Lafrenière Re-Re-Reset: 2023–24 Edition

[Pete]

2 hours ago, LindG1000 said:

 

Hindsight is 20/20, but every passing day with Laviolette makes me angrier and angrier about Gallant. And it's not the attitude mix you're calling out. It's that he was so obviously the wrong coach for that team at that time, and it cost this franchise a lot. And look, maybe it was a necessary growing pain and half the team had a "Fuck you Jobu, I do this myself" moment (and damn, does it sure feel like that was the case for Panarin, Trocheck, Lafreniere, Braden Schneider, and a few others), but I can't shake how Gallant fucked up so badly with the kids and basic ass game management. I think there's an argument that a better coach manages to beat the Lightning in 2022 and possibly win the Cup. I also think there's an argument that a better coach outs the Devils in 5 last year and moves on to god knows what. And, I think there's a very strong argument that a better coach finds this version of Lafreniere, a better version of Kakko, of Chytil, of Miller, of Schneider - far sooner than it's taken.

 

Lafreniere has a bright, bright future in this league, and he plays a playoff-tested game. We should be very, very excited for what we've got here.

Spot on.

 

I think this team is more well-rounded than a lot of those GG teams but even if I wanted to entertain the thought that the team two years ago that went to the Eastern conference final was better... Imagine what they would have done with a real coach instead of what they had. Even last year's team, imagine having a real coach make a real adjustment instead of just rotating through right wings... 

 

It was wasted. 

[RangersIn7]

29 minutes ago, Pete said:

Spot on.

 

I think this team is more well-rounded than a lot of those GG teams but even if I wanted to entertain the thought that the team two years ago that went to the Eastern conference final was better... Imagine what they would have done with a real coach instead of what they had. Even last year's team, imagine having a real coach make a real adjustment instead of just rotating through right wings... 

 

It was wasted. 

Gallant made plenty of mistakes and his style and approach to coaching isn’t conducive to actually win a Cup.

 
But when they hired him, he was the coach they needed at the time. 

[LindG1000]

13 minutes ago, RangersIn7 said:

Gallant made plenty of mistakes and his style and approach to coaching isn’t conducive to actually win a Cup.

 
But when they hired him, he was the coach they needed at the time. 

 

The coach they needed at the time had literally one job - develop the kids, don't alienate the veterans.

 

By the year 1.5 mark, he'd stagnated Lafreniere, he'd stagnated Kakko, he'd stagnated Miller, he had Schneider swimming underwater, and he'd stagnated Chytil. By the end of that year, he had Kreider looking like someone shot his dog, Mika looking more vacant than usual, made Trocheck look awful, and had Panarin convinced he had demons living in his hair.

 

I just don't think that's a good 22 months. 

[Albatrosss]

9 minutes ago, RangersIn7 said:

Gallant made plenty of mistakes and his style and approach to coaching isn’t conducive to actually win a Cup.

 
But when they hired him, he was the coach they needed at the time. 

plus Laf, Kappo, Schneider, Miller, Chytil are all 2 years older and 2 years better this year. Plus Trocheck is no wet noodle.  

I dont think its that simple to say "oh, its the coach".   There were a lot of other factors in play.  The team was just not ready

 

[Albatrosss]

Laffy has to get PP1 minutes next year or he might revolt.  He has to.  It's going to be interesting to see what Laviolette does next season and who he takes off PP1.  I assume it has to be either Mika or Trocheck.  

[Pete]

31 minutes ago, LindG1000 said:

 

The coach they needed at the time had literally one job - develop the kids, don't alienate the veterans.

 

By the year 1.5 mark, he'd stagnated Lafreniere, he'd stagnated Kakko, he'd stagnated Miller, he had Schneider swimming underwater, and he'd stagnated Chytil. By the end of that year, he had Kreider looking like someone shot his dog, Mika looking more vacant than usual, made Trocheck look awful, and had Panarin convinced he had demons living in his hair.

 

I just don't think that's a good 22 months. 

There was a reason they discussed booting him in November/December of last season.

[phillyb]

36 minutes ago, Albatrosss said:

Laffy has to get PP1 minutes next year or he might revolt.  He has to.  It's going to be interesting to see what Laviolette does next season and who he takes off PP1.  I assume it has to be either Mika or Trocheck.  

I think about this more than the Roman Empire. 

[RangersIn7]

1 hour ago, Albatrosss said:

plus Laf, Kappo, Schneider, Miller, Chytil are all 2 years older and 2 years better this year. Plus Trocheck is no wet noodle.  

I dont think its that simple to say "oh, its the coach".   There were a lot of other factors in play.  The team was just not ready

 

Yes

 

And let’s face it… Quinn was fine to hire. But he was a 1st time NHL coach out of college hockey and was a tight guy with discipline and being a hard ass as his tendencies. 
 

