Bill Peckerskull
Fargin' Icehole
Can't demote his son tonight. It would ruin Christmas.
Pre-Game Talk: The week of the roster Freeze. (NYI) (@MTL) (@NSH)
- Thread starter sethro109
- Start date
Can't demote his son tonight. It would ruin Christmas.
niwotsblessing
Registered User
Bednar's favoritism of certain players has always infuriated me. A couple of examples would be Graves paired with Makar and line one. Everyone could see he wasn't a fit there, and was constantly killing the cycle with poor, slow, unscreened shots at the net. Or Nemeth on the PK in the playoffs vs Dallas. He was allowing the stars PP to get every pass that came his way through and across the ice for easy tap ins. And let's not forget about old Jost-y boy. Who was stapled to the second line for what? Two, Three seasons?
In all those situations, the only change came after a trade or the player left the team. Graves traded, Jost was finally pushed down the line up after we got Kadri and Nemeth walked after his contract was up. It really feels like Bednar is either stubborn as a goat, or is trying to send a message to Joe that "This is our problem and it needs to be fixed".
I'm pretty convinced that Bednar is probably the best coach for this team. With the system we play and his stoic demeanor. But holy f***! It's frustrating looking at our lineups sometimes.
I'll disagree with you on the Graves thing. He was the best possible option at the time. Who would have been better? And we learned later that we were all wrong in thinking Graves was a third-pairing guy. He's a flawed, but capable top-four defenseman.
As for Jost, I think that's as much on management as it was on Bednar, it's clear they wanted to give him every conceivable chance to make good on that 10th overall pick pedigree. He was used as the 2C, 2LW, 3C, 3LW, and so on, every possible role he could've played on the team, he did, including some spot duty with every single member of the top line. It wasn't until that final season that Bednar relegated him to 4th line scrub duty and everyone involved, Jost included, saw the writing on the wall.
I'll admit the JTC thing gets a little frustrating at times (and I hate how he's being used on the power play at present) but I can see why he does it.
All things considered, Bednar does possess some old-school stubbornness, but he's nowhere near as bad as a lot of his contemporaries. He's usually much more willing to take chances on young players for instance.
- Apr 25, 2006
- 49,563
- 52,739
He does it because he wants a right handed player who can take draws. Thing is, he's below 50% on the dot and his shot sucks.
A change had to be made with Graves on the top parining. He was killing everything when the top line was out. Everyone knew Graves was gonna send weak shot to the net and he wouldn't stop doing it. Throw anyone else out there just to pass it off and we would have been in better shape.
And with Jost. The demotion to 4th line grinder corresponds time wise, to when he requested a trade. The writing was on the wall because he wrote it there.
Unfortunately he's the best option for draws until MacKinnon and/or Landeskog come back.
Also, he'd probably be better down low in the zone and closer to the net but there are already guys (Nichushkin and Lehkonen) who are way better in that area than he is.
The thing that drives me absolutely batty about JTC's shot is not it's lack of power or accuracy, it's that he takes more time to shoot it than I do filing my taxes. Bednar recently said he talked to the team about taking too long to shoot it, JTC has not yet read the memo.
I don't even think his shot is that bad. I think the problem is the time he takes to unleash it. It's like Bura, but nowhere near as lethal.
Not true. Graves was Makar's defensive partner for nearly his entire rookie season, the season he put up 50 points in 57 games and won the Calder. The following season, Graves was moved elsewhere, but that year he wasn't "killing" anything. 26 points, including 9 goals. Nearly 10 goals is really good for a guy considered a stay-at-home type.
And I have no idea where you're getting that Jost stuff. The team did not demote him as a punitive measure, he was playing like garbage and ended up there, and knew he had no defined role on the team any longer.
- Apr 25, 2006
- 49,563
- 52,739
Mack is even worse than JT.
Landy is by far our best faceoff guy but he's obviously nowhere near guys like Toews (who's sitting at over 65% this season so far BTW)
You and I remember Graves very differently. Look at the last play of the Vegas series. That was what I constantly saw from Graves. A wide open Makar, but would rather take the shot for himself.
As for Jost. I don't think his demotion was punishment. It was more like, why waste giving this guy prime ice time when he's already requested a trade?
I've maintained that Graves has had at least two very poor showings in the postseason. Regular season he was mostly fine. But I also think people are focusing way too much on his (admittedly) horrid mistakes in that Vegas series, just like the weird narrative that Vegas broke Sammy.
By my observation, Graves did not start that horrible habit of just putting his head down and blindly shooting it from the point until his final season in Colorado or so. He absolutely DID NOT do that while paired with rookie Cale. And I know the coaches talked to him about it, because in at least a couple games prior to the postseason, he actually waited, skated for an open lane, and then shot it...sure enough he scored on one of those sequences. Then he went back to old habits. Probably reason #1 the Avs decided to move on.
And I'll say this until I'm blue in the face: He could've been their best PK defenseman had the stupid coaches not turned him into a goddamned shot blocker. Absolutely cut into his effectiveness as a player and rattled his confidence.
Again, I don't think the trade request came first. Matt Duchene was getting prime minutes when it was obvious to everyone he wanted out of Colorado. Bednar did not take ice time away from him because of that, he took ice time away because he was no longer an effective player, at even strength or on the penalty kill. Whatever mojo he had as the 3C previously (more like two red hot wingers and a cush schedule) it dried up completely. I don't know if that's the time he bulked up or not, but whatever the case, he just plain sucked. He's only now played his way back into relevancy on a hot Buffalo team.
