Centers:
Tage Thompson - F, I thought about giving him a D and rethought it even considering the injury stuff. He's on a 50-point pace and his defense remains suspect. Teams have shut down his PP one-timer (and have for over a season) but it's clear he's trying to push through things. Yet this has been a failure.
Dylan Cozens - F, Similar to Thompson, too much emphasis on trying to score goals, not enough on playing a 200' game. Then there is the lack of awareness factor in the game against Philly where he gets petulant and has his nose blown the hell up by Hathaway. It's unacceptable to be that oblivious of who is on the ice. I would question the work he put in over the summer because he looks unbalanced and top-heavy. Also, the focus the coaching staff has on trying to get him to score instead of playing to win is not good for his game.
Casey Mittelstadt - B+, Hey, someone who has seemingly worked with just about every set of wingers he has worked with regardless of who. He's shown the tenacity of his pre-draft scouting profile, is winning 50-50 pucks and generally backchecking like he means it. He's been a quality catalyst for every set of wingers he's playing with. The downside of course is that it's a contract year.
Peyton Krebs - D+, My expectations weren't great and there are still moments when he does not make the right play. He energetically does nothing significant most of the time. His mistakes tend to be egregious while his good plays tend to be far less noticable.
Tyson Jost - F, Waived after his level of effort present after he was claimed last year flagged. He is one of the few guys on the team who still tried to take himself and the puck to the net, but the rest of his game was particularly milquetoast so it's not a surprise he's in the AHL.
Right Wingers:
Alex Tuch - C-, Slightly below average based on last year's effort and productiveness, though he's still one of the few guys who seem like they've bounced back after mediocre starts. Perhaps the Ray comment about him being all broken and held together with duct tape and twine is true.
JJ Peterka - C-, Has a small stretch of games where he decided to use his speed to attack the middle lane. The rest of the games, I often wonder what he's doing out there, but he's at least doing it fast.
Victor Olofsson - F. Why is he here? Kevyn, you overvalued your boy this summer and he's still around, still not winning much in terms of simple puck battles to the point when it happens it draws multiple comments.
Kyle Okposo - D, The wheels are further off and he appears cooked.
Isak Rosen - INC (leaning D), Not an impressive recall. What he did at the AHL level was never on display in the NHL and in Sabre fashion, he took nearly a month to get back on track once he went back to Rochester.
Lukas Rousek - INC (leaning F), What the hell. So disappointing in his callup time.
Left Wingers:
Jeff Skinner - C. He does things Skinner does - Casual Hockey As Offensive Skinner, aka. CHAOS. There isn't much defense. There is some mild heaters and he seems to straight up own the Habs.
Jack Quinn - INC (leaning B after only 9 games). Recently back from his off-season injury, he looks like the guy who ended last year: able to score in a variety of ways, a possible PK contributor, and constantly on his ass after being knocked down all over the ice.
Jordan Greenway - B, A big part (no pun intended) of the initial improvement on the PK, and generally a solid security blanket for more adventurous offensive players. He does his job - shove people off pucks and make plays to his open linemates, be back defensively to cover for wandering linemates blowing the zone early.
Zach Benson - B+, Has been a pleasant surprise in a season of disappointment. His motor is non-stop. So too is his stick, be it forechecking or backchecking, he's constantly looking for ways to disrupt the opposition. His details are excellent which may be hard for some to see if they don't know what they're looking for.
Zemgus Girgensons - C-, Kinda bog standard Gus though the defensive metrics are a little worse than before.
Eric Robinson - C+, a nice surprise for so little return, though we've seen an effort player with low ceiling previously in Jost who can't continue that. Speed and simple, straightforward play has been beneficial when he's in the lineup.
Brandon Biro - INC (leaning C), one of the rare folks who scored in his recall. He also got hurt and didn't stand out in any other game.
Defensse of the indefensible.
Rasmus Dahlin - F. He's been shit again. The expectations are very high and his casual play has been the cost of more games than just about any other skater. Yeah, he's nursing some LBI thing and it shows in just how slow he's skating. The explosiveness is gone out of his speed and while his shooting has improved, his decision making has been regularly questionable. Regularly caught out of position, part of their rash of odd-man rushes and breakaways given up. This is an expectation grade in the same way it is for Thompson and Cozens.
Owen Power - D- , The lack of physical engagement and the lack of growth in his game in his own zone continues to undercut his ability to move the puck crisply and well in transition. There are basic concepts of his position that he just does not exhibit and that's troublesome for either the multi-headed blueline coaching of Wolford/Girardi/Redmond hasn't gotten through to him or is just shit at their jobs (some from column A, some from column B). A puck and play watcher par excellence now, the off-shoulder scan he used to exhibit has given way to a lot of defensive coverage tunnel vision.
