dear god, what is wrong with u people? he has a freakin PLAN. i know you're all jealous of the history and tradition, but come on, now.
i You know my take already, I think Claude has one of the easiest system to play goalie behind of. I've considered Boston's goalies overrated in the Julien era, he would rather give up the puck than allow any chance of a shot coming from anywhere between the dots inside of 75 feet imo. Tough to rank goalies. Rinne, Hank, and Price as elite followed by 10 extremely close for me. Schneider hasn't had to play to expectations so he's not there for me. Good point about burning bridges, now that PC is gone and Chuck and Don are in, that front office may have turned back the clock back to a good-ol-boy circus of grudges and guts and flawed decision making. You can't have Seguin on it. He would have to play the wing with a guy like Krejci who is engineered against finishing or play on a line with Bergeron which Clode would never do consistently. The best bet for Seguin would have been to let him carry a line in the Ozone with Soderberg. I've watched every Dallas game, Seguin still is not trustworthy away from the puck. He has to be used as a pivot, meaning Boston would need serious adjustments to any 4 line plan. Only Benn drawing attention and Ruff's iron fist when separated keeps him in line. I still don't see how Seguin helps put points in the standings with Boston. Which dmen are going to get the puck up to Seguin anyway? Outside the pp, it's useless to have Krug and Seguin on the ice at the same time. blah blah blah, you heard me say it all before. I'm still waiting for Tyler to grow up, doesn't look like it will happen in 16'. Stop your dreaming matty, or the voices will get you. Jury still out on Hamilton. Some ditchtastic shifts in CGY for the young man.
BTW, Krug has really gotten better with coverage imo. Either he's making fewer mistakes without the puck or I'm just missing them. He looked better last year and he's looked better this year.
while it's true, that's not his fault. he's been #1 in GAA and SP for the past few cumulative seasons, i actually forget the exact length of that stat but i posted it on the Stats thread about a month ago. that doesn't equate to greatness but at the same time speaks very well for him. and he plays on a garbage team so Id think it would be in the inverse of playing in a Cload system. Playing for the NJD can't be easy night in and night out. he was playing w/ Marchand and Bergeron and lead the team in scoring as a 19 year old. that line was dominate. I think not knowing that Horton was leaving (all done anyway) played a part in the decision. a major part. either way, they shouldn't have dealt Seguin and worked the roster in different ways if need be. At th time I would've been alrighjt w/ trading Krejci if need be, would've preferred moving Bigfat if someone had to go, of course. much easier to hide a defensive liability on the wing than in the middle. Marchy-Bergy-Seguin was a great line and obviously very defensively aware. the shit hit the fan and then Seguin was demoted, the Jagr was brought in and then the Hawks win the Cup. That line should've been much better and had better post season production. The Jagr slowed it way down, he had 0 goals in 22 playoff games in 2013 while playing major minutes. valid. would still like to have more skill up front.
Sorry, but I missed this: (My emphasis added.) I am not even certain of who first posted this. But I have not seen any serious discussion of what went on in the BOS war room of draft day. Can someone expound a bit?
for what I was getting at Dan, the Bruins had a seemingly slightly better offer on the table for Hamilton than the one they took from Calgary. Edmonton rumored to offer- #16, 33, 57 Calgary wound up giving up- #15, 45, 52 Taking in to account that Boston took Senyshyn w/ the #15 pick, there was no reason to not take the Edmonton deal because Senyshyn would've been there at #16 also. Edmonton's deal was better.
small steps, so far so good. i think he's also better at not trying to "prove himself" out there and get himself in to trouble.
O.K., I remember that now. Have to think there may have been some butthurt involved. Besides, I read some analysis of all first round picks since there were 30 teams - for some odd reason, the #15 pick has been a bad one to own. The value for first round picks slide in value, (as based on player performance), on a predictable basis from 1 to 30, with one exception. The #15 pick is on par with the 28th or 29th pick. That #33 pick is dramatically more valuable than #45, and #52 instead of #57 does not come close to making up the value. Again, I think butthurt was at play.
I agree about it not being Schneider's fault. Just like Bishop, I'm a skeptic until they go through ups and downs successfully in big games. Until he does that, I'm not ready to put him in the elite category. They were dominate (notice I didn't go all-caps), but they also had all sorts of holes with that type of line. Their reg season PDO was unsustainably high (see TOR 13', COL14', CGY 15'-tbd), and Clode didn't use Tyler at home for defensive zone starts because he was brutal defensively. He was very shielded. Bergeron and Marchand drove the line and the possession, and looking at the postseason numbers and home numbers from 2013, it's pretty obvious imo. I've gone on about that before, Seguin didn't fit if they were going to contend and he was too many redundant cap dollars for a one dimensional player that doesn't dictate a matchup because he needs another player with him to dictate matchups. For example: Kopitar carries a line, Carter carries a line Nash carries a line, Stepan/MSL carry a line Toews carries a line/Kane carries a line Thornton carries a line/Couture carries a line (years prior to 15' too) Stamkos carries a line/ Kucherov/Johnson carry a line Sid carries a line/Malkin carries a line Datsyuk and Zetterberg carried their own lines On the opposite end: Voracek and Girous are with each other. Seguin and Benn are with each other MacKinnon and Landeskog Backstrom and Ovechkin Twins are with each other (I think Kesler was what allowed Van to take the next step) There are in between groups like Perry-Getzlaf or some years of Thornton-Marleau but I think it really shows how good Kesler or Couture is in all zones. Top heavy teams have been relatively easier to stop/solve in the postseason. Unlike most of the other pairs, Seguin has had to have been a passenger for a pair offsetting much of the matchup advantage his team should have. There are execeptions and this is only a general assumption of mine over the last 6 seasons. Boston had a unique player like Lucic to drive defensive matchups while Bergeron did the same. Seguin was a rider for Bergeron. Lucic sucked but he drew out a defensive pair in the offensive zone. For example, and this should have been the biggest tell of Seguin's worth to a 4 line roster, against Chicago in 13', Krecji-Lucic drew out Hjalmarsson-Oduya (top defensive assignment pair) allowing Clode to put Seguin as a rider with Patrice (Jagr in that case because he was smarter with the puck). Obviously Chicago's depth was a problem since Keith was left but you get the idea about dictating matchups, Seguin couldn't. It's possible it can be blamed on roster design or coaching, but Tyler has a big sample size now.
