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Link67

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Everything posted by Link67

  1. The Desharnais love is over anyway, he gave him his leash, and now he is yanking on it. Last night we saw DD nailed to the bench in the 3rd, and during the media scrum he called him out for not giving enough this season, and that he is forcing the coaches to make difficult decisions. Meaning next step for a wake up call will be in the press box i`m sure. Like i said earlier, Therrien is being true to himself, he called out what he believes are 2 of his players that the team relies on for success, that didn`t get the job done last night, and haven`t been for a bit, and in DD`s case, all season. Listen I don`t think anyone is going to argue that Subban isn't more important to the teams success than Therrien, by far. But the bottom line also is, if PK can`t handle a little spanking from time to time from his coach, and instead shuts down, wants out, doesn`t re-sign etc. then what does that tell us about his character and will to battle through a personal slump in his overall game? Make no mistake, Therrien is not simply picking on PK, he IS presently not delivering Norris or team Canada worthy performances, and Therrien does have the right to let him know about it.
  2. not grounds to fire MT over at all, just because one of our YOUNG stars has a bad game, and has been on a slippery slope with bad plays for 3 or 4 games now, does't mean MT can't drop the hammer on him once in awhile. Subban has not been on top of his game lately, and last night was the worst he's looked all season, MT probably saw that he is slipping farther rather than recovering, and this lashing he hopes straightens the cart out. MT has done the same already this year with DD regarding his intensity and was all over White last season for his indiscipline, both young players in the organization with room to grow and be taught. Why should we baby Subban, why should he be exempt from a post game call out when he clearly plays well bellow his means and expectations? MT is doing nothing out of the ordinary here, people forget Subban is 24, still very young, and still very much in need of these kinds of things, he isn't a 32 year old veteran of 9 seasons here. Subban has had the best year of his career under the hard teachings of MT, and maybe that is what he needs to succeed. I`m a huge Subban fan, but I, by no means think he deserves sheltering from a lashing when he clearly has a rough outing just because his name is PK Subban. MT is keeping it real and staying true to himself, PK knows that, and so do the other players, he hasn`t only called out PK in his time here, and he certainly won`t be the last player MT calls out in a media scrum.
  3. it would appear Desharnais has fallen into the same black hole Gomez did
  4. Bergevin would be nuts to trade PK, speaking of it makes my skin crawl. You give him what he wants this summer because he earned it, and you sacrifice re-signing some players this summer to make it happen. my 2 cents.
  5. really like what i'm seeing from Murray, as our 5th or 6th d-man, playing mean, physical hockey out there, it gives us an element we haven't had since Emelin's injury. I do believe when we have both of them back at the same time, our blue line will be nasty.
  6. you are talking about columbus doing that to the leafs, i'm talking about us doing it to the best team in the league, who had us shut down offensively 97% of the night, am I the only one who sees a problem with this? if you really want to look at Boullion being on the ice during the last 5 minutes as a catalyst reason for the loss, then by all means. But I can type out a laundry list of problems during that game that have nothing to do with boullion, and everything to do with why we lost. Mostly, SJ is simply a better team than us, bigger, stronger, with speed, and did I mention they were the hottest tea in the league when they stopped at the bell center?
  7. all this talk of ice time with 5 minutes to go is pointless anyway, we could have gave Zeus 3 minutes of ice at the end and still lost. Fact is, we are not the best teams in the league, we went against one of, if not the best team in the league, With too many key players out of the line up. We would have been in tough with a healthy team, we have far from that on the ice at the moment, we lack scoring punch, character, leadership, and toughness out there right now with our current injuries. I'm not surprised we lost, and we shouldn't be throwing the team under the bus, and dissecting every coaching decision because we lost to the hottest team in the league at the moment. We didn't get slaughtered, we tried to keep up, we kept the damage to a minimum, and lost by 2 goals, one of which should have dragged a penalty, the other a fluke that probably won't happen the same way again the rest of the season. lets all settle down and realize this team will be battling for the 7th - 5th spot all year in the conference, and when it loses to top 3 teams in the league, we can't be so quick to run in fear, question everything, and want the team blown up, as is mostly the case with the fanbase.
