He cant be any worse than Tanner Glass. So Al, what would you suggest. Because the way this team is now, they are too small and we will deal with injuries all season long from guys on other teams taking shots at our guys because they know there is no retribution.
McIlrath's weakness is he plays a style of game not favored by AV, I don't know what to say if you don't understand how a guy 6"5" 230 lbs can hit someone with effect Al, not like his skates are tied together. Beukeboom wouldn't say he's ready, needs to work on his skating if these tall tales of McIlrath's skating deficiencies were any more than a board rumor perpetrated by Hunwick/J. Moore fans..
He gets too many minutes and rarely keeps the other teams top lines in check. Is he good, sure. 2nd pairing is in his near future if you're rolling lines out objectively. He's no all star and should never sniff a PP minute.
You rely soley on Jeff Beukeboom. Now lets remember what Jeff was and the game he played. very similar, but times have changed. Again, having McIlrath as an enforcer one who sticks up for his teammates when there is a big hit is silly. He is known for dropping the gloves, that is no longer something every team covets. Who was the big enforcers on the Kings and Blackhawks...how do the Pens win without one? Boston had Chara ....that is once in a blue moon these days as far as a big hitter on the blue line. Even then, its not Chara buy Lucid that is the one who does the dirty hitting.
Trade Hags and Fast for a bigger winger with some offensive game. The bitching and moaning regarding Glass is unbelievable. Let us ignore that for a greater portion of the season we had one legitamte NHL center and were down 2 NHL defensemen, let's worry about a 4th line player. It would be one thing if AV used him on the same line as Nash, Kreider or St Louis...but he isn't...he is a seldom used 4th liner. want team toughness...your not going to scare anyone with Hags, St Louis, Fast, Moore and Duclair
The bitching about Tanner Glass is one hundred percent justified. I cannot believe how blind some people are to it. One of the biggest reasons we were successful last year was that we were a 4 line team. The fourth line didnt necessary light up the scoreboard but it played good minutes, kept possession and frustrated opponents with their play down low in the offensive zone. Moore is still here. Stempniak is a huge upgrade over both Boyle and Dorsett offensively. So why cant they keep possession? Why do they not seem to have had a scoring chance all year? What changed? What changed is that Tanner Glass is quite possibly the worst hokey player in the NHL and any physicality or PK ability he provides is overshadowed by how much of a black hole he is. I don't follow advanced stats but I remember 71 posting that Glass had the worst corsi possession number last year in the entire NHL. Think about that. Worse than every huge goon out there that can barely skate. When Tanner Glass is a minus 8 playing only ten mins a game, and so bad offensively that he has effectively made us a 3 line team, you can no longer just say "oh he's the 12th forward quit whining." He is having a negative impact on this team far greater than anything he provides. I've said it before but we should trade for Chris Stewart and we should have done it weeks ago.
And as a side note, Dan Carcillo, the guy who apparently meant nothing on the 4th line, is currently playing on the THIRD line for Chicago, a team that gets sucked off on here more than any other besides the Kings. And he's doing it for the hefty sum of 550k. Thank god we ditched him for Tanner Glass and his 1.45 million. I'm laughing just typing that number.
umm...it has nothing to do with our third line last year being very good and our third line this yeas is non existent?
ummmmmm I never said Tanner Glass and the fourth line were "the" reason for the slow start, or that last year's fourth line was "the" reason for last year's success. I'm saying last year's fourth line was a big part of it, bigger than most people are giving it credit for. And this year's fourth line is a big drop off that is hurting us now and will hurt us in the long run if it's not corrected. And not sure why you consider this year's 3L non-existent, I think they've been pretty good. Hayes is getting better, Hags has a center that can actually keep up with him, and im not sure who AV is going to stick with as the third guy but we'll see. It's such a cop-out to point to something else that's wrong when there's an easily correctible problem on the team in Tanner Glass. If you want to bring up the third line from last year, I'm assuming you are referring to the Brassard line. Yes that was a hell of a lot better than this year's third line, but I'd say the Brassard line was in reality the second line. Last year's "second" line of Hagelin-Richards-St.Louis was AWFUL. It was awful when it was Hagelin-Richards-Callahan and just as bad when St.Louis was put there. They did nothing at even strength. St. Louis had what, one goal in 17 games before the playoffs started? Richards and Hagelin never made sense to be paired together. All 3 players were contributers to the cup run, but almost none of it came from line chemistry. Hagelin's goals were either shorthanded or came off breakaways. Almost half of St.Louis' points came on the power play. And Richards was Richards. So I'd say the top 6 is way better, but the bottom six is way worse. One way to fix that is to get Glass out of there. Already posted a whole tread on my ideal bottom six. If you have ideas of your own other than just pointing out holes in the team, would love to hear them.
