FelixMantilla said:So what does last night's game tell us?
Does Chia give the team another week or two to come out of their funk?
Well rosters are frozen for Christmas break until Dec 27th, so yes at least another week.
FelixMantilla said:So what does last night's game tell us?
Does Chia give the team another week or two to come out of their funk?
FelixMantilla said:So what does last night's game tell us?
Does Chia give the team another week or two to come out of their funk?
And I believe his career high in games is under 40. No way they throw him into the fire right now.cshea said:Yeah, seeding doesn't matter. You just need a ticket to the dance. LA won the Cup as the 8th and 6th seeds. The Rangers and a Devils are low seeds that have advanced to the Finals in recent years out of the East. So really, you just need to get in. Home ice is a bonus.
I understand what they're doing with Pastrnak. They're trying to avoid using the ELC year as well as not placing unfair expectations and pressures on him to come in as an 18 year old and solve the RW problem. It's a tough call for the team because on the one hand he could be an internal option that solves everything, but on the other there is a lot that could go wrong and hurt the future of both Pastrnak and the team.
I think TFP's post combined with this post is the way to go with Pastrnak. Hold him until Feb/March and then let him loose on that top line (given they don't have a replacement by then).Dummy Hoy said:And I believe his career high in games is under 40. No way they throw him into the fire right now.
I think they're willing to burn his ELC year, but will try to baby him until March and then see if he's still an option. He can play 4 more NHL games before a final decision (I think...<10, right?) needs to be made.
I think they should explore trades for everyone on the roster except for Krejci, Bergeron and Hamilton. See what they can get for anyone else.FL4WL3SS said:Well... Um, yeah.
I'm ready to throw in the towel on this year's team. They look like shit in every game they play. I'd explore some targeted trades of guys like Lucic, Seidenberg and the like.
Chara is about to be very over paid. I'd like to keep him in a reduced role, but with a contact like his you'd like to get rid of him a year early than a year late. Tough call on this roster.
Yeah, watching them is very frustrating. They had no business losing yesterday, but alas here we are. They're better than this. It seems like it's one step forward (beating Detroit), then 2 steps back (dropping points to Toronto and Ottawa). I will say that I thought the overall play over the last 3 games has been much better than early in the year, so maybe that's the silver lining in those two losses.FL4WL3SS said:Good post.
I was admittedly being very reactionary, but this team is infuriating to watch. It's not even enjoyable knowing the wheels will fall off at some point.
cshea said:Yeah, watching them is very frustrating. They had no business losing yesterday, but alas here we are. They're better than this. It seems like it's one step forward (beating Detroit), then 2 steps back (dropping points to Toronto and Ottawa). I will say that I thought the overall play over the last 3 games has been much better than early in the year, so maybe that's the silver lining in those two losses.
cshea said:One quick note on the goal scoring- They've averaged 3.12 goals per game in the 8 games since Krejci's returned. That essentially gave them a full compliment of forwards, and they're producing. It's a small sample size of course, but the offense seems to have stabilized.
Chia should be the one to go, his roster. His terrible cap management.Salem's Lot said:There's literally zero chance that they'll fire Julien.
burstnbloom said:
I disagree to a point. The Seguin deal looks to be an error, but the depth they acquired is part of the solution for the future. It is fairly reasonable that they can retain the UFAs and RFAs with the cap going up and Iginla's penalty coming off the books. You have to realize that they will be losing Campbell, Paille and McQuaid and likely replacing them with $600K cap hits. That's a $3mm savings and likely pays Dougie on a bridge contract. They should have enough money to keep their free agents and add one reasonable piece to what is still a pretty young team, save for Chara and Seidenberg. The real issue is the existing players need to play up to their ability. I count only Soderberg and maybe Krejci as playing up to expectations and the latter has missed half the season so far.
Edit- Another key factor for the future is Claude. He needs to learn to adapt to younger players. Spooner, Koko, Morrow and Pastrnak are legit NHL talents. They need to be utilized. If he can't find a way to get players like that in the lineup and effective, then no amount of tweaking by Chia is going to fix it.