  8. as far as i'm concerned, DD is now where he belongs, behind Eller and Plekanec. Yes he is making a bit too much dough for a 3rd line center, but not insanely too much, and ultimately he isn't holding any kids back, and not taking ice time others deserve ahead of him based on performance. Do we seriously think anyone on the 4th line should get his ice time, his roster spot at the moment? doubt it, my problem with his off year last year was he was in fact taking away Eller's chance in the position HE belonged in because we as a team were hoping to god DD would wake up at some point and kept giving him the 16- 18 min a game. This year there was no choice, Eller came out guns blazing, and DD did not, now he finds himself getting the 13 minutes while Eller get the 18. a slumping DD is obviously useless, we all know that, but the fact is offensive players can turn things on a dime. we were all ready to jump down Max's throat last season when he went almost this long without a goal, and suddenly a 150 foot goal scored put him on track with his confidence and he ended up coming back from such a horrid start to lead the team in points. I'm not even suggesting that DD will do the same, my point is, when he cracks the barrel, and he will soon, he will get himself and his wingers back on track as well. I don`t think, if the season is over and I look at our 3rd line center and see 35 - 45 points, i`m going to be too disappointed, certainly not Gomez disappointed.
  9. i'm going to go out on a limb and say the Plekanec - Bournival - Gionta line is going to cause all kinds of problems tonight and going forward.
  10. we cant call up Dumont, who is off to a pitiful 1 assist in 4 games start in hamilton after a less than average camp. We basically call have to call up Blunden to play in Bournival's spot on the 4th line, while calling up Tarnasky to replace some of the grit and toughness missing from prust's injury. At least both these players are currently producing and doing there jobs at an exemplary level in the minors, unlike Dumont or Leblanc. This injury to Briere opens up a spot for Bournival in the top 9, and possibly the top 6. We replace the players we lost with players that can play in there current spots, in there current roles, Blunden and Tarnasky can play the bottom 6 minutes that Briere and prust usually play. I know Prust has been playing more since Max went down, but he was playing bottom 6 minutes prior to that. I don't think we have to hit the panic button and sign some washed up guy that remains unsigned, and have to deal with scratching them when these guys start coming back in a few weeks. We have no strings with Blunden and Tarnasky, we use them to fill the bottom six, and maintain a similar level of toughness and forecheck, and send them on there way the moment Parros, max and company start coming back. Galchenyuk - Eller - Galagher Bournival - Plekanec - Gionta Bourque - Desharnais - Moen Tarnasky - White - Blunden that line up can do an honorable job in the short term, without throwing away more money, and creating more headaches in a few weeks, thats my opinion anyway.
  11. I believe firmly in the Bridge contract system. yes in the end we will pay out our ears for Subban, but after getting 4 years to properly look at him, evaluate him, and determine his value, I feel we now know for certain what Kind of player we have here, and even if he ends up expensive as sin, we will know that he Earned it, and deserves it. Thats what the bridge system does, it gives you a bigger body of work to examine, and you have a much lesser chance at paying a guy above his true worth because you jumped the gun on a flash in the pan season. So who cares if we end up paying 8 million for Subban now, we know that he is worth it, but if we would have signed him for 6 mill 2 summers ago, none of us would be certain he would end up being worth it. I'd rather make an 8 million dollar good decision, than a potentially 6 million dollar mistake.
  12. Hey I saw Briere make a picture perfect pass up ahead to spring DD, and I bet any other top 9 forward we have would have took full advantage of that pass to score. And instead we'd be talking about the nice pass Briere made to put the game 2 - 0 in the second.
  13. Tinordi will be that man, it is written in the stars at this point, he has the size, the edge, and a heck of a role model in his Dad to be that Chris Pronger type player for this team for a long time. He will only get meaner and nastier as he comes out of his shell as an NHLer. I live in windsor and got to watch the kid several times while he was playing here as a Knight, he was nasty, nastier than i've seen him his entire time with the big club. A lot of that has to do with comfort, and adjusting to the game at an NHL level to feel capable of playing that way on a nightly basis without hurting your team. the closest thing to the London Knight Tinordi i've seen in the NHL is his game against Carolina during pre-season where he leveled at least 3 players, one of which was Eric Staal, and I firmly believe that type of game will be his game in the very near future for a long long time.
  14. well hold on now, I fail to see how we can be considered one of the softest blue lines in the league. this D is pretty physical when fully healthy, our only soft D-men are Markov and Diaz, Diaz is sure to lose his spot in the depth chart to Tinordi if the current trend continues, which would leave only Markov. Even a Tough as Nails team like Toronto has 2 soft d-men with Liles and Gardiner in there line up, but of course the years of punishing our skulls with the notion that this team is soft, tiny, blow away with the slightest sneeze has to show its ugly mug yet again. Even as we make strides as an organization year after year to get a little bigger and tougher, whether from within or from outside acquisitions, this team can't get a break from this stereotype that has plagued it for years. We have PK who is always looking for the Big hit, Emelin. Murray and Tinordi now, all with the instinct to put someone on there backs coming over the blue line, and Georges always plays with grit and determination and is hardly considered soft by any stretch of the imagination. The way I see it, our forwards may be smaller finesse players for the most part outside of Max, Bourque, and the 4th line, but our Defense this year will be hardly something to ignore as an opposing player going into our corners, or coming over our Blue line, that is going to be hard to argue if you ask me. We have a mean. punishing D-man playing on each line once Emelin returns, and that means more intimidation, and more net clearing presences every game.
