kipwinger

I'm not really interested in anymore pantywaists. We've got Debrincat, Raymond, Berggren, and Kane on the team already. I appreciate that some of them are kinda feisty, but that's not a substitute for big AND feisty. We need guys who can play a power game and score some goals. I like a few of the Buffalo guys, plus Lawson Crouse for that reason. Separately we need another top four stud on defense. Given that Chiarot can play either side and ASP is a righty I prefer a LHD here. Probably Byram to pair with Seider and Edvinsson can go with Chiarot on the 2nd pair. Figure out the 3rd pair with the best of the rest.

Three points out of the Wild Card, and six points out of the 3rd divisional seed, with TONS of divisional games left to play. We are still very much in the thick of things. If SY really does want to make the playoffs he needs to make a trade or two to shore up the obvious holes in the top six and on the 2nd defensive pair. Otherwise every McClellan win is just moving us further away from a draft pick and closer to mediocrity. You've got to ante up to play the game.

I saw that too, but the knock on him has always been that despite his obvious offensive instincts he's still pretty slow and soft. He's a poor man's Thomas Vanek. I'm good on that guy.

That was never his game in juniors so I think it was an unreasonable expectation. He wasn’t some dominant junior player picking corners against Junior goalies. He wasn’t a Mantha. You could argue he profiled as a Brady Tkachuk/ Val Nichushkin type, and he hasn’t been that offensive, or that physical. But Lalonde asked them to carry quite a defensive workload. Let’s see where his offense is at the end of this year.

I don’t wanna hear any more s*** about dudes like Quinn Hughes or Adam Fox or whatever. Those dudes are all well and good but you cannot tell me that they can win battles and control the puck like Seider did (against the leagues best).

That was a hell of a win. We were over matched and hung right in there. Seider and Edvinsson are legends.

Very big win. Larkin and Seider were horses.

Get Ras and Kasper a shooting winger with some grit, like Miles Wood. He’d have 20 goals with all the chances they generate.

Pettersson is a candyass. I’m not a fan. Of the two I’d rather have JT Miller.

Dude Rasmussen is a workhorse. I get that you hoped he’d have more offense, but he’s a good player. He’s this team’s Lapointe. Literally nobody complained about Lapointe just because he didn’t score like Yzerman, Fedorov, or Shanny. He plays hard minutes and wins his shifts.

Lawson Crouse fits that mold to some extent. He’s a guy I’ve been keeping an eye on.

Anybody wanna hop on the Berggren bandwagon? I've been really exited about this guy for a while and it's good to see him getting a chance. If he fizzles out now it's all on him. This is his "Zadina on the top line" moment. Berggren took throwing a bit of shade at Lalonde in this quote: "When I have the puck, I don't think like I can make a mistake here. I just think about seeing the plays and how I make the plays instead of how I lose the puck. Just think about producing, and I think that's the biggest thing right now."

Agreed. I don't think it's a mystery that once we moved on from guys like Coffey, Sheppard, Primeau, and Sillinger and moved in the Shanahans, McCartys, Lapointes, etc. we became a better playoff team. And having a veteran goalie too. But I don't think I really appreciated how hard it was to win until I got older and had seen what it takes year after year. You can sacrifice some offense in the name of toughness if you're keeping Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom anyway. This is why the Toronto and Edmonton thing baffles me so much. They clearly have enough offense to sacrifice some in the name of defense and two-way guys. But they STILL believe they can outscore a more physical, better defensive, team in the playoffs despite it failing year after year after year.

Preach. I've been saying all along I'd like one of three guys. I'm not going to turn my nose up at a Byram trade, I'm just a little surprised you kinda are about Cozens? I mean, Byram "is what he is" too right? I think they're both good, talented, young players with a reasonable amount of upside left. I'd love to see what McClellan could do with a big, fast, center though, considering he's coached a bunch of similar type guys in SJ, EDM, and LAK.

Agreed. These dudes feast on bad teams in the regular season and disappear in the playoffs. Here's a few fun facts about playoff hockey. Over the last ten years, teams with more hits than their playoff opponents during the regular season have won less than 50% of the postseason series. The same is true with higher penalty minute totals and a roster with a larger average weight. These results have changed in the last five years. Teams with advantages from these measures have won between 52.00 and 53.33% of the series since 2019-20. The last ten Stanley Cup winners are usually more physically imposing than their competition. They’ve had a size advantage and a higher hit total than their opponents in 55% of their series. Those numbers have jumped to 70% and 65% for the last five champions. Six of the last seven champions have had a size advantage over their opponents in the Stanley Cup Finals, including the 2023-24 Florida Panthers, who led the NHL in hits and penalty minutes during the regular season. The average projected Offensive Rating in the league among regulars (anyone above 41 games) is plus-1.2. Take out the league’s likely non-playoff teams and that almost doubles to plus-2.0. Plot every player side by side from best to worst and it’s plain to see there’s a sizeable discrepancy between an average playoff and non-playoff team. That’s especially true at the top end where every playoff team has a big-time threat to match up against. The average Offensive Rating for a top-50 playoff player is plus-14.1, nearly five goals higher than the average non-playoff player at plus-9.7. Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5386347/2024/04/03/nhl-playoffs-quality-of-competition/ https://rg.org/research/sports-data-analysis/nhl-physicality-and-playoff-success

We were sitting on a 8 point lead in the first Wild Card a year ago. At one point we were 3 points behind Toronto for the 3rd divisional seed. Four points back right now might as well be a dead heat considering how many divisional games we have left. There's plenty of time to right the ship and get into the playoffs if SY wants it to go that way, but we need help on defense if we're going to do that. Probably a big forward too.

We've got about a zillion little wingers, play him there. I want MORE guys like Danielson, Kasper, Edvinsson, Seider, etc. Not fewer. All things being equal it's still harder to defend a guy Cozen's size than Debrincat's.

The point isn't that Cozens is "better". It's how he does what he does. If you put him on the wing he instantly becomes the best power winger on our team. You replace Veleno with Cozens on that top line with Ray and Larkin and he probably scores 40 goals. Heck, put him with Ras and Kasper he probably scores 20+ given how they're generating scoring chances for Motte lately. Or you put him at center (instead of Compher/Copp/Kasper) and he only gives you moderate production, you're still getting those points out of a big, strong, fast, workhorse. You know who shows up in the playoffs? Big, strong, fast, workhorses. You need to be able to score in different ways to be a successful team in the playoffs and last time I checked we don't have anyone who profiles the way Cozens does. Unless we've got a 6'3, 205 lbs, right shot forward with scoring ability hiding somewhere? That said, I'm also very interested in Byram and Kulich so it's not like Cozens is the only thing of value

Cozens is also not redundant because he’s better than 75% of our forwards. Improvements are not redundant, they’re progress.

All our prospects are. ASP is the tournament MVP in my opinion. Kiiskanen keeps scoring HUGE goals for Finland, and Augustine has been good after a bit of a rough start to the tourney. Max Plante has been solid, if unspectacular, in a checking line role for USA too.

I want to see a big win here for the boys on the heels of Axel Sandin Pelikka’s hat trick to advance Sweden in the World Juniors.

All good choices, and good looking fellas to boot. But Alex Lyon looks like an angel.

We are playing a ton faster.

Berggren with the dagger out of the box.

We are currently a top five team in the NHL in the looks department.