Yep. That meme is getting old. It's just flat or wrong.mcpickl said:
I don't know how Claude still gets this reputation hung on him. Since he's been here, there have been plenty of players who have earned their place as regulars before they turned 23 years old. Bergeron, Krejci, Lucic, Kessel, Rask, Wheeler, Marchand, Seguin, Krug, Hamilton, Reilly Smith. So far this year Griffith is getting the opportunity to be a regular, and Morrow and Pastrnak have had(maybe will again) limited opportunity.
I don't think Claude is afraid to play young players. He just expects them to earn the opportunity. Doesn't seem unfair to me.
You give Claude a 21 year old who's ready to play a big role on this team, I don't think he'll have any issue playing that guy.
mcpickl said:
I don't know how Claude still gets this reputation hung on him. Since he's been here, there have been plenty of players who have earned their place as regulars before they turned 23 years old. Bergeron, Krejci, Lucic, Kessel, Rask, Wheeler, Marchand, Seguin, Krug, Hamilton, Reilly Smith. So far this year Griffith is getting the opportunity to be a regular, and Morrow and Pastrnak have had(maybe will again) limited opportunity.
I don't think Claude is afraid to play young players. He just expects them to earn the opportunity. Doesn't seem unfair to me.
You give Claude a 21 year old who's ready to play a big role on this team, I don't think he'll have any issue playing that g
Sort of, except there's a salary cap so it's not just them being cheap; it helps them keep him (or keep someone else) in the future. Getting good performance from guys on ELCs is one key to a good team...RedOctober3829 said:Where's Pastrnak? This is equivalent of holding a prospect in AAA to save an arb year.
Who is posting revisionist history about Seguin in the Cup run? I didn't even mention that.kenneycb said:And who would you have played that series instead of Daugivans?
I love the revisionist history about Seguin in the Cup run too. Great for two games and largely useless going forward.
Isn't that the point? They haven't been able to develop any depth forwards (whether drafting, coaching, player eval is to blame) so they had to give Daugavins time in a Final while their opponent had better depth?kenneycb said:And who would you have played that series instead of Daugivans?
If Campbell is on the roster, yes he keeps getting put out there. I think he probably should be as well.Toe Nash said:Right, so you can put different spins on each situation depending on what point you're trying to make. We don't know everything that went into the evaluation from our view, but things like benching Kessel in the playoffs were pretty ridiculous and plenty of people said so at the time. Maybe guys get worked in sooner under a different coach, perhaps?
Are we confident that he will give fair shots to any prospects during a probably lost season, or is he going to keep putting Campbell out there? His past treatment of guys who we KNEW had talent doesn't lead me to believe he will, especially if they are players whose game is more offensive than defensive.
He doesn't seem to have an issue playing guys who focus on defense (like Miller) right away, certainly.
This is just false.Toe Nash said:It's not a myth. It took a long, long time for most of the guys you mentioned to get established and "earn" their playing time while veterans who they could outperform got minutes especially if they have a reputation as being "skillful" instead of physical.
I mean:
-Kessel was benched in the playoffs as was Seguin. Both were TRADED and I have to think Claude had a bit to do with those decisions.
-Krug played in the playoffs after everyone else was injured and he played so well that there was no choice but to keep him in
-Bergeron was established before Claude got here
-Marchand toiled on the 4th line for a long time his first year and still doesn't get as much PP time as he arguably should
-Spooner got nothing last year and was sent down. Koko came up this year and played something like 7 minutes in two games. This year Campbell and Paille (and Gagne until his Dad died) have received steady playing time while providing little.
Griffith seems to be the only young player who has really stuck this year for whatever reason.
I'm fine with sticking to the system when you're not struggling to find offense and put together a winning streak, but what is the 4th line providing that cements their place on the team?
