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The ****ing Season thread, 2015/16 Edition

I just love how people making these sweeping claims about a player who has yet to even get a cup of tea at the NHL level and has been a force at the age of 19 in the AHL. "He doesn't know how to play intense hockey!"

Tool.
 
leaffan2005 said:
I just love how people making these sweeping claims about a player who has yet to even get a cup of tea at the NHL level and has been a force at the age of 19 in the AHL. "He doesn't know how to play intense hockey!"

Tool.
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He's got 6 points in 9 playoff games in the 2nd best league in the world as one of the youngest players in the league., just coming off of a series against an outright dirty team of AHL plugs who were clearly out there with intent to injure. Would it be nice if he was absolutely dominant, sure. Am I going to hold it against him at this point? No, that would be ridiculous. Why? Well, just look at the leading scorer in the NHL playoffs right now. Logan Couture in his D+2 season (same as Nylander) scored 3 points in 12 AHL playoff games. Nylander is way ahead of schedule for his development, and "intensity" is a learned trait.
 
I thought he had a solid game yesterday. He wasn't dominant which I guess is disappointing, although its not really a fair expectation. He was creating chances and was one of the few Marlies that didn't have much trouble breaking through the Devils neutral zone trap. I thought he was one of their best forwards last night with Kapanen and Brown.
 
leafman101 said:
I thought he had a solid game yesterday. He wasn't dominant which I guess is disappointing, although its not really a fair expectation. He was creating chances and was one of the few Marlies that didn't have much trouble breaking through the Devils neutral zone trap. I thought he was one of their best forwards last night with Kapanen and Brown.
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For sure. Kapanen & Brown were a force last night, as was Hyman. As for Willy, last night was a big step up from the his performance in the rest of the series, which was really nice to see in a game seven situation. He did a much better job at battling for loose pucks & creating offensive chances five-on-five, and overall his line spent way more time controlling the puck in the Albany zone than they generally have.

This all just underscores what a great learning experience this lengthy Calder Cup run is for our young guys. And the rough stuff probably isn't about to let up. Apparently the Hershey team they're about to go up against has even more knuckle-dragging, PIM-compiling goons than Albany did.
 
Lets not forget that Albany is the second best team in the AHL this year too. Severson is a dominant defenseman at the AHL level, and Blandisi is a good NHL player. I was really impressed with both of those guys. And Sislo is an AHL star. Nylander had his hands full this round.
 
Something is off with him. He is taking extremely short shifts and while playing well not up to his best ability.

I suspect when the playoffs are over the injury news will likely come out.
 
Wasn't he sick recently? if it was anything respiratory which is what was going around he simply may be gassed all the time.
 
I don't think Keefe would have called him out if it was something major. He looks kind of disinterested out there for some reason. With that said, I still value his NHL stint much higher than these playoffs, so whatever, who cares. Disappointing for sure, but who cares.
 
leafman101 said:
Lets not forget that Albany is the second best team in the AHL this year too. Severson is a dominant defenseman at the AHL level, and Blandisi is a good NHL player. I was really impressed with both of those guys. And Sislo is an AHL star. Nylander had his hands full this round.
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They also compiled that record with only 22 games of Scott Wedgewood---and the goaltending they had when Wedgewood was away in New Jersey was worse by a fair margin.

This series was a pretty tough test for the Marlies, no doubt.

They also kind of deliberately made things more difficult for themselves by starting Bibeau over Sparks for games 2 through 7. I'm still not sure at the reasoning for that.
 
MindzEye said:
Except late in the 3rd period where he almost buried the winner, then controlled the puck on the end boards to set up Kappy with all the time in the world to find Carrick.

I mean, when the kid played his best 10 minutes of the game in the last 10 minutes of a tied 3-3 game 7, that kind of blows up this whole theory of yours, doesn't it?
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He obviously didn't watch
 
Preston_Mizzi said:
I don't think Keefe would have called him out if it was something major. He looks kind of disinterested out there for some reason. With that said, I still value his NHL stint much higher than these playoffs, so whatever, who cares. Disappointing for sure, but who cares.
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Yeah i don't think so either.

