Bryanbryoil
Pray For Ukraine
- Sep 13, 2004
- 86,241
- 34,796
I think that many skilled players are lost because they are forced to play more like a grinder and never really having a chance to prove themselves in an offensive role. I don't believe in "paying your dues" or whatever. Put a player in a position to succeed. If he still fails, then you know what you have.Do you really think so?
I think anyone that gets drafted top ten in an NHL draft gets way more chances than they earn.
I think anyone that gets drafted top ten and fails to make it as a full time NHLer just lacks whatever it takes.
There are tonnes of stories about great players that started on the 4th line with minimal ice time and worked their way up. Seems like most of the instances I see of fans complaining about prospect's being ruined its because they aren't being given cherry minutes.
So... lets say we drafted Johnny Gaudreau.
We bury him on the 3rd line and tell him to work on his defense? Add muscle and physicality... learn some better boardwork and grind.
If he can't elevate Strome and Khaira, he doesn't deserve more ice time.
Also, no PP time, and if he does, we give him limited looks as our front of net presence. If he can't cut it in a situation not tailored for his skills we take him off?
Am I really to believe this is how you develop Johnny Gaudreau?
What about Patrick Kane? Did he need to win board battles, understand defensive coverage, and learn a 200 foot game before being given ice time?
I bet they spoke English pretty well though
For real though, I couldn't agree more. All these people claiming he needs to work his way up the lineup.. what's the worst that could happen giving him a top 6 spot and a pp role? Best case, he takes it and runs with it. Worst case, he spends a month there and leaves little doubt that he currently can't handle that responsibility and perhaps never will.
However Todd's more worried about getting his 6million dollar anchor going, and developing the ever evolving talent of cagguila Strome and rattie.
If they don't give him a fair shake this year, I'm gonna call the Jp experiment over and chalk it up to another prospect ruined by the oilers.
That is such a false equivalency, Johnny Gaudreau and Patrick Kane had S tier puck skills the second they landed in the NHL, they were also highly elusive, evaded checks extremely well, had high end offensive IQ, and could regularly find or make the time and space to make magic happen. In no way shape or form is our coaching staff suppressing a talent of that level, you can watch a player of that talent level for 5 minutes and know exactly what role they should have and how to deploy them; more over each had the talent that even if put in a 3rd line role they would carry their line and produce sufficient offense to bully there way further up the line-up. Pulju is not of the Kane/Gaudreau mold and quite frankly never will be, he isn't some waterbug tap-dancing on defenders out there. Pulju has a few slick dekes that are quite good, but he needs to pull them off more consistently, he's got good speed, but not good enough to create a great deal of separation off that alone, what he does have is an imposing physical frame if he's got good body position on a defender and can make them play off his back hip, they are screwed. He's also got a shot that neither Kane or Gaudreau can replicate in terms of raw power, but it needs fine-tuning in terms of getting off the "A" shot more consistently and also do a better job of finding the lanes + sufficient separation from defenders to get the shot off clean. The template for Pulju should be something closer to Blake Wheeler or Marian Hossa, not quite like either one, but it's the general direction he should be skewing towards.So... lets say we drafted Johnny Gaudreau.
We bury him on the 3rd line and tell him to work on his defense? Add muscle and physicality... learn some better boardwork and grind.
If he can't elevate Strome and Khaira, he doesn't deserve more ice time.
Also, no PP time, and if he does, we give him limited looks as our front of net presence. If he can't cut it in a situation not tailored for his skills we take him off?
Am I really to believe this is how you develop Johnny Gaudreau?
What about Patrick Kane? Did he need to win board battles, understand defensive coverage, and learn a 200 foot game before being given ice time?
You mean the Johnny Gaudreau who came into camp his first year and heavily outplayed every left winger they had and forced the issue?So... lets say we drafted Johnny Gaudreau.
We bury him on the 3rd line and tell him to work on his defense? Add muscle and physicality... learn some better boardwork and grind.
If he can't elevate Strome and Khaira, he doesn't deserve more ice time.
Also, no PP time, and if he does, we give him limited looks as our front of net presence. If he can't cut it in a situation not tailored for his skills we take him off?
Am I really to believe this is how you develop Johnny Gaudreau?
What about Patrick Kane? Did he need to win board battles, understand defensive coverage, and learn a 200 foot game before being given ice time?
Fair enough we disagree.
In your mind what is it that the team did incorrectly with Jesse?
