TurdBurglar

This. If Cunneyworth does a good job, it might change the outlook that the coach needs to be bilingual. I hope he does, it'll open doors for us in the long run if we don't need a bilingual coach. As far as performance, I don't expect our GAA to stay the same and go down, no doubt Martin's style kept it lower than Cunneyworth will be able to. The one thing I am looking for is the determination and creativity to improve on offense. If it stays the same, Martin wasn't the problem, if our offense gets more creative, Martin was the problem. Player need to be having fun to perform well, if they were too constricted, they weren't having fun and bad play results. On a side note, in the player interviews it sounded like Cammy is happy with the change, or could of been how I interpreted it. I know for a fact Kostitsyn is happy about it.

We're talking to LA still, this time about Stoll.

Cole was only averaging 2.32 minutes a game on the PP the last 3 years, while he's averaging 3.15 minutes a game this year.

This league is turning into a joke.

The no-goal was.... Epic.

Bruin's McQuaid fined $2,500 for kneeing. What a joke.

Cole-Plek-Cammy Subban-Kaberle and Patches-Eller-Ak46 Weber-Campoli Got great one-timers on each side of the ice for Kaberle/Campoli to setup in Subban/Weber and Cammy/Ak46, big body in front of the net Cole/Patches, good down low passer in Plek and good down low stick work from Eller. Also with this setup Kaberle/Campoli has 2 options for one-timers or the puck can be fed to the other d-man so Subban/Weber will have 2 options for one-timers, you can put the center down low on the left side. This creates another option for the weaker passing d-men ins Subban/Weber, if they feel too pressured. This would have to be setup as umbrella, except the center isn't playing in from of the net as a traditional umbrella is setup. Think of it as a diamond with the center in the corner. If the puck comes to the center and he is pressures, he can send it back to the defenseman or dump it around the boards to the winger near the opposite circle. Ah to dream, in reality Martin will throw the center in the middle fo the ice to stand there looking stupid and being useless. Which might work if the defense would pinch on the PP, but can't run a good PP thinking defense first.

I don't like the decision, but I can see why he's doing it. The PP stinks, he even realized the PP goal we got against New Jersey wasn't a sign of a solved PP issue. It was a rush that ended in a goal, could of happened 5-on-5, not a setup on the PP with a goal as a result. So tonight he's dressing 4 defensemen for the PP. Kaberle/Subban and Diaz/Campoli, at least that would be my guess as the PP defensive pairings. Also like someone pointed out at HIO, gotta showcase Campoli. I don't see a future for Campoli once Markov is healthy.

Dealing Weber seems to be a bit counter-productive to me. We have a bad PP and Weber has proven so far this year to be our best trigger man on the point. There were reports of Montreal talking to Brian McCabe, but that was before we got Kaberle. McCabe would be a great addition for the PP as he does have a bomb from the point. Question is will he sign for cheap enough.

It was reported today.

Eklund reporting Montreal is one for 4 teams expecting to have a deal done by the end of this week coming. Edmonton, Carolina and NYI are the other 3 teams. My guess is Edmonton and Montreal would be making a deal, and knowing how our management works, probably bringing in Horcoff, overpaid and underachieving. This is pure speculation, but Edmonton does have 3 center, 2 are good the other is Horcoff.

You also need to take in account the 2+ goals leads we've been blowing, can think of 4 off the top of my head, couple of the 1 goal losses were blown leads. While I will agree a timely PP goal may turn it around, the PP isn't the only problem with the team, so I wouldn't expect this to make that much of a difference in our standings. Kaberle has no form of NTC or NMC currently.

I don't see how Kaberle will help us on the PP at this stage of his career. He was pair with the hardest shot in the NHL the end of last year and he couldn't get anything going and hasn't since. I will admit he's an improvement over Spacek, so that in consideration, he's not taking anything away from the team. His contract bothers me also. We got rid of an overpaid defenseman on his last year, money we could use for Price and Subban, only to get an overpriced defenseman to replace him with 2 additional years on his contract. This overpaid, underachieving team we're continuing to build seems a bit too counter productive.

