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Hockeytown0001

Official 2016 Detroit Red Wings Offseason Thread

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It can't get any worse in my opinion. It will either be the same or better. The team we have is a decent team. Just wasn't at full potential with a rookie coach.

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Omg guys Steve Ott has a better faceoff percent than everyone on our team over his career. Does this mean we should use him in every key defensive situation to take the faceoff? Should we use him when we have a 1 goal lead and there's 2 minutes left to play? Is he the new Luke Glendening? I know a few around here have praised Luke because of his sole stat of being good on faceoffs. Steve Ott is even better! (56% on faceoffs). Can kill penalties too and is "gritty". Also has better possession numbers and likes to shoot the puck rather than sit and take the shots. See below.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2016/08/07/detroit-red-wings-steve-ott/88367492/

Edited by kickazz

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It can't get any worse in my opinion. It will either be the same or better. The team we have is a decent team. Just wasn't at full potential with a rookie coach.

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Omg guys Steve Ott has a better faceoff percent than everyone on our team over his career. Does this mean we should use him in every key defensive situation to take the faceoff? Should we use him when we have a 1 goal lead and there's 2 minutes left to play? Is he the new Luke Glendening? I know a few around here have praised Luke because of his sole stat of being good on faceoffs. Steve Ott is even better! (56% on faceoffs). Can kill penalties too and is "gritty". Also has better possession numbers and likes to shoot the puck rather than sit and take the shots. See below.

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/nhl/red-wings/2016/08/07/detroit-red-wings-steve-ott/88367492/

But we're not getting Steve Ott as he's been throughout his career.

We're getting him at the end of his career.

Two very different things.

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Will be interesting to see how Ott is used if at all. He's definitely a better faceoff guy than Glendening is and more versatile (using that word very loosely) than Miller is. Glendog will be 4th line center regardless of Ott being better on faceoffs, but I think between Miller and Ott, I'd chose Ott.

Edited by kickazz

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I'd take Glendening over Ott, Ott over Miller, and Miller over no one... I'd be okay with any one of them on the 4th line, I'm just hoping it's only one (Glendening) and the other two are healthy scratched / waived. I just have a feeling we're going to want to see how the worst possession players in the NHL could do on a line against top lines in the league...

Which lineup (not necessarily lines) is better?

Zetterberg - Nielsen - Nyquist

Abdelkader - Larkin - Tatar

Helm - Sheahan - Vanek

Miller - Glendening - Ott

Jurco / Pulkkinen

OR

Zetterberg - Nielsen - Nyquist

Abdelkader - Larkin - Tatar

Jurco - Athanasiou - Vanek

Helm - Sheahan - Mantha

Glendening / Pulkkinen

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Exactly. And who would have a problem with Mantha playing on the "4th line" if the lines were constructed as such? I have no problem with Mantha or Jurco or whoever playing on that line with Helm and Sheahan, but I do have a problem with them playing on the same line, but with Glendening and Miller / Ott... I'd love to see this team get away from the "defensive stalwarts", and lean more toward rolling 4 solid scoring lines. Unfortunately though, that's never going to happen, unless all three get injured in training camp...

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It's fun to run 4 scoring lines! I'd like to see it too.

but, honest question: Who's going to play defense? We have a terrible group of defenceman. Who's going to help them out? Is Marzek just going to stand on his head and stop 40 shots a game?

If we run 4 scoring lines, we're going to look like the Edmonton Oilers.

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It's fun to run 4 scoring lines! I'd like to see it too.

but, honest question: Who's going to play defense? We have a terrible group of defenceman. Who's going to help them out? Is Marzek just going to stand on his head and stop 40 shots a game?

If we run 4 scoring lines, we're going to look like the Edmonton Oilers.

Who needs to play D when the puck is in the offensive zone? Lol.

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It's fun to run 4 scoring lines! I'd like to see it too.

but, honest question: Who's going to play defense? We have a terrible group of defenceman. Who's going to help them out? Is Marzek just going to stand on his head and stop 40 shots a game?

If we run 4 scoring lines, we're going to look like the Edmonton Oilers.

Tweaking his lines a bit with the same players -

Vanek - Nielsen - Nyquist

Abdelkader - Larkin - Tatar

Helm - Athanasiou - Zetterberg

Jurco - Sheahan - Mantha

Glendening / Pulkkinen

Every single has one if not more defensively responsible player.

