Player Discussion Jonathan Drouin - Guy Laflamme edition

[NotProkofievian]

Hey gaiz, u gaiz r all h8ers, u wud all h8 Malkin n Burns n Pastrnak n Draisaitl n Doughty n Marchand as much as Drouin! Bcuz Giveaways! Checkmate h8ERS!

 

[Habs Halifax]

Hey gaiz, u gaiz r all h8ers, u wud all h8 Malkin n Burns n Pastrnak n Draisaitl n Doughty n Marchand as much as Drouin! Bcuz Giveaways! Checkmate h8ERS!

Still at it eh? Fact: Drouin is tracking towards less turnovers year after year and he is still improving/maturing at the age of 23.

But yeah, he turned it over against the Panthers in that 4th loss in a row game. Something is wrong and he will never learn?

 

[Genesis76]

Still at it eh? Fact: Drouin is tracking towards less turnovers year after year and he is still improving/maturing at the age of 23.

But yeah, he turned it over against the Panthers in that 4th loss in a row game. Something is wrong and he will never learn?

Besides his age what is it that you like about him?

 

[Habs Halifax]

Besides his age what is it that you like about him?

He’s gifted offensively and still improving. He’s the only talent we have that can somewhat run our PP and set up Weber.

I’m looking at his strength and not focusing on his flaws. He is who he is and he’s still maturing at the young age of 23

 

[Genesis76]

He’s gifted offensively and still improving. He’s the only talent we have that can somewhat run our PP and set up Weber.

I’m looking at his strength and not focusing on his flaws. He is who he is and he’s still maturing at the young age of 23

Nah man, we need some one who can setup Tatar the same way Benn did last night.

We dont need an enigmatic player who doesn't know how to position himself.

 

[Uncle Gary]

So far this is the best season of his career. While he still has flaws in his game, he has shown improvement. He also has a very reasonable cap hit for his current production. Habs have been short on talent for what seems like forever, we need to add to what we have rather than subtract.

 

[nhlfan9191]

You are missing the point. Drouin is trying to do things to create offense when he should not be but is he doing this every game? NO! Is he not improving? NO! Pretending that Gaudreau don't turn it over in a key situation on our team is not something I will agree with cause we are looking at what he does on a much better top 6 mix with better centers on a different team.

The point here is Gaudreau drowns on our team like Drouin is. You can only have so many soft forwards and this is a problem we need to address if we want to win a cup. Drouin is just trying to do too much like Subban did when we need a goal. Same type of attack that people are quick to do in Montreal.

There are some who said trade Drouin. I say be careful with what you wish for. There are flaws to his game and some we have to live with and some he will improve on. Lets provide constructive criticism and avoid jumping on his back. The Oilers traded Hall for this very same reason.

I’ve read lots of your posts from today. I guess time to respond. I’ll start with “ Drouin’s trying to create offense and he should not be” from this post. What the **** are we paying him for then? He’s a skilled winger. Creating offense is his job. You’re going on about how he’s matured with us. How? Getting a day older every 24 hours isn’t maturing. This can be applied to play on the ice and in real life. There’s people in everyday life who’re 50 and haven’t matured a day past their teenage years. As many posters have pointed out, he has the same bad tendencies he’s had since coming into the league which suggest his maturity level isn’t changing. He hasn’t gotten better since coming to our team. Putting up 10+ more then last year doesn’t automatically mean he’s become a better hockey player which will lead me to the next point.

Gaudreau vs Drouin. I’m going to spend as little time on this as possible because the comparison is an insult to Gaudreau. You keep bringing up how Gaudreau is soft. He does have what should be a physical disadvantage due to his size, but something that makes him very unique, the same way Marty St. Louis was, is he turns that into an advantage. He’s as slippery as a bottle of lube. Something Drouin is not. He gets into and attacks areas of the ice that very few players can. That’s something Drouin can’t do. The biggest difference between the two is Gaudreau drives a line. Players around him are instantly better whereas Drouin is the opposite. He has never driven a line 5v5 and is as good the linemates next to him, which is ironic because this is what you’re accusing Gaudreau of being which is not true at all. These two players are in different weight classes as far as impact on the game.

