bIueadams

Shoulda played Svech

We all did. If you could go back in time and tell me "you'll be getting a hard working middle 6 winger with your 6th overall" I would have told Holland to trade the pick and sign Carl Hagelin. Nice. That was the goalies screw up though. Dunno what he was thinking sliding that far outta the net, but maybe he just couldn't stop himself. Soderblom is fersure bigger than Franzen with softer mitts though

Their is a MAJOR contextual difference between Svech v. Zadina though. Svech got 20 games under his belt playing a measly 10-11 minutes a night on the 4th line. Then the team put him on the taxi squad, gave him the same limited games and time at the end of the season, and released him. Zadina got top6 minutes and regular PP time right out the gate, and we're now in his 3rd season of this assignment. One got all the opportunities and is disappointing. The other got seemingly no opportunity so it's hard to fault him for being disappointing.

Stecher and Stephens won't be back until late February. Should mean Veleno is basically here permanently now. Stecher being out means we can recall another forward now too and bench Smith. Is it Pearsgod time finally?

Bingo. You're entire stance boils down "he's too young". This is the same shallow defense fans levied in 2018, 2019, 2020, and now here in 2021. How many games does he have to play and/or how old does he have to be before you can actually start to be critical of his game? Seriously, what's the cut off? Zadina is 21 with 100+ games played. This team gave up on Svech at 23 with 20 games played. This team gave up on Cholowski at 22 with 90 games played. The time for him to start showing real progress is rapidly approaching for him. Yet he appears worse than ever this year while the rest of the team is accelerating forward. I would be inclined to accept your "too young" argument if I could see any reason to suggest he has the talent and tools to one day turn it on. I don't. Mantha and AA didn't blossom till they were roughly 24, but you could see both oozed talent and untapped potential under the surface. I don't see any of that with Zadina. This is a Brendan Smith scenario we're in IMO.

So you're argument here is: Look at this other poop, that makes our poop okay. I mean if you're fine with how Zadina is, great. I won't try to convince you. But he's still no more valuable to this team than Slava Namestnikov is. Assuming Slava comes down off his hot streak here. Why so eager to defend sucha player?

You're using a strawman argument here. All I did was compare Datsyuk and Zadina's ability to strip pucks, since he's the best at this on the team since Datsyuk. And I'm praising Zadina for this ability. Raymond and Zadina should absolutely be compared. Both RH wingers. Both ranked top5. Both selected at similar spots. How can you possibly argue they shouldn't be compared? I mean... why do you think this? Fancy stats? I just extensively described his game to you and its numerous faults. Do you disagree with my take? Do you think his shots are suddenly going to be top cheese with a new center? I agree Zadina would do better with a better center, any winger would. But I don't think Suter is the Mantha (problem child) here. Suter showed what he can do with great wingers with the Hawks... The Mantha is Zadina. >don't compare him to other 6oa picks >compares him to other 6oa picks I did judge him on "what he's doing now". He's a perimeter winger that doesn't drive offense, can't hit the net, and back checks hard.

Sure, it's certainly a possibility. I would just be more inclined to believe that if it was only one instance. When it starts becoming a trend, I start to look at the constant: the coach. This is why I'm restarting the fire Blash train. I understand the placeholder role for Blash. Yzerman probably didn't have many decent options, so stuck with consistency over making a lateral no sum move. But now we have two guys who will probably be the winner and runnerup for the calder trophy, and the whole squad shows life. I want this guy coaching in Siberia as far away from Raymond and Seider as possible as soon as possible. The team has turned a corner and the time for settling is over.

