Amusing segment on the FAN, driving home yesterday. Torg the defeatist declares this roster doesn't have a 30 goal scorer, in fact he says there may not be a 20 scorer here .
So who do you think could notch 30 this season? 20?
Potential 30 goal guys:
Dubinsky
Umberger
20 goal guys, I'd say 4 of these guys will hit 20:
Atkinson
Anisimov
Brassard
Prospal
Johansen
Foligno
J Johnson (yeah I said it)
I expect more 20 goal seasons that we've seen the last 3 or 4 years to be honest. This team has a grit and competitive level that feels really good to me for some reason.
Amusing segment on the FAN, driving home yesterday. Torg the defeatist declares this roster doesn't have a 30 goal scorer, in fact he says there may not be a 20 scorer here .
So who do you think could notch 30 this season? 20?
Potential 30 goal guys:
Dubinsky
Umberger
20 goal guys, I'd say 4 of these guys will hit 20:
Atkinson
Anisimov
Brassard
Prospal
Johansen
Foligno
J Johnson (yeah I said it)
I expect more 20 goal seasons that we've seen the last 3 or 4 years to be honest. This team has a grit and competitive level that feels really good to me for some reason.
Ok I agree with the 20 goal guys (Minus Brassard unless he plans to break out.) and Jack (I think he gets in the 10-15 area) but there is no way Dubinsky gets 30 goals and it is unlikely that RJ gets 30 either. Peg Dubinsky and RJ solidly in the 20 goal area.
Atkinson is the best pure goal scorer left. He's one of your best best for taking 3+ shots a game. RJ is quite possible for 30 goals. From there, it's who is going to get greedy. You have to take 3+ shots a game to have a shot at 30 goals.
RJ is the only one I see with a chance at 30. But that is more a possibility than a probability. To be "competitive" I think we need 6 20 goal scorers, not four. In saying that I am assuming zero 30 goal scorers. I see maybe four on our current roster. But there are several who are possible 20 goal scorers. So if everything went right for once I could see 6 guys getting 20. So it is possible but not probable.
Amusing segment on the FAN, driving home yesterday. Torg the defeatist declares this roster doesn't have a 30 goal scorer, in fact he says there may not be a 20 scorer here .
So who do you think could notch 30 this season? 20?
Potential 30 goal guys:
Dubinsky
Umberger
20 goal guys, I'd say 4 of these guys will hit 20:
Atkinson
Anisimov
Brassard
Prospal
Johansen
Foligno
J Johnson (yeah I said it)
I expect more 20 goal seasons that we've seen the last 3 or 4 years to be honest. This team has a grit and competitive level that feels really good to me for some reason.
I dont see ANY 30 goal scorers on this club.
Of your 20 goal scorers, I don't think Brassard makes the cut and I'd replace JMFJ with Wiz.
RJ is the only one I see with a chance at 30. But that is more a possibility than a probability. To be "competitive" I think we need 6 20 goal scorers, not four. In saying that I am assuming zero 30 goal scorers. I see maybe four on our current roster. But there are several who are possible 20 goal scorers. So if everything went right for once I could see 6 guys getting 20. So it is possible but not probable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by leesmith
I dont see ANY 30 goal scorers on this club.
Of your 20 goal scorers, I don't think Brassard makes the cut and I'd replace JMFJ with Wiz.
I agree with Lee, I see no 30 goal scorers this year, though development by the young talent may change that in the future. I don't believe any of the defenders will come close to 20. Other than his identification of RJ as a potential 30 goal guy, I agree with the rest of EDM's post - it is possible that as many as six guys get 20. Again, though, it's not likely. Should it happen, this could really become a fun team to watch and a truly miserable team to have to play against!
Torg might be a moron but in this case he's absolutely correct about the lack of 30 goal scorers.
He might be correct about the 20 goal scorers bit too. The only guy to hit 20 last year besides Nash was RJ, and he was lucky to do so after his abysmal first 4 months of the season.
Amusing segment on the FAN, driving home yesterday. Torg the defeatist declares this roster doesn't have a 30 goal scorer, in fact he says there may not be a 20 scorer here .
This is the same guy who thought that the North Stars were competitive because they had Basil McRae and Shane Churla. I'm not normally the type who would take one idiotic statement and thus regard them as "not credible" in my own mind, but two things make this one different:
1) It's idiotic, and
2) It's one of the smartest things he's ever said about hockey, which really says something
Whether there are 30-goal scorers on the roster or not is really irrelevant to success. Back in the 1970s, everyone knew that you had to have big-scoring players on the first line or you weren't going to win, let alone contend. In 1977-78, Boston had one player hit 30 goals, but ten more hit 20. They went 51-18-11, and lost in the Cup Final to Montreal (in the middle of their second great dynasty). Terry O'Reilly was actually their leading scorer.
Atkinson is the best pure goal scorer left. He's one of your best best for taking 3+ shots a game. RJ is quite possible for 30 goals. From there, it's who is going to get greedy. You have to take 3+ shots a game to have a shot at 30 goals.
I hereby endorse this reply; it's pretty much what I was going to say.
As for 20 goal scorers... some folks here have done it before. I'm somewhat more interested in 5 and 10 goal scorers - I'd want to squeeze more out of the checking line if possible. I therefore consider Gillies to be a weak link in that regard (despite his evident skill as a pressuring forechecker) and would want to consider calling up Calvert in his place.
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Atkinson has been scoring 30+ goals for 3 years in a row.