You switched your argument to giveaways along the way and like I showed in an earlier post, context matters big time when using that stat. I used Petry and Gardiner as my example of two players in similar roles who both have a label of making bad mistakes. Petry has almost double the amount of giveaways as Gardiner, but if you look at the impact of the giveaways, I’d take Petry giving the puck up twice as much before I’d ever take Gardiner on the team. Gardiner’s giveaways are far more detrimental. And the same can be said about Drouin compared to a lot of forwards. A lot of the time giveaways can be contributed to how often the puck is on your stick and I believe you said giveaways are a factor when evaluating if a player is soft. Also not true. Matchups and quality of competition play a significant factor.

I’m not going to accuse you of not watching games because you’re never around in GDT’s. And I’m not going trying to attack you. You seem very educated on who we have in our pipeline as far as rookies and it does appear you really do follow the team, and it’s history, atleast when it comes to the last 10-15 years or so. But if you are watching the games, it does seem that most of it flies over your head when it comes to understanding it and evaluating players. Most of your posts when it comes to actually dissecting the game are painful to read most of the time. I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur, I’m actually a millennial, but we do live in an era where the internet allows people to just read advanced stats and not watch the games and pretend to know what they’re talking about so I don’t really blame posters for being skeptics when it comes to if you’re actually watching the games after reading your posts. Either way, that’s my take on what I’ve read to today in this thread. I’ve spent enough time writing this post and I’m not going to cover every point from the last 5 pages.

 

[ProspectsFanatic]

This team doesn't need you, your net value isn't positive, chow bye.

 

[ottawa]

Having a good game right now despite not being on the scoreboard

 

[KevSkillz4]

He play well against Columbus and Flyers.

 

[Andrei79]

He's inconsistently good at producing offense while being consistently bad at everything else.

Why, I wonder, would anyone take a dislike to that ?

 

[peate]

Having a good game right now despite not being on the scoreboard

He play well against Columbus and Flyers.

He avoided costly turnovers, at least there's that.

 

[Habs]

He needs a finisher, he's clearly a setup guy, and a good one. This team has too many playmakers, not enough snipers.

 

[dackelljuneaubulis02]

He needs a finisher, he's clearly a setup guy, and a good one. This team has too many playmakers, not enough snipers.

I think him and KK will eventually make sweet music out there. I still think he can be better. Maybe it's 2 steps forward and 1 and 3/4 steps back but big picture, he's better than last year. Lot has to do with being on the wing and looking faster. His lack of focus is something that COULD POSSIBLY get better with age. He's more valuable to us than he is on the trade market. He's still a 60+ guy. If he turns up in the playoffs it'll be huge.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I’ve read lots of your posts from today. I guess time to respond. I’ll start with “ Drouin’s trying to create offense and he should not be” from this post. What the **** are we paying him for then? He’s a skilled winger. Creating offense is his job. You’re going on about how he’s matured with us. How? Getting a day older every 24 hours isn’t maturing. This can be applied to play on the ice and in real life. There’s people in everyday life who’re 50 and haven’t matured a day past their teenage years. As many posters have pointed out, he has the same bad tendencies he’s had since coming into the league which suggest his maturity level isn’t changing. He hasn’t gotten better since coming to our team. Putting up 10+ more then last year doesn’t automatically mean he’s become a better hockey player which will lead me to the next point.

Gaudreau vs Drouin. I’m going to spend as little time on this as possible because the comparison is an insult to Gaudreau. You keep bringing up how Gaudreau is soft. He does have what should be a physical disadvantage due to his size, but something that makes him very unique, the same way Marty St. Louis was, is he turns that into an advantage. He’s as slippery as a bottle of lube. Something Drouin is not. He gets into and attacks areas of the ice that very few players can. That’s something Drouin can’t do. The biggest difference between the two is Gaudreau drives a line. Players around him are instantly better whereas Drouin is the opposite. He has never driven a line 5v5 and is as good the linemates next to him, which is ironic because this is what you’re accusing Gaudreau of being which is not true at all. These two players are in different weight classes as far as impact on the game.

You switched your argument to giveaways along the way and like I showed in an earlier post, context matters big time when using that stat. I used Petry and Gardiner as my example of two players in similar roles who both have a label of making bad mistakes. Petry has almost double the amount of giveaways as Gardiner, but if you look at the impact of the giveaways, I’d take Petry giving the puck up twice as much before I’d ever take Gardiner on the team. Gardiner’s giveaways are far more detrimental. And the same can be said about Drouin compared to a lot of forwards. A lot of the time giveaways can be contributed to how often the puck is on your stick and I believe you said giveaways are a factor when evaluating if a player is soft. Also not true. Matchups and quality of competition play a significant factor.

