Pete

Breaking down his skating stride and getting him stronger on his edges is something they specifically did this summer, but that could have been done at any point. You don't need to be 22 years old to do that.

Agreed on the patience aspect. It's incredibly hard to watch other teams get number one and number two picks who immediately come in and make an impact. But Lafreniere's draft class especially has taken some time to come into their own. For example I'm much more patient with Miller and Schneider as late first round picks, and even Othmann. I don't think there's anything wrong with high expectations from top three picks, because what else have we known over the past decade? Turns out these guys need a lot more seasoning for various reasons. I'm in no rush to move any of them.

I don't think it's an "either or situation". Yes, he put in a tremendous amount of work to get better, but why did he wait 3 years to do it? There's an argument to be made that it's because a new coach was coming in. Maybe he didn't see the point in working hard to be relegated to the third line with no power play time and just being told to chip pucks in. He likely had some conversations with Lavvy that spurred a desire to work on things over this particular summer that have been a problem since day one.

I completely agree. Firstly, Boyle did a breakdown on NHLNet about how many more carry-ins Laf has this year previous seasons where he would just dump the puck in. That also aligns with Bread's take. The takeaway is that he's carrying the puck with confidence because he has a plan. There was never really a plan after "getting the puck deep" which is a direct indictment of the coach, along with the directive that playmakers don't make plays they get pucks deep. You're not getting the best of your talent with that dumb down shit. Are the other hand, I also don't think any other coach would have changed the power play or put Lafreniere ahead of anyone else in the lineup, so that responsibility doesn't lie with Gallant. He just did the logical shit that anyone else would have done. That said, knowing what we know now, had he stuck with Lafreniere on the right side for more than 30 seconds, this process could have begun last year.

Realistically you would expect your first rounders and second rounders to be locks in the NHL in some capacity. Everything else is gravy. That doesn't mean they will all be high end players, though. When you look at who the Rangers have coming, you could easily see in 2-3 years this team being comprised of: Lafreniere Miller Schneider Cullye Kakko Perrault Othmann Sykora Maybe even Chytil! Who were all first or second round picks. Then sprinkle in later rounders like Zac Jones, Edstrom, and Brett Berard... That's half of a 23-man roster and those guys will be sprinkled anywhere from the top lines to the bottom pairs, and we haven't even talked about goalies. It's getting really hard to say they don't draft well. And we haven't even gone back to guys they drafted like JT Miller who are now 100 point players. What's up for debate is how well they develop guys, but you can see they're trying to remake Hartford. The present and future are both bright.

Thanks for sharing this. I'm about 5 minutes in and they already started talking about Gallant's negative impact, having him dumb his game down to fit in and not being "allowed" to do anything that made him a first overall pick. It's an interesting observation as we also heard Panarin say he wasn't "allowed" to do certain shit. The first logical conclusion is that Gallant was really communicative about what he didn't want, but nobody knew what he did want. The second logical conclusion is that he sucks. I'm going to watch the rest of this in a bit.

Barclay Goodrow scores a game winning goal.

And who stunk for them in the playoffs and first half of this season.

Coincidence more than anything else.

I don't think any team, or athlete, is "scared" to play another team. I think they all have their personal preferences based on who they do well against (Boyle said this on his podcast, he liked playing in Pitt, so he signed there), but generally I think all 16 teams are telling themselves if they play their game, they can win a 7 games series. And it's mostly true.

But who fucking cares? The point is that no one's career was "destroyed" by playing with Mika. Kreider went from ~20G per 82 to almost 30 per 82 when Zib got to NY. You're the one dropping in bullshit bait comments, but you want others to agree for a change? Take your own advice.

No doubt. But there was a way to focus him on doing that without stifling his creativity, a less dumbed down way than GG went about it.

It's one reason, the biggest one. I don't really care what you think is a BS excuse.

Out of his 300 goals, Zib has assisted on 92, Fox 57, and Panarin 50.

Apparently he's like 70 and nobody renewed his contract after his illness.