Dispersal Draft Game - Discussion Thread

[count2infinity]

Player/Coach

[Beveridge]

Nice pick on hogdson

Everytime Pens play him in a game all I can think of when I hear his name is

Spoiler:

[meow]

Baby step to pick 300. Baby step to pick 300.


Baby step to pick 300.

[Beveridge]

I'm going to be in Pittsburgh all day today. If I can, I'll make my pick when it comes up this afternoon if I'm checking. Otherwise it will be tonight once I get home.

[Beveridge]

I was not prepared to have to search again for my final pick. Thanks, Kovy!

[meow]

Poop. I was going to add Briere during the add/drop

[Kovy27]

I was not prepared to have to search again for my final pick. Thanks, Kovy!

[Idoit40fans]

C2I - What kind of formation are you using on your PP. More specifically, where is Kovalchuk? Are you isolating the goalie? What are Bylsma and Roberts doing for you?

Beveridge - Are you going to treat your team s having 1A/1B and 3A/3B lines and balance out the minutes accordingly? Are Couturier and Parise covering up for your point men or are you going for the most aggregate goals during your teams pp?

Staggy - How is the 3rd line running? It could easily be a scoring or a checking line. What is their focus? Are you finding a way to beat the CBA and give Ryan Johansen 10 million a year for the next 20 years or is he just going to sit at the end of the bench crying all game?

Avyran - Is this going to be a typical Julien team where all shots come from above and outside the circles? You certainly have the forwards to play an isolation style and muck out enough goals to win. Obviously still have to wait on the special units.

MIMH - Is this a possession team? I have to assume so. How are you distributing minutes on the defense? I don't know RNH much to know this but is the 3rd line going to be a traditional checking line?

It seems like all the other teams still have some final stuff to add that should answer a lot of questions.

[Avyran]

Updated my roster to provide a bit of my style for the team. You guessed right; it's going to be a typical Julien team with possession, line-matching, & sound defense from the forwards. I think special teams are going to be a big strength for my team.

[Staggy]

Staggy - How is the 3rd line running? It could easily be a scoring or a checking line. What is their focus? Are you finding a way to beat the CBA and give Ryan Johansen 10 million a year for the next 20 years or is he just going to sit at the end of the bench crying all game?

The second and third lines will have similar roles, as they're both capable of scoring and shutting down the opposition. Both lines will get the majority of their starts in the defensive zone but hopefully will finish them cycling in the offensive zone. I don't really care which it is, but we'll be trying to get one of those lines on the ice when Crosby/Tavares/Giroux/etc. is out there. Geno will be getting the vast majority of the offensive zone starts and any time a team is stuck with a weaker unit out there.

My team is built around elite puck moving defensemen quickly transitioning the play up ice to elite center ice men. Johansen is kinda getting shafted but I'm thinking he can support his own line when going up against other 3rd and 4th lines. Hertl, Nuke, and Tatar will have pretty fluid roles and I'm planning on switching those three around a lot. Either way, Johansen will be putting up decent numbers getting second power play minutes and being the focus of a big, cycling, physical line where all the players are defensively responsible.

Edit: actually if given a choice I'd slightly prefer Koivu's line against the other team's top line. Zetterberg may be matched up against top centers if they don't have great supporting wingers (so if we played the Pens for example, he'd be taking Malkin or Crosby) while Koivu will be deployed against a line with multiple elite threats (think Ducks or Hawks). 6 on 5 scenarios at the end of games will see Hank taking Elias's spot on that line.

[Beveridge]

Beveridge - Are you going to treat your team s having 1A/1B and 3A/3B lines and balance out the minutes accordingly? Are Couturier and Parise covering up for your point men or are you going for the most aggregate goals during your teams pp?

The idea of the lines come from the fact that there are only 12 teams. Talent will be found every where so it was important to build 2 lines that you can send out on the ice and say "stop us if you can." Likewise, you wanted to be able to have 2 lines that you could send out on the ice and say "challenge accepted." Looking at the team and saying there is a line 1A/1B and 3A/3B is a fair assesment (I'll go into a little more depth on the roster page).

I wasn't set on the PP lines. I made a couple changes (one is taking Courturier off) to the units. Again, I'll go more in on the PP units on the roster page.

[mikey287]

Good discussion starters, I40. Really good. Thank you.

[meow]

Does the add/drop period begin now? Where should these transactions be posted?

[mikey287]

Yes. Picks thread, please.

[Letang Is The Truth]

is it basically a free for all on the add drop? should we have it go in reverse draft order?

[mikey287]

It's just open for now. I'll give til the end of the day. Typically, in situations such as this, there are about 0 to 2 transactions actually made. So there shouldn't be much to regulate.

[Beveridge]

Unless someone would drop somebody I was looking at, I'm good.

[count2infinity]

C2I - What kind of formation are you using on your PP. More specifically, where is Kovalchuk? Are you isolating the goalie? What are Bylsma and Roberts doing for you?

Personally, I think our powerplay would work best with an umbrella having Subbban on top, Kovalchuk playing the left half wall, Hossa on the right half wall and then Dasyuk and Hall down low cleaning up the garbage. This would obviously require Kovalchuk and Hossa to be very aware of the situations and be able to get back when needed. It also requires Subban to take on a lot of responsibility, that I think he's ready for. He's a great passer and has good speed to get back and defend. One thing that he'll need to be coached into though is making sure shots get through and aren't blocked at the top of the slot. That's a killer for an umbrella type power play.

The second PP we would certainly consider isolating the goalie with Richards playing right in front of him. He's physical, has great hands, he's not huge, but is decent size, so he could play well there. However, I'll leave that for the coaches to decide... I'm just the GM.