They needed a guy like Gallant right then as the next coach. It paid dividends. Just not the ultimate one.

He won 100 games in 2 years and they went to the ECF.

He did well. 

Just lost the room and wasn’t the ultimate guy for them,

[The Dude]

3 hours ago, LindG1000 said:

 

The coach they needed at the time had literally one job - develop the kids, don't alienate the veterans.

 

By the year 1.5 mark, he'd stagnated Lafreniere, he'd stagnated Kakko, he'd stagnated Miller, he had Schneider swimming underwater, and he'd stagnated Chytil. By the end of that year, he had Kreider looking like someone shot his dog, Mika looking more vacant than usual, made Trocheck look awful, and had Panarin convinced he had demons living in his hair.

 

I just don't think that's a good 22 months. 

Meh. Miller had a 40 point season last year, Kakko and Chytil had their best seasons. Schneider was a rookie and looked absolutely fantastic, earning the job over 2 vets... GG had Kreider at 50 goals the year prior and had Panarin playing great with Ryan Strome that year as well. 

 

I think a lot of the anti GG stuff is a bit exaggerated. He lost the room. He always loses the room. He's definitely not youth friendly with forwards, but he rolled with a very young D in Fox,  Lindgren, Miller and Schneider. 

 

Let's not seriously disparage 2- 100 point seasons as if that can be done with anyone behind the bench. He did good enough for his time here, for how he coaches.  

 

Laviolette is just head and shoulders a better coach than GG and it shows in the product on the ice. 

 

[Morphinity 2.0]

Dimitri Filipovic had Daryl Belfry on and they broke down Laf's improvement aided by a sizzle reel:

 

 

[Pete]

17 minutes ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

Dimitri Filipovic had Daryl Belfry on and they broke down Laf's improvement aided by a sizzle reel:

 

 

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. 

[Morphinity 2.0]

2 minutes ago, Pete said:

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. 

Yeah, a lot of it is pointing out how many more puck touches Lafreniere is getting vs. his previous years. And he credits that to a) playing with Panarin and b) getting more leash from his coaches.

 

I don't completely blame Gallant. As they said in the beginning of the video, he's a kid coming onto a team trying to win right away with a logjam at LW ahead of him. So he's already behind the 8-ball in terms of optimal development for an elite talent. Some of it falls on Quinn's and Gallant's coaching style for sure, but I'm not sure how another coach would have squeezed even more out of him early in his career. 

[Pete]

6 minutes ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

Yeah, a lot of it is pointing out how many more puck touches Lafreniere is getting vs. his previous years. And he credits that to a) playing with Panarin and b) getting more leash from his coaches.

 

I don't completely blame Gallant. As they said in the beginning of the video, he's a kid coming onto a team trying to win right away with a logjam at LW ahead of him. So he's already behind the 8-ball in terms of optimal development for an elite talent. Some of it falls on Quinn's and Gallant's coaching style for sure, but I'm not sure how another coach would have squeezed even more out of him early in his career. 

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. 

Edited April 18 by Pete

[RangersIn7]

4 minutes ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

Yeah, a lot of it is pointing out how many more puck touches Lafreniere is getting vs. his previous years. And he credits that to a) playing with Panarin and b) getting more leash from his coaches.

 

I don't completely blame Gallant. As they said in the beginning of the video, he's a kid coming onto a team trying to win right away with a logjam at LW ahead of him. So he's already behind the 8-ball in terms of optimal development for an elite talent. Some of it falls on Quinn's and Gallant's coaching style for sure, but I'm not sure how another coach would have squeezed even more out of him early in his career. 

Well they were never going to gift him minutes. And he was always going to be stuck behind CK and Panarin, because they weren’t going to move him in his first season, and probably his second season either.

 

I don’t put much if any on Quinn.

 

But they needed to move him to RW and up his minutes last year and they didn’t.

 

Thats totally on Gallant. 

[Sharpshooter]

Yeah, Laf, as a first overall pick, came into a situation that most first overalls don't come in to, a team ready to contend. His growth was stunted a bit because of that. This year? Absolutely tremendous strides. The fact he did what he did without really much PP time is pretty incredible. I don't see how Lav doesn't re-evaluate that for next season. Get him some time on the top unit and see what he does.

[Valriera]

Gallant was a shitty coach like we all know but Lafreniere’s growth this season is because he put in obvious immense off season work to his skating and everything else is secondary. If he was the same player when Gallant was here, we’d know. Don’t take away the kid’s credit for putting in the work by placing the blame for him on Gallant. GG had a lot of flaws but Lafreniere outright sucked donkey dick his first few seasons, worked ridiculously hard on the off season, and earned his progress this year. He didn’t deserve any looks on the powerplay or the top line, he was that bad. This year, it’s only the way it is bc our PP is the best in the league. He’s made it hard because of him, not the coach 

[RangersIn7]

3 minutes ago, Sharpshooter said:

Yeah, Laf, as a first overall pick, came into a situation that most first overalls don't come in to, a team ready to contend. His growth was stunted a bit because of that. This year? Absolutely tremendous strides. The fact he did what he did without really much PP time is pretty incredible. I don't see how Lav doesn't re-evaluate that for next season. Get him some time on the top unit and see what he does.