Pulju should be in the mix for that 2nd line role this season and I expect him to have grasped it by the end of this season, but the 18 & 19 year old versions of Pulju simply weren't good enough or consistent enough to deserve that role or make much of that role even when it was thrust upon him.
Young players get benched or pushed down the lineup a lot faster than older players and vets cause their leash is shorter cause they want them to learn.It's always a pleasure to disagree with style. I'm sorry it's gonna be a long message, hopefully and probably the last long one from me. I hope the writers that strongly disagree with me would read this through to see if there's at least something they could agree with.
1. In his first season Puljujarvi was considered solid defensively, which his stats backed. It didn't take a big mistake (many called it the first one) to get him benched, while some players made worse mistakes pretty constantly. A lot of fans were pissed.
2. At first Jesse was placed in his own spot on the PP. He got a few games, where he hit the posts/crossbar several times. For quite a while many fans were pissed about the way he was removed from the PP and how bad the PP was with Letestu etc. Later on the PP started to work, though.
3. In his first season Puljujarvi climbed his way up to the 1st line. Before that McDavid had nine games without scoring and he got a hat trick in the first game they played together. They had four succesful games together and fans were excited about the pair. Puljujarvi scored at a ppg rate (plus one point left out). It only took a couple of shifts at the beginning of the next game to send Jesse down to the 3rd/4th line and then benched. I wonder how the season could've been without this strange and sudden demotion.
4. After the previous incident Jesse was put with the least offensive players at that time (Pouliot, Caggiula etc.), thrown between different lines and given low minutes. A lot of the times he didn't play at all. Until the beginning of that fans were pretty bewildered by that. Only then Jesse's production stopped and things got more difficult until he was finally sent down.
5. In the AHL he was told to concentrate on his defensive game. One could argue this didn't make much sense at that time.
6. I understand it was disappointing that Yamamoto took the one place in the preseason. However, according to the reports here many players were worse than Jesse but somehow the best 12 forwards weren't selected, instead there was one place between Yama and Pulju. In fact Puljujarvi had two pretty strong games, getting better towards the start of the season. On the other hand Slepy got a place straight up without the preseason games.
7. When Puljujarvi was called up he started his season with McDavid very well, but was sent down quickly. Then he did great with Nuge and now Puljujarvi was sent down to the 3rd. McLellan said Jesse was playing so well he wanted to send him down to help other players. One can imagine how that probably hurt his production, though for a while he did alright with Strome.
8. For quite a while Puljujarvi was among the most efficient scorers in the league and the best scorer of the team. However, he didn't see any PP time during that time. Again, fans were pissed, especially when Letestu just didn't work. They also tried many other players but not Jesse, even though he had e.g. scored two PP goals in the one preseason game where he had some PP time.
9. Later on during the season, when Puljujarvi had obviously lost some of his confidence, he was finally given some PP time, but in the 2nd PP at a role he's never played or never really liked. Again, this is a good way to get a player confused about his role and strengths.
10. For quite a while in the 2nd season Puljujarvi seemed to have a shorter leash than the others, that's how comments here were anyway. He was certainly taught to concentrate on the defensive side of the game. At the same time some players could get away with anything and still have a top6 place.
11. During the rest of the season he was mainly given lower minutes in the lower lines. A big part of that was with Lucic, which had killed the production of some other players. At some point Jesse's game worsened so I'm not saying this was all bad, but it's a very different approach compared to e.g. CBJ with Dubois. At the same time Lucic, Camalleri, Rattie, Aberg and others got plenty of top6 and PP time.
I'm not saying all of these should've been different. I'm just saying there were many questionable moves without which it could be very different now. If one wanted to list the things that could help with destroying a young player's development Todd and the other coaches chose quite a few of them. This doesn't equal with Jesse being a ready player in every sense, but the development of the young players is a crucial element in the whole picture. Not every Euro player is 100% ready at the age of 18 or 19.
E: I added numbers to maybe make this mile-long message a bit more readable.
Ill say this again as I have said it 100s of times. Vets will always get the benefit of the doubt over rookies and younger players because they have their NHL careers and experience to draw upon. Rookies drowning is worse than a vet drowning cause they are less likely to bounce back.
