AV - F Refuses to play and D men with toughness who are stay at home types. He became a moron 3 years ago. Screwed over countless prospects. Kreider B+ Played well after a tough injury. Team was even worse when he was out. Zibanejad B- Still too inconsistent but he can build on his finish to the end of the season. Hayes - A Quietly finished over 50% on draws. Had to endure moron AV bending over for lazy Miller who he put in an offensive role when he made Hayes a checker. Positive going forward Zucc C+ Not a great season from him but he's still a good player. Fast A Great role player Nash C- Still never could score much for his money Grabner B+ Great role player Miller C- Disappointed again with his consistency and countless, stupid, turnovers Vesey C Would have been much better if moron AV would have played him on the PP Buchnevich D Kid is soft, plays no defense and overall, is lazy. I have no problem if they trade him to move up in the draft. Spooner B Solid but again, he can be used to trade up. Namestiknov D- Saw nothing I liked about his game going forward. Desharcrap F Sucks. The fact he was still playing is a good example of why AV needed to be canned Nieves B Not a fan but the kid did well for a 4th liner as a rookie. Then was punished for it by our moron coach. Carey F Another guy who shouldn't be playing on this team. Good job AV Smith F- Sucked more than our current technology could measure. DeAngelo F- Has no ability to defend at the pro's. Still shocked our GM hasn't converted him to a forward McDonagh C Not a great year from a top defenseman. He was turnover prone. Probably the system as well Staal B+ Had a good year. He might be trade bait now if they retain some of his salary Pionk A- More than I expected. Good debut. Gilmour C Don't see a pro here. Shattenkirk C Hard to give him a grade considering he played hurt all year. Sproul F- See DeAngelo Gara F- See Sproul Skjei C- He was not very good this year. See McDonagh. System probably was a big part of it. Gorton A+ Fired AV. That would bring him to a B alone. Ripped off the Devils in his deal. Ripped off the Bruins in his deal. Made a solid deal with Tampa. Hajek has a chance to be a top 4 guy for a long time. Howden is the type of character guy with skill this team lacks. Adding Spooner and Namestiknov was smart because those are guys he can use to move up from later round picks to around the 16 to 21 area. Dumping Miller was brilliant as well. He would have had to pay that dog 5+ million for about 4 to 5 years. Cleared a lot of cap space. Now he can make a run at Tavares if he comes on the market.
Buchnevich is a typical, lazy, Russian player. Not many coaches fix lazy. I would love to see Gorton dump him on draft day. He would absolutely be a guy I would trade to move up 3-4 spots if I could draft Tkachuk.
I would've liked to see a few more games from Fogarty but maybe he'll get more of a preseason look. I still think he could be a good 4th liner.
I think a lot of our players (especially the dmen) suffered from AV’s system. Especially since he would never adapt or adjust to what was going on during the game. His solution always was to just change up lines but keep the same no defense try and use a stretch pass philosophy. Hell, he thought if we could keep opponents shots at around 40 we were playing good defense. That’s just shots on goal, not even shots attempted. Guy was a tool and needed to be gone before the season even started.