The Rangers are raving about Kreider who scored 34 goals in 76 games over the last 2 years with Boston college, but Cam had 61 goals in 81 games over there. He was the best AHL goal scorer at the moment he was called up. Last year he combined for 36 goals in 78 games between NHL and AHL even though he was adjusting to the NHL for a wile. If he picks up were he finished the previous season - we gonna get our 30-goals scorer.
I'm somewhat more interested in 5 and 10 goal scorers - I'd want to squeeze more out of the checking line if possible. I therefore consider Gillies to be a weak link in that regard (despite his evident skill as a pressuring forechecker) and would want to consider calling up Calvert in his place.
IMO has always been an issue - tertiary scoring if you will. Some combination of players is likely to replace Nash's scoring (in a vacuum) but here's the real difference - if the team gets more from its bottom 6 (can Dorse match last year's goal scoring? i'unno) - having a guy like Letestu as a tertiary scorer rather than a secondary scorer should help.
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I see Dubinsky as a real candidate for 30 mostly because I anticipate his role expanding and changing a bit as he could be seeing 1PP time, on top of 19-20 minutes a night of ice time....he was seeing 15 a night in NY.
Ditto for RJ.
We saw similar transformations from Backes and Neal in recent years, though I'm not drinking enough kool aid to think we'll see a jump in offense of that calibre.
I guess we'll have to wait and see how everyone else plays now with the absence of Nash. If a few guys pick kick it up a notch, I guess it's not "impossible" that one guy has 30 and a couple are around 25-territory, with everyone else between 10 and 15.
I see Dubinsky as a real candidate for 30 mostly because I anticipate his role expanding and changing a bit as he could be seeing 1PP time, on top of 19-20 minutes a night of ice time....he was seeing 15 a night in NY.
Ditto for RJ.
We saw similar transformations from Backes and Neal in recent years, though I'm not drinking enough kool aid to think we'll see a jump in offense of that calibre.
I don't see anyone scoring thirty, in part because I see Dubinsky and Anisimov first on the third line where defensive responsibilities dominate. Given that we got maybe 13 goals from that line all of last season, moving from that line to say 40 goals offers a big boost and doesn't require either to pot twenty, just up in the teens, so I'm not asking for anything unrealistic.
Brass I think will score twenty. Arniel is gone, and so is Nash, and the Jackets had a 'look for Nash first' mentality that cut shots by others. Brass ought to shoot more and Brass has a strong shot. He might even lead the team. Atkinson might also pot 20. He's got the shot to get 30, but not yet. Umby won't be worth more then 25, but I'll take them. Vinny can score 20 or more, but he is aging, and there were signs of it last year. Seventeen seems more realistic, and he needs regular rest to stay strong throughout the season.
JJ and Wiz pot 25-30 together. They play well together, and both have cannons that will feed each other. We should get far more goals from our much deeper Blueline then last year. Say 40 goals.
If we can get sixty goals from the top line, fifty from the second, and forty from the third with maybe 20 from the fourth and 40 from the Blue line, that's 210 goals, solidly mid-pack, and 220 is not out of reach. Our rebuilt blue-line alone ought to cut our goals against significantly, even if goaltending does not improve, which it is likely to do even if Mason remains.
We will be better then last year. Playoffs, probably not, but I think it possible we can get close enough to not be sellers at the trade deadline. Say 2007-8, still one of the best years in Blue Jackets history. And we have three first rounders the following year.
Does it really matter how many goals an individual scores, as long as for 60 minutes a night the team scores more than he opposition.
What is scary is how few goals it would take to outperform last season.
Put 15 goals on 2 players on the top line
Give 10 to the rest of the forwards except one (Call it the "Jared Boll Factor")
Give a pair to each of our defensemen, and you've exceeded last years output.
So if the above average 10.0% (which without weighting looks about right) to have them all be 20 "goalers" they'd have to average 200 shots.
Last year only Umberger with exactly 200 and Cam who had 66 in 27 games for a projection of just about 200 were two who had that many shots. Most of the others weren't close-lots in the 150 range.
Now I know roles will change and all that, but I think this will be a low scoring team that will have to claw out wins with solid D (including from the forwards) and some pretty good goaltending.
My guess? No 30's and maybe 5 20's at most. With a couple of high teen guys.
I'm not concerned with who scores 30 or 20, I'm concerned with the team getting to 214 total. That would put us at 2.6 per game. I think our Defense will give up less than 2.6 per game.
This sounds simple, but it's true- Teams that score more than they give up, usually get in the playoffs. Regardless of how many they score or give up.
2011-12- CBJ Scored 198 (2.42/game) and gave up 257 (3.06/game)
LA only scored 188 goals last year, yet they got in the playoffs because they only gave up 170. STL only scored 206, they gave up only 155.
Ottawa on the other hand gave up 236, but they scored 243.
Doesn't really matter how you slice it, if we avg more goals per game than we give up, we'll make the playoffs.
Halak & Elliott > Bobrovsky & Mason
Hitchcock > Richards
Who knows if that goalie tandem is better than our tandem. On paper it would seem that way, but we know Bob and Mason both have it in them to be great. Goalies are flighty and impossible to predict from year to year. That's why I'm glad Howson didn't give up a bunch to get one.
Hitch > Richards- No argument here, especially for the team we now have assembled. I was all for the firing of Hitch and I was against hiring him back to replace Arniel, because we had the wrong team for him. Now, boy is this a Hitch team or what!? The irony of all ironies.
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