travel_dude

Challenge the goal, but we are on the wrong side of kickd in goals

So much for an easy clear.

Vladar is keeping us in the lead. That 5 on 3 was a complete wate. Pelletier looks like a dangerous player out there. Two good chances so far. Lucic is not doing anything he can't do on the 4th line. There are better options.

Nice low shot for the Kadri PP goal.

Shoot Ras, like your job depended on it

We look good with Lucic in the box. Just saying. PP time

Vas looking for the SHUTOUT today. SHUTOUT SHUTOUT

Shortie time.

Pelletier had a really good chance on a rebound. Too bad we have Lucic out there. Ruzie is far more effective even on a bad day.

Pelletier is gonna come in and get an assist, playing 8 minutes. Then, after sitting a game, Ruzicka will come back fully charged. Will be the guy he was when he played on the top line. The best 9 minutes of hockey of his career. JK. If Huberdeau can get past the idea that Sutter is ruining his career, he will be fine. At some point the old fart will start seeing what coaching mistakes he is making. We actually have a really good top 9, save one player. Let the posties become post and innies. Healthy scratch Lucic becomes the new saying.

Knock on wood, we have been one of the few teams this year that has 2 healthy goalies. Two years ago, nobody to come in for injury. I think that Wolf is going to have the same challenges even getting a start in CGY that Vladar has. More so, in fact. Vladar has size and is a bit older. He's the superior goalie right now and getting the bench. Sutter wouldn't use Wolf until he grows 6 inches and gains 50 ponds. Ok, I admit I am a bit down on Sutter right now, but he's sowing his true colors. The window for playing a young goalie is reasonably long, but next year is probably the best time. We need to deal someone before they lose value.

Ruzie has not been the worst player on the ice in any game I saw recently. He make some plays I question, but none are what I would say are dangerous. He doesn't hurt you out there. Sutter blamed a goal on him because he was slow in getting off the ice. This was after he got crunched. That was a week ago or so. I don't know that he is the guy to take out, but Sutter will first go to the rookies. I don't mind Ruzie coming out, but the reasons are stupid. Sutter seems to think the 2nd line is working, even with the losses and poor play some nights. We won a bunch of points, so why change the top 9. Sutter logic.

Can you imagine if COL had traded the 1st OA to us? MacKinnon and Gaudreau forever.

Easy to look at results of your own games and declare it's league wide. Perhaps if you set up your best passer (in Sutter's own words) with elite players, we might score more. The man on man coverage seems to confuse players when a switch is made. If it was working, then it might be a great strategy. Assuming everyone can figure out who gets who. How many times do we see two D covering one guy and a man is left open? "You got him? I will get him". As far as offense, that is the right word for it, an offence. Down by 3, we are hooped. Dump and lose seems to be the standard play. Try to win the puck back. Let's try for just the greasy goals. Shoot at the goalie from any angle and hope for a rebound To stop the Flames, all a goalie needs to do is catch that weak shot. Play over. The GM makes the trades and signs players based on scouting. We should ask the league for a free week to try out a trade target. See if they can play for Sutter. Many can't.

You had me at 7. I actually forgot about 1st rounder Kerby. That was almost as short as Milano's time here.

The albatross is a coach that is forcing the GM to get players in trades or FA, instead of promoting from within. Duehr replaces 90% of what Lucic brings. Ruzie was good enough to be a p/gp in the top 6. Valimaki had to be waived because Sutter couldn't stand him. Had no desire to work with him. Mangiapane sucked playing anywhere but with Backlund. Did we overpay? Not really, he got market value. He's not scoring at the rate of a $5M+ player right now, but then again most aren't.

Think you missed one. Kerby Rychel. So we had or traded for a total of 8. All we have to show for it is Lindy and Zaddy.

Today's practice featured Pelletier skating on the 4th line with Lewis and Duehr. Ruzicka odd man out. Rest of lineup exactly the same as the start against the AVS. I don't know that this is any more than Sutter using him there to silence the media. Sutter's word were you don't take a top line AHL player and play him on ehte 4th line. His words not mine.

I hope I am just wearing a tinfoil hat today. With the call ups and Sutter's attitude towards smaller players, it seems like we drafted the wrong people.