Good. God. How do you list those 3 issues, and then manage to turn this into a Seguin problem? Adding Seguin gets you your 1st line RW, of course it also loses the team's current best two RWs. It also exacerbates problem #2, as you now have slightly less cap space to work with and another Top 6 hole to fill, and takes away one of the only guys listed in #3 to help provide cost controlled value. The Bruins with Seguin would be even more desperate to cut salary than the current version was entering the season, and would have more holes to fill at the same time. Chiarelli saw that problem coming, and tried to deal with it. Has the trade worked out as well as hoped? Obviously not, but how exactly could anyone have predicted the Eriksson concussions? Hell, if it had been flipped around and Seguin was the one who'd had his brains scrambled, would we be touting it as the greatest steal of the century, and not just bad luck for the Stars?Eddie Jurak said:For me it really depends on what the road forward is. I would rather blow it up now then spend the rest of the Bergeron era on a slow descent into mediocrity (or worse).
The problem I see is that the team is:
1. Lacking in talent (see 1st line RW).
2. Unable to retain the all of the talent it does have (UFA Soderberg, RFAs Hamilton, Krug, Smith).
3. Beyond Pastrnak and perhaps Morrow, short on young guys capable of providing low cost value.
I'm not optimistic. How does next year's team look if they are forced to roll with an even thinner and less talented roster than the current one?
Of course, the returns to blowing it up are also unclear.
In hindsight, I think Chiarelli wrecked the organization with the Seguin deal. Even if Chiarelli was correct that Seguin's greatest value to the Bruins was as a trade chip, that doesn't excuse his bungling of the deal.
I very much agree with all of this and PSKs point earlier. I feel a little guilty that my previous point devolved into this Seguin shitfest. There is no room on this team for a one player solution. There needs to be major improvement from their existing forward group and the dead weight needs to be shed so that the higher upside players are given a chance to accelerate the learning curve. If they continue to suck and add a guy like Stewart in exchange for assets, I might just scream. Get rid of the garbage, let the kids make mistakes so they are better later in the year/next year rather than having to go through it all again next year.The Four Peters said:There is a remarkable amount of revisionist history going on in this thread and the gamethread (I'll move those posts over). I don't have time to identify every single one, but things like "Marchand toiled on the fourth line" or the sentiment that Krug wasn't anything but a UDFA rookie stepping into the playoffs for the first time and never losing his spot is somehow a mark AGAINST Claude playing young players, or that Reilly Smith is just an "ok prospect", or that Spooner has been objectively horrendous in a fair amount of playing time in the NHL, or that Seguin wasn't complete garbage in the 2013 Cup run and having a "goal scorer" would have led them to the promised land (this one is implied). I'm left just absolutely baffled if people are watching the same team.
The real issues are these:
- Bergeron, Tuukka, and Krejci all got paid, and their performance has not improved and in some cases has declined, yet the aggregate cap hit for them is much higher now.
- The Iginla cap carryover (a move I supported but it didn't work out)
- The knee injuries to Chara and Seidenberg sapping them of being a top pairing
- Lucic falling off a cliff (and being their 2nd highest paid forward)
- Miller/McQuaid/Campbell/Bartkowski eating up over 5M in cap money and providing absolutely nothing, probably a negative overall.
The only upside in replacement production has been Dougie and Soderberg outperforming their deals, and maybe Krug and Reilly Smith. Marchand and Kelly have been ok for what they're paid and I like Paille for what he is.
Keeping Seguin would have made this team MORE top heavy, or meaning that one of Tuukka, Bergeron, or Krejci would be gone and the rest of the roster would be even worse. Maybe that would have worked out great. But you're not going to see the Bruins paying 6-9M for a goal scorer, it's not how they're built, it's not their philosophy, and that's not going to change. The issues with the Bruins right now are not just related to trading Seguin. They're also related to a lot of things that happened after that.
RedOctober3829 said:Where's Pastrnak? This is equivalent of holding a prospect in AAA to save an arb year.
BigMike said:
I'm not sure that is the case. He has NHL talent, but not an NHL body, and he struggled badly in his earlier tryout.
He's only played a high of like 35 games in a year so the concerns about the rookie wall are quite real.TheShynessClinic said:
Is this true? I don't seem to remember him struggling. As far as I recall - he played really well, and many here thought he should stay up on the big club.
kenneycb said:He's only played a high of like 35 games in a year so the concerns about the rookie wall are quite real.