kipwinger

I know. My point is that we've seen/heard this all before. Karlsson can't play defense, doesn't even really bother trying, scores a bunch but gets scored on even more, and they lose. It's a tail as old as time. I'm not sure why Pittsburgh thought it would be different now. Oh wait, yeah I do. Kyle "Why Bother With Defense" Dubas.

We keep going into this defensive shell, chasing the puck, and taking penalties. We do this every single game.

Two goals for Danielson tonight, and points for Berggren and Edvinsson as well.

No argument from me there. I had to look him up just now to see where he's playing and how he's doing. Spoiler Alert: He's in the ECHL with Toledo and he's injured. Two points in two games though.

Anybody know the status of Alex Tuch? I hope he's out, that guy's a beast.

Yup. That was his last draft. And SY has stated publicly that his Directors of Amateur Scouting run the draft.

How was he great? Lemme guess, he scored a lot.

Tyler Wright didn't pick Broberg. Broberg was taken the same year as Seider (Yzerman's first). You will all remember that Yzerman got the job about a month before the draft and kept all of Holland's people in place until after the draft. You can find pictures of Wright on stage with Yzerman and Seider. You can also find articles about how Wright "pounded the table" for Antti Tuomisto that same draft. In short, you're all as dumb and wrong as you typically are. I kid, I kid...sorta.

Y'all hear Tage Thompson will be back tonight?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, he's not good. He scored 100 points last year and was MINUS 26!!! They're paying full price (11.5 million) for a guy who is 33 years old, scores all the time, and somehow manages to get scored on even more than that. Pittsburgh fans should tie Kyle Dubas to a lamp post and tar and feather him. Instead they blame Sullivan because they're all just as dumb, and impressed by flashy players, as Dubas is.

I swear the level of dingbattery amongst hockey pundits and fans is absolutely epic. Over at The Athletic there's an article disparaging Mike Sullivan for the mess the Penguins are in. At no point in an article (that both praises Dubas' acquisition of Erik Karlsson and laments their lack of depth) does the writer take one second to point out that Pittsburgh is paying Karlsson 11.5 million dollars (against the cap) to be a defenseman and powerplay specialist...neither of which he's doing well. To put this into perspective, that's how much we're paying JT Compher, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Daniel Sprong combined. And all it cost them was a first round pick and at least two players they could currently use more than Karlsson. It's the dumbest trade in recent memory. What did that trade actually accomplish? Well, it definitely made Kyle Dubas look like a big shot. So good for him.

I think Kane is gonna go tonight. He's always had a flair for the dramatic and this would be very on brand.

Kaner, you ready to treat the Sabres like the cabbies they are? Good, cuz you're going!!!

He absolutely demolished us at multiple points last season. Here's hoping we've got some sort of plan for defending him this time around. Personally I'd just have Kostin attack him the first time he touches the ice.

If we need offense at the deadline I'd target Tommy Novak. He's 26, going to be a UFA, and really good offensively. He'd be a nice piece that we could sign for a few years. I'm all set on Stamkos.

Edit: Wrong thread

The only other thing I didn't mention but should add is that I think both Wallinder and Kasper are having a bit harder time adjusting to the North American game than Edvinsson or Johansson did. I think so much of their games is predicated on hanging on to the puck and skating and they haven't learned that in North America you have to give and go more.

I've had the chance to watch a lot of the Griffins games this year on AHL TV and figured I'd give my impressions of a few guys: Edvinsson and Berggren: I'm grouping these two together (and not saying much about them) because they're both too good for the AHL and everyone already knows that. William Wallinder: His offense really hasn't shown through in the AHL because he's basically stuck behind half the roster and doesn't get those juicy offensive opportunities. I think he stands to gain the most when Edvinsson is inevitably called up. He transitions the puck better than any defenseman in our system though. Cross Hanas: Like Wallinder I think he stands to gain a lot from a Berggren promotion. He's my darkhorse to be an impact guy in the NHL. I see a lot of Bertuzzi in him. He's skilled enough to compliment top players, is an adept shooter and passer, is very smart in the offensive zone, but his skating will stop him from being a star. Marco Kasper: I think all the "Kasper has limited offense" talk on draft day really got to his head because he spends too much time playing East-West hockey and trying to be cute now. Once he realizes that being a big, fast, gritty, two way guy is his bread and butter he's going to be fine. If I could I would hook him to one of those Pavlovian response machines they used in "A Clockwork Orange" and force him to watch JT Compher's shifts over and over again, giving him electric shock every time he thinks about trying anything cute. Amadeus Lombardi: The only thing stopping this guy from being a difference maker is time and opportunity. He's absolutely awesome and just needs time to physically grow (which he's still doing) and for some of the players above him on the roster to move on. He's got it all, skating, passing, shooting, etc. but he also does the little things too. Really good faceoff guy and backchecks like a demon. I've heard it said that the most important attribute to have in order to be an NHL center is a brain, and he definitely does. I'm still convinced he can be a star in the NHL. Sodorblom and Mazur: I'm not going to say much about these two because my impression is that they're both playing exactly as advertised. Mazur is the Red Wings version of Reilly Smith (I mean that in the best way) and Sodorblom has all the skill and just needs to keep working on his skating (like Rasmussen did). Albert Johansson: Incomplete. Played hurt for a while and is just now getting back. Plays in all situations AND on his off side though, which is useful. Reminds me of (Chicago) Nick Leddy. Sebastian Cossa: I'm not well versed enough with the mechanics of goaltending to really give full insight here but he sure seems like he's figuring it out. He still lets in the occasional bad goal and in 2 of his 8 starts he looked pedestrian, but most of the time he's really really solid and I don't think that's a bad place for him to be 8 games into his pro careers. He's definitely outplaying Michael Hutchinson (a career AHL/NHL tweener).