I’m not going to accuse you of not watching games because you’re never around in GDT’s. And I’m not going trying to attack you. You seem very educated on who we have in our pipeline as far as rookies and it does appear you really do follow the team, and it’s history, atleast when it comes to the last 10-15 years or so. But if you are watching the games, it does seem that most of it flies over your head when it comes to understanding it and evaluating players. Most of your posts when it comes to actually dissecting the game are painful to read most of the time. I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur, I’m actually a millennial, but we do live in an era where the internet allows people to just read advanced stats and not watch the games and pretend to know what they’re talking about so I don’t really blame posters for being skeptics when it comes to if you’re actually watching the games after reading your posts. Either way, that’s my take on what I’ve read to today in this thread. I’ve spent enough time writing this post and I’m not going to cover every point from the last 5 pages.

Not going to reply cause I think you are misreading my point on several accounts. I'll keep it brief

1) I do watch the games and know just as much about the Habs and hockey as you do. I avoid this narrative usually. It's never cool to accuse anybody of having bad hockey knowledge and then go on thinking you know it all. You want to give me advice? How about I give you advice... don't walk this earth thinking your shit don't stink.

2) Gaudreau > Drouin. You said you payed attention to several of my posts. Why can't you get the point then cause I clarified it several times? The point is about two offensive talent who play soft games but how does their game fit on the Flames roster vs the Habs roster. What roster has more soft players vs the other? . My stance remains... Gaudreau would struggle on our roster. This is not about who is better, this is about a style of game that needs to play with certain talent to produce at the high level.

Have a nice day

 

[NotProkofievian]

So, Gaudreau is a better player than Drouin.

''Yeah.''

Unequivocally, a vastly superior player.

''That's what I said.''

Like, so vastly superior that, even accounting hypothetically for team context, you think Drouin would not even come within 20 points of what Gaudreau is actually doing this season.

''Makes sense to me.''

So, then, given that Gaudreau is the vastly superior player, it's reasonable to conclude that he'd have a better reception in Montreal than Drouin has had.

''Nope.''

 

[nhlfan9191]

Not going to reply cause I think you are misreading my point on several accounts. I'll keep it brief

1) I do watch the games and know just as much about the Habs and hockey as you do. I avoid this narrative usually. It's never cool to accuse anybody of having bad hockey knowledge and then go on thinking you know it all. You want to give me advice? How about I give you advice... don't walk this earth thinking your **** don't stink.

2) Gaudreau > Drouin. You said you payed attention to several of my posts. Why can't you get the point then cause I clarified it several times? The point is about two offensive talent who play soft games but how does their game fit on the Flames roster vs the Habs roster. What roster has more soft players vs the other? . My stance remains... Gaudreau would struggle on our roster. This is not about who is better, this is about a style of game that needs to play with certain talent to produce at the high level.

Have a nice day

It wasn’t an attack on you. And when it comes to actual hockey, from reading your posts, I’m 110% sure I know more about the game then you ever will. There’s certain things I’ll admit when it comes to outside playing the game that I think you are very knowledgeable about, moreso then myself. But if it ever came down to the actual game, absolutely not.

Gaudreau is an elite talent who makes everyone around him better. And like last time, I’m keeping it short. Gaudreau makes Monahan and his linemates better. If it was reversed, Monahan would make Drouin better. Gaudreau would boost his linemates if he was on the Habs tremendously. I felt the need to respond your point that if you flip flopped the players, there would be a minor change. That’s absolute non sense. You overrate Drouin by a ridiculous amount. He’s a one trick pony.

 

[Sorinth]

Still at it eh? Fact: Drouin is tracking towards less turnovers year after year and he is still improving/maturing at the age of 23.

But yeah, he turned it over against the Panthers in that 4th loss in a row game. Something is wrong and he will never learn?

Turn overs is often a sign of a guy handling the puck a lot which is why guys like Doughty, Subban, Karlsson were always near the top of the league.

The current top-5 forwards are: Gaudreau, Draisaitl, Larkin, Pastrnak, Barzal.