A lot of effort but this is backseat QBing. Teams have TC's, exhibition seasons, practice, drills. So that the coaches have 100X more access to view the players and see what they're doing than joe fan. From all reports Laine was looking incredible in Jets camp from the word go. players establish, before a game is even played, or at least elite players do. Its 2018 and Pulju has not established, that's on one guy.Not saying Pulju = Laine, but simple deployment stat showing poor usage and development tactics:
Laine
2016-17
GP 73 PPTOI 197.8 Minutes
2017-18
GP 82 PPTOI 246.6 Minutes
Puljujarvi
2016-17
GP 28 PPTOI 22.6 Minutes
2017-18
GP 65 PPTOI 48.3 Minutes
I think the whole "earn your PP time" argument is trash as well.
You want weapons like a great shot and one timer on a PP, not a grinder like Caggiula whiffing on every pass (only on there because hey nice forecheck hustle there in practice, Drake).
Laine's success from that PP spot in his draft year was immediately molded into an NHL plan to utilize that skill.
Pulju's success from that PP spot in his draft year was completely ignored and not deployed at the NHL level with passers available like Connor and Drai.
Our development always places more emphasis on what a player cannot do first instead of helping them translate the skills that they excel at to the NHL level. Too often trying to turn players into something they either are not or they need more time and experience before making it a part of their more complete game later in their experience. The first thing you do with a player like Pulju to build his confidence? Make him believe that left half wall shot is going to be a big part of his success. But we don't see him there ever. Even the PP time he gets, he's in the bumper position completely covered while our perimeter passing can't get shots through.
Now I'm very curious to see what Viveiros will do with the PP units this year. But I doubt anyone can say what we saw on the PP last year was competent. Jesse's absence from it was not the be all killer of course, but not even trying him is at the very least questionable usage.
From all reports Laine was looking incredible in Jets camp from the word go.
Imo you're not separating two distinct ways the Oilers have failed at developing our players:
1. Rushing players into roles they're not ready for.
2. Failing to develop players strengths.
The Oilers have done both (and a whole swack of other things on top of them). Gagner for instance is a great early example of telling him to focus on getting bigger and working on board work. Those help but he really should have been working on his shot and skating (both shiftiness and acceleration). This would be focusing on his existing strength as a skilled offensive player rather than trying to turn him into a defensive two way centre.
He ALSO was thrust into more responsibility than he could handle.
Actually it was the opposite. He had a very tough time during the preseason and performance-wise (forgetting his past) he could've ended up to the AHL in the Oilers. However, he started the actual season great goal-wise.
After that there was a very difficult period, but the coaches were patient with him. At that time Laine was far from a ready player or the player he's at the moment, but Maurice had a very different way of developing him compared to Todd and Puljujarvi. Not always perfect, but very different anyway. Of course Laine's shot played a big part and thus he had earned some extra patience, too, which can't be forgotten.
It's always a pleasure to disagree with style. I'm sorry it's gonna be a long message, hopefully and probably the last long one from me. I hope the writers that strongly disagree with me would read this through to see if there's at least something they could agree with.
1. In his first season Puljujarvi was considered solid defensively, which his stats backed. It didn't take a big mistake (many called it the first one) to get him benched, while some players made worse mistakes pretty constantly. A lot of fans were pissed.
2. At first Jesse was placed in his own spot on the PP. He got a few games, where he hit the posts/crossbar several times. For quite a while many fans were pissed about the way he was removed from the PP and how bad the PP was with Letestu etc. Later on the PP started to work, though.
3. In his first season Puljujarvi climbed his way up to the 1st line. Before that McDavid had nine games without scoring and he got a hat trick in the first game they played together. They had four succesful games together and fans were excited about the pair. Puljujarvi scored at a ppg rate (plus one point left out). It only took a couple of shifts at the beginning of the next game to send Jesse down to the 3rd/4th line and then benched. I wonder how the season could've been without this strange and sudden demotion.
4. After the previous incident Jesse was put with the least offensive players at that time (Pouliot, Caggiula etc.), thrown between different lines and given low minutes. A lot of the times he didn't play at all. Until the beginning of that fans were pretty bewildered by that. Only then Jesse's production stopped and things got more difficult until he was finally sent down.
5. In the AHL he was told to concentrate on his defensive game. One could argue this didn't make much sense at that time.
6. I understand it was disappointing that Yamamoto took the one place in the preseason. However, according to the reports here many players were worse than Jesse but somehow the best 12 forwards weren't selected, instead there was one place between Yama and Pulju. In fact Puljujarvi had two pretty strong games, getting better towards the start of the season. On the other hand Slepy got a place straight up without the preseason games.
