Our Team Identity

[FMichael]

Does Blashill get any credit here? Is he molding the players into what they are becoming?

This time last season I would've been 1 of the many with pitchforks, and torches...Since the start of November - I've been surprised as to how well the team is playing, and here's to hoping we miss the playoffs (yet still have a winning record), and get lucky by dropping down into the top 10 for the June draft.

 

[Henkka]

Ryan Sproul (CHL Defenseman of the Year). Xavier Ouellet (Two time first team all QMJHL).

Please. Just stop comparing these 2011 guy to anybody. It was WEAK DRAFT CLASS, and very rare of any defencemen rised in NHL from that class.

They were "Defencemen of the Year" against weak competition and the starting point against existing NHL talent or better classes afterwards was more worse than from any other class.

 

[JoesuffP]

I think it’s pretty closed minded at this point to not admit Blashill is at least a decent coach. I see huge improvements from his first year

 

[Reddwit]

I think it’s pretty closed minded at this point to not admit Blashill is at least a decent coach. I see huge improvements from his first year

From his first year? I'm curious what huge improvements you're talking about. To me, its been three years of a couple steps forward here, a couple steps back there, a disaster, a bright spot and a whole lot of treading water that averages out into 3 years of worse-than-average hockey.

If you want to talk about the difference between his first 3 years and this year, I can agree there are arguments to be made. But even then I need to see a lot more of this team before I credit him for a fun, strong, hard-working 2 months. There are just too many variables right now that can reasonably be argued have little or nothing to do with Blashill.

But if you want to say he's "decent", yeah sure. But decent is a pretty low bar in my book.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

The things a coach can control (team's preparation, effort, attitude) Blash has done a fantastic job of this year.

I was worried that AA would go completely off the rails and Blash and the team have turned him into a legit player.

Outside of a two week stretch when they were missing their top 4 defensemen, the team has performed quite well compared to expectations.

Complaining about the job Blashill has done this year is ludicrous. They got this team grinding and never saying die. That is something you do when you can get your best player(s) like Larkin to buy into what the coach is saying.

 

[Henkka]

Have to agree. Team has been overachieving and credit will go to coach.

Our player material was ranked 2nd worst before the season.

 

[Frk It]

I mean, who have they had that was a legit good defenseman? You shouldn't be giving a guy chicken **** and then lambasting him for not being able to make chicken salad out of it. Or make a filet mignon and all you get is ****ing ground round. Now if Cholo and Hronek fall flat on their faces, I'll be with you on this. But frankly, Smith, DeKeyser, Ericsson, Jensen, Ouellet, Sproul? NONE of those guys has top pairing potential that was ruined. They're just mediocre to bad hockey players.

It may not have mattered in the end, but I will maintain that we did a god-awful job of developing Jakob Kindl.

I think he had the talent to be more than what materialized. Babcock literally benched that kid any time he made a mistake, and that is the opposite of what a young defender needs IMO.

But otherwise yeah, not sure any of those other guys develop into something materially different in another system. Would have liked Smith to stay up after his initial callup where he looked like lightning in a bottle, but ultimately he just kinda lacked hockey sense in the end.

 

[Ghost of Ethan Hunt]

Not sure what thread this belongs in, but it shows our non-reliance on highest ATOI F, (Larkin) vs. league...

 

[Winger98]

It may not have mattered in the end, but I will maintain that we did a god-awful job of developing Jakob Kindl.

I think he had the talent to be more than what materialized. Babcock literally benched that kid any time he made a mistake, and that is the opposite of what a young defender needs IMO.

But otherwise yeah, not sure any of those other guys develop into something materially different in another system. Would have liked Smith to stay up after his initial callup where he looked like lightning in a bottle, but ultimately he just kinda lacked hockey sense in the end.

That ridiculous suspension he got in the preseason seemed to really alter his game, too. He pulled back on his physical game quite a bit after that, and it really hurt him. I think that was a fair reason he always upped his game in the playoffs - he let that physical edge come back into his game.

