” system.

 

[BlazingBlueAnt]

2nd year center Christian Dvorak is leading the team in defensive zone draws by a pretty big margin.

Stepan, Richardson and (insert fourth line center here) ain't doing a whole lot of sheltering there

 

[TheLegend]

Penalties? JR wasn’t kidding.

Even after the last two games we're still the third best team in the league with the least number of penalty minutes per game (7.1).

Pittsburgh is the second worst..... and they almost went clean last night (11.4).

 

[Lilhoody]

The Coyote score a goal in Pitts...first time in two years? Applause for the improvement!

 

[Sinurgy]

That was rough. Raanta was good.

Except he really screwed the pooch letting in that stinker to start the game. He was solid after that but what a crappy way to start out.

 

[moosemeister]

The Coyote score a goal in Pitts...first time in two years? Applause for the improvement!

See? Positivity

I love it

 

[varano]

Please coyotes, don't turn anti raanta into the next mike smith. Getting pelted with shots every night, playing well, and getting no support

 

[Jakey53]

IDK boys, Stephan had an incredible defensive game tonight and it's been strong thus far as in general.

I didn't see all of the game, but what I saw Stepan was good defensively. I do think he has another gear offensively though.

 

[Jakey53]

Who ever considered Stepan a "first line center?"
I couldn't believe the accolades when the Yotes took this overpaid third line center off the Rangers hands.
He's a decent player but that's it.

He is a 2nd line center and is overpaid. I didn't like the deal when it happened, but I know why the Yotes did it.

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

I started watching this game but in the middle of the first period I quickly lost interest in using my whole night to focus on it. Looked like the Yotes weren't really in it, to me. From that point in I had a strong feeling they wouldn't be able to come back in the game. Didn't look dangerous to Pitt at all.

I still don't understand the Duke benching... team needs to score more and he provides that on the second line. Rieder does not. Like people have said, you have 2 lines that don't score at all and a second line that BARELY can score. Why handicap the team further by not putting one of the leading goal scorers this season in? (crazy how little other players have scored except for Keller).

Furthermore, absolutely sick of taking that many penalties. HOW? How does the team allow that to happen 2 games in a row? It's just nonsensical. Not fun to watch the Yotes kill that many penalties.

Good news is, like others have said, the goaltending is looking a lot better. Respectable. NOW the team has to learn how to score goals again while not giving up 5 or 6 against.

Anyways, rant done for now. I realllly hope the next game the Yotes can bring a better effort. They have to be pretty bad for me to start getting bored.

 

[zz]

...

Considering the overall lack of speed and effort last night, I doubt that dressing our laziest player would have made much of a difference.

I miss Shane Doan and closed door team meetings. There doesn't seem to be much veteran leadership and player accountability.

 

[cobra427]

I started watching this game but in the middle of the first period I quickly lost interest in using my whole night to focus on it. Looked like the Yotes weren't really in it, to me. From that point in I had a strong feeling they wouldn't be able to come back in the game. Didn't look dangerous to Pitt at all.

I still don't understand the Duke benching... team needs to score more and he provides that on the second line. Rieder does not. Like people have said, you have 2 lines that don't score at all and a second line that BARELY can score. Why handicap the team further by not putting one of the leading goal scorers this season in? (crazy how little other players have scored except for Keller).

Furthermore, absolutely sick of taking that many penalties. HOW? How does the team allow that to happen 2 games in a row? It's just nonsensical. Not fun to watch the Yotes kill that many penalties.

Good news is, like others have said, the goaltending is looking a lot better. Respectable. NOW the team has to learn how to score goals again while not giving up 5 or 6 against.

Anyways, rant done for now. I realllly hope the next game the Yotes can bring a better effort. They have to be pretty bad for me to start getting bored.

Duke isn't playing because he is a defensive liability. We have given up close to 20 goals more then any team in the western conference. We held Pitt to 2 goals for most of the game, thats how we have a chance to win. Yes, we need more production but we need to get it by creating turnovers and a forecheck, not by playing one dimensional players that are AHL level without the puck on their stick. If we hold teams to 2 goals or less somtime 3 like last night, we have a chance to win.