Bylsma is mostly on board to assist with special teams. Taking a look to compare where their teams sit the past 3 years in PP and PP:

Pittsburgh:
PP: 1,2,5
PK: 5,25,3

LA:
PP: 27, 10, 17
PK 11, 10, 4

I think by putting Sutter and Byslma together it'll be a great pairing of ample offense and good sound defense.

Gary Roberts was more of a goofing pick than anything, but he's taken numerous players and transformed the way they do their workouts to benefit them on the ice. My team is a big mix of very veteran players and young up and comers. I think keeping the older players honest in making them prepare for the season with their workouts as well as showing the way for younger players to get good conditioning and workouts in will be a great advantage.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

MIMH - Is this a possession team? I have to assume so. How are you distributing minutes on the defense? I don't know RNH much to know this but is the 3rd line going to be a traditional checking line?

Yes, emphasis will be on possession. I wanted to go with 4 puck-skilled centers who can control the game. Defensively I'm going to be giving my top pairs most of the time and only really insert the third situationally or as an energy boost. And no, I wanted to go with skill and scoring threats on all 4 lines. I figure since the skill in the league is more concentrated you wouldn't have to set up the conventional 3rd and 4th lines and can keep skilled players throughout.

I don't know a ton about Nugent-Hopkins either (let's face it, on the East coast I don't think I ever got a chance to watch the Oilers other than when the Pens played them) but I do know that he centers for Eberle and Hall on the first line and is still very young.

[Idoit40fans]

I make a point to watch west teams as often as possible but I also make a point to not watch the Oilers.

[mikey287]

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins - Small, skilled, playmaking center. Has very soft hands and deft touch. Great vision. Identifies seams in defenses like a more experienced player. Has had trouble with injuries and spends his summers rehabbing instead of getting stronger, and as a result, he is easily marginalized by bigger, stronger, deeper teams. He seems to get down on himself and can check out of games as the desired result of a contest can fall into doubt quickly throughout his career. He has the smarts to be a good forechecker, but seems a bit gun shy sometimes, which might have a lot to do with the aforementioned. Defensively, he just isn't really there and he's never been in a situation (as a pro) where he was counted on to do anything but try to scrape together the 4, 5 and 6 goals per night that seem to be required for Edmonton to win a hockey game. Potential #1 center, but he's still not nearing the peak of his development curve. In fact, you could probably say that he regressed last season. But it's hard to say if any Oiler made any progress, except Taylor Hall. I don't blame RNH for being a turnover machine last year, I don't blame him for not already jumping into the elite category in the NHL...I blame the Oilers. And I know it's fashionable to hate on them and poke fun...but this organization - in the City of Champions - is a joke. The management is garbage, the culture is garbage, the coaching is a joke, the leadership is non-existent and/or clueless...the players don't know what to do on the rink...they just go out and play pond hockey...RNH's best year was his rookie year,

RNH, Jeff Petry, Justin Schultz, Jordan Eberle, Sam Gagner...all had the best year of their respective careers as a first or second year player, usually first (I think only Eberle would qualify as second-year). They aren't getting better. Hell, Hemsky left for 20 minutes and went back to a near point-per-game pace instantly. Absolutely instantly. Anton Belov all but walked off the job because he'd never seen such nonsense. And that's an NHL player, too. He belongs in this league. He went home because he was just so confused...Lander's development, stalls. Marincin's development, stalls. Hartikainen is banished for no reason at all.

The Oilers have a disease.

RNH is a really good player, don't let the stats fool you...he plays for the Joke Squad, no one will get out of that alive...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

The Oilers situation is so weird. They seem to have so much talent, yet they finished third to last in the league and dead last in the west.

[mikey287]

The Oilers are the Vietnam War. They send a bunch of 19 year olds to die on the front lines and then when it's not working, they say, "I don't know what the problem is...I guess we can try throwing more 18 year olds on the fire..." (Yakupov, and I bet you Draisaitl makes the club). Buffalo is going to do it right. They're hiring mercenaries to die for them, drones even, while the youth is brought along a little slower...instead of having a top-six all below the age of 20 and expecting them to live through a road trip of St. Louis, Anaheim and Los Angeles...

Sending a team of boys to play a man's game is a recipe for disaster...

[Avyran]

Just as a quick note - I am not the best judge of tactics or anything like that in the NHL. Unlike soccer where I can somewhat quickly grasp the nuances of what a coach is trying to do, I've never played hockey and find it difficult to see the finer parts of the game until someone else points it out for me. I can see it when it's something drastic, like Boucher's 1-3-1 in Tampa a couple years ago, but I can't really put into words the difference between what Vigneault does in NY vs. Therrien's MTL. You'll kinda see that in my description of my team: I don't go too into detail about the tactics in terms of power-play & such. I think I'm a half-decent judge of player's talent & skill individually, but unless I've watched them a lot (ala the Pens) and have constant exposure, I can't really place players into larger schemes and think about whether they'd fit a system well unless it's something big like placing Gaborik in NSH or the old NJ.

Thus, the majority of my judgments & critiques/compliments in these discussions will be player-based. Just noting this ahead of the discussions, so people don't think I'm ignoring their tactics or something. Just assuming that everyone else's points will balance out my player-focused viewpoint.

[pcm]

Yeah I mean, this is why we hired coaches. As GM's we can assert the way we're going to play for sure, like McPhee telling Bodreau to play a more defensive system in Was a few years back, but really I'd think a lot of the tactics will be left up to the coaches. Of course, we can describe those to be helpful, but I think at this level getting into the finer details of X's and O's isn't really necessary, though if folks want to, by all means...

I'd rather hear about what your team's identity is going to be, than nuts and bolts.