Sarnia Sting 2018-19 Season Thread

[Texcanuck]

Aren't the Sting undefeated against teams in their own div?

Scary, but YES.
Only one win outside the division and it was against the top team in the Midwest- Guelph.
Go figure...

 

[davewheeler]

I was only using the term upset to indicate a higher ranking... its hard to tell sarcasm on here my bad. I was just sayin' I don't think they should trade players when its so wide open ... if they are playing poor a few months from now then sure. Also, the fans won't come back next year. Attendance continues to fall. I am just sick of seeing a half full barn and playoff let downs. Everyone is gonna say wait for next year ... Well next year probably won't be this wide open. But I get what ur saying in that we probably won't compete this year. If Hatcher was doing such a good job we wouldn't need to sell players every other year. with 1 playoff round win to show.

 

[Texcanuck]

I agree that it’s way too early to try and make trades. Still the deadline is early January so some decisions will likely be necessary.
The way it looks to me, a team could finish 2nd in our division and be 6th or 7th seed in the conference.
Still if the sting were just milling around 500 and any team were to come to Sinclair with a sweet deal for one of our ‘99s, particularly for one of the imports, he’d have to go for it.
And as I’ve said before, this team is going to be REALLY good in the 2020-21 season!

 

[davewheeler]

I agree that it’s way too early to try and make trades. Still the deadline is early January so some decisions will likely be necessary.
The way it looks to me, a team could finish 2nd in our division and be 6th or 7th seed in the conference.
Still if the sting were just milling around 500 and any team were to come to Sinclair with a sweet deal for one of our ‘99s, particularly for one of the imports, he’d have to go for it.
And as I’ve said before, this team is going to be REALLY good in the 2020-21 season!

lol they better be man.

 

[Texcanuck]

A couple thoughts about the weekend.
- 6 points; can’t do much better than that.
- congrats to K Hatcher for 2 goals. Sunday’s in particular was a beauty
- gotta love Hugo for putting the hammer on the guy who high sticked Perreault on Sunday. Have to protect “the future of the franchise” and he sent the message without taking a penalty
- the stats say a .810 save percentage for Hughes on Sunday, but he made the saves at the right time and did what the team needed. Keep it up!!
- Josling starting to get hot now that he’s on a top line. Need that!
- held Saggy to 4 (count em FOUR!!) shots in the 3rd period. Many sounds of Saginaw shots hitting Sarnia shinpads on Sunday. Music to my ears!
- Ruzicka having no luck at all putting the puck in the net, but he’s changing his game, making more passes, making his teammates better.
- can’t wait for Rees to return.

 

[Ferda11]

Only witnessed the Saginaw game this weekend. I was impressed with the effort to say the least. This team is best when they are fore checking hard. They are quite good at cycling the puck down low and wearing down the opposition. It was nice to see Salinitri have a good game. His best of the year. He had a spark all game long. Team D was great as well. The best chance this team has to win games is to limit the shots on goal. Sarnia didn't give Saginaw many prime scoring chances and thankfully all Hughes had to do was make some simple positional saves.

anyway, 3 for 3 is a-ok in my books.

 

[BoxerMax]

I'd still love to know what's up with this organization's infatuation with using top picks (First few rounds) on players who have absolutely no desire to play in the league. Also why is this team drafting a 5'3 110 player?

I remember London drafting a kid that was 5'7 and 130lbs. Hmmm, I wonder what happened to him.......

Can we stop talking about the 2016 Draft already. I think we have had every posters opinion on this draft twice already.

 

[davewheeler]

I remember London drafting a kid that was 5'7 and 130lbs. Hmmm, I wonder what happened to him.......

Can we stop talking about the 2016 Draft already. I think we have had every posters opinion on this draft twice already.

Yah this isn't 1999 anymore, size is irrelevant.

 

[honey bee]

Maybe Kelton Hatcher should be the guest on Sting Buzz every week. Daniel Nikandrov always said he had a good scoring game after appearing on Terry's show, lol.

 

[jwalk]

Sting have been absolutely great in the Hatcher era. As I’ve posted multiple times in the past, in 2 of the past 3 years they have taken bold steps to try and go deep. (Konecny trade first year and the big push last year). In the middle year, the expected loss of Zacha plus the unexpected loss of Chychrun and TK was too much to overcome.
What I’m saying is that in my opinion this team has the lowest potential of the past four.
What I’m saying is that half the team’s wins have come against a crappy team (and were not blowouts)
What I’m saying is that this team has, at this point, a goaltending problem (or maybe a defensive zone problem) and we don’t have a lot of draft picks left to upgrade
And while I hope you’re right and they perform well enough to be a 5 seed or so, I’m absolutely OK if they sell off 19 year olds or O/A’s in December/January in an effort to put together a “best ever” team for the 2020/21 season.