I gave up on him being a serious impact player in 2018 when he was with Grand Rapids. I just didn't see anything to make me think he was any good. Granted he was very young on that team, but usually with a young #6 overall pick you're going to see some very raw high level skill shine through and some flashes of brilliance now and then. Saw none of that. Do me a favor and next game JUST watch Zadina. Watch his decision making, execution, time away from the puck, in the D zone, neutral, and Ozone, the whole 9. Lemme know what you think. IMO the most standout feature to his game is his stick lift. His ability to strip the puck is hard to miss. His hands are quick and precise. If you're in his reach or he can close the gap, he's getting that puck. Not quite Datsyukian, but he certainly does this better than anyone on the team IMO. He's also hard worker and back checks hard. You absolutely cannot say this is a lazy player. So why isn't he a defensive dynamo? Because his anticipation of the play is mediocre at best. He has the defensive chops to be a real force, but his brain isn't taking his feet to where he can utilize these tools properly. Datsyuk was able to put his tool box to work because he could read the attacking play before the attackers even knew what the play was. Zadina doesn't have that chess brain. Zadina should be leading our forward group in takeaways with his skill set, but the exact opposite is happening. He has the worst give-away to take-away ration among all of our forwards. 13 giveaways and only 4 takeaways. Now, before you say it, yes, those giveaways numbers are inflated... They're inflated by how many shots he takes that don't even go near the net. He should be called the end board assassin. This takes us to his offense: The skill set is not there. He has a decently hard shot, but he seems to have no idea how to use or direct it. It's bad enough that he and every scout on the Red Wings should be embarrassed that they ever billed him as goal scorer. "Driving the offense" lol sorry but I have to laugh at this. The kid is a primo passenger. He should be in the back of the Wings mini van in a childs car seat. He doesn't get breakaways, he doesn't create rush attempts, he doesn't draw penalties. He's a perimeter player that's easily knocked off the puck. He is decent in the cycle when the zone is spread and set up, his passes are crisp, but - back to his similar problem on defense - he doesn't anticipate the game at a high enough level to make any magic happen with his passing. Which is why he is sitting on 4 total assists right now, all of them secondary assists. And to be fair, he does try to drive the offense sometimes... it just mostly ends in embarrassment when his poorly selected shot is blocked or it flies 2 ft wide of the net. These are the same complaints and praises of him I had in 2018 (check post history of "Christopher Reeves Legs" here and on HF boards). HF boards lit me up for this evaluation back then, with their argument being "he's just young! he's just young!". Guess what? My nephew is just young too. Doesn't mean he has the skills to be a top flight NHLer one day.... youth potential means nothing if you can't at least glimpse that potential in a player. And most concerning is I've seen very little progress from Zadina over the last 3 years. He's going to need an A+ center to feed him easy gifts all game long. Otherwise we have a very average hardworking 3rd line winger on our hands. If you're okay with that result, great. But that's extremely disappointing for a former #6 overall picked ranked in the top3 IMO. Should have packaged him in a trade before the 2020 season started.

IMO the damage is already done. The only reason the team is any good this year is because Yzerman has rammed two superstars down Trashills system. I'll give him that. He's a good enough coach to not ruin the two newest superstars in the league immediately out the gate

If what we needed was someone who can play defense as good as Zadina does, and score goals as good as Zadina does, we shoulda just kept Glendening or Helm. Zadina on pace for 12 goals. Helm on pace for 12 goals. Glendening on pace for 20 goals.

Mrazak's decline on this team was under Blashill. He played great for Babcock. You're making my point for me. Scotty Bowman - the greatest coach of all time - was able to get an entrenched superstar like Yzerman to sacrifice point totals and completely alter his game to be more conducive to winning late in his career. Blashill - a sub average NHL coach - couldn't get still developing AA to play any kind of system or get still developing Mantha to even care. Do I think AA and Mantha would be different players now if Scotty, or coach Q, or Torts, or Babs, or Trotz, or Cooper were their coach coming up? Yes, I do.

Edvinsson is on pace to be the highest scoring U19 Dman in SHL history. Will be ready next season. Johanssen and Wallinder are good, but I don't think either will be ready next year. Soderblom is Franzen. Pearson and Berggren are tearing up the AHL. Tyuytayev has been forgettable in the AHL so far. Buium and Mazur both playing really well for U of Denver. Mastrosimone and Phillips both playing very well for Boston U. Hanas still having his best season ever in the WHL. Viro is not scoring this year, sorta concerning. Cotton is point machine, but IDK that he can play defense. Zito is still PPG in the OHL and is looking like a steal as a 6th round pick.

Yes, it is. That's how hierarchical management systems work. A managers performance is a direct reflection of the performance of their team. Good managers motivate their subordinates and put them in positions that maximize their strengths and abilities, resulting in good performance of the department. Bad managers piss off their subordinates and create environments where no one wants to work, resulting in bad performance of the department. Now, maybe there's just one bad egg in the department. The guy that is just down right lazy/bad attitude no matter what you do. Agreed, that's not the managers fault, and a smart manager will sack him ASAP. But I'm not pointing at one bad egg. I'm pointing at a trend of impact players that this is happening with. When it starts becoming multiple instances, you start to look at the manager and what he's doing to spoil otherwise good employees. Mrazek, Athanasiou, Mantha, were all highly skilled employees that manager Blash was unable to motivate. Now Hronek is getting pissed off and getting lazy and getting benched early in the season. I have a woman that manages a team. Over the course of a few months a bunch of her best subordinates jumped ship and quit for other companies. You best believe we're questioning whether or not she should continue managing people. And we don't even know if it's just coincidence yet.

>Raymond - 19 yrs old - #4 pick - 20 NHL games >On pace for 29 goals >Zadina - 21 yrs old - #6 pick - 106 NHL games >on pace for 12 goals

Leddy reminds me of Mike Green. He can get the puck up ice, but I won't be sad to trade him anymore. Even if we only get a 2nd for him, we basically got to rent him for a half season at no cost. Think about it like this: We brought in Leddy to babysit Seider in his first season. But just 10-15 games in Seider was so good we re-assigned the kid to babysit Dekeyser. Leddy is now expendable, and Seider is definitely getting the Calder.

