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The Fantastically Beautiful Joyously Superfun 22-23 Season Celebration Thread

JackBurton said:
This market is a joke.
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Let’s not forget like just two months ago when half this board was talking about what it would take to dump him and his bloated contract. Poor guy has been the most high profile free agent to ever join us in his prime, has performed as advertised every year, continues to make it one of our best signings ever, and is only just starting to get a little love five years into it.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Let’s not forget like just two months ago when half this board was talking about what it would take to dump him and his bloated contract. Poor guy has been the most high profile free agent to ever join us in his prime, has performed as advertised every year, continues to make it one of our best signings ever, and is only just starting to get a little love five years into it.
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Fact check: not true
 
LeafOfFaith said:
Let’s not forget like just two months ago when half this board was talking about what it would take to dump him and his bloated contract. Poor guy has been the most high profile free agent to ever join us in his prime, has performed as advertised every year, continues to make it one of our best signings ever, and is only just starting to get a little love five years into it.
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He was also the biggest NHL UFA in 12 years since Chara signed in Boston. His contract honestly is aging much better than I thought. I' was worried in year 5 we'd see a big dropoff.

The trend of signing guys to big $ until 38-40 though isn't wise. Pens deals to Malkin/Letang and that Huberdeau deal..
 
I’m very anti-old guy deals, almost as much as injury prone guy deals. Stick to players with a track record of good health who are still in their primes.
 
I thought Keefe would be this modern coach who would know exactly how to handle kids and their fragile psyches, trust them, work them into the lineup properly...but who has he done that with since being here?

It almost feels like he grudgingly puts in Sandin and Lilly, and he probably does. If Muzzin was healthy, one of those guys never plays and the other bounces in and out of the lineup every five games maybe. Robertson can't get an extended look even when he literally wins his first game played for us. Holmberg had a nice debut and then what?

He likes the scrappy guys like Bunting and the made it against the odds guys like Holl best. They'll never sit no matter what they do. But the kids make one mistake (Kral) and it's go to the back of the line time.
 
LeafOfFaith said:
I thought Keefe would be this modern coach who would know exactly how to handle kids and their fragile psyches, trust them, work them into the lineup properly...but who has he done that with since being here?

It almost feels like he grudgingly puts in Sandin and Lilly, and he probably does. If Muzzin was healthy, one of those guys never plays and the other bounces in and out of the lineup every five games maybe. Robertson can't get an extended look even when he literally wins his first game played for us. Holmberg had a nice debut and then what?

He likes the scrappy guys like Bunting and the made it against the odds guys like Holl best. They'll never sit no matter what they do. But the kids make one mistake (Kral) and it's go to the back of the line time.
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That's my biggest disappointment with Keefe. he just goes with the old vet gud pros.
 
Feels like, if you're rebuilding, then yeah, they run with the kids, like we used to, like Montreal is.

As soon as you become competitive, and the kids who made you that way are now more experienced regulars, then working in new kids is a very bad thing and must only trust old farts to fill in any other roster spots.
 
The approach absolutely has to be informed by the potential impact of the prospect. A prospect like Robertson has obvious 30+ goal potential in his stick and developing him into that should take a fair bit of priority. A good example of this is Tampa with Brayden Point. As a 20 yr old rookie he scored 7 points in his first 20 games (29pt pace), only 5 points in his first 17 games. He did not sit a single fucking game to start the season. Those 20 were Tampa's first 20 of the year. He was consistently given middle 6 icetime and allowed to work through being a rookie.

Roughly about that time he started to find himself, and popped 33 points overs the next 48 games (56 point pace).

Robertson is 100% a Brayden Point level prospect.

I completely get it if a guy expected to be a bottom 6 type needs to play mistake free hockey and gets yo-yo'd a bit (I disagree with the approach, but get it, that player type is incredibly replaceable) but I just don't get it when it comes to a high skill, potentially very high impact prospect.

Caufield got yo-yo'd in Montreal at the beginning of last season and sucked. Magically though, when he was given a run of games to consistently work through his shit he became an impact prospect.
 
I don't mind making him earn it a bit. His play was poor for a bit there.

Sending him back down would be bad tho.
 
I'm mixed because at his worst he has been a liability and they are just starting to get their games back as a team. But yeah, as soon as they get their games back and go on a roll (they may be already there!) then I'd probably just throw him out there and live with the growing pains because the potential rewards of a playoff ready, fully contributing Robertson far exceed the risks, which would be not fully optimizing your regular season lineup.

But I'm not sure he's done much to show he belongs more than a Holmberg, for example. I don't mind competition between a couple "kids" like that. The Malgin's and ZARs are establishing themselves, you can't take out Pierre, Kampf, Yarn Cock.. So I mean there isn't that much space really.
 
One guy who hasn’t really dipped in play is Malgin. He’s a perfect fit for our bottom 6 and injury replacement in the top.
 
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