I don't get why people have such low expectations for Cole. First off, playing with a star doesn't automatically boost a player's numbers. It's a fallacy on these boards that, in upgrading one's linemates, your numbers automatically receive a boost. Is it possible this will happen? Yes, but it's not a guarantee. It's also not a guarantee a player's numbers will drop if he plays with someone who might not necessarily be as good as Staal. Speaking of, I have never really seen Eric Staal as the kind of guy who makes everyone around him better. He's not a playmaker who dishes off amazing passes to everyone. I always thought Staal was overrated: very good but inconsistent and not truly elite.
Furthermore, Cole is a guy who scores goals based off his speed and his determination. He drives to the net. He parks himself in front of the net to bang in rebounds. WATCH HIS GOALS ON YOUTUBE OR NHL.COM. I've done both and what I see is a guy who benefits from stretch passes for breakaways. Often times, these passes came from Pitkanen or other players, not necessarily Staal. Jokinen created a decent amount of plays for Cole, too. Cole himself is a very talented guy with really good hands. People here have forgotten just how good he used to be. You make him sound like some scrub. 20 goals and 20 assists?
My prediction: 29 goals, 31 assists, 60 points
It is not low expectation and I didn't say he was a scrub. I said I'd be happy with 22g+23a. The guy got more than 60 pts once in his career (2005-06). So I think I have fair expectation and I'm sure he'll be a major contributor to the success of this team.
His main offensive contribution might actually be to create space for Cammalleri and Plekanec, which won't show up in the stats sheet, because we'll see a whole lot of goals with assists to Markov and Plekanec, and Cammalleri gets the goal.
His main offensive contribution might actually be to create space for Cammalleri and Plekanec, which won't show up in the stats sheet, because we'll see a whole lot of goals with assists to Markov and Plekanec, and Cammalleri gets the goal.
Yeah exactly, he'll get his 50-55 points but hopefully his acquisition allows Cammy to put up 30 goals and around 70 points and Plekanec 25-45-70 plus allowing AK to give us 20 or more goals and help Eller put up 30-35 of his own. So Cole might score 20-22 goals but he could help us score an extra 25-30 goals as a team, mostly 5 on 5.
Yeah exactly, he'll get his 50-55 points but hopefully his acquisition allows Cammy to put up 30 goals and around 70 points and Plekanec 25-45-70 plus allowing AK to give us 20 or more goals and help Eller put up 30-35 of his own. So Cole might score 20-22 goals but he could help us score an extra 25-30 goals as a team, mostly 5 on 5.
AK has only ever gotten less than 20 goals once in the NHL.
Desharnais wasn't a center at the end of the season and in the playoffs. He won't be the 4th line center of this team.
In the playoffs Desharnais played about 60% of his ice-time with Pouliot & White or Pyatt & White. Maybe I'm mis-remembering things but I'm pretty sure he played centre between those players. Martin did move Desharnais to Gomez' wing later in the series before Desharnais got hurt.
Desharnais wasn't a center at the end of the season and in the playoffs. He won't be the 4th line center of this team.
DD played less than TWO full periods at LW, and of course got hurt before the night was out.
Hilarious the invented memories here.
If we wanted a veteran 4th line C, we would have played Halpern there at the end of last year instead of on RW!! And we would have KEPT Jeff this year.
Do you guys realize that we HAD a legitimate checking center in Halpern, but HE WAS MOVED to the wing!!
Why is that? Because Desharnais is obviously a Center, and the club wants Eller to be a Center too.
At the low price we were paying for Halpern, i believe PG would have kept him if his goals was to still have a veteran checking center.
I think halpern's move to the wing had alot to do with his health at the time. To be quite honest, he was never the same after powe hit him from behind, and he suffered a couple more injuries after that too...
I still think we need to add another guy to the bottom 6 (Winchester?), but it's really coming together, IMO. Not the big, imposing team of manbeasts that some here seem to want, but strong in all facets of the game.
I still think we need to add another guy to the bottom 6 (Winchester?), but it's really coming together, IMO. Not the big, imposing team of manbeasts that some here seem to want, but strong in all facets of the game.
In the playoffs Desharnais played about 60% of his ice-time with Pouliot & White or Pyatt & White. Maybe I'm mis-remembering things but I'm pretty sure he played centre between those players. Martin did move Desharnais to Gomez' wing later in the series before Desharnais got hurt.
Game 5, in Boston, Desharnais was moved to LW on the Gomez line for the third period and he played there less than two periods due to becoming injured. He tried coming back in the 2nd OT but only played one shift and pulled out again.
In fact, this was the ONLY game of the season where DD was played on LW for any noticeable minutes.
If you go back to the GDTs of all the last 12 games of the regular season, plus the 5 playoff games that DD played, where fans have outright invented memories of DD playing LW with Eller, in fact all of those GDTs show the two guys on separate lines EXCEPT for the final game in Toronto, where DD and Eller were listed pre-game as going to be on the third line; however, in fact they ended up on two different lines anyway (watch the highlights from that game as proof, the bottom two lines were very prominent during that game).
