Why is Connor Brown penciled into the top 9?

[ACC1224]

If Offense is a problem for this Team, Brown would be a concern.
Offense shouldn't be a problem for this Team.

 

[Menzinger]

Eh, there’s better players ahead of him.

He’s a very useful depth player and will likely move up and down the lineup a bit as he plays well though. But I can see guys like Johnsson moving up ahead of him by seasons end.

 

[Field of Dreams]

You're probably right, maybe I'm greedy looking at this lineup.

I can understand where you're coming from. I do think brown is expendable with Kapanen looking like a player. If he or Kapanen could be used as part of a package to upgrade our defence, I'm all for it.

 

[Mickey Marner]

He's our swiss army knife, he plays wherever, whenever, never complains. So, he gets minutes. Plus, he hasn't "lost" his role to anyone insofar. Why take it from him without cause?

 

[Fogelhund]

I can understand where you're coming from. I do think brown is expendable with Kapanen looking like a player. If he or Kapanen could be used as part of a package to upgrade our defence, I'm all for it.

That's the challenge right?

Neither Brown, nor Kapanen are going to return anything that would really improve our defense. We really need a top pairing RHD, who can push everyone else down... and they aren't returning that. We'd get a third pairing guy at best....

 

[Ziggdiezan]

The real question is why do people think Kap should be penciled in front of Brown?

Not like Kap has had a great preseason at all.

 

[56 Years No Cup]

He's the goodest pro we have.

Good o'l Ontaria boy ta boot.

He plays right, trains right, eats right, sleeps right, and hell he even breathes right!

 

[al secord]

He loves his parents.

 

[Canada4Gold]

As good as Kap seems like he should be with his skill and speed his offensive numbers haven't proved to be the greatest to date either. A big part of that is being stuck on the 4th line most of his NHL career but Brown was stapled to the 4th line with Martin and Moore for over half the season last year too. If you're going to use the lack of Production from Brown last year and ignore than usage you have to treat Kapanen the same.

As of now they're fairly equivalent level forwards and Babcock seems to prefer the defensive abilities of Brown to wanting the speed of Kapanen there. Brown had a quality rookie season so I'm inclined to believe he could produce more if given more chances than he was last year but I'd be more than happy trying Kapanen there as well to add a touch more offensive flair to that line with Kapanen still have solid defensive abilities too,

 

[rent free]

He's the goodest pro we have.

Good o'l Ontaria boy ta boot.

With a heart of gold not to forget.

 

[indigobuffalo]

the bottom 6 wingers should be musical chairs until the best combinations are found - Brown/Kapanen/Johnsson/Leivo/Ennis and in an ideal world Hyman all get rotated until jobs get solidified by merit

If by now you haven’t heard the explanation for why Hyman plays with “all-stars” then you’re deliberately trying to “keep it a mystery”.

You can disagree with the reasoning, but to claim its some great unknown just makes you seem blatantly ignorant.

FYI it is because Babcock wants one guy on the line to be the forecheckers who goes in deep and is good at getting pucks out of the corner and pressuring D to make mistakes, where the puck eventually gets turned over to skilled “all-stars” who create offensive opportunities.

And because you hear the bemusing follow-up question a lot, why doesn’t Hyman get more assists then, because it’s more often that he gets the puck fed to the D, and then the D pass to the other wing then to the C and score. Hence two 50-pt D men and high scoring offence.

But Hyman is useless I guess...

 

[member 262271]

Ya always need a scapegoat year after year, so who will it be for the usual suspects, Brown, Hyman and...?

 

[therealkoho]

He had 28 points last year with 15mins ATOI.

He doesn't drive play. He doesn't generate offense. His corsi numbers aren't good. He was one of the worst primary assist guys in the league. Even Matthews and Marner struggled offensively when given shifts with him. The eye test would indicate he frequently would kill offensive opportunities. He's a textbook 3rd line winger and that's just not good enough for our roster.

His preseason has been uneventful. The Kadri line hasn't looked good. He doesn't have a unique gamebreaking skill like someone like Kapenen does with his speed (not that he's been great himself)

He's just... there. Rarely impactful. You don't notice him. On some teams that might be passable but IMO we are too stacked offensively for him to be gifted minutes with Kadri.

Its too bad Johansson and Kapanen have both been disappointing because I would rather have either in Brown's spot. Hell I would have liked to see Grundstrom or Engvall get a shot with Kadri.

Thoughts?

Naz hasn't been great either, doesn't look engaged and sometimes frustrated, the few scoring chances that line has had has been the result of tough corner work they are imo a little handicapped atm, wait'll you see them with a bona fide NHL LW, Leivo has been double meh in the preseason, he really hasn't made a pass that moved the line north, he's been iffy in his positional play and he looks lost sometimes in his own end. I had high hopes for Josh this year but so far.....

jmo but Grundstrom is nowhere near ready for primetime,

Engvall I think could play 4th line minutes w/Lindholm and Kapanen. Johnsson does have to pull up his socks for sure but he's odds on to be the LW on the Kadri line

 

[Field of Dreams]

That's the challenge right?