1st line - Nielsen

2nd line - Abdelkader/Larkin

3rd line- Zetterberg/Helm

4th line - Sheahan

Every line also has a net front guy -

1st line- Vanek

2nd line - Abdelkader

3rd line - Helm

4th line Mantha

Every line also has a goal scorer

1st line - Vanek/Nyquist

2nd line - Tatar

3rd line - AA

4th line - Mantha

Every line also has a playmaker

1st line - Nyquist

2nd line - Larkin

3rd line - Zetterberg

4rd - Sheahan/Jurco

It's really not that hard to roll 4 defensively responsible scoring lines. Bowman did it. Babcock did it. Tons of coaches did it and were successful. They have the players, they just don't get as creative.

Edited by kickazz

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Sometimes I wonder if a fourth line as a designated shut down line is an antiquated aspect of hockey that's only practiced because the coaches from the last generation did it, so it must be the way to go. I would like to see four possession-based lines and see where that takes us.

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Even though the "Grind Line" was a shutdown line, they were still a possession heavy line. They weren't asked to sit and take block shots like our guys now do. They were asked to create havoc and shoot the puck and make sure opponent lines can't even get their stick on the puck. I remember watching that Grind line against the Flyers in the 97 playoffs. They just could never get their offense going against us.

Grind line vs the Eric Lindros line. They couldn't even work with the puck that's how possession heavy our grind line was.

Now we have our amazing shutdown 4th line making Tyler Johnson, Jonathan Drouin and Kucherov look like allstars. Cuz now the strategy is "well lets let them shoot and see if we can block it" :glare:

Edited by kickazz

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Sometimes I wonder if a fourth line as a designated shut down line is an antiquated aspect of hockey that's only practiced because the coaches from the last generation did it, so it must be the way to go. I would like to see four possession-based lines and see where that takes us.

There may be some element of that, but it's probably more due to a lack of good scoring talent.

Glendening gets a lot of flak, like he's the worst player in the league or something. But the fact is he produces pretty decently for a lower line forward. Low end 3rd-line or high end 4th. Over the last two years, there are 232 forwards with more goals, and 264 with more points. Of 466 forwards to play at least 400 minutes over the last two years, he's 309th in on-ice GF60, and 79th in on-ice GA60. And he takes many of the tough minutes, making things a bit easier on other players. Who can say what that's worth.

While we have a lot of skill players, and we could maybe pull off four scoring lines (and I was saying even last year I'd like to see us try it), I doubt it would make any significant difference. You put Mantha, Jurco, Pulk, etc. on a lower line, with little PP time and without better linemates, chances are they won't produce much (if any) more than Glendening.

Miller now is a different story. He hasn't been productive in several years. I would hope he'll be out of the lineup more often than not. Ott is an unknown. Didn't do much in StL, but was good in Buffalo prior to that. Maybe he'll get back to that, maybe he's just too old. Worth a look at least I think.

I'd like Pulk and Jurco to get more of an opportunity before we give up on them, same for AA and Mantha of course but we have more time with them, but I don't think they'd make any real difference from the bottom 6.

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I've said it before and I'll say it again: in today's NHL, the best defense is an overpowering offense. The emphasis shouldn't be on defending. The emphasis should be on forcing the other team to defend. Get the puck, hold on to the puck, make plays with the puck. Own the puck.

Look at the season the Penguins just had. Struggled mightily under Mike Johnston, who believed they needed to play an ultra-conservative "defense-first" brand of hockey. Couldn't score for beans. Then Mike Sullivan comes in, completely flips the script, lets all his horses run free, and the team transforms into a juggernaut.


Granted, we lack elite-level forwards, which complicates things.

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The 4 scoring line idea I think is a good one if only to get Jurco and others in the lineup over Miller.

I do think there would be potential problems with the matchup game, though. If we don't have a shutdown line, who are we putting out against Crosby and other top lines, especially if there's a D zone faceoff. If it's Larkin's line, they may do okay and get some chances, but I think it would effectively negate a fair amount of their offence if that's the regular match-up. If we roll the 4 lines pretty evenly we risk matchups like kickazz's line of Jurco-Sheahan-Mantha up against OV-Backstrom-Oshie. So how would we handle matchups?

Sidenote: I know people are sentimental about the Grindline, but Glendening is outproducing all except McCarty in the comparable points of their careers (3 years in). They each had about 3 boom years when they produced 30-40 pts, but that was the norm for their careers,

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offense wins games defense wins championships

That ancient saying doesn't work in hockey anymore. Without Crosby, Kessel and to a lesser extent Malkin Pittsburgh would not have won the championship. Crosby was the number 1 reason they won the Stanley cup.

Edited by kickazz

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