Pre-Game Talk: Kings Vs Sens

[Do Make Say Think]

We should also expect for our young guys to fade as the season goes on. Most of our D has never experienced a full NHL grind.

You never know of course, but it seems like a safe bet.

 

[Blarginator]

We should also expect for our young guys to fade as the season goes on. Most of our D has never experienced a full NHL grind.

You never know of course, but it seems like a safe bet.

That's what I think will happen too. They'll hang in there for a while but by February I think they'll slow down.

 

[Deku]

went to the game yesterday on a whim and it was a pretty fun game. Lots of greasy goals.

I was initially horrified about the Boro-Harpur pairing being matched against the Kopitar line, but they did well enough. I thought Harpur played really well and Boro was just typical Boro. They didn't get scored on though so that's all that really matters I guess.

Tkachuk played very well again, always involved in the play. I loved White's goal as well.

 

[JD1]

We should also expect for our young guys to fade as the season goes on. Most of our D has never experienced a full NHL grind.

You never know of course, but it seems like a safe bet.

we don't have any D jumping from junior and arguably the AHL grind is worse. It's just as physical if not more and the travel is brutal

certainly possible that as the games get harder by February that some of the younger guys don't have enough man strength.

I think Formenton and Tkachuk are more likely to struggle as it wears because they are making bigger jumps

 

[Micklebot]

Surely we must have the highest scoring D core in the league right now, right? Chabot, Lajoie and Wideman all have multi goal games. We're sure getting alot of bang for our buck.

Our D combines for 8 goals and 21 pts.

Toronto's combines for 5 goals and 23 pts thanks in large to Reilly and his 13 pts.

So, if you mean goal scoring, as opposed to pts, yep

 

[Sensinitis]

Chlapik, Batherson, Brown, Balcers, Wolanin all in the AHL and developing well... the future is looking bright. We can have a lot of firepower in the near future. Just make Ryan and Boro gtfo please. Ceci can go too. His brain farts too often.

 

[Sens of Anarchy]

They took this assist away from White and gave it too Duchene.. I thought White deflected Chabot's shot on the way in..

 

[Karl Prime]

But this isn't what we're seeing at all, virtually the opposite in fact.

Players were always defaulting getting the puck to EK, even when better plays were available. Just because passes go to Stone and Duchene, or they skate the puck into the o-zone doesn't mean that they are driving the offence all of the time, the eye test would indicate that they are not.

Guys like Tierney, Lajoie, and Boedker are driving the puck, Tkachuk is driving the play, heck even Demelo is driving the play sometimes. Guys are passing to the open man, shooting the puck themselves, or looking to make the best play, rather than looking to constantly pass to the best player on the ice and letting him decide where it goes next. Everyone is driving the net, from Stone to Boro.

We have a team attack right now which is sending the offence through everyone and it makes us harder to predict compared to last year. The PP is an excellent example of what the team attack can look like when the play goes through everyone, and everyone feels comfortable shooting the puck. EK was a fantastic player, but we are playing much better team hockey this year so far and I'm not sure anyone can argue against this.

Last season (and 16-17) the style was completely different. I'd hope the offense looks better since they aren't playing passive any longer and are forechecking much more. It's more fair to compare the style this season to 15-16 when they were more run'n'gun. That season, and the four before it, Karlsson was the main offensive driver but it's not like he was a puck hog always demanding the puck. He was the primary playmaker, looking to distribute and find the open forward in a dangerous area. Quite a few of his goals came after only having the puck for less than two seconds (with him being the "open man" on the rush or at the point. Excluding 12-13, between 11-12 and 15-16 the offense was 4th, 9th, 9th, and 7th, without a PPG forward except for Spezza in 11-12. Obviously EK was a big part of that points-wise but a lot of it was just the team playing more in the o-zone when he was out there which was going to improve offense for everyone.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

It'll be funny to watch all of the "I told you so" apologists disappear once the inevitable losing streak happens.

Not that I'm cheering for the team to lose, and I'm certainly happy with the young guys so far and hope the best for them, but we're FIVE games in and already we have to deal with the small minority of posters who are acting like we're suddenly a good team.

 

[coladin]

It'll be funny to watch all of the "I told you so" apologists disappear once the inevitable losing streak happens.

Not that I'm cheering for the team to lose, and I'm certainly happy with the young guys so far and hope the best for them, but we're FIVE games in and already we have to deal with the small minority of posters who are acting like we're suddenly a good team.

We are going to have a losing streak??? When did you hear of this?

 

[Ice-Tray]

Last season (and 16-17) the style was completely different. I'd hope the offense looks better since they aren't playing passive any longer and are forechecking much more. It's more fair to compare the style this season to 15-16 when they were more run'n'gun. That season, and the four before it, Karlsson was the main offensive driver but it's not like he was a puck hog always demanding the puck. He was the primary playmaker, looking to distribute and find the open forward in a dangerous area. Quite a few of his goals came after only having the puck for less than two seconds (with him being the "open man" on the rush or at the point. Excluding 12-13, between 11-12 and 15-16 the offense was 4th, 9th, 9th, and 7th, without a PPG forward except for Spezza in 11-12. Obviously EK was a big part of that points-wise but a lot of it was just the team playing more in the o-zone when he was out there which was going to improve offense for everyone.

