Who’s this years scapegoat? Or spacegoat?

[Go Wings]

It the team doesn't improve this season there will be only 1 guy to blame...Jeff Blashill.

Yzerman has done his job and improved this roster. He brought in a calder candidate goalie, top 4 defensmen and a 2nd line center. He has filled in a bunch of holes. Not to mention the best prospect not playing in the NHL will be on the team, Seider.

If the team doesn't get better blame the coach.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

If the Blashill black hole of offense is so dramatic, why have Nyquist and Tatar not yielded any discernable difference in their offense since leaving?

Certainly if the effect is strong enough to post about as often as it is done so on this forum, we'd be able to measure it somehow with the quality players that have left the roster.

And to say nothing of someone like AA, who had a career year with Blashill well beyond what he demonstrated with new coaches.

Mantha had 4 goals in 19 games with the Capitals. Those 4 goals game in the first 4 games he played. Zero in the next 15. Streaky scorer on Detroit, leaves Detroit, oh my streaky scorer still.

I know he's an easy target because he's been the boss to the worst Wings teams of our generation, but if he's genuinely handicapping players I feel like we would have something by now that shows when they leave it's a dramatic difference. Instead these guys perform about the same, more or less.

Tatar saw a notable improvement upon leaving. 58 points in 80 games, then 61 points in 68 games. Mostly playing with Domi and Danault if I remember correctly.
Under Blashill in Detroit he had 45, 46, 34 and 28 points.

Nyquist left to play 3rd line on San Jose during their playoff run in 2019 then joined CBJ who at the time were not very good offensively. He replaced Panarin on PLD's wing, I believe. He was still 2nd in scoring on a team that barely scored more than the historically bad Red Wings. The year before he signed as an unrestricted free agent in CBJ he had 60 points. I think that might be the UFA production bump.
Also he missed all of last season, so that may be why he produced zero points.

You're being a bit misleading about Mantha. 4 in 14 REGULAR season games. Playoffs are different. And on that matter the whole team pooped the bed but Mantha was one of the few Caps players that looked like he gave a shit on the ice.
And it's already been proven that AA's 30 goal season was an outlier when he was playing second line minutes. He's producing at around 0.50 ppg just about every other year except for his rookie season. Don't go full MBH on us here, my dude.

I think there are a few reasons why our offense was amongst the worst in the league over the previous 4 seasons.
1 is that our defensemen haven't been able to stop a forecheck or break out of the zone cleanly so Detroit spends way too much time in their own zone.
2 The overall lack of depth scoring from the 3rd and 4th lines as well as a total lack of offense from the defense. (See point 1)
3 Bad defensemen. (see points 1 and 2)
4 Coaching not being able to make adjustments to mitigate the disaster in our end.
5 Coaching style: Blashill loves his low impact hockey. He loves when defensemen chip it off the glass because if we can't get it, neither can the other team. And he loves just dumping the puck in the corner! Except he forgets to tell Detroit's forwards that they have to go in after it.
6 Management (Holland) spending money on some of the absolute players he could have spent money on. (See points 1 through 3 again.)

I'm not a Blashill fan at all but I won't 100% blame him completely for the train wreck we had from 2017 to 2021, but he has to bear some of that responsibility.

 

[Bench]

Tatar saw a notable improvement upon leaving. 58 points in 80 games, then 61 points in 68 games. Mostly playing with Domi and Danault if I remember correctly.
Under Blashill in Detroit he had 45, 46, 34 and 28 points.

Nyquist left to play 3rd line on San Jose during their playoff run in 2019 then joined CBJ who at the time were not very good offensively. He replaced Panarin on PLD's wing, I believe. He was still 2nd in scoring on a team that barely scored more than the historically bad Red Wings. The year before he signed as an unrestricted free agent in CBJ he had 60 points. I think that might be the UFA production bump.
Also he missed all of last season, so that may be why he produced zero points.

