I know it's not "midterms," but this Olympic break seems like a really good time to talk about where we stand as a team. Honestly, since we're an effective 3 days from the trade deadline, perhaps this is a better time than midterms. Plus, it's not like there's gonna be news or anything. The dearth of actual NHL hockey makes it that much more likely that you'll read this long-ass prattling. Awesome!
So, as usual, there's good news and there's bad news. Let's start up front. The good news is that we've made some relatively smart personnel decisions lately. In the last few weeks, we've offloaded Christopher Higgins, Ales Kotalik, and Donald Brashear. That's pretty good, to start with. Some performances are inconsistent, but some are fantastic.
Marian Gaborik is an incredible talent. Vinnie Prospal is playing his best hockey in 5 years. Ryan Callahan is the one guy who plays hard and fast and tough no matter the game situation, and there is no doubt he deserves his place on Team USA.
In the next tier down, Brandon Dubinsky is streaky. When he's good, he wins puck battles and hits hard, and shows why we gave him the money he held out for. He's young, and I'm happy to give him time to get more consistent. But he needs to get more consistent. Speaking of consistency, Sean Avery might be starting to find some. I don't really trust it yet, but he's starting to get in people's faces more. The problem is that he's not a fourth-line player. He's much more effective up on a second or third line, where he has the opportunity to use his actual offensive talent while being annoying. Buried on the fourth line, he is just a loud-mouth, and that makes him impotent. More on Coach Tortorella not knowing how to properly use his players later.
Olli Jokinen has been around for all of six games, people. He's fared pretty well in them, and he's still trying to figure out where he fits in the mix. Lay off. Personally, I like him at the second line center, with Callahan and Dubinsky or someone, with Christensen up on the first line. Speaking of Christensen, what a pleasant surprise he's turned out to be! Not that he has staying power as an NHL first-line center, but on this squad, I like him right there.
Everyone leave Chris Drury the fuck alone. Let him play his game, on the third or fourth line, and score a few goals, and be our best penalty killer that doesn't wear a goalie mask, and do his fucking thing. He's not the best captain, and maybe he makes a little too much money, but his is not our problem salary, people. Chill. Speaking of penalty killers, Brian Boyle is a solid centerman who does a great job of that, and he really helps me not miss Blair Betts very much.
Anisimov, months into the season, remains a young kid who sometimes does something spectacular with the puck and otherwise is fairly inconsistent. He needs to get grounded, and ideally he will. And then there's everyone else. Voros, Lisin, Prust, and this new guy Shelley. None of them have a ton of skill, but some are better than others. I like the way Voros plays, and I like what I've seen from Prust so far. I have no use whatsoever for Enver Lisin. Shelley just got here, and so I can't pass judgement on him.
What I can do, however, is pass judgement on the men that brought him here. According to quotes I've seen but am too lazy to go look up, the coaching staff feels that Shelley is here to fill the role of mid-30s boxing champion, which they feel is an important role on a hockey club. I can't get behind that. Physical players are important to a hockey club. One boxer who does nothing else is not a good use of a roster spot. Whatever, maybe he'll surprise me.
That said, if we allow for those last two forwards to be Prust and Voros, we have a corps of 12 forwards that I can't really complain about, especially given the body of work it contained at the beginning of the season. Also, for those of you who are concerned about salary (which should be all of you), observe how reasonably we've done for ourselves. The following are the forwards' salaries to which we are committed after this season:
Gaborik: $7.5 million/season for four seasons
Drury: $7.05 million/season for two seasons
Avery: $1.983 million/season for two seasons
Callahan: $2.3 million for one season
Dubinsky: $1.85 million for one season
Voros: $1 million for one season
Anisimov: $822,000 for one season
Boyle: $525,000 for one season
That puts our total for next season at $23.03 million for 8 forwards, including Gaborik, Drury, Avery, Callahan, and Dubinsky, and commits us only to Gaborik beyond the next two seasons. That's a good rebuilding foundation. We can re-sign the forwards we want (Prospal and Christensen) and move forward from there.
To me, the bad news with the forwards is that the coaching staff doesn't always seem to know what to do with them. We're starting to balance things a little more, and I like that the coach goes with giving more ice time to whoever is playing best that night, but we still rely a bit too much on the rewards system whereby your best 3 forwards make up your first line, and so on down the roster. We generally reward the right things, but to me, that's a symptom of a bigger problem: not understanding that lines are supposed to have personalities. The reason we let the same guys skate together over and over again is so they develop an identity. Don't "upgrade" Chris Drury to the second line because he is having a really good night on the fourth. Guess what! He's having a really good night on the fourth! Maybe he should stay there!
I talk too much. We'll continue this discussion later.
No comments:
Post a Comment