Having just looked at the numbers and possession stats, it seems very clear why they wanted a smarter player on RW with Bergeron like Iggy. Not only were Seguin's scoring stats on that line unsustainable (104 PDO, that's nuts) but he was the weak link on possession with too many dangerous/poorly designed shots and passes. It was tough to understand Jagr at the time, but I do think it was better than Seguin having gone over all the numbers again. Seguin was all flash. He has similar numbers (except for the high PDO/luck) in Dallas when adjusting for a better offensive center on his line. I'm just waiting for Seguin to be "Seguin" without a top player with him.
I wonder if there were any other parties in the mix. Someday I hope the full story comes out, it made that draft one of the most interesting since the Sedin draft.
every one of those guys that you've mentioned carrying a line have multiple years on Seguin. I think Ruff is smart to ride out Seguin/Benn together and build the other lines up. If they moved those 2 guys apart from one another the opposition would still have to account for the Seguin line. True about Lucic dictating an opposition's D pair. not sure that meant that they would necessarily put their best D pair out as opposed to their most truculent one against him though. And as soon as the puck was dropped Lucic was the worst top line player in the league on OZ draws. As for the '13 Hawks example of D against the Broonz in the Cup, Seguin was playing w/ Kelly and Paille (?), a mishmash line w/ no identity. Marchand- Bergeron- Jagr the 2nd line. The only time that I can recall Seguin getting moved up to the 2nd line in that entire playoff was in the 3rd in game 7 against Toronto.
but Iginla played w/ BF and Krejci. i can't really argue against the numbers but I can tell you my opinion of watching that line is that he really opened up the ice for his line mates and drew the D back. Seguin was also improving by the day and all defensive liabilities were prt of the growing process. I know that the D zone isn't his forte but I think that you're overstating his weakness there.
Toews, Couture, Kopitar, Sid, Malkin, and a bunch of others were carrying a 2nd or first line on their back before they had 100 pro games and many of them went to the postseason in that role within their first 3 seasons. I meant because the defense not only had to defend against the puck, they had to withstand the forecheck and prevent passes. Seguin wasn't with Bergeron much from what I recall that postseason. My point was that it was pointless to put him there. He had a chance to carry a line and couldn't too. It was more confusing at the time, but the numbers show that it was probably a good idea to use somebody to get 3rd line offense going without killing the first line as Seguin did with some of his decision making. The offense generated during 13' reg season was unlikely to be replicated the following year or the postseason. I think that's why they made the decision to begin with (to move him down and ultimately trade him)...unless he was a young slack-ass at the time or at practice.
I was talking about 13', Horton was still there and I don't think they were going to split them. I think they wanted Iggy with Bergeron. It's not the D zone, it's the decision making in general. I don't know if its just consistency or lapses.
To be clear, in 13' the Krecji line was drawing the top defensemen more often than Bergeron. That line was beastly when healthy. Krejci was good enough defensively and they had 2 pairs that seldom gave up something in the middle of the ice when Horton and Looch were dragging arse back.
probably about a dozen or so games left in the regular season + the post season he was on that weirdo Franken3rdlinestein. At that time I think the Bergy line was the best although I still consider them the 2nd line, Krejci 1st line center. Jagr was a total dud that post season and the Bergy line in the regular season had outscored the 1st. The Krejci line outperformed the Bergy line in the playoffs imo, even taking defensive assignment in to account. thats kind of irrelevant anyway, just rambling. Seguin's best year offensively in Boston was in 2011/12, the year after the Cup. That year he lead the team in points and was the best player in the 7 game round 1 loss to Washington. the Joel Ward garbage racist stuff + Bunker Timmy series, nice play Benoit Pouliot. Anyway, Seguin was much more inclined to get dirty than he was the following season, Cup loss season. He struggled a that year and by the end he was a total shell out there. We've all heard the party rumors, his play at that time would seem to back those rumors up, but who really knows. i didn't need the whole long response i just wrote above., the bold i think yes. i meant to write earlier that I completely agree that Seguin and Krejci wouldn't have worked well together. Id like to see Krejci push the puck a little quicker but those 2 would be square peg round whole linemates.