 

[Henkka]

So...

What are the feelings about our team identity now?

Do we have an indentity?

Or could the next top guy get from draft build that identity?

 

[Mister Ed]

I think a part of the team's identity was revealed after the 8-3 or so run they had late in season. Finally, the team is being led by the younger generation and they seem like they were having genuine fun out there.

 

[Hen Kolland]

Skate fast, play hard, make life miserable for the opponent for 60 minutes.

As we have the new young guys developing and factoring in, like Rasmussen, Cholowski, Veleno, Zadina, they all embody the same concept. Some will skate faster than others, some will play harder than others, some will make like more miserable for the opponent than others, but at the end of the day the team will be adding skill and maintaining the mindset that we saw this year.

Right now, we are maintaining a "puncher's chance" boxing mentality; in the future, I see us running a "marathon man" boxing mentality. Right now, keep fighting and you never know. In the future, more of an aggressive Floyd Mayweather style where we are going to come at you, and it's going to come wave after wave after wave, and we will know we will outlast you. At least this is how our recent drafts and current play style would have me believe we are aiming to be.

 

[Athana see you later]

I think it’s telling that two of the bigger, more in your face physical teams, made it to the finals this year. Our roster is trending towards those bigger guys who can skate well. We just need some skill thrown in there. This draft is still important for our identity though, we’ll have to see how Yzerman sees the future.

 

[Larkin2AA]

I'm curious to see how the bottom 6 performs and the identity we will have there. Getting into the playoffs and becoming a tougher teams to beat in all 60 minutes requires a small drop-off in intensity from the top 6 to the bottom. Who is going to provide the grinding, hard nose, get all pucks on net, no room to breathe 3rd/4th line players?

I should mention that the more talent that we can fill within our top 9 the better, however, is the label of a "role player(s)" gone away?

 

[Frk It]

Depends who we draft. Depends who we trade. Depends on how a bunch of people develop. Too early to say.

 

[The Zermanator]

I think a team’s identity is ultimately built on its stars. If you’re an LA and you have Kopitar/Doughty/etc or ANA with Getzlaf/Perry/etc then you’re going to aim to be a big, tough, physical team to play against. If you’re a WAS and you have Ovechkin/Backstrom/etc you’re going to aim for a very offensive style.

So it’s too early to say for us, we really only have Larkin so far in that tier. Maybe we end up with another high tempo 200ft player like Larkin down the middle and we become a beast of a 2-way team. Or maybe we end up with a really offensive centre and we become a team of nightmare matchups. Larkin shutting down the opponent’s top line and the offensive C cleaning up against lower lines. So many ways this can play out depending on who we get.

 

[Athana see you later]

I'm curious to see how the bottom 6 performs and the identity we will have there. Getting into the playoffs and becoming a tougher teams to beat in all 60 minutes requires a small drop-off in intensity from the top 6 to the bottom. Who is going to provide the grinding, hard nose, get all pucks on net, no room to breathe 3rd/4th line players?

I should mention that the more talent that we can fill within our top 9 the better, however, is the label of a "role player(s)" gone away?

I think most playoff teams only role a 4th line of role players who are physical and defensively skilled. Boston has coyle as their third line center and he was one of their better offensive players. Having one line of elite talent with two solid scoring lines after that and then a fourth line like the blues or bruins (centered by a guy like kuraly) will keep opposing teams on their toes

 

[Henkka]

I think it’s telling that two of the bigger, more in your face physical teams, made it to the finals this year. Our roster is trending towards those bigger guys who can skate well. We just need some skill thrown in there. This draft is still important for our identity though, we’ll have to see how Yzerman sees the future.

I hope he sees it like 1997 Red Wings.