I totally agree with your comments .

IMO everything would have to go perfectly and kids would have to develop at a very accelerated rate for the Sting to be a real contender in the West this year. It's not impossible but highly unlikely.

They are also working with a distinct disadvantage because even if they are doing well by early January they don't have a lot of high round picks to trade to improve like all contenders do at that time of year. Those have already been dealt in the last 2 years. Almost every team that has won a Conference Championship ever has been stacked. A classic example is that a kid like Martin couldn't even stick with the Soo last year because they were so good.

Typically, there are 2 very different seasons every year in the O - before and after the trade deadline. Even though things are closer than usual right now (altho it is only October) I expect that very soon you will see the separation of the true contenders from the rest of the pack, and then that separation will really get magnified at the trade deadline and afterwards. I fully expect to see a marked improvement from teams like London in the near future. THere's no way the Hunter's will allow that team to flounder with the amount of talent they have. And they have the capital to really improve.

You still have to hand it to Hatcher . After losing 5 OA's for almost no return the team is still competitve in what should have been a real down year. Good things happen when you draft skill and then properly develop your players.

 

[davewheeler]

I totally agree with your comments .

IMO everything would have to go perfectly and kids would have to develop at a very accelerated rate for the Sting to be a real contender in the West this year. It's not impossible but highly unlikely.

They are also working with a distinct disadvantage because even if they are doing well by early January they don't have a lot of high round picks to trade to improve like all contenders do at that time of year. Those have already been dealt in the last 2 years. Almost every team that has won a Conference Championship ever has been stacked. A classic example is that a kid like Martin couldn't even stick with the Soo last year because they were so good.

Typically, there are 2 very different seasons every year in the O - before and after the trade deadline. Even though things are closer than usual right now (altho it is only October) I expect that very soon you will see the separation of the true contenders from the rest of the pack, and then that separation will really get magnified at the trade deadline and afterwards. I fully expect to see a marked improvement from teams like London in the near future. THere's no way the Hunter's will allow that team to flounder with the amount of talent they have. And they have the capital to really improve.

You still have to hand it to Hatcher . After losing 5 OA's for almost no return the team is still competitve in what should have been a real down year. Good things happen when you draft skill and then properly develop your players.

Again, I never said they were going to be contenders in the west. Lol this forum is incredibly frustrating when comments are not read or understood properly.
On one hand you say you have to hand it to Hatcher, yet you say they are at a disadvantage because of the moves he's made? 2 years ago, this was suppose to be the year when they drafted those American kids. I keep hearing wait till so and so..... Now people are saying wait till 20-21 .... lmao ok.

 

[jwalk]

Again, I never said they were going to be contenders in the west. Lol this forum is incredibly frustrating when comments are not read or understood properly.
On one hand you say you have to hand it to Hatcher, yet you say they are at a disadvantage because of the moves he's made? 2 years ago, this was suppose to be the year when they drafted those American kids. I keep hearing wait till so and so..... Now people are saying wait till 20-21 .... lmao ok.

When you specifically made the comment " The Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable " did you mean for every team in the West but the Sting ? LOL. Start the backpedalling NOW .Go !

 

[bobbygore]

When you specifically made the comment " The Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable " did you mean for every team in the West but the Sting ? LOL. Start the backpedalling NOW .Go !

C’mon stop twisting his words ! Everybody knows that the statement that “ the Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable “ really means “ there are only a few contenders ( and the Sting ain’t one of them ! ) . What are you thinking ? Lol

 

[davewheeler]

When you specifically made the comment " The Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable " did you mean for every team in the West but the Sting ? LOL. Start the backpedalling NOW .Go !

The western conference is wide open?? I assume you only read one of my comments... I said the west is wide open because it is? I said the Sting can win a round because they can? Do I think they will win the West, No? Not that complicated.

 

[davewheeler]

C’mon stop twisting his words ! Everybody knows that the statement that “ the Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable “ really means “ there are only a few contenders ( and the Sting ain’t one of them ! ) . What are you thinking ? Lol

This is the first time in years the west hasn't had 2 or 3 dominating teams..... I have said the entire time I think the sting have the ability to win a playoff round..... Do I think they're contenders .... No. I have been pretty consistent on that. I don't see whats so complicated about that?