So if Drouin's numbers are going down, I honestly think it's probably a bad sign as it might point towards him being less involved. For example Drouin's 38 turnovers this year is less then Danault's 40, so there's no rational argument for turnovers to be linked to defensive play.

And looking deeper at Danault, it's not a coincidence that his giveaways this year are much higher then previous years given he also has a spike in production. His offence has gone up because he's more implicated offensively and as a result his giveaways are also up.

Drouin can certainly work on limiting bad giveaways, but when stat watching I would much rather see his numbers up near the top of the NHL.

 

[Habs Halifax]

Turn overs is often a sign of a guy handling the puck a lot which is why guys like Doughty, Subban, Karlsson were always near the top of the league.

The current top-5 forwards are: Gaudreau, Draisaitl, Larkin, Pastrnak, Barzal.

So if Drouin's numbers are going down, I honestly think it's probably a bad sign as it might point towards him being less involved. For example Drouin's 38 turnovers this year is less then Danault's 40, so there's no rational argument for turnovers to be linked to defensive play.

And looking deeper at Danault, it's not a coincidence that his giveaways this year are much higher then previous years given he also has a spike in production. His offence has gone up because he's more implicated offensively and as a result his giveaways are also up.

Drouin can certainly work on limiting bad giveaways, but when stat watching I would much rather see his numbers up near the top of the NHL.

He is who he is and he has more room to mature. I just don't see the need to exaggerate how bad he is. I consider Drouin a good offensive piece to have and it comes down to how we surround him. I also think we get the best value from him from age 25-30.

 

[nhlfan9191]

Turn overs is often a sign of a guy handling the puck a lot which is why guys like Doughty, Subban, Karlsson were always near the top of the league.

The current top-5 forwards are: Gaudreau, Draisaitl, Larkin, Pastrnak, Barzal.

So if Drouin's numbers are going down, I honestly think it's probably a bad sign as it might point towards him being less involved. For example Drouin's 38 turnovers this year is less then Danault's 40, so there's no rational argument for turnovers to be linked to defensive play.

And looking deeper at Danault, it's not a coincidence that his giveaways this year are much higher then previous years given he also has a spike in production. His offence has gone up because he's more implicated offensively and as a result his giveaways are also up.

Drouin can certainly work on limiting bad giveaways, but when stat watching I would much rather see his numbers up near the top of the NHL.

CONTEXT matters when it comes to this stat. I don’t understand how certain fans can’t see that. I feel like a broken record saying it.

 

[David Suzuki]

Still at it eh? Fact: Drouin is tracking towards less turnovers year after year and he is still improving/maturing at the age of 23.

But yeah, he turned it over against the Panthers in that 4th loss in a row game. Something is wrong and he will never learn?

One thing I will say is that you'd think seeing players over 23 have career years this year for the Habs would dwell a little bit of the negativity. Just face it, French players will always get treated like shit on here. And it's not like Drouin doesn't bring a lot of the shit he gets on himself. I think he has a lot of room to grow.

 

[Habs Halifax]

One thing I will say is that you'd think seeing players over 23 have career years this year for the Habs would dwell a little bit of the negativity. Just face it, French players will always get treated like **** on here. And it's not like Drouin doesn't bring a lot of the **** he gets on himself. I think he has a lot of room to grow.

Drouin and Lehkonen are just the latest overreaction our fan base does. Don't worry, they will find someone else at some point.

 

[cphabs]

He’s gifted offensively and still improving. He’s the only talent we have that can somewhat run our PP and set up Weber.

I’m looking at his strength and not focusing on his flaws. He is who he is and he’s still maturing at the young age of 23

I don’t think it is a matter of maturation. I honestly think he is mildly Pejorative Slured.

 

[barbu]

He is who he is and he has more room to mature. I just don't see the need to exaggerate how bad he is. I consider Drouin a good offensive piece to have and it comes down to how we surround him. I also think we get the best value from him from age 25-30.

There's nothing wrong with the linemates Drouin had this year. No Mcdavid in there but good players nonetheless. Good players always find a way to produce.

 

[Habs Halifax]

I don’t think it is a matter of maturation. I honestly think he is mildly ******ed.

Maturity is a factor. He has already matured beyond who he was last year and is having a better season. It's normal for top 6 talent who are not elite level superstars. Most of these types reveal their true value from age 25-30 range.