Early Player Review

[MAC331]

I think calling Dougie Hamilton "terrible" is a bit harsh. Made mistakes sure but I think once they've split him up from Gio he's look better offensivly and been Ok defensivly.

 

Rhett Warrener was making this case today, and I fully agree, that I think Hartley is overdoing the whole "manage the ice time" thing. Once they got Hamilton the rhetoric immediatley became we arn't going to overexert the GIos, Widemans etc we are going to balance the ice time so no one plays 24/25 mins. At the time I didn't realy think of it but now you do and you ask Why? Don't you want your best players playing as much as possible and don't you want your best players as comfortable as possible? I think its well known that Dmen typically play much better (most anyway) they more ice time you give him so why are we trying to force something on them? Almost no Dman has looked comfortable this year so why not scrap this whole thing and go with what worked last year?

 

To me this relates directly to Hamilton. Hamilton is used to being a top 3/4 blueliner and 23 mins plus a night and now suddenly you want him to be at 18 and be more effective? doesn't work that way IMO. I would change this right away:

 

Gio - Wideman - 25-26 mins a night

Brodie - Hamilton - 24 -25

Russel - Englelland - 10-12.

 

If you are going to go down, go down riding your best players and stop trying to create situation and just let players play.

agree 100%