Neither Brown, nor Kapanen are going to return anything that would really improve our defense. We really need a top pairing RHD, who can push everyone else down... and they aren't returning that. We'd get a third pairing guy at best....

I agree, they alone would not be able to return a top defenseman. However, usually teams that are trading top defensemen are rebuilding/retooling, and a young roster player would likely be something they would want back as part of the deal

 

[KuleminFan41]

Brown is not the player you want to undervalue by suggesting he's a 4th liner as he can slot in anywhere and be comfortable . He does everything he's asked to do, he doesn't play many power play minutes, and plays the penalty kill a lot and he still managed to score 12 out of 14 goals at even strength while mostly playing on the 3rd line. It's disapointing that people aren't putting a lot of value in a guy like him, he's the type of guy to do the hard work out there for the other players to be able to play. He's not a 5 million dollar player but he's certainly not a bag of pucks

 

[Randy Randerson]

If by now you haven’t heard the explanation for why Hyman plays with “all-stars” then you’re deliberately trying to “keep it a mystery”.

You can disagree with the reasoning, but to claim its some great unknown just makes you seem blatantly ignorant.

FYI it is because Babcock wants one guy on the line to be the forecheckers who goes in deep and is good at getting pucks out of the corner and pressuring D to make mistakes, where the puck eventually gets turned over to skilled “all-stars” who create offensive opportunities.

And because you hear the bemusing follow-up question a lot, why doesn’t Hyman get more assists then, because it’s more often that he gets the puck fed to the D, and then the D pass to the other wing then to the C and score. Hence two 50-pt D men and high scoring offence.

But Hyman is useless I guess...

I think you're over-interpreting what I said about Hyman, he's not useless but he is miscast. I agree on the idea of having a forechecker on a line wit two talented players like Babcock had with Franzen and Holmstrom, but that forechecker should be more offensively adept than Hyman is. The line will be more effective (at least in theory) if there are 3 offensive players for defenses to account for rather than 2, it would make more space for Matthews/Nylander (or this year looking like Tavares/Marner) if a defender needs to track the guy they play with when the Leafs have the puck in the offensive zone. I also don't believe that Hyman is particularly good at the forechecker job as a whole - he gets there quickly and stops the puck from being moved cleanly, which is great, but he can't often get possession back & do something good with the puck on his own, he needs reinforcements to do something good with the puck most of the time

I'm not advocating using a Bracco type in his place, but I think there's others on the roster that can play that forecheck role with slightly different strengths and weaknesses that would help more with the offense - Kapanen/Johnsson are lighter but faster, both willing to forecheck hard and both can do what Hyman does on the backcheck, Leivo is slower but has the same size and is a much more productive player going into the offensive corners to get the puck, Grundstrom is probably the most like Hyman with more finishing talent. I don't see why we would make an assumption that Hyman is the best fit when it costs nothing to see if we have a better combo

I also have not seen any confirmation of that reasoning and to my knowledge this is just an interpretation, do you have something you can share that validates it? I have heard speculation that Matthews requested not to play with Hyman anymore though

 

[Jeffrey Pedler]

He is your prototypical third liner, plays hard, good defensively and can play on the PK. When he had his 20 goal season, he was playing im the top six, last year he played in the bottom six. The guy is undervalued by some leafs fans.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Guy can play anywhere in the lineup. He needs to find a default position where he can succeed though, instead of just being a backup plan behind better players.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Naz hasn't been great either, doesn't look engaged and sometimes frustrated, the few scoring chances that line has had has been the result of tough corner work they are imo a little handicapped atm, wait'll you see them with a bona fide NHL LW,

Huh? This post is confusing.

He played with Marleau and has back-to-back 30 goal seasons. "Wait till you see"? It already happened.

 

[SHANNYPLAN]

Cuz God Forbid we try Kapanen with decent Offensive Players

 

[Crysis]

Any team in the league would take Brown in a second. There's a reason for that...

 

[Tak7]

Because he deserves to be in the top 9.

Let's not forget - the way he started last season was a huge reason why Marner was demoted to the 4th line.

It's not always about point totals and goals - Brown offers a whole lot more and routinely makes the players around him better.

 

[BoredBrandonPridham]

weird Pkers cant play 4th line? Brown is a 4th liner the only problem is we don't know if Kapanen isn't a 4th liner, I personally think he is better but he needs to show it. Id start the season with Kapanen with kadri give it x number of games if he blows by Kapanen great if not then we have 2 4th line RWs

3rd line will get lots of DZ starts against top competition this year.

 

[moon111]

Cuz God Forbid we try Kapanen with decent Offensive Players

Perhaps they, I don't know... practice? They can see the talent levels. Realize that Kapanen's passing skills are sub-par? Kind of hard to
create synergy when players can't pass to one another.

 

[Walshy7]

Perhaps they, I don't know... practice? They can see the talent levels. Realize that Kapanen's passing skills are sub-par? Kind of hard to
create synergy when players can't pass to one another.

if kapanen's passing skills are sub par browns are off the the charts, Brown doesnt have close to kapanen's skill not close the only issue is kapanen putting it together and showing his skills. Brown is ahead of kapanen right now because babcock likes brown if it were down to skill brown easily slides onto the 4th line