You're being a bit misleading about Mantha. 4 in 14 REGULAR season games. Playoffs are different. And on that matter the whole team pooped the bed but Mantha was one of the few Caps players that looked like he gave a shit on the ice.
And it's already been proven that AA's 30 goal season was an outlier when he was playing second line minutes. He's producing at around 0.50 ppg just about every other year except for his rookie season. Don't go full MBH on us here, my dude.

I think there are a few reasons why our offense was amongst the worst in the league over the previous 4 seasons.
1 is that our defensemen haven't been able to stop a forecheck or break out of the zone cleanly so Detroit spends way too much time in their own zone.
2 The overall lack of depth scoring from the 3rd and 4th lines as well as a total lack of offense from the defense. (See point 1)
3 Bad defensemen. (see points 1 and 2)
4 Coaching not being able to make adjustments to mitigate the disaster in our end.
5 Coaching style: Blashill loves his low impact hockey. He loves when defensemen chip it off the glass because if we can't get it, neither can the other team. And he loves just dumping the puck in the corner! Except he forgets to tell Detroit's forwards that they have to go in after it.
6 Management (Holland) spending money on some of the absolute players he could have spent money on. (See points 1 through 3 again.)

I'm not a Blashill fan at all but I won't 100% blame him completely for the train wreck we had from 2017 to 2021, but he has to bear some of that responsibility.

This is a lot of words to say that everyone looks basically the same as they did on the Wings, except Tatar who improved but only if you ignore the times he was a huge disappointment when the teams he was on needed him the most.

Like if Tatar wasn't a bust in Vegas and looked even modest for Montreal this year, then I'd totally be on board that he thrived away from mean Jeff. But that happened and I'm not going to ignore a team benching him during the most important games. The team he had his resurgence on wouldn't even play him even when they had other injuries and it was widely assumed he'd finally get back in.

 

[Gniwder]

Agreed…Rasmountain/Veleno/Zadina will all be under the microscope.

Why would a rookie with 5 games of experience be under the microscope? Joey just needs to show defensive capability so Blash gives him some playing time.

... or did you mean Vrana?

 

[Mount Suribachi]

It's going to be Blashill - sorry, Trashill - no matter what. We improved massively last season, over-achieved even with a still terrible roster, and people still constantly complained about him.

HM to Rasmussen. In many peoples eyes, he's a 1st round pick and therefore should be a superstar. He was also a Holland pick that many (most) questioned at the time and he will never be forgiven for this.

 

[Gyldenlove]

Frans Nielsen. I doubt he will score a single point for us.

 

[Zetterberg4Captain]

Larkin and Blashill

The captain has to always take the blame, he is the leader. He also happens to be the best player do if he sucks, the team will again e terrible without question

The coach because the GM has given him more useful tools then he has had in years, all young and hungry kids, improved depth and an improved blue line. If the teams record dosent improve and if players individual development dosent improve, the coach needs to go.

 

[FMichael]

Why would a rookie with 5 games of experience be under the microscope? Joey just needs to show defensive capability so Blash gives him some playing time.

... or did you mean Vrana?

Veleno - he was a Holland draft pick and hasn’t done much with time spent in the AHL or the SHL.

 

[Hen Kolland]

It the team doesn't improve this season there will be only 1 guy to blame...Jeff Blashill.

Yzerman has done his job and improved this roster. He brought in a calder candidate goalie, top 4 defensmen and a 2nd line center. He has filled in a bunch of holes. Not to mention the best prospect not playing in the NHL will be on the team, Seider.

If the team doesn't get better blame the coach.

And what happens when the team gets better, relatively speaking, but is still bad in absolute terms? I’m sure this place will all sit around silently and not say a word. Because if we know anything, it’s that the people here know how to properly set expectations and have never had an “all in or bust” mindset when it comes to assessing coaching.

Maybe I’m just jaded, but something tells me your benchmark for “the team has to get better” has nothing to do with a modest improvement that would seem logical with the improvements made to the roster. It’s that suddenly this still extremely bad roster has to find a way to play way above reasonable expectations, otherwise Blashill is still the problem.

