Game 6 Panthers vs. Rangers

Losing Keenan after the cup set the organization back

 

Trouba was never an offensive player Step, clearly you're forgetting the days of Hank getting run over. I would have been happy with McQuaid, any big physical dman but Trouba is elite, the stats don't lie and you seem to be content paying a non physical dman who hasn't scored a post season goal in over 2 years more money. Smith would have been brilliant if he paid Messier, letting the Captain walk and scrambling for an inferior replacement while Mess carried a shitty Canook team into the postseason for 3 years.

There is a vast difference between Av/Lav and GG Chuck, AV and Lav punish physical play with benching as AV did with CK and Lav did with Rempe while GG had an over the hill Reaves getting significant minutes to keep the peace. Do you really believe GG, an ex-grinder from the Wings, would give a guy like Rempe a handful of minutes when the Panthers are running Igor? The only similarity is neither can convince the top liners to play physical hockey and I agree no coach will, trades have to be made to shake up the comfort level.

 

We'll agree to disagree there Panzer. I do not think benching the 12th forward Rempe, who added whatever level value and didn't stop Florida from doing what they do (that is not a knock, good teams are going to do what they do), is Lav punishing physical play. I think he was searching for the right mix, which is why he played many different lineups and lines over the past handful plus of games, and Rempe played in most of them. I do not think that playing Rempe as the 12th forward in game 6 would have changed the outcome, any more than it did in games 4 and 5. And if he did play Rempe, I would have been fine with that also. Not a game changing decision IMO.

Either way, I think the main point holds, this isn't about the coach, same end results under Gallant and Lav. Wasn't Gallant's fault last season, isn't Lav's fault this season, while of course acknowledging the coach has responsibility for results. Big picture it is the players who are not the right mix for the job, not the two coaches who have both produced similar results, which is no surprise.

 

Came out today, Trouba broke his ankle in March, and sounds like he was good to play, but still had pain. No excuses, he was not good, but it makes sense as he was really bad once he came back, certainly visibly worse than pre the injury, so at least there was a reason.

And Fox re-aggravated his knee injury in game 4 against the Caps. Again, no surprise as he didn't do much against the Canes and early in the Panthers series, but you saw him doing more later in the series as he started to heal.

All teams have injuries, so no excuse for why we lost, but at least with these two guys you can have hope they will be better and hopefully back to normal next season. Mika on the other hand, yeah that is just soft and lacking fight.

 

Not surprising, you could see Fox was just kind of going through the motions without any jump. Trouba you could see was avoiding things somewhat too. Sucks as we maybe missed a big chance in part because of these things, but what can you do. Fox struggles did affect 10 and Z on the pp.

 

A competent coach would have put Laf on PP1 and moved Fox to PP2 or tried different line combos to shake things up or at the very least drop the minutes of the underperformers but Lav just stood there behind the bench, never even called out the poor officiating on cheap play.

 

So, play no dmen on PP1, that would be interesting and a first in the league on a regular PP. Lav also changed the lines and the lineup just about every single game for the last 10 or so playoff games. It was the players under Gallant, which I agree with, but with virtually the same team (Trocheck instead of Strome/Copp the main difference) it is Lav this time, that doesn't add up to me.

I think both coaches were let down by players who are just not good enough to get it done in big spots and have proven that year after year. That's what I see when a team comes up short year after year with multiple coaches, with just about the same players. I was for Gallant going, but not because I blamed him for everything, it was the players that letdown Gallant, and it is virtually the same players who let down Lav. Bowman in his prime wouldn't win with these players, just like Gallant AND Lav haven't.

 

Why no one ever thought to use Miller on the PP, couldnt be any worse than Fox, especially carrying the puck through the neutral zone to start the PP. Fox couldnt skate for most of the series. Miller's best attributes is puck handling .
He could have split Mika and Kreider...or perhaps used Laff on RW with them ... or he could have moved Kreider to Vinny T and Laff and had bread with Mika... everyone was complaining the big guns didnt do enough...well split them up..get them off Barkov...

There seemed to be too many offensive zone faceoffs that Weinberg started..and too many defensive zone faceoffs that Z's line was on for.