7. When Puljujarvi was called up he started his season with McDavid very well, but was sent down quickly. Then he did great with Nuge and now Puljujarvi was sent down to the 3rd. McLellan said Jesse was playing so well he wanted to send him down to help other players. One can imagine how that probably hurt his production, though for a while he did alright with Strome.
8. For quite a while Puljujarvi was among the most efficient scorers in the league and the best scorer of the team. However, he didn't see any PP time during that time. Again, fans were pissed, especially when Letestu just didn't work. They also tried many other players but not Jesse, even though he had e.g. scored two PP goals in the one preseason game where he had some PP time.
9. Later on during the season, when Puljujarvi had obviously lost some of his confidence, he was finally given some PP time, but in the 2nd PP at a role he's never played or never really liked. Again, this is a good way to get a player confused about his role and strengths.
10. For quite a while in the 2nd season Puljujarvi seemed to have a shorter leash than the others, that's how comments here were anyway. He was certainly taught to concentrate on the defensive side of the game. At the same time some players could get away with anything and still have a top6 place.
11. During the rest of the season he was mainly given lower minutes in the lower lines. A big part of that was with Lucic, which had killed the production of some other players. At some point Jesse's game worsened so I'm not saying this was all bad, but it's a very different approach compared to e.g. CBJ with Dubois. At the same time Lucic, Camalleri, Rattie, Aberg and others got plenty of top6 and PP time.
I'm not saying all of these should've been different. I'm just saying there were many questionable moves without which it could be very different now. If one wanted to list the things that could help with destroying a young player's development Todd and the other coaches chose quite a few of them. This doesn't equal with Jesse being a ready player in every sense, but the development of the young players is a crucial element in the whole picture. Not every Euro player is 100% ready at the age of 18 or 19.
E: I added numbers to maybe make this mile-long message a bit more readable.
I'm sorry but coaches don't manage their bench that wayMost of what you posted i observed as well.
If I knew how to link a post I did yesterday I would direct you to it. There are reasons for the way JP is being used. Cap management and developing him into a better two way forward.
The unfortunate truth is JP isn't needed to be a one dimensional super offensive weapon on the Oilers. They wouldn't be able to afford him if they developed him along side of McDavid.
Can't agree with this at all. Reports out of camp were positive and Laine hit the ground running, absolutely, and this reflected in scoring a goal and an assist in his first ever NHL game and putting up 11 goals and 15pts in his first 14 GP.
Gagner was a player i thought for sure would improve.
He didn't. His defense was putrid. The few times he worked at it he lost his offense. Could never figure out how to do both at the nhl level. Should have been moved to the third line winger and PP specialist like he was used in CB.
And both started the year with their teams. Jesse did for lack of a better word, f*** all. And Laine hit the ground running and dominated.Strange, as all I've read and found is that Laine had a difficult time in the preseason. He scored 0+0 in the four preseason games and made at least one brutal mistake that cost a goal. In fact Puljujarvi was more or less better in the preseason (stress on the word preseason). Laine's last preseason was very different, and goal-wise also the start of the actual season, but the first preseason was not good.
To back my claim here's an article after three of the four games:
Jets rookie Laine still adjusting to NHL life
From the article:
When it comes to Patrik Laine, now is not the time to start sounding the alarm bells.
Next month isn’t the time either, but let’s cross that bridge when we get there.
As for the other areas of his game, Laine looks like he’s spending a lot of time thinking about where he’s supposed to be, rather than letting the game come to him.
This is over stated. Defensively there isn't as much difference between a Gagner and a Kane than people would think. Gagner didn't have elite D back sheltering him or a linemate like Toews. He NEVER had that here. He NEVER had sheltering. Really of any kind. 40 games into his career he was being a go to offensive weapon and playing with a rookie, Cogliano, and a career floater in Nilsson. This essentially was his tutelage. Heres the NHL kid, heres the keys, go out and have fun getting drilled into the middle of next year. I can't count the number of times in Gagners first few seasons that he was literally sent airborn. Kind of amazing he wasn't critically injured before he was.
And both started the year with their teams. Jesse did for lack of a better word, **** all. And Laine hit the ground running and dominated.
Man, I was watching those preseason games. Laine was electric and noticeable every time he was on the ice in preseason. The collective reaction here and in Calgary was "Oh ****, the Jets got a ringer"
I don't think that Gagner has/had the physical tools to get much better than he was early in his career.