 

[Go Wings]

And what happens when the team gets better, relatively speaking, but is still bad in absolute terms? I’m sure this place will all sit around silently and not say a word. Because if we know anything, it’s that the people here know how to properly set expectations and have never had an “all in or bust” mindset when it comes to assessing coaching.

Maybe I’m just jaded, but something tells me your benchmark for “the team has to get better” has nothing to do with a modest improvement that would seem logical with the improvements made to the roster. It’s that suddenly this still extremely bad roster has to find a way to play way above reasonable expectations, otherwise Blashill is still the problem.

I fully expect Detroit to finish in the bottom 10 teams in the NHL maybe even bottom 5. But I expect us to get better. What does that mean you say?
I expect our young players to improve. I expect us to score more goals and allow less and for our PP and PK to be better.
I know Detroit is going to be bad this year again but Yzerman has added a lot to this roster so they should be better than last year.

If they aren't I am the few that have been defending Blashill for years will come up with some reason why it isn't his fault yet again. Although with pieces we added and with Seider likely playing full time in Detroit this year it will be almost impossible to justify them being worse.

 

[RabidBadger]

I went with Griess last year and I will stick with a goalie motif and pick Ned. If he falls off his Calder form, which is very plausible coming to a new, significantly worse team, people are going to bring out the torches.

Leddy comes to mind since there were a few people tying themselves into a knot when that trade was made.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

This is a lot of words to say that everyone looks basically the same as they did on the Wings, except Tatar who improved but only if you ignore the times he was a huge disappointment when the teams he was on needed him the most.

Like if Tatar wasn't a bust in Vegas and looked even modest for Montreal this year, then I'd totally be on board that he thrived away from mean Jeff. But that happened and I'm not going to ignore a team benching him during the most important games. The team he had his resurgence on wouldn't even play him even when they had other injuries and it was widely assumed he'd finally get back in.

Tatar was only a huge disappointment in the postseason, but his regular season performances have been good. And to be fair, in the last playoffs almost all of Montreal was a disappointment games 1 through 4. I couldn't single out Tatar as THE reason the team did bad, and I couldn't point to him and say he was the worst forward on his team. I don't know why he wasn't put back in the lineup at all. Maybe it was a locker room issue? Maybe the coach just didn't like him? Maybe Tatar is a guy that stops playing hard when the paychecks stop coming? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

 

[Bench]

Tatar was only a huge disappointment in the postseason, but his regular season performances have been good. And to be fair, in the last playoffs almost all of Montreal was a disappointment games 1 through 4. I couldn't single out Tatar as THE reason the team did bad, and I couldn't point to him and say he was the worst forward on his team. I don't know why he wasn't put back in the lineup at all. Maybe it was a locker room issue? Maybe the coach just didn't like him? Maybe Tatar is a guy that stops playing hard when the paychecks stop coming? Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Sure, but when your primary example of a guy who has blossomed away from Blashill can't even get on the ice when the team desperately needs scoring the most...

You can see where I struggle to concede he's really thriving on another level now away from Detroit.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

And what happens when the team gets better, relatively speaking, but is still bad in absolute terms? I’m sure this place will all sit around silently and not say a word. Because if we know anything, it’s that the people here know how to properly set expectations and have never had an “all in or bust” mindset when it comes to assessing coaching.

Maybe I’m just jaded, but something tells me your benchmark for “the team has to get better” has nothing to do with a modest improvement that would seem logical with the improvements made to the roster. It’s that suddenly this still extremely bad roster has to find a way to play way above reasonable expectations, otherwise Blashill is still the problem.

At this point I don't think the roster is extremely bad. Bad to very bad? Sure. But we did make some notable improvements in personnel (on paper at least) even before we consider that we're bringing in a rookie Seider and possibly 1 or 2 other rookies.