Yeah.

 

As we’ve all stated many time, that 1OVA typically goes to a terrible team and can immediately play top-6 minutes, top PP unit, play with that teams best players, and be allowed to just play, make mistakes, learn, and grow. 
 

Laf came into a team that was an also-ran team, but not an awful one, and got none of that. And it hurt him. 

[Pete]

1 minute ago, Valriera said:

Gallant was a shitty coach like we all know but Lafreniere’s growth this season is because he put in obvious immense off season work to his skating and everything else is secondary. If he was the same player when Gallant was here, we’d know. Don’t take away the kid’s credit for putting in the work by placing the blame for him on Gallant. GG had a lot of flaws but Lafreniere outright sucked donkey dick his first few seasons, worked ridiculously hard on the off season, and earned his progress this year. He didn’t deserve any looks on the powerplay or the top line, he was that bad. This year, it’s only the way it is bc our PP is the best in the league. He’s made it hard because of him, not the coach 

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. 

[RangersIn7]

2 minutes ago, Valriera said:

Gallant was a shitty coach like we all know but Lafreniere’s growth this season is because he put in obvious immense off season work to his skating and everything else is secondary. If he was the same player when Gallant was here, we’d know. Don’t take away the kid’s credit for putting in the work by placing the blame for him on Gallant. GG had a lot of flaws but Lafreniere outright sucked donkey dick his first few seasons, worked ridiculously hard on the off season, and earned his progress this year. He didn’t deserve any looks on the powerplay or the top line, he was that bad. This year, it’s only the way it is bc our PP is the best in the league. He’s made it hard because of him, not the coach 

Yeah.

There is a significant bit of it that Laf needed to do on his own.

Brian Boyle made a good point on this a couple weeks back on his podcast. We questioned his attitude and work ethic. We were wrong about that though.

The kid just wasn’t ready yet and didn’t have the physical capacity to make those strides yet. 

[RangersIn7]

Just now, Pete said:

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. 

He didn’t wait 3 years to do it though. That’s a misrepresentation.

 

Hes always worked hard by all accounts. He needed the time and growth and physical development that comes with going from age 18-19 to age 21-22.

[Sharpshooter]

If I recall, wasn't Laf one of the more vocal Rangers when it came to speaking with Drury about not liking Gallant?

[Pete]

1 minute ago, RangersIn7 said:

He didn’t wait 3 years to do it though. That’s a misrepresentation.

 

Hes always worked hard by all accounts. He needed the time and growth and physical development that comes with going from age 18-19 to age 21-22.

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. 

[Morphinity 2.0]

35 minutes ago, RangersIn7 said:

Well they were never going to gift him minutes. And he was always going to be stuck behind CK and Panarin, because they weren’t going to move him in his first season, and probably his second season either.

 

I don’t put much if any on Quinn.

 

But they needed to move him to RW and up his minutes last year and they didn’t.

 

Thats totally on Gallant. 

I don't want to call it "gifting" minutes, but 1st overall picks usually go to teams with more ice time to spread around. Connor Bedard wasn't going to be playing 3rd line minutes on the Blackhawks this year because they have a borderline NHL roster. These top level players just develop better with more ice time, more puck touches, and more freedom. Unfortunately the AHL wasn't available to him because that really should have been the move. 

 

We've discussed this ad nauseum though.

[Drew a Penalty]

1 hour ago, Pete said:

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.

 

I think he's also a beneficiary of Laviolette's system which provides him with more options on the rush. Under GG it felt as though the team never moved up the ice in numbers, and guys like Lafreniere would often have to dump instead of trying to 1 v 3 a defense. I don't have the statistics right in front of me, but they progressively became a worse rush team under GG than even Quinn. Now Lafreniere has 2-3 options that he didn't before or is sometimes one of those options himself. 

[Pete]

1 hour ago, Morphinity 2.0 said:

I don't want to call it "gifting" minutes, but 1st overall picks usually go to teams with more ice time to spread around. Connor Bedard wasn't going to be playing 3rd line minutes on the Blackhawks this year because they have a borderline NHL roster. These top level players just develop better with more ice time, more puck touches, and more freedom. Unfortunately the AHL wasn't available to him because that really should have been the move. 

 

We've discussed this ad nauseum though.

Just finished watching the whole thing, what an analysis. I'm not going to admit that I whacked off a couple times, but I will admit a boner lasting more than an hour.