I'd say we dump age and contracts and rebuild, but looking at our previous draft I'm not so confident in the drafting of our team. Just in 2 years we could of feasibly had Getzlaf(or Carter or Perry or Parise), Shea Weber, Lucic, and Keith. Wouldn't we look pretty good now if we drafted those guys. Oh it's fun to dream. I think at this point, after the last 20 years of lackluster teams, we need to take a fresh approach and start at the top now, slowly making our way to the bottom and do a complete team/management overhaul. It worked for Toronto. Granted they signed Burke, but it's paying off now and showing a good team really does start at the top.

I did notice we had 2 goals scored on low percentage shots. Which was great for a little bit, but we still lost. My point all along is when low percentage shots is a significant part of our total shot count, we have problems. Granted any shot on net can go in, high scoring team look for higher percentage shots. I don't like how we're depending on low percentage shots to make or break our offense. It's like playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets in a 6 shooter and expecting to live. @Commandant: While thing did get out of hand and I do apologize for it, I would also like to point out the only name callings your referring to was by you. Also you have to understand your comments come across as irritating when you demand more comparisons but fail to do any research to prove your point. This isn't in any way, shape or form a jab, at you, just informing you how, from my perspective, this got out of hand. Hope you can accept my apology.

Some reports were bringing McCabe to Montreal, maybe this deal did it in or maybe it's a compliment to McCabe?

So according to you, with context, getting scored on twice a game isn't a problem because the league average is over 2 GA/G. Since you can't see clearing the puck instead of passing it to go on offense, I'll dumb it down for you. The context is about turnovers, you know when you give the puck to the other team. In this game in the first period there were 7 occasions where a pass could have been made to go on offense, but instead the puck was cleared out of the zone forfeiting possession, you know the thing where you have the puck one requirement to scoring a goal, giving the other team another chance to attack us. Since this turnover thing is a mystery to you, the more times we give the puck away willingly the less chances we get on offense and the more chances they get on offense. When we have possession of the puck we can then attempt to put it in the other team's net. Without the puck we cannot put it in the other team's net. Therefore having the puck is beneficial. When dumping the puck out of the zone when a pass is available we just gave up a chance to go on offense. Does all chances end up in goal? No, sometimes not even a shot, but as I already pointed out you need to have the puck to shoot it at the net. It doesn't matter what the league average is in turnovers(electing to give up possession by dumping the puck instead of retaining possession by passing to a teammate), we could have the lowest amount BUT every single one is bad. There are stats that are good and ones that are bad. A good example of a good stats is goals for, they help us win games, a bad stat is goals against, they help us lose games. Turnovers in our favor help achieve goals for, turnovers against us, help us achieve goals against. Can I make it any clearer? Do you get it now? In the case of what our defense is doing when recovering the puck, league-wide averages mean nothing, it's bad, the more it happens the worse it is. Now to address the counter-attack issue, a big key to a successful counter-attack strategy is frequently recovering the puck and making passes to the forwards so they can take a shot for a possible goal. Now, if the forwards are breaking out but no pass comes, there is no offense. That being said how can you use a counter-attack strategy when nearly half of your chances to counter attack are given away (see turnovers above). Granted you have a point about how most of our goals are scored on the rush, in CONTEXT, most of the 5-on-5 goals in the league are scored on the rush, therefore by your point of CONTEXT, we are NOT using a counter-attack strategy, we are doing the same as every other team, but failing to produce much when in the zone 5-on-5. Now on to your "big picture." The big picture is players are saying Martin's system is too restrictive. That means he doesn't want much of anything done outside of his system. Therefore this dumping the puck out instead of passing, by the sheer frequency, is clearly a part of his plan. Bringing me back to my point the whole time, Martin is coaching a broken system (if it's counter-attack giving the puck away on purpose is against the strategy). if the coach is coaching a system thats broken, it does not work, clearly (11-11-7), then the coach has to go. You say he's doing an acceptable job, yet being out of the playoffs is not acceptable. See the problem here, need me to dumb it down for you some more? You can call me a punk all you want, the truth is your hockey knowledge is truly not as refined as you believe it is. You've yet to make 1 valid point as to how Martin is doing a good job. You defend him blindly, with no reason. You can point out the forwards are underachieving, but why are they underachieving? You can point out the defensive core green, but why is it 2 of the 3 replacement defensemen are making strong cases to stay in the lineup? You point out our injured defensive core is hurting our powerplay, doesn't the power play unit have 5 members on each unit? Isn't 7 of the 10 power play players healthy? So by this information our powerplay should improve by 30% due to 3 of 10 players being changed. Why isn't Subban scoring on the powerplay? Guess it wouldn't mean anything to you to tell you the power play strategy isn't working. Better players would results in a better powerplay, but not even close to what we are used to. Remember last year we used a rotating umbrella powerplay? This year it's a weird 1-3-1 or 1-2-2 or 2-1-2. It changes and none work. Would you believe me if I tell you Subban's biggest problem is the bulk of his PP goals came from top of the circle? This year he's firing from the blue line. Cammalleri was on fire last year in Kovelev's spot, opposite Subban, this year he's on the boards or in front of the net. These problems are COACHING DECISIONS, not player decisions. The COACH is making bad decisions in strategy and the team's record is clearly reflecting it. So now you explain to me how bad coaching decisions isn't the coach's fault.

