How hard is it to find decent 3rd liners/4th liners?

[Hockey Nightmare]

Every other team does. You think it wouldn't be rocket science. And yet here we are stuck with a bunch of Belanger 2.0s.

Click to read more...

 

[McJadeddog]

well, to be fair, we have had a lot of injuries to these players....additionally, we have had lots on injuries to our top-6 as well, forcing lesser players to play higher in the order than they should be.... lander is also having potentially the worst stretch of hockey in his career

but yes, i agree, our bottom-6 has been god-awful this year.... which is to bad since our top-end guys have been very good.... hall, mcdavid, drai, RNH have all been really good, and even pouliot, yakpuov and purcell have been at least okay

 

[StoveTopStauffer]

We had a good one named Gordon. We gave him away for a bad player and signed a worse player than him to fill his position.


Bad deals.

 

[CanadianSuperPromise]

We had a good one named Gordon. We gave him away for a bad player and signed a worse player than him to fill his position.


Bad deals.

This. We had one of the league's best fourth line. I'm really missing Gordon.

 

[Replacement*]

How hard is it to retain them when we have them?...

 

[BarDownBobo]

We have two: Hendricks and Korpikoski. Pakarinen is also well on his way to becoming a solid bottom 6 winger IMO, but needs more time.

 

[JarvisFunk]

Korpikoski, Klinkhammer and Hendricks have all been good this year. It's hard to make any bottom six look good when all of them are injured for prolonged periods.

 

[Narnia]

We had a good one named Gordon. We gave him away for a bad player and signed a worse player than him to fill his position.


Bad deals.

Gordon wanted out.

 

[Approved Variety]

Korpikoski, Klinkhammer and Hendricks have all been good this year. It's hard to make any bottom six look good when all of them are injured for prolonged periods.

Shhh, it's more fun to be negative right now.

 

[syz]

Finding them isn't that hard.

Apparently drafting them is impossible.

 

[Mowzie]

Every year there is 5-10 average NHL'ers who don't get contracts and get desperate in August, and every year we don't even offer them try outs. Say what you want about the Curtis Glencrosses and Derek Roys of the world, but it would be nice to have them as low risk options right now.

 

[bzur]

We need bottom 6 guys who can contribute on the scoreboard.. lander can gtfo right now. like the guy but he is looking like a flash in the pan. this feels like real lander

 

[guymez]

Gordon wanted out.

Can you blame him?

 

[CupofOil]

I think Letestu is being a little unfairly criticized (have done so myself as well). He's very solid positionally most of the time and is a very good PKer, it's just that he's playing too high in the lineup due to injuries and it has exposed him.

If you put Gordon on the 2nd and 3rd line, there would have been a lot of complaints about him too. Letestu will be better when re-united with Hendricks and Klinkhammer with limited 4th line duties.

 

[Dazed and Confused]

Injuries haven't helped, but once again the problem with the bottom six is that there's zero identity.

They're not super skilled, fast, big or tenacious. Generally most of them are fairly safe players, but that just means that you end up with a Colin Fraser stat line at the end of the night: Perhaps not a negative, but never positive.

The one thing that could help is putting Pouliot there, and I'd really like to see Yakimov get a shot again


Pouliot-Lander-Letestu
Hendricks-Yakimov-Korpikoski

Klink in the PB, Slep and Pak to Bakersfield


Next year
Pouliot-Yakimov-Slepyshev
Hendricks-Letestu-Korpi

 

[Topkatz]

Team desperately needs a legit 3rd line center

 

[McBaevid]

Roy + Glencross would be great assets right now

 

[Up the Irons]

How hard is it to find a goalie that doesn't become a basket case after one tough game?

 

[gwiz999]

How hard is it to find a goalie that doesn't become a basket case after one tough game?

People complained about Chabot when goalies were not doing well. There is a new goalie coach and three goalies have struggled under him IMO
And, every year the bottom six seems to get changed out and every year the bottom six struggles.

 

[hawks889]

Finding them isn't that hard.

Apparently drafting them is impossible.

exactly, a good team wil have drafted them, when the hawks won the cup in 2013 they had Markus Kruger, Andrew Shaw, brandon saad, Ben Smith, Dave Bolland, and Bryan Bickell playing on there lower lines, and all were drafted by the Hawks in the 2nd round or later.
They had more veteran free agents added in there 2015 cup win, but its a lot easier to attract decent veteran help ( Richards, Vermette, _) when you are a winning team.
For the oilers not to have drafted any forwards from the 2nd round and on and playing and contributing the last 5 years is why they are forced to sign and overpay for lesser free agents. Hopefully the new scouting staff will reverse this trend, but the oilers are still suffering from previous management and scouting staff that failed to produce any players on the current roster.

 

[hawks889]

How hard is it to find a goalie that doesn't become a basket case after one tough game?

The question is would carey price become a basket case too behind that defence.

 

[oil Leaks]

Roy + Glencross would be great assets right now

And Dustin Penner.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Korpikoski, Klinkhammer and Hendricks have all been good this year. It's hard to make any bottom six look good when all of them are injured for prolonged periods.

Letestu is a good 4th liner too. We have had injury and consistency issues.

 

[booyakasha]

Gordon wanted out.

How do you know this? ..link please.

 

[LTIR]

(Top6 : Hall-Drai-Purcell \ Pouliot-RNH-Ebs)

McDavid, Yakupov, Hendricks, Pakarainen, Letestu, Korpikoski seem like a good enough bottom 6 to me when all healthy.