Ek was a great player for us and wanted to run the play. He was good enough to do so. He is gone now, and the offence is now running through many players on the team. Everyone on the ice is being used as an option. This is plain to see, especially on the PP.

You don't need to try and defend EK in this particular discussion, he is what he is, and when he left the offence changed. You seemed to be trying to say that now Stone and Duchene have replaced EK and that the offence is running in a similar way but through them, but that is just not the case at all.

 

[Xspyrit]

That's still not the point. On paper we're way better than that team looked like at the the beginning of that season. Yes we caught fire and got a lucky streak, bu that's not my point! I'm not saying we're making the playoffs this year. I'm just saying we're better than that team, and that team made the playoffs with some luck.

Cannot disagree more.

It was not luck, it was the emergence of several young players like Stone, Hoffman, Zibanejad, Pageau and solid goaltending from Hammond. Turris also played his best hockey in the 2nd half. And they really played like a team.

Yes it did appear bad at the time.
Turris had never been a 1C (never had 60+pts),
Ryan was a 2nd liner
MacArthur was a 2nd liner
Zibanejad was less proven than Dzingel is right now
Pageau still didn't have a full NHL season, and only had 6 career NHL points
Michalek was injury prone and on the decline
Stone and Hoff were rookies
games
This year, we're way deeper and way more proven. We have two legit 1st line players, a ton of proven depth players (Boedker, Tierney, etc.), and legit blue chip forward rookie.

I'm sorry but there is no chance that this year's team is more "proven" and I also really don't think they're deeper.

Let's start by comparing this year's team vs the 2014-15 team by their point averages per 82 games the 2 years prior to the season :

Mark Stone : 74 pts vs Clarke MacArthur : 52 pts
Matt Duchene : 52 pts vs Kyle Turris : 55 pts
Bobby Ryan : 38 pts vs Bobby Ryan : 55 pts

Ryan Dzingel (190 NHL games) : 37 pts vs vs Alex Chiasson (86 NHL games) : 40 pts
Mikkel Boedker : 33 pts vs Milan Michalek : 41 pts
Chris Tierney : 32 pts vs Mika Zibanejad : 39 pts (120 NHL games, 18-20 y/o)

Zack Smith : 29 pts vs Zack Smith : 23 pts
Max McCormick : 11 pts vs David Legwand : 48 pts
Pyatt, Paajarvi, Carey vs Condra, Neil, Greening

Thomas Chabot (64 NHL games) : 32 pts vs Erik Karlsson : 73 pts
Dylan DeMelo : 26 pts vs Marc Methot : 23 pts
Chris Wideman : 22 pts vs Patrick Wiercioch : 36 pts
Cody Ceci : 18 pts vs Cody Ceci : 15 points (49 NHL games)
Mark Borowiecki : 9 pts vs Chris Phillips : 20 pts

Craig Anderson (37 y/o) vs Craig Anderson (33 y/o)
Mike Condon vs Robin Lehner

Notes :

- MacArthur didn't have his concussion problems yet, he had a 55 pts season the year before. Mark Stone is much better though.

- Duchene should be better than Turris but in terms of production, Turris was more productive the last 2 years before that season vs Duchene the last 2 years before this season

- Ryan is older and went through a lot of injuries since, not as effective as back then

- Yes Michalek was on the decline due to injuries but middle six production (~40 pts) was still expected. People are not expecting Boedker to produce more than that.

- You say that Dzingel was more "proven" than Zibanejad but he should have been compared to a winger instead. His production hasn't been anything special yet. Chiasson only had 1 year under his belt and averaged more pts per 82 games to start his career.

- Better production from Zibanejad was expected. He was going into his 3rd NHL season and was only 21 y/o. Tierney is 24 y/o and had a 40 pts season, outside of that it was closer to 4th line production.

- Legwand was maybe 34 y/o but he was coming off a 51 pts season, a lot more proven and better than any of McCormick, Carey or Paul.

- Chabot is way less proven than Karlsson was, nobody would expect him to be as good as EK but he is off to a great start

- DeMelo is less proven and not as good defensively than Methot was, not close.

- Wideman has been less productive than the other sheltered offensive D-man of that season, Patrick Wiercioch.

- Ceci has more experience today but it sounds like most think he has regressed (not that I agree)

- Borowiecki at his best is not better than Phillips in his decline years.

- Don't you feel more confident in the goaltending we had in 2014-15 vs this year?

So it all comes down to the rookies from both years (I took Pageau as a vet to compare with him as a rookie because we actually had more rookie forwards in 2014-15. Same for Cowen and Gryba but oppositely)

Brady Tkachuk (0 NHL game) vs Mark Stone (23 NHL games)
Alex Formenton (1 NHL game) vs Mike Hoffman (29 NHL games)
Colin White (23 NHL games) vs Curtis Lazar (0 NHL game)
JG Pageau (329 NHL games) vs JG Pageau (37 NHL games)
Maxime Lajoie (0 NHL game) vs Mark Borowiecki (21 NHL games)
Ben Harpur (52 NHL games) vs Jared Cowen (158 NHL games)
Christian Jaros (2 NHL games) vs Eric Gryba (90 NHL games)


I highlighted all the players that you'd think would have a better season. Look at defense and goaltending. Everyone would have preferred to go into the season with what we had in 2014-15. So far, the emergence of Chabot and Lajoie (and DeMelo somewhat) helps a lot.