I guessed 5-3 score, it's gonna be 4-3. Whether or not we win tonight I believe Martin is gone by end of next week. Be surprised if he's behind the bench Saturday if we blow a 3 goal lead and lose tonight.

So your a year older than me, but your speculating nature leads you to believe I'm a teenager, rich. I've been doing nothing but being credible. I was offering statistics to back what I'm saying, while you offered nothing, not 1 statistic to show your remotely right. Funny how I'm pulling statistics and number from various websites, while your only stats is "show me more because I don't believe you." You get caught contradicting yourself, then you say it's sarcastic. Funny thing is you edited your post to put in a question mark to make it look like you were being sarcastic. I've met many people like you, if this wasn't a forum where you could look back at what you already said, you would be the first to say your saying what I am and I was saying what your were all along. Your a person to switch stories when wrong, like your doing. Over 1,000 posts in a hockey forum and you are showing you can't watch a game an properly analyze it. How is that attacking your hockey knowledge? If pointing out a fact is attacking then I guess I am. You believe Martin isn't a problem on this team and doesn't need to go. You believe our bad record and PP is due to 3 injured defensemen. In all 3 counts you are wrong.

Thats you describing a counter-attack style, saying we're doing it and calling it "quick strike." Need I say more? You want proof, proof, proof, yet you contradict yourself and demand more proof. Learn a bit more about hockey before arguing about it please.

Saying we're a counter-attack team when we're not making passes to counter attack is a ridicules claim. You made it I'm showing you your wrong once again. I'm doing this because of your ridiculous notions, you have everything to back up here. So we're winning off of shots goalies normally stop, which causes us to not win over half of our games, and now these shots are acceptable? LOL Shows just how much you really know about hockey.

So track every other team and tell me I'm wrong. I'm throwing stats at you while you offer nothing back other than the speculation that we're not the only ones doing it. So show me some numbers stating we're doing the exact same thing as every other team bacause all your doing now is arguing with no basis what-so-ever. Here's an interesting fact for you, first period of this game we've dumped the puck out instead of making a pass 8 times, Vancouver has done it twice. Coincidentally we're being outshot 13-7.

Gonna update this post as the game progresses. I said I would count the bad shots and post it, gonna also count dump outs where a pass could have been made and resulting icings. Bad shots: 4 Dump outs when pass could have been easily made: 10 Icings due to these dump outs: 2 1 bad shot not counted was St.Denis' goal, even bad shots can go in sometimes, but it was left out for arguments sake. Don't quote this until after the game please.

I expect a high goal total. With a target on his back and more and more rumors about a shake-up, Martin needs to take chances. I expect us to open up, lay off the defensive game a bit. Martin can't afford another lackluster game or even another loss. Either we're gonna get scored on alot or both teams are gonna score alot. I'm predicting a 5-3 game, not sure for who.

It's not a stat without context. Their 24th in shot %, 24th in goals for, but 10th in shots. In the bottom 10 teams in the league in shot%, 3 are currently in a playoff spot, and all 3 have less goals against. If a high number of shots and low scoring percent doesn't mean alot of bad quality of shots to you, I don't know what does. Instead of guessing something, look it up first. If I could find the stats on actual scoring chances I guarantee you it would further support what I'm saying. What's next? Are you gonna pitch the notion that all goalies somehow have amazing nights against Montreal nearly every game? I never said it was just Gill, Gorges and Subban, I said their doing it also. If all 6 defensemen are doing it, their being instructed to do it, not just the rookies as you speculate.