 

[Vinny Boombatz]

His goal aside, Rieder isn't a very good hockey player. He's an OK PKer, but that is about it, the offense dies on his stick.

We need more offense, when Domi/Stepan/Keller have an off night, we're in trouble.

 

[zz]

We need more offense, when Domi/Stepan/Keller have an off night, we're in trouble.

Stepan and his 2 goals / 7 points is about as productive as Fischer or Duclair on a point per game basis. Playing 20 minutes / night. He's on pace for a whopping 33 points and 9.64 goals this season.

So yeah, we need more scoring from everyone, but Stepan is a big part of the problem.

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

Duke isn't playing because he is a defensive liability. We have given up close to 20 goals more then any team in the western conference. We held Pitt to 2 goals for most of the game, thats how we have a chance to win. Yes, we need more production but we need to get it by creating turnovers and a forecheck, not by playing one dimensional players that are AHL level without the puck on their stick. If we hold teams to 2 goals or less somtime 3 like last night, we have a chance to win.

I don't think of Duke as much of a defensive liability as others. He isn't the greatest but he's also not the worst... especially considering the amount of offense he CAN create overcomes the amount of defense he may lack, imo.

Yes we held Pitt to 2 goals, but we only created 1. So, that's a losing formula. Duke can forecheck and create turnovers as well.. watch him (if he plays again) when he has the puck in the offensive zone by the boards. He does a good job of holding possession and creating chances. Besides the fact that he's definitely better at finishing chances than half of the forwards, easily. And, imo, the Yotes need someone to start finishing chances.

Domi, for example, has had many grade A chances and has failed to convert a lot of them. Except the...1 goal? Let me check the website... Yup it's 1 in the first game.

Idk, I agree that this team needs to limit the other team to 2 goals or less... that helps. But the other part of winning is that they need to score more than 2 to win. So, that's why I say that it's good they kept the Pens down but man they have to find a way to be much more consistent on offense. If this team didn't have Keller/Keller's production... this season would be even uglier in a huge way. Fischer is second on the team with 4 goals in 15 games (thanks to 2 nights ago) and Duke is tied with Reider with 3 in 17 games(thanks to last night). Duke has played 12 games with 3. That's a pace of 20 goals a season. Sitting a 20 goal scorer and losing games 3-1 doesn't seem like a great formula to me.

A lot of people have said the same thing about Ovechkin in the past "lazy, doesn't play defense" etc. But when a player produces a certain amount of points, that overrides any of that, imo. The point of hockey is to score more than your opponent, that's how games are won. So if a player produces 1 goal a game and his lack of defense contributes to .5 goals against per game, he's a good player to have on the ice... you will win games. Now, Duclair is NO Ovechkin. Don't get me wrong there... but I do believe his offensive output is greater than his defensive liability... and thus would be better off being used.


However, this is one of those things people agree to disagree on. I just know that I am not interested in watching the Coyotes lose while only scoring 1 goal and not looking very dangerous offensively. Whatever they have to do to make sure that doesn't become a repeating thing, I'll be on board with.

 

[zz]

So if a player produces 1 goal a game and his lack of defense contributes to .5 goals against per game, he's a good player to have on the ice... you will win games. Now, Duclair is NO Ovechkin. Don't get me wrong there... but I do believe his offensive output is greater than his defensive liability... and thus would be better off being used.

Duclair is not a rookie. He's a 22 year old forward in his 4th season in the NHL (fine, make it third if you combine his 18 games as a rookie with his 58 games last year). He's scored 20 goals once. More often than not, he shows flashes of speed and skill but it doesn't end in the net. That's not useful. Citing his name along with Ovechkin is not helpful, either. With Duclair, there's always an excuse. "He needs Domi!" "He needs a different coach!" "He needs more top-6 minutes!" Great scorers score, regardless of the situation. Ovechkin was scoring 100 points / season while not playing defense, with hardly any support, and guess what - he STILL ended up having to change his game and back check.