  15. thats a very green defence we are putting out there, I wouldn't wager much on the results being all that positive tonight.
  16. My bold prediction is Price will have a heck of a year, and be a Vezina Candidate as well as steal the Team Canada #1 spot with strong round robin performances.
  17. The Kadri talk is crazy talk, this kind of move makes us eligible for backlash with our own talent like Subban next summer, or the Gally kids. karma is a mean lady, and she always waits around the corner with a baseball bat for those who deserve it. Might even start with Toronto saying fine keep him when we offer the 5 mill a year contract, and then what? we get a 5 million dollar player with 100 nhl games in, 1 good half season under his belt, any idea how disastrous that could become if he follows it up with a sophmore jinx? not to mention we need the cap space to keep Subban and Markov.
  18. I honestly hope you are wrong, Pleks is our poor man's version of Datsyuk, and players of that type don't come along very often.
  19. That entire community is a joke that is full of trolls, from most of the writers to most of the posters who aren't banned. A total time wasting site with barely any objective reading at all.
  20. I agree completely, every so often i see these comments from Fans about Diaz, either people have seriously short term memories, or they aren't watching the same games as us. What I recall was a Raphael Diaz that almost made hab fans forget about Subban for the first part of the season, and who was visibly slowed by his concussion only. Diaz is the next best thing to Markov we have. Soon Markov's void will be best filled by Diaz, and it would be crazy to trade the guy now, when he already looks this promising with not even 2 full seasons under his belt. I think it just comes back to the notion that we need mean, hulking monsters in every roster spot according to some fans, and the bottom line is we already have the Stay at home, Physical, Hard Hat type guys in Emelin, Georges, and Tinordi. We still need the guys like Diaz to create those offensive chances with crisp passing and slick hockey sense, while playing a smart game in his own zone, much like Markov has done his whole career. But these same fans rather trade a kid like Diaz because he is too weak for there liking, regardless how devastating he was on our top PP unit last season while he was there.
  21. Pleks always hits around the same point total as Bergeron, plays just as good two way game as Bergeron. However he lacks the face off abilities and the playoff performances of Bergeron, which in my mind will always keep him just step behind in my books.
  22. sounds to me like we would all love to have a high scoring two way forward on the team, while we don't have one, at least this year we will get to marvel at the one who is in our division now, none other than Megas Pavel Datsyuk.
  23. On pace for something with only 50% of a season played means nothing, there are points in a season where players who end up with 60 points, are "on pace" for 85.
  24. if you can find me ONE legitimate 3rd line center in the league who crossed the 50 point plateau in the league, i'd be seriously impressed. So suggesting Desharnais will be capable of doing it from our 3rd line? and I firmly believe this is where he will end up if Eller keeps up his pace, they will swap line spots during the season. Sorry that is just a tough pill for me to swallow, and I admire the faith and optimism, but I have to call "Habvision Goggles" on that one.
  25. So far i'd have to say what i'm reading is quite optimistic. Based on Last season, factoring in PPG averages, and spreading that average over an 82 game season, this is what our current top 10 would have looked like. Comparing this list to some of the lists here, and you can see fairly quickly that optimism is soaring. Max Pac = 72 pts P.K = 74 pts Plekanec = 57 pts Markov = 51 pts Eller = 53 pts DD = 47 pts Gallagher = 52 pts Galchenyuk = 45 pts Gionta = 44 pts Briere = 37 pts I'm certain we will see player progression from guys like Eller, Gallagher, and Galchenyuk, but that will come at a cost of production and role reversals for players like Desharnais and Gionta. I can see if not right out of pre-season, then during the season, Eller swapping spots with Desharnais. This would result in an increase of production and ice time for Eller, but a reduction of time for DD and a relegation to the 3rd line which would result in maybe 35 - 39 points on the season. Gionta, Briere, and Bourque will all be wrestling for the 2nd line position along side Plekanec, and what it will mean for the loser of the battle is time on the 3rd line, with lesser minutes, and also resulting in lesser production. if the line combinations resemble something of the sort for the better part of the season, the point production I could see in a best case scenario type of situation is.. Pacioretty(76) - Eller(66) - Gallagher(61) Bourque(54) - Plekanec(57) - Briere(51) Galchenyuk(49) - Desharnais(39) - Gionta(41) Parros(11) - White(19) - Prust(27) Subban(66) - Georges(21) Markov(44) - Diaz(39) Boullion(14) - Tinordi(11) I'd like to think this would be a very objective expectation of what that roster could produce in the coming season
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