We were right around 0.500 from March until the end of the season. It's not unreasonable to believe that we can be right around 0.500 for the majority of the season. Hell, I hate Dom Luszczyscyzn's WAR moden and predicted standings (lol@Buffalo getting more than 80 points) but just by those numbers Detroit was at I think 78 or 79 points? And that's considering rookies are ranked as replacement level players in the model due to no data. And we are counting on Seider to be anything but a replacement level player.

We're also counting on the coach to get through to the young guys and help them to become the best players they can be. We need to see progress from our young guys like Zadina to say that he's able to reach the kids and mold them. If we don't see any improvement from Hronek, Zadina, Larkin and others when we knows there's a little more that they can do then that's also on the coach.

I think 80 points is a reasonable expectation for this roster. It's also reasonable to expect a 0.25 to 0.35 bump in goals for per game and a 0.15 to 0.20 drop in goals against per game when you consider we added more scoring punch, a better goalie and 2 better defensemen. And I think if we perform worse than that the finger should be pointed at the coach for not meeting those reasonable expectations.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Sure, but when your primary example of a guy who has blossomed away from Blashill can't even get on the ice when the team desperately needs scoring the most...

You can see where I struggle to concede he's really thriving on another level now away from Detroit.

Or...crazy thought...

Maybe they were not as good as we thought?

Maybe our development was just so subpar that we turned guys that could have been better than they are into completely mediocre players? What if we became the equivalent of the 1991 to 1996 Hartford Whalers?

Have you ever worked with someone that came from another company, had all the credentials in the world but when you finally saw them in action you wondered how the hell they got there? Then after a deep dive into their linkedin you find out they went to a diploma mill. But now that you're stuck with them you have to retrain them completely just go make them into a semblance of a productive employee.
Maybe that's Detroit's development system?

 

[Bench]

Or...crazy thought...

Maybe they were not as good as we thought?

Well that's been my argument the entire time. They are what they are. With Blashill, away from Blashill: they are basically the same.

Obviously some scenarios, like going to a playoff team, should see some improvement in points. We all concede this and it was a talking point with Mantha going to a far, far better roster in DC. So far only Tatar has really accomplished this and in limited capacity.

Maybe our development was just so subpar that we turned guys that could have been better than they are into completely mediocre players? What if we became the equivalent of the 1991 to 1996 Hartford Whalers?

Have you ever worked with someone that came from another company, had all the credentials in the world but when you finally saw them in action you wondered how the hell they got there? Then after a deep dive into their linkedin you find out they went to a diploma mill. But now that you're stuck with them you have to retrain them completely just go make them into a semblance of a productive employee.
Maybe that's Detroit's development system?

Sure but now we're into something else. And this something else is insanely hard to quantify and prove one way or another so folks tend to go with their gut and dig in on these feelings.

Those with negative feelings overall about the team, gee, how will they feel about development when one of their favorite prospects fails to reach his draft expectations (even though this happens to literally every team, even those like Tampa).

Cue the same arguments about Brendan Smith getting ruined by Babcock. I still don't buy this personally, but damn are folks convinced with another coach his career would have been completely different. New York banked with a new environment he'd flourish and gave him a contract that represented that faith and well, yeah.

What's so frustrating about these arguments is that if you think our development or coaching is ruining players long-term you've got built in win conditions for any scenario.

Do they leave and increase scoring a bit? Win.
Do they leave and do the same or struggle? They were ruined before leaving, so... still win.

It's baked in copium.

If one were to take nothing else away from my rambles...
I don't mind if people think there's a better option than Blashill. There may be. But the "this is fact" style assertions that he's hamstringing offense significantly of these players requires better evidence than healthy scratch Tatar.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Well that's been my argument the entire time. They are what they are. With Blashill, away from Blashill: they are basically the same.

Obviously some scenarios, like going to a playoff team, should see some improvement in points. We all concede this and it was a talking point with Mantha going to a far, far better roster in DC. So far only Tatar has really accomplished this and in limited capacity.



Sure but now we're into something else. And this something else is insanely hard to quantify and prove one way or another so folks tend to go with their gut and dig in on these feelings.