Keefe..

"We need Willy to be a lot more competitive with and without the puck. He's fallen off the gas quite a bit when we don't have the puck and as a result we don't have it nearly enough when he's out there and he's not able to use his strength. You talk about our team and ability to step up, well he's a young guy game 7 experience will be big for him...."


[video=youtube;hQBtPY593HU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQBtPY593HU[/video]
 
LeafGm said:
They also compiled that record with only 22 games of Scott Wedgewood---and the goaltending they had when Wedgewood was away in New Jersey was worse by a fair margin.

This series was a pretty tough test for the Marlies, no doubt.

They also kind of deliberately made things more difficult for themselves by starting Bibeau over Sparks for games 2 through 7. I'm still not sure at the reasoning for that.
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Yes and yes.

It was a tough test, not only because of Albany's style (which makes life very tough for the Marlies' style), but also because Albany is a good team esp with Wedgewood in goal.

I also don't understand why they decided to go with Bibeau. Obviously, they have to go with 1 goalie down the stretch so I wasn't surprised at some point in playoff they go with 1 guy. I am, however, surprised they go with Bibeau who has been shakey at best at various points of the playoff. This may be a test for Bibeau, or maybe organization wants to know what they've got in Bibeau, or maybe it's also about how they rate Bibeau and Sparks in the depth chart.

For the record, Bibeau played well in Game 7. He was pretty meh in game 6.
 
PKForce81 said:
Yeah i don't think so either.

Keefe..

"We need Willy to be a lot more competitive with and without the puck. He's fallen off the gas quite a bit when we don't have the puck and as a result we don't have it nearly enough when he's out there and he's not able to use his strength. You talk about our team and ability to step up, well he's a young guy game 7 experience will be big for him...."


[video=youtube;hQBtPY593HU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQBtPY593HU[/video]
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:nono::sarcasm
 
Artnes said:
Something is off with him. He is taking extremely short shifts and while playing well not up to his best ability.

I suspect when the playoffs are over the injury news will likely come out.
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Agreed. What I've said the whole time.

He had something significant enough to miss a playoff game for and when he came back he didn't look like his usual self.
 
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hockeylover said:
Agreed. What I've said the whole time.

He had something significant enough to miss a playoff game for and when he came back he didn't look like his usual self.
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I'm not as worried with Willy as i was with Phil when it comes to compete level(plus we have Babcock and he knows how to get guys going). The thing is, this isn't the first time Keefe mentioned above so it's definitely a pattern that he needs to get rid of as he'll end up getting less minutes with us(Babcock is even more about work ethic than Keefe) and we don't want one of our best players getting less minutes. If you want i can try to find a video very similar to the one above(this was months ago shortly before Willy got a call up to the Leafs...also Babs mentioned very similar in couple of his interviews) but i have no reason to lie(and again i think he'll get better, similar to how Naz eventually did too). I've seen him do great things when he actually does engage(unlike Phil who was ineffective even when he actually tried to engage) so it's something that'll take a bit more time.
 
So uhh...that video is from before game 7, and in game 7 Willy played a solid game grabbing an assist on the game winner.
 
Metalleaf said:
He's 19.
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Sure and so there's a good chance he'll get better but Kapanen is 19 and if his talent level was anywhere near Nylander's he would have made it to the NHL before Willy because he does all the other things much better(backchecks hard, wins board battles, etc). Making it difficult for others to play against you should be on every players' mind and this is especially true when you make it to the NHL.
 
Nylander had some bad moments last night, but like Mindz said, he played well when it mattered and in the dying moments of a tie game.

Kapanen has ice in his veins, a la Justin Williams. He's developed a knack for scoring big goals.
 
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