Nah, you're just late to the party. I cited a myriad of reasons of why I think Blashill sucks as a HC in my first post in this thread. Including him being unable to manage the attitudes of Mantha and Athanasiou and other impact players. This is not mutually exclusive with his other shortcomings. Coach's job is to get his players to play and to squeeze every drop out of them. That didn't happen. Some of that failure falls on Jeff.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on Mantha and AA. I don't count those as success stories for us. Two draft wins that could never put it together under Blashill. And that's why they're not on this team. Mantha taking stretches of games off. Jimmy D stepping up to call him a disappointment. Athanasiou basically unwilling to commit to the system and the other myriad of inconsistencies. The players aren't blameless at all. But it's Jeff's responsibility to motivate and manage the attitudes of those guys, and he just never could. Therefore, each a loss on the coaching staffs record.

I'm not gonna list every stat. You can look them up if you wanna check. But here we are for 5v5 play: Svech is blocking more shots per 60 than Rowney. He's stripping more pucks per 60 than Rowney. He's drawing more penalties per 60 than Rowney. Is rushing the puck up ice more than Rowney per 60. He's generating more shots on net per 60 than Rowney. Scoring more per 60 than Rowney. Is playing more in general than Rowney. And has better fancy stats than Rowney. But Rowney hits more per 60 and can barely manage to win a single faceoff.... Good choice on Rowney Blash and Yzerman. Svech is hitting more per 60 than Gagner. He's stripping more pucks per 60 than Gagner. He's drawing more penalties per 60 than Gagner. He's rushing the puck up ice more than Gagner per 60. He has a higher shooting percentage than Gagner. He's producing more points per60 than Gagner. He's playing more in general than Gagner. And his fancy stats are better than Gagner's. But Gagner blocks slightly more shots and shoots into the goalies chest more often... good choice on Gagner Blash and Yzerman, award him more PP time. Svech has more rush attempts per 60 than Zadina. He's stripping the puck per 60 more than Zadina. He has a higher shooting percentage than Zadina. He's producing more points per 60 than Zadina. He's producing more goals per 60 than Zadina. He's get on average more 5v5 ice time than Zadina. And Svech is top5 among forwards on his team in CF%, GF%, and xGF% But I can see why Blash neglected to play him

Svech: former first rounder never given much of any chance to prove himself. Gagner: Still not a center. Still not taking faceoffs. And everyone over the age of 30 is a critical veteran leader, I forgot that one.

1. Larkin: I don't like his inconsistency. I think he would have done better in a different coaches system the past 6 years. Bertuzzi: I think Bertuzzi has a rouge self confidence that would have flourished anywhere, but I'll give you this one. Mantha: Performed and then regressed. Blash could never motivate him or squeeze all the juice from him. I count this is a negative. Jensen: This is a true example of someone I think Blash coached well. I never expected Jensen to become as good and reliable as he has. Hronek: I'll give you this one. He seems back on track this season after a hiccup. Athanasiou: Same story as Mantha. Tatar/Nyquist: Sure partial credit Raymond/Seider: Sure at least some initial credit 4/6 But I'll add: Mrazek: Completely regressed under Blash Sheahan: Initial success and then completely regressed under Blash Svechnikov: Never got used by Blash and now he's found a solid foundation elsewhere I don't care much for how things are going with Smith, Ras, and Zadina either. 2. Not gonna argue my off the cuff phrasing with you. He's got young men on his roster that are still developing and his job plays a large role in that coaching the lockeroom and giving out assignments.. 3. Same as above. 4. I'm not suggesting Larkin isn't a good top6 NHL center. Blash gets some credit for that. I also think Larkin's production is problematically inconsistent, which Blash also gets some credit for. 5. Agree with the first part. Still would have preferred him on the roster this season over Rowney or Gagner if Blash would actually commit to playing him.

What's your list of players "who have dramatically outperformed expectations" look like? I disagree that development of young players isn't his job. It is when he's adding 18-23 year old players to his roster. He talks in interviews about how he had to work with players like Cholowski to get them to shoot more and things like this. It's why he paired Larkin with Zberg to start that young mans career. And I think his use of Svechnikov was completely disheartening from the players perspective and mine.

I mean this is a thread about Blashill. If you need to go reread and refresh yourself on why we're talking about Svech in the first place please do so.

Not totally. But it's Blash's job to get consistency from his players, so at some level the responsibility does fall on him. Couple that with the lack of consistency of several other impact players, and I think it starts to paint a picture of man who cannot get consistent reliable performances from a lot of his guys.