The upper level teams don't really need to make changes. It's working and mostly they flush a loss. Low level teams do a lot of moving players around to see what they have and get players in and out. Middle of the road teams like EDM make changes constantly. Some are typical in games to re-unite the McD-Drai pair. And they bring in players for cups of coffee to see what they are and where they need dev. But really, I am talking about changes when we see the exact same issues cropping up. A line plays cringe-worthy most of the night. A pairing is getting caved in. I'm all for building consistency, and I don't expect a team to play flawless, but I do expect change when it's not working. We had a 6-1 record and Sutter didn't like the wins. Made a change and we saw a long losing streak along with Hubey gettting hurt. Ruzie provided a spark. The he got bumped down. And we were back top winning and losing. Then Lucic is sat. Then Lucic gets on a line with 2nd best ice times. And here we are. It made sense that after the CHI/STL losses or the Dallas collapse that we may see some change. After 2 periods against the AVS, it seemed to sink in. But that was more of looking for anything than a plan. I think I will just go back to commenting on lines suggested or results of what we play with.

The buyout would have cleared enough had we not signed Rooney and not carried 9 D. Might have been able to trade Valimaki at the end of the year. Before everyone started picking up free agents. The owners 100% have to agree to a buyout, assuming the player accepted it while being on IR. I don't think it's a NHL or NHLPA thing if the player agrees. We would have needed a buyout with both Tkachuk and Gaudreau new deals. And that was to just keep the team together, except for Guddy and Jarnkrok. The various coaches have had huge regular season success and poor results after. Those swings are less on the GM. He has misses no doubt. Only some of the players have had good seasons here. Anyway, I'm just saying that BT's days may be numbered. What he says and what the coach does seem to be different. If there are issues, they probably lean towards paying for a coach to coach over firing him. No cost to not renew someone.

The same lineup played for 6 games. Only the goalie changed. Do you think that every player in those games deserved to keep the same line they played on or the same number of minutes? COL has off games and would be justified in losing any game they play due to those missing players. Same with STL.

I think BT had a lot of control, but the owners may have pulled that back a bit. Peters wasn't a bad hiring, since his issues were not while in CGY. He may not have been the best coach, but better than a lot. Wardo was also a good hire as a A/coach. Maybe not the right one as head coach. Where I think BT lost some of his control was the last year with Wardo. He decided just to make him head coach, after really not looking. The Lucic trade wasn't a bad thing so much as a bad final outcome for a poor signing. But that was on the owners who maybe didn't want to buy ouit Neal and preferred a cheaper actual contract in Lucic. And make no mistake, Lucic was a player the owners knew the fans would love. For awhile. So the owners take control of the coach decisions. BT can fire Wardo, but Sutter is the only replacement he gets. They okayed the summer spends on new players and re-signing JG and MT. Perhaps the owners had cheeped out when they could have re-sign earlier (JG) or for longer (MT). That could be the owners or GM, so I won't suggest it either way. The owners will accept Kadri, but won't allow a buyout of Monahan. May not even have been possible but I think Monahan would have preferred it and allowed it. He would have had a choice of teams, Coaching doesn't have to be hero or zero. It just has to work. Build on what worked last year, don't just say that we lost two 40 goal guys. We added two high level players. Listen to them, they may have ways to make the lines or play better. It doesn't have to be my way or highway 1.

So, Sutter gets the best out a group of players up to the playoffs, and the team falls on it's face in the 2nd round of the playoffs. All of those players had career years. You can argue why some of the guys chose to walk or be traded. It's possible that a coach that compares a puck through the tongue to stitching up a cow may not be appreciated by the victim. And it's possible that a coach that is a hardliner may not have as many fans as the team publicly says. BT goes out and tries to fix the roster by trading for two players with a guy that wanted out. And signs a needed player type. Coach isn't able to get top play out of any of them. They have nearly the same roster as last year, with the addition of Kadri and replacing a missing Kylington. Apart from similar standings in a week division, we have not taken steps in getting better. GM gives the tools to the coach. Coach needs to make those work. It's not like we have a bunch of bums out there. The values of the players is par with how they get paid in other teams. For the relative skill levels, this team only has one overpaid player. Not everyone is performing at their expected level, but that's not on the GM. If we expect to compete, we need ELC's and lesser paid players getting to higher value. Can't replace Backlund if we aren't building up that position at the NHL level. Can't trade Hanifin if we don't have people in the org that can step up. Can't improve the top 9 if we never look at younger players.