Scoring/Physicality - Skill Midget - Physicality
(Shanahan - Larionov - Lapointe)

Scoring/Grit - Skill/Defence - Physicality
(Sandström - Yzerman - McCarty)

Skill Midget - Skill/Defence - Grit
(Kozlov - Fedorov - Brown)

Grit/Scoring - Grit/Defence - Physicality
(Maltby - Draper - Kocur)

That's so damn good combination of everything. Basicly you need 4-5 skill players, and then rest can be those identity players.

Of course, we will never get that good team like the 1997 was, but no one can have it under cap era. Just same combination with slightly lesser players, as long as they work together. That's what I want.

 

[Retire91]

Might be a selfish and unrealistic but I would love to see what its like to whitness a franchise goalie develop. Someone like a Pekke Rinne or Henrick Lunduivst or one of those goalies people hate to play against like a Patrick Roy of yesteryear. I hoped beyond hope that Mrazek was was going to do that here.

The closest we got to elite was Hasek but he was just 1 or 2 seasons and well out of his prime playing behind a stacked roster. I loved Vernon, and Osgood was okay but the redwings always had that "just good enough" philosophy when it came to goal. It would be really nice for once to have have someone in net who is like set it and forget it for 9 or 10 years.

Kind of amazing they pulled three cups with this grab bag
Glen Hanlon
Tim Cheveldae
Vincent Riendeau
Chris Osgood
Mike Vernon
Manny Legace
Dominik Hasek
Curtis Joseph
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Jonas Gustavsson
Jonathan Bernier

 

[ricky0034]

Might be a selfish and unrealistic but I would love to see what its like to whitness a franchise goalie develop. Someone like a Pekke Rinne or Henrick Lunduivst or one of those goalies people hate to play against like a Patrick Roy of yesteryear. I hoped beyond hope that Mrazek was was going to do that here.

The closest we got to elite was Hasek but he was just 1 or 2 seasons and well out of his prime playing behind a stacked roster. I loved Vernon, and Osgood was okay but the redwings always had that "just good enough" philosophy when it came to goal. It would be really nice for once to have have someone in net who is like set it and forget it for 9 or 10 years.

Kind of amazing they pulled three cups with this grab bag
Glen Hanlon
Tim Cheveldae
Vincent Riendeau
Chris Osgood
Mike Vernon
Manny Legace
Dominik Hasek
Curtis Joseph
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Jonas Gustavsson
Jonathan Bernier

not a lot of guys out there you can always count on with the goalie position,honestly in the past couple decades Lundqvist is pretty much the only guy that has come in and had a super consistent career only declining as he's aged,I guess Luongo too if you ignore that year where he only played like 20 games and lost his starting spot to Schneider,maybe Vokoun with something of an honorable mention as well for his post lockout career(I still maintain that he was super underrated for a while)

even guys like Rinne and Bobrovsky have had multiple pretty bad years right in the middle of their primes

 

[PullHard]

Might be a selfish and unrealistic but I would love to see what its like to whitness a franchise goalie develop. Someone like a Pekke Rinne or Henrick Lunduivst or one of those goalies people hate to play against like a Patrick Roy of yesteryear. I hoped beyond hope that Mrazek was was going to do that here.

The closest we got to elite was Hasek but he was just 1 or 2 seasons and well out of his prime playing behind a stacked roster. I loved Vernon, and Osgood was okay but the redwings always had that "just good enough" philosophy when it came to goal. It would be really nice for once to have have someone in net who is like set it and forget it for 9 or 10 years.

Kind of amazing they pulled three cups with this grab bag
Glen Hanlon
Tim Cheveldae
Vincent Riendeau
Chris Osgood
Mike Vernon
Manny Legace
Dominik Hasek
Curtis Joseph
Jimmy Howard
Petr Mrazek
Jonas Gustavsson
Jonathan Bernier

That would be a new thing for me to experience in my fandom. I have really enjoyed a lot of our guys over the years but there never really was a true franchise #1 goalie playing at his peak in there. Hasek obviously was a really great goalie in his first stint but he was on his way down the slope into his twilight years. It would be nice if one of the guys we drafted smashed his expected ceiling and was a franchise level guy.