Shesty Cola

A coaching staff that actually utilizes/harnesses what he does best can help quite a bit too.

Imagine at least one of Kaako or Laffy FINALLY start playing like a top of the entire draft player. And then Othmann comes up 2nd half of year and becomes an above average player in the bottom six. Team would be absolutely loaded. Really nice mix of vets and youth.

Post of the thread. Bravo.

Coaching and system is a critical aspect of almost any sport. Rarely do you see a team with great talent but poor Coaching win a championship.

No doubt its just 1 game. And teams adjust very true. But what I loved seeing is those players looked like they were flowing so well together. That there was a sound system in place that the players beleived in and could excel in. Panarin even looked free out there lol not mentally consigned to deferring all the time. Again just 1 game but it felt.....different and different in a good way.

What did you think of Kaakos game last night?

Several observations that could be very positive inidcators for future performance last night: 1. Laf had a strong game playing with Panarin 2. Trouba played outstanding with 8 blocks 3. 4th line was strong on backcheck with Goodrow and Bonino. Bonino really strong on face offs. 4. Miller was flying around last night and looked good on PP. 5. Really liked how Gustafson and Schneider played together 6. Really cut down on odd man rushes. 7. Panarin looked less ultra passive like he did in Gallant's system 8. East West game utilized much more effectively for scoring 9. We looked much harder to consistently defend as under Gallant's system 10. Neutral zone checking was excellent

Great job by Jersey deserved to win. They ran circles around the Rangers and played on a totally different level than the Rangers did. I hope this showing though means the end for Gallant. His offensive system was absolutely horrible for these skill players. They get shut down way too often by half decent or better defensive team. No excuse for a team that has Tarasenko, Zibanejad, Kreider, Panarin, Trockeck, Kane and a kid line with some decent players on it. Waaaay too inconsistent offensively all year. 5 v5 was putrid relative to talent 2 years straight. Panarin under Quinn could score , wasn't afraid to shoot and looked a whole lot better. Gallant had 0 clue how to utilize him. The kids barely developed under him. He needs to go. This team is ready to compete now and needs a coach who will take full advantage of their offensive skill. If we bring Tarasenko back and with a good coach that takes advantage of these players full offensive skillsets , I think this is an entirely better team next year even if they don't add talent to it.

This stuff usually normalizes by now. The pattern if not in line with what the peripheral stats suggest should have equilibriated...but it hasn't. 5v5 Goals Quinn vs GG Rankings Quinn 19-20: 11th 20-21: 9th Gallant ‘21-‘22: 19th ‘22-‘23: 22nd

Probably the largest problem we saw most of last season and the first portion of this season still remains. We simply have to labor way too much with all this talent to score points 5v5. This was also magnified in the playoffs. Gallant seems to be the opposite of Quinn. If there was one thing Quinn did fairly well was get this team scoring goals. Problem was his teams werent good at much else. Gallants teams for the most part compete really hard, are intense and play great on the PP, but man the 5 on 5 stuff just doesn't generate enough goals.

Early season starts especially for teams coming off a deep playoff run can be slightly volatile. With that said they are 6-3-2 with wins over the top teams in the NHL and an overtime loss to the Stanley Cup champs. I wouldn't be too worried as the signs are quite positive all things considered.

When thinking championship more often than not a team needs to be elite in many key areas but perhaps more importantly, not excessively weak in too many others. So when I look at last year I saw this as many of the weakers areas that needed to be addressed (feel free to add more to the list!): 1. Face off wins. This one is huge because we were pretty much dominated here. We havent flipped the script and become dominant ourselves in this area but the look of it right now is it is much improved. This is leading to a whole lot more quick attacking pressure on the goalies in the and more sustained PP time in the offensive zone. 2. Being outshot frequently in games. Another big one as this almost happened on a nightly basis. Partly due to the types of players we had (too many love to pass). This year because GG probably further addressed this and its hitting home combined with players playing a more aggressive game again like Panarin this has greatly, greatly flipped. We are almost always outshooting the opponents now. 3. Some young players in key roles developing a bit slowly. I get guys entering the league sometimes take a few years to really come into their own but when you are the top overall or #2 pick in the entire draft you hope to see more flashes sooner. Of course I am referring to Laffy and Kakko. Well in the playoffs you started to see some signs and between those two and Chytil (if he can ever stay healthy!) they are really showing signs of becoming more well rounded players. The scoring is still not quite there where you would want for a top and 2nd overall pick but they don't look out of place on the top two lines either (and you hope for continued growth in that area throughout the year). Bottomline if Kakko and/or Laffy finally develop into a 30+ goal type scorer this year...that could leap us from a good scoring team to an outright dominant one. 4. Defensive lapses leading to high danger chances. I think this is one area where we have not really improved thus far on the short season but I do so us being very aggressive in having the D join the rush which I absolutely love. Shesty can make up for some of this but we still need to be more responsible in our own end.

These moves seemed to be done with the expectation right or wrong that Kakko and Laffy will become bonafide producing top 6 players. Otherwise we probably didn't move the needle enough to compete with the crem de la crem

Someone give me the lowdown on what Copp will add to this team and his potential role/fit here.

Love this. Bunch of 'lower level' type moves but would stabilize the line up. Our 3rd and 4th lines would be half decent. Kessel would be an underrated vet who will add his biggest value come playoff time.