 

At the end of the day, they didn’t have enough secondary scoring to make up for top guns not showing up in big spots against Florida. Not sure if changing the lines would make a huge difference. If you look now at secondary scoring there’s a big dropoff in points. I think typically the team that wins the cup has more evenly distributed scoring throughout the lineup.

 

Sorry Chuck but I never said not to play a dman on PP1., I'd have my boy Trouba out there with Laf who was clearly the best offensive player against the Panthers, not sure where you plucked that no dman from. To me this year was more disappointing than last year's early exit to a wimpy Debs team. All I read after last year was GG 's the problem because all the sackless wonders marched into Drury's office to tell him so. Lav came in 1-3 in conference finals, now after getting overwhelmed and embarrassed 1-4 and I totally understand why ,like AV he's clueless about the difference between regular season and postseason play.

 

I didn't see the Trouba part in your comments, my bad. So, you would have put Trouba and Laf onto PP1, and Fox and I guess Zibanejad off PP1, fair enough.

Once again though, over the last 10 games or so Lav played a different lineup and different lines almost every game, so I am a bit confused by the try different line combo's comments by you and Al.

We'll have to agree to disagree that losing in round 1 to the Devs, being dominated and embarrassed after leading the series 2-0, is more disappointing than losing in the ECF in 6 games.

At the end of the day, you and Al seem to put the responsibility mainly on the coach for essentially the same players not getting it done yet again under multiple coaches. Most of the rest of us believe it is essentially the same players that haven't gotten it done under multiple coaches that deserve the majority of the responsibility and need to be changed in order to win a Cup. Who knows what the right answer is. I think both Gallant and Lav suffered from the same ailment, players that are not good enough/don't play the right way to get it done late in the playoffs as the water gets deeper.

I will truly give you full respect though Panzer as all season long in the large majority of your posts you took shots at Lav and had positive comments about Gallant in comparison. You have been consistent there, kudos and respect to you for that.

 

It's also strange to put Trouba on PP1. He does not have a good shot. He either misses the net wide or throws meatballs at the net from the blue line.

 

Edmonton defense. 6’3, 6’3, 6’3, 6’4, 6’5 and 6’7. Florida will not do what they did to the Rangers with the Edmonton defenseman. It’s matter of the Oilers, getting any kind of goaltending.

 

Lav won the Cup in 2006, his 2nd year with Carolina as head coach, since then he's 0-3 with Philly, Nashville and the Rangers. His career playoff record is 88-82 so yes Mess I'm not impressed. I expected more from Lav than playing high intensity regular season hockey to win a trophy no one cares about. The signs were there in the Carolina series that the PP was struggling but Lav stood pat, didn't even give Laf, who was clearly the most consistent Ranger more minutes. Instead Lav played him the same minutes as Wennberg.

Even with the broken ankle Trouba had a ridiculous edge on hits and blocked shots from the rest of the defensive unit. I know Satherites put no stock in physical play but if the Rangers are looking to dump Trouba who fills that void? As far as wide shots go sometimes the primary objective is not getting your shot blocked but even there Trouba was 4th among defenders with Fox being the king of the wide shot and the master of gumming up the PP.

 

I would say a coach who has been to 3 SCF's, and 1 ECF is a good playoff coach. No doubt you'd want to have more than 1 Stanley Cup win with 4 trips to the SCF/CF in your coaching career but getting that far 4 times (3 times to the SCF), with 4 different teams, is darn good.

As for Trouba, I don't think hits or blocked shots are reasons to put him on PP1. I also don't disagree that as the PP was quiet against the Panthers, I would have moved Laf up considering how well he was playing. On the flip side the PP was great, and had player stability all season, so I am not going to go crazy over one move maybe you could say Lav should have made, Laf onto PP1, even though I myself would have made the change in game 2 or 3 against the Panthers. And Lav did make plenty of other moves and changes.

On Trouba in general, I do agree with your points on physical play Panzer, and knowing the guy had a broken ankle, I also give him a little break for his awful play once he returned. It seemed clear he wasn't 100% when he came back as he was just so bad, way worse than anything we ever saw from him, and I said it real time as it was happening. With that said, if you are going to move Schneider up to the top 4, which they should, it is very difficult to swallow paying Trouba $8M to be a 3rd pair dman. When you take that into account, as well as my very strong belief this core of top players must be broken up and improved, Trouba may be the odd man out, especially because he only has a 15-team NTC.