I haven't seen anything from Duclair that would justify giving him sheltered minutes. He needs to find a way to create his own chances and put points on the board, or GTFO.

 

[Neighborhood Coyote]

Duclair is not a rookie. He's a 22 year old forward in his 4th season in the NHL (fine, make it third if you combine his 18 games as a rookie with his 58 games last year). He's scored 20 goals once. More often than not, he shows flashes of speed and skill but it doesn't end in the net. That's not useful. Citing his name along with Ovechkin is not helpful, either. With Duclair, there's always an excuse. "He needs Domi!" "He needs a different coach!" "He needs more top-6 minutes!" Great scorers score, regardless of the situation. Ovechkin was scoring 100 points / season while not playing defense, with hardly any support, and guess what - he STILL ended up having to change his game and back check.

I haven't seen anything from Duclair that would justify giving him sheltered minutes. He needs to find a way to create his own chances and put points on the board, or GTFO.

I would say this is his 3rd season, realistically. So his first season he got 20 goals in 81 games. 2nd season was a bust with 5 in 58... but this season had 3 in 12 games (a 20 goal pace again...). So he was, at the moment, getting back to that 20 goal season just based on his stats, a fact. Would it have kept up? No one can say. But to me, that IS putting points on the board. Definitely more so than a lot of other Coyotes currently playing. If the Coyotes were playing great now and winning games, then I could agree with it. But the fact that besides Keller, no one on the team can score consistently makes me say why not put the guy on the ice who was on pace for 20?

I clearly said Duclair is not Ovechkin. So feel free to ignore that. I'm not even going to go into his game because it's a hot enough topic on its own. That was just to get to the point that I think a player's offensive contribution can outweigh their defensive liabilities when they score enough. Which, again, some people may disagree with.

Look at last night's recap of the game. Look who was on the ice for the goals scored against the Coyotes. Usually it was the "defensively responsible" lines that haven't scored pretty much at all. Very small sample size, but it's a loss regardless.

Clearly, it appears we both look at Duclair differently. I think the team could use him, and it sounds like you don't think so. It is what it is.

 

[BUX7PHX]

Considering the overall lack of speed and effort last night, I doubt that dressing our laziest player would have made much of a difference.

I miss Shane Doan and closed door team meetings. There doesn't seem to be much veteran leadership and player accountability.

This could be an interesting statement.

Could it be that while Tocchet says he has an open door policy of questioning what can/should be done on ice - maybe no one has actually stepped up and simply said, "Hey, we may need to look at what we are doing (collectively) and figure something out that brings a little more of a result to the table."

For the younger players, there is probably not a lot of looking in the mirror and figuring out what they might be doing to not be at their best. For the veterans, we have such a large amount of new players, it may be more difficult for a guy like Stepan or Hjalmarsson to speak to the team and bring up what may have been seen in the past that worked from a learning perspective. Or possibly b/c the system is so new and there are headaches, maybe people are hesitant to look into some changes b/c it is still a work in progress.

Hard to say, but right now, the players aren't holding themselves accountable, and the coaches also don't appear to be holding that accountability standard that was preached when Tocchet was hired. At least when Jooris and Holland were being played, it was likely related to some lacking accountability for a player like Duclair or Crouse.

 

[zz]

Clearly, it appears we both look at Duclair differently. I think the team could use him, and it sounds like you don't think so. It is what it is.

Look, I want the guy to score goals for us. Of course I do. I would love for him to put in 30 goals for us. But right now I'm seeing a dumber version of Danny Briere. The kid was capable of putting points on the board, even scoring 30+ goals, 60 points in his second full time season, after 2 seasons of being demoted to the minors. But he was stubborn. Didn't want to change his game. He was -21 the following season. It took him being traded twice, 8+ years in the NHL and his career in serious jeopardy before he got his shit together, back checked, gave 100% every night, and became that complete player that was a stud in Philly.

I don't want to wait 8 years and another trade for Duclair to get with the program.