 

[davewheeler]

C’mon stop twisting his words ! Everybody knows that the statement that “ the Western Conference is so wide open this year it is unbelievable “ really means “ there are only a few contenders ( and the Sting ain’t one of them ! ) . What are you thinking ? Lol

Obviously bobby is going to disagree with me on everything from here on out because once you're offended theres no going back

 

[StingDrone]

Blues assign Kyrou to San Antonio

 

[Texcanuck]

Blues assign Kyrou to San Antonio

Nice warm place to spend the winter

 

[Texcanuck]

This is the first time in years the west hasn't had 2 or 3 dominating teams..... I have said the entire time I think the sting have the ability to win a playoff round..... Do I think they're contenders .... No. I have been pretty consistent on that. I don't see whats so complicated about that?

You are correct regarding lack of powerhouse teams. Do I think we have good enough goaltending to take a series? Time will tell, but right now I’d say no. Is there enough upside to this team to upgrade goaltending? I don’t think so. We tried that in the Konecny year and the upgrade wasn’t a whole lot better than Fazio was at the time.
Priority one is to win as much as possible with what we have. Priority two will be to build for a decent team next year and a great team the year after. With what I’ve seen in the west, that can be done without missing the playoffs either year.
Fans who understand the cyclical nature of OHL hockey should be able to cheer through the rebuilding.
One key to the future will be the quality of import pick(s) in the next draft. No Helts or Kodolas please!

 

[cupcrazyman]

Sarnia born goalie Scott Foster called up by Chicago Blackhawks again !

Blackhawks turn to emergency backup goalie Foster again

 

[bobbygore]

This is the first time in years the west hasn't had 2 or 3 dominating teams..... I have said the entire time I think the sting have the ability to win a playoff round..... Do I think they're contenders .... No. I have been pretty consistent on that. I don't see whats so complicated about that?

That’s among the dumbest things youve ever posted. ( which isn’t easy )
You said the West “was incredibly wide open “ - Clearly anyone reading this would implicitly think this to mean to the West is wide open for many teams to win the Conference .
Now you’re backpedalling and saying the West is incredibly wide open but Sting can only win one round and that the team isn’t a real contender ?
When I suggested that the team wasn’t a real contender and that they should play the 01 kids you called me a “ loser “.
So now that you’re suggesting the exact same thing what does that make you ?
Stop posting jibberish .

 

[Texcanuck]

A couple thoughts...
Only one team from OHL West conference in CHL top 10. Lends some credibility to wheeler’s wide open assessment
Interesting 2 game set this weekend. Win them both and it starts to make you wonder if they’re more like the team that started 3-0. Lose both and ...
I’m hoping the Langevin story will resemble the Villalta story in the Soo. As a rookie he played well enough to get half the games and by year 2 he had won the job and essentially kicked Raaymakers out of the Soo. He’s become one of the league’s most reliable stoppers. Can it happen here?

 

[INTENTIONALLYOFFSIDE]

I like the story but the narrative is off a bit. You forgot to mention that his 1st year was behind the 2nd best team in league and his goalie partner was the best playoff performer stats wise. His 2nd year in which his partner refused to return he back stopped the CHL's #1 team.
Langevin is a good goalie who will write his own story. It just won't be with a 1st or 2nd overall league leader.

 

[Texcanuck]

I like the story but the narrative is off a bit. You forgot to mention that his 1st year was behind the 2nd best team in league and his goalie partner was the best playoff performer stats wise. His 2nd year in which his partner refused to return he back stopped the CHL's #1 team.
Langevin is a good goalie who will write his own story. It just won't be with a 1st or 2nd overall league leader.

I had to look it up, and the numbers for last season support your argument. Of the 49 regular season games he played, Villalta was 1st star three times; 2nd star three times; 3rd star 4 times. Relatively average numbers. Similarly in the playoffs he was not picked in any of his first 3 series, having a “first star game” and a “second star game” only in the finals against Hamilton.
So it was basically a very good team that he didn’t let down.
Still, I’d take him in a heartbeat, as would all the Soo fanbase.
I still think that 2020-21 the sting have a chance to be #1 or 2...

 

[INTENTIONALLYOFFSIDE]

I wasn't implying Villalta wasn't good, just meant Langevin isn't going to have the team in front of him that Villalta has had.