Those with negative feelings overall about the team, gee, how will they feel about development when one of their favorite prospects fails to reach his draft expectations (even though this happens to literally every team, even those like Tampa).

Cue the same arguments about Brendan Smith getting ruined by Babcock. I still don't buy this personally, but damn are folks convinced with another coach his career would have been completely different. New York banked with a new environment he'd flourish and gave him a contract that represented that faith and well, yeah.

What's so frustrating about these arguments is that if you think our development or coaching is ruining players long-term you've got built in win conditions for any scenario.

Do they leave and increase scoring a bit? Win.
Do they leave and do the same or struggle? They were ruined before leaving, so... still win.

It's baked in copium.

If one were to take nothing else away from my rambles...
I don't mind if people think there's a better option than Blashill. There may be. But the "this is fact" style assertions that he's hamstringing offense significantly of these players requires better evidence than healthy scratch Tatar.

The problem is we don't have a large enough body of evidence yet.

Nyquist played through most of 2019-2020 with a hurt shoulder that required him to get surgery and miss all of 2020-21. We can say with more certainty next year, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see him hit the low 40s on possibly the worst Columbus team since 2011-12.
Mantha played 19 games total with the Caps. We'll see more next season when he plays top 6 there for the whole season.

I think the argument might be better phrased as, "How much better would Detroit's prospects be if we had a better coach developing them than Blashill?" And it's the kind of argument we won't have an answer for definitively until few years down the road when we get a better coach in Detroit.

 

[jaster]

Holland.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

Holland.

This year's spacegoat: Jaster.

If anything goes wrong this season it's because he didn't dedicate enough time to fixing our grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.

 

[ThankGord]

Nobody needs to be "blamed" for a rebuilding team finishing near the bottom of the standings. Not sure why you'd target anyone in particular for last years injury-riddled, rebuilding roster finishing where they did (though I agree with holding Bylsma responsible for the miserable PP).

If we completely fall apart this year after Yzerman took some steps to improve the roster I think you can start looking towards Blashill and the player development staff.

 

[Coach Reggie Dunlop]

I’m nominating dekeyser and hronek

 

[Gniwder]

Veleno - he was a Holland draft pick and hasn’t done much with time spent in the AHL or the SHL.

He's got NHL size, speed, and shot. If anything he'll be a bottom 6 center, I don't think he's under the microscope because the expectations aren't that high. Plus he's not a valuable trade piece at this point, makes more sense to keep him regardless of how he does this season.

Worse case scenario, the team has Helm 2.0. Under a REASONABLE contract, that is a useful player.

 

[RabidBadger]

The Dekeyser nominations are a little puzzling to me. Does anyone have any lofty expectations for DK? I feel like most people expect him to finish his contract and become a footnote in the rebuild.

 

[The Real Pastafarian]

The Red Wings have eliminated every legitimate Space Goat candidate -- that's a great indicator that Yzerman's got things headed in the right direction.

I'm going with DDK because he's the only guy left with a contract I detest.

Yeah, it's only $5M, and he's a defenseman. But he's not a $5M defenseman, not even close. He contributes nothing to offense and he's very average defensively, honestly quite shitty at puck possession in his own end. I'm hoping he's on the third pairing this year, and if they make their first pairing Hronek-Dekeyser to ease Seider into the lineup, I will complain BITTERLY every time he pukes up the puck behind the net or fumbles a pass from the other D just long enough for the opposing forwards to close on him.

If they bury Dekeyser on the third pairing with some PK minutes, I won't complain nearly as much, and I think we'll be a really decent team, and might come close to the playoffs, if our second-line center (whoever that is) has a career year.

 

[FMichael]

He's got NHL size, speed, and shot. If anything he'll be a bottom 6 center, I don't think he's under the microscope because the expectations aren't that high. Plus he's not a valuable trade piece at this point, makes more sense to keep him regardless of how he does this season.

Worse case scenario, the team has Helm 2.0. Under a REASONABLE contract, that is a useful player.

I hope your right...I don't share your optimism.