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Leaf Rumours

By the way, only 2 dmen have faced tougher opponents than Phaneuf so far this year -- the stud Phoenix duo of Ekman-Larsson and Michalek.

Top 10, Corsi Rel QofC:
(min 10 games played)
1. Ekman-Larsson
2. Michalek
3. Phaneuf
4. Boychuk
5. Weber
6. Hjalmarsson
7. Chara
8. Oduya
9. Giordano
10. Bogosian
 
PlayerToBeNamedLater said:
By the way, only 2 dmen have faced tougher opponents than Phaneuf so far this year -- the stud Phoenix duo of Ekman-Larsson and Michalek.

Top 10, Corsi Rel QofC:
(min 10 games played)
1. Ekman-Larsson
2. Michalek
3. Phaneuf
4. Boychuk
5. Weber
6. Hjalmarsson
7. Chara
8. Oduya
9. Giordano
10. Bogosian
Click to expand...

He's been great this year. And he's been playing with a rookie beside him all year.
 
Yeah, Phaneuf has been pretty great this year. A bit bumpy early but fairly consistently great since the early games. It would be great if he could keep the level of play against the Pens up regularly.
 
Yeah, under Carlyle some of our best players – Phaneuf and Grabovski – seem permanently pinned in the defensive end by circumstance.

And y’know, to their credit they’re both hard-working, dedicated, and disciplined players. But focus and discipline are finite resources in people. Hopefully, neither of them feels too caged in or stifled and can maintain a high-standard of play.

Though having a Gunnarrsson or Gardiner beside Phaneuf would make a huge difference, IMO. So he's not defending ALL the time.
 
I'm shocked that we haven't found a place for Gardiner...he's plus defensively on top of being insanely good with the puck. We don't lose anything at all in the defensive end aside from a bit of size and anger by replacing Holzer with Gardiner...and we gain probably the single most important ability a defender can have, the ability to not handle the puck like it's a ****ing grenade.
 
i think some if it at this point is just personnel.the problem right now is on the right side. you have a rookie who is being thurst into a top 4 role who should really be sheltered on the 3rd pair. they pretty clearly have franson with fraser because they don't trust him and see fraser as a guy who usually plays it pretty safe. kostka is a 4/5 -- steady but unspectacular. you probably aren't going to pair franson with gardiner. and then you have a log jam at 7/8 so you have no flexibility.

the key to solving everything once the personnel is settled is probably to move gunnarsson back to the right side where he looked good last year.

phaneuf-gunnarsson
gardiner-kostka
fraser-franson
holzer

and you can use kostka, fraser and holzer pretty interchangeably. when you have to bounce gunnarsson back to the left side to keep the l-r that carlyle seems to favour.

one thing that is driving me a bit batty is how idiots like feschuck are painting this as carlyle not liking puck moving d-men which is actually complete bullshit and flies right in the face of how he operated in anaheim.

the problem si that they have a bit of a weird mix of guys on the back end and cannot be very flexible because they are saddled with liles and komisarek. without those two they would have gardiner up and be able to make adjustments to the lineup accordingly.

as it stands, its' $8.4mn of wasted cap space on guys who aren't very good on their side of the ice, but who are basically entrenched on the rsoter.

i think i said it in another thread; i suspect the reason they won't waive liles is that they're concerned about ottawa ending up wtih him. but they have to make the move because this team is better off with jake gardiner in the lineup.
 
Who did Gardiner play with last year?

I think Gunn has been good to excellent lately. I wouldn't mind seeing him paired with Franson and Gardiner with Dion. That would make a pretty strong top 4. Kostka is bottom pair who can sub if needed on the top 4. Pair him with Fraser or Holzer. Of course, Randy doesn't like two lefties, but I think he's a bit OCD with that issue.
 
At least with Kadri, they had the excuse that they didn't know what Kadri could give them, he had to earn a spot, etc.

Gardiner has already proven he's an NHL player, and one of our best. I don't know what Carlyle is thinking.
 
play gardiner with somebody who will sit back and let him take some chances.

kostka or gunnarson would work. even holzer wouldn't be bad.

gunnarsson-franson would actually be my pick, but i think they have to move funnarson to the right side unless they're comfortable with phaneuf back on the right side.
 
zeke said:
I would definitely pair gardiner with gunnarsson.
Click to expand...

yeah... agreed. ultimately i like gunnar-franson though just bc franson's a bit riskier with the puck than gardiner, imo.

but to start. yeah, play him with the steadiest guy and let him get his confidence back
 
it can't happen because of those idiotic liles/komi deals.

what a mess. they really should have bought komisarek out
 
And yeah, i don't get why you wouldn't buy out Komi if you have no intention of playing him. It would have saved them money too.
 
yeah but you need to keep guys around for next year.

they need to dump liles. i'd dump orr too. you don't need orr and mclaren.
 
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