Mattias Samuelsson - D, He hasn't been consistent, though the dinged up injury thing has hit him again as he is one of their few guys who will block a shot or finish a hit. He's still had a plays where there is a lack of engagement and he's another of their guys who will start staring at the puck and not notice who is behind him. Missing is some of the seamlessness of he and Dahlin playing off one another to know who should be on which side that they had last year. Some of that is on Dahlin's rodeo clown aggressiveness and some of it is on Samuelsson.
Henri Jokiharju - C, Henri's had a lot more good than bad when he's playing down the lineup. And yet he also has the moments like in the last game where two stupid decisions lead directly to goals against. His processing to get a shot off may be transmitted via smoke signals rather than neurotransmitters. He has had a lot of bad luck - pucks off skates, pucks off officials, etc... He also tends to get completely fixated on the puck so backdoor plays are a constant threat with him defending. Ironically, I also messed up the copy and paste of his thing three times, so maybe it's just him.
Connor Clifton - C-, the last month has been a lot better since he called himself out in the press. Prior to that was either too aggressive, leaving his partner exposed or too timid, leaving him exposed. He should never play his offhand (left) side, as was done early with him and EJ as a pair. It just doesn't work.
Erik Johnson - C-, some of the improvement early on the PK was for him. And he's taken over the Montour reins as the guy pucks are going to go in off him the most. Also someone who shouldn't ever play the left side as he's terrible there. Given his TOI is under 11 minutes a game, he's a PK specialist and their PK has been better since he joined the unit... average.
Jacob Bryson - INC, In just three games, not a surprise that he's not on the squad any longer.
Ryan Johnson - B+, Impressed that he arrived earlier than I expected and most of the time he looks pretty smooth in how he transitions and positions himself. There are still some youthful gaffs and he's the only guy who seems to get gaffed by the staff when it happens. He's played both sides and hasn't seemed to struggle with either.
(One upside is that they have been reasonably healthy on the blueline so Bryson has only played 3 games and none of the other suspects from Rochester in Clague or Stillman have had to come up... yet.)
Goaltending:
Devon Levi: C-, given his age and such, it's probably unfair to give him a D grade. But the rebound control is still bad. There tends to be a bad goal nearly every other start and a bad start about every three. The fixation on him as the future from above reminds me of Botterill's obsessing over keeping Mitts and Tage around in the Housley era rather than having them put in the work on the farm where there is more practice time available.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen: B-, He's been better than I've expected this year albeit still inconsistent.
Eric Comrie: D, shattered.
Coaching:
F-. The Powerplay is now over a year since it was productive. Their only play is trying to set up Thompson for a one-timer in the LW circle. PP 2 has one play - set up Vic in the right circle. They haven't adapted, haven't tried different personnel in a meaningful way outside of replacing Thompson's shot option with Cozens as the shot option when Tage was hurt. They have tried nothing and are all out of ideas. It's terrible.
The ES implementation of some sort of defensive framework failed. The players don't seem to make winning plays and all the corrective action is from above is a call to "work harder". It seems Granato's runway as the development guy has expired. And his staff is doing nothing. The defense have all taken steps back in their overall play. The forwards make the same midget level mistakes over and over again. What do they do?
Mike Bales, what do you do? Jason Christie? Why are you here? Matt Ellis? All y'all should not be working in the NHL, it is clearly too much for you.
General Manager:
F. Adams did make a minor tinker move with picking up Robinson which helped a bit in terms of engagement from the energy line. Pushing guys like Bryson and Stillman (and Clague and whoever the new Fitz analog would be) off the roster with depth moves is something that should be bog standard. However... the three goalie situaiton and the inconsistency of all of his netminders is on him. Vic still being on the roster is on him. Not finding mid-liners to plug into the lineup who can push the play toward winning battles and accountability is on him. There are only so many roster spots, they continue to have too many prospects and not enough players who can or will impose at the NHL level in a way that can win in their division.
Also hearing that they have a grand total of one pro scout and that pro scout is also the head of his own department is seriously troubling. Liptsitcking this pig is about it. We don't need to hear that they called about someone who was traded to another team by yet another team. DO SOMETHING. They've more than squandered the goodwill they took two years to rebuild with this season. The right thing to do would've been to sack the HC after the Columbus debacle but here we are.
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