What's the deal with Stamkos? I haven't heard anything about this?

I think that coaching, just like playing, is a process that (hopefully) evolves in a positive direction over time. Lalonde has never run an NHL bench before, so it stands to reason that there is going to be a learning curve for him just like there is for everyone else. There are definitely things that I can (and have) pointed out that rest more or less entirely on the coaching staff. But very few of my criticisms of the coaching can outweigh the fact that under Lalonde our offense, defense, penalty kill, and powerplay have all improved dramatically. Quite a bit of that is on the players no doubt, but take a look at how Edmonton started the season if you wanna know what great players with bad coaching looks like.

I'm not worried about him or anything. I think he's a very good player. But he's on track to match his rookie point totals while playing worse defensively. His underlying numbers are all worse too. I think it's just as fair to point those things out for Seider as it would be for any other player. The only difference is that he's much more important to the team's success than someone like Rasmussen (who also hasn't taken the step forward that I'd expected of him).

Ahhhh, yeah I've never heard that one before.

I think the whole notion of a 1D, 2D, 3D, etc. is pretty outmoded. I mean, fans can label them however they want for the sake of discussion but I don't think their usage would reflect this type of hierarchy. I think back to the 2008 Wings and while Lidstrom was nominally the 1D partnered with Rafalski, neither of those two were taking on the toughest matchups. That was Kronwall and Stewart. I think you could argue our "2nd pair" was the more important pair that year, and I'd personally argue that Kronwall was our best dman. These days I think you want to find those cornerstone pieces and get them throughout your lineup. Kinda like Pittsburgh using Phil Kessel on their 3rd line sorta thing. If you've got Walman-Seider and then Edvinsson-ASP then I imagine it will be a coin flip each night for which line gets more minutes and/or scores more points. Kinda like back in the day when we had Lidstrom and Konstantinov on separate pairs, sort of a "pick your poison" type scenario.

I agree with some of this. We have a top five offense in the league, so goals aren't really our problem. Now, if Kane can make our powerplay better and we start putting other teams on their heels earlier in games then I'm all for it. But the bigger problems as I see it are: 1. Our defense. Holy smokes does our defense suck. Seider and Walman have been a trash first pair this year and the rest of the defense (except Gostisbehere) has been worse. I like a lot of those guys on the 3rd pair, but none of Maatta, Chiarot, Petry, or Holl should play in the top four. We get pinned in our zone A LOT. What happened to the Mo Seider that used to demolish guys with his physical play and toy with the opposition when he had the puck on his stick? He's obviously still a good defenseman but he has not really progressed since his rookie season. 2. Figure out the goalie situation. How does it make sense to carry 3 goalies on your roster and then not play one of them (perhaps the best one) for 17 games? What was the point of that? It would be like going 11 forwards and 7 defensemen and then not playing your 7th defenseman. And then when you finally do play him your realize he's better than your other six defensemen. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Go with Lyon and Husso (I've detailed how I'd use them in a previous post) and get one of Berggren or Mazur or Sodorblom into the lineup full time. This is stupid. 3. Stop. Taking. Stupid. Penalties. These are killing us. Of the teams currently sitting in a playoff spot we're one of the most penalized. That's not gonna bode well when we're consistently playing teams better than Montreal. I don't mind penalties that result from setting a physical tone, or defending a guy, or whatever. But stick penalties, particularly when you're chasing the play, are a killer. This needs fixed. 4. Maybe the biggest thing, we need to learn how to play 60 full minutes. We're horrid to start every game and we're abysmal at the end. The numbers back this up too. We score almost all of our (nearly league best) goals in the 2nd period and then fall apart in the 3rd. We need to play a consistent game. This one I blame on coaching. Last night we changed our forecheck to a more conservative 1-2-2 setup in the 3rd and almost blew the game. Our team is an attacking team and when Lalonde asks them to lay back they struggle.

I don’t know what else you can do with the goaltending except ride Lyon. I’d give him 3 out of every 5 starts, give Husso the other 2, and look for a better solution in the offseason. There are so many teams in need of goaltending that to get a decent goalie via trade you’re gonna pay a premium.