I would say this, I really don't have a feeling any one specific top/core player must go, Zibanejad would be the closest to that for me, but someone or ones must go to change things up. If that is Fox and we get a haul, or Trouba and we get the cap space considering he'll be a 3rd pair guy, or Zibanejad, or Kakko, or East West whoever it is it is, but it has to be some of them. It cannot be none of the top/core guys. The goal should be trade some of the abundance of skill/finesse for size, strength, grit, and toughness. That is why I am encouraged by Drury's comments about individually talented players, leaves room open to speculate maybe he is saying as a group not the right fit even though they are very talented players individually.

BTW - we need a legit gritty, tough, bigger 3rd line. Enough with this three finesse lines BS, I have been saying that for 2 years.

 

Then by your logic Mike Sullivan, who won 2 Cups his first 2 years in Pitt then hasn't done squat postseason for 7 years is a better coach than Lav? My point is GG could have done this, he wasn't the problem, and the princesses who sashayed into Drury's office to complain that GG was mean so they stopped trying should have been sent a message for their lack of effort either by trading Fox (none of the other top liners are going anywhere) or at least keeping GG one more year. I would have loved to see how he used Rempe and Edstrom, only a ditz like Lav would use regular season minutes on Jonny Minors instead of seeing what he had in 2 behemoths.

 

The problem is the board has a bias against Trouba so every mistake is magnified while a dozen solid plays are dismissed, the defensive unit stunk as a whole especially Schneider who turned the puck over repeatedly, only Gustafsson turned the puck over more. This was the key to Florida smothering the Rangers and keeping the puck in the Rangers zone. Did Lav make any breakout adjustments or inform the forwards they had to come back for the puck?

 

I like Sullivan, and certainly would be fine if he was the Rangers coach.

As for Gallant and Lav, again I agree as I have written numerous times. Gallant was let down by the players, Lav was let down by the players. The players whining about Gallant after last season was more telling about who they are, way more than my issues with Gallant. We are on the same page. I was not a Gallant fan, and was happy when he was fired, but it wasn't because the players whined or he way underachieved with the talent that is here, it was because I didn't think he was the right fit or really had a plan, structure, or strategy. I said many times, God could have been their coach last season, and they wouldn't have won. That was my opinion, not that the players were so good, and Gallant was terrible. Your point, maybe Drury should have done something with the players last summer is the point I think, way more so than if he kept Gallant or hired Lav instead. It is the players not the multiple coaches.

You have created this very strange thing where it was Gallant vs. Lav, and you have been doing it since the second Lav was hired. It is 100% your right and prerogative to do it and prefer Gallant and maybe be a little angry he was fired, but it is what you have done. I happen to think it is inconsistent, it was the whiny players under Gallant, but essentially with the same players it's Lav this time, objectively that is inconsistent. Even in the very simple way of looking at, Lav made it just as far as Gallant did, so I am not sure how that makes them any different no matter how you slice it.

The whole Lav didn't change things narrative is odd to me, he played different lineups and lines just about every game over the last 10 or so playoff games. That fact doesn't matter though I guess because he didn't put Laf and Trouba on PP1. I am also confused by the Lav went all out for the Pres trophy thinking, which I don't see as being true in any obvious way. It also ignores the fact they had 5 days off before game 1 against the Caps, 6 days off before game 1 against the Canes, and 5 days off before game 1 against the Panthers. I don't think rest or overworking them was an issue. It's like the NFL question, do you play your best players in the last game for home field or a better seed, some coaches say yes and do, other coaches say no and don't. I don't think Lav did anything over the top with the players down the stretch, and they had a ton of rest before and in the playoffs.

As for Trouba, the guy clearly was not close to himself when he came back from injury. Sure, he still hit and blocked shots, but he was beaten a lot, and took a lot of penalties. Once I found out he had a broken ankle, I give him a little pass though. I would expect he'll be back to his usual solid self-next season. Maybe not an $8M player, but certainly better than he was after the injury. Even with that being the case, I still go back to, if you keep Fox, does it make cap sense to have $8M Trouba on the 3rd pair, that is cap crunching Drury has to work through. You may be better off trading Trouba if you keep Fox, and he will be a 3rd pair guy