I'm hoping benching Eller is just a 1 or 2 game thing, with Therrien trying to light a fire under him to get him to come back with more intensity. Everything that Therrien has said about Eller suggests to me that he believes he can be more that he is currently, so this could just be a 'push' from the coach to work even harder than he already is.
slight concern regarding eller too, i really want the habs to keep eller over even plekanec and desharnais, so im upset
i hope this doesnt have something to do with elelr being what gauthier brought in and bergervin maybe not liking what he sees from eller or therrien? damn it
This is the problem with Therrien. No matter how ****** Armstrong, Bouillon and Prust will play... they will not be scratched, the young players will all be the scapegoats.
This is the problem with Therrien. No matter how ****** Armstrong, Bouillon and Prust will play... they will not be scratched, the young players will all be the scapegoats.
He is making room for 20 years old Gallagher...
We can definitely use Gallagher’s speed and Prust played a decent/good game vs the Leafs. Eller needs to step his game up a notch; just like Leblanc, I can't wait to see how he will react.
This is the problem with Therrien. No matter how ****** Armstrong, Bouillon and Prust will play... they will not be scratched, the young players will all be the scapegoats.
I'm not a Therrien fan but I was willing to give him a chance. However, I'm not really impressed by some of his decisions.
Obviously, I don't get the point of scratching Eller. It's not like he has been much worse than the rest of forwards on Saturday.
Also if he wanted to evaluate Galchenyuk properly, he should of kept on the 2nd line.
We'll see how he uses Gallagher but this guy should be in Hamilton rather than being the stands or playing 10 minutes or less per game in Montreal.
Hopefully, Therrien has a long term vision rather than a short term one. It's not like he is playing his job this year.
All I have to say about this is....
While it would make more sense to scratch White rather than Eller, there might be "things" that happened and that we don't know. The kind of things that would justify being the one scratched after a below-average performance... even if the whole team was below average, with the notable exceptions of Brandon Prust, Alex Emelin and Rafael Diaz.
I hope he is! We have been playing him as a center with top minutes for HOW long?! Save your "Oh no CPHABS, he was drafted as a large skilled center that the HABS traded for while playing him as a wing... of some kind since we got him." Common knowledge about the HAB's developement program indicates that he is no longer suited to play center and should be played as a winger until we can draft the center we need. Think DD will center a line of Eller and Chucky one day? I hope so!
Gotta love RDS. Trash talking about Eller for no reason just because they feel the need to defend Michel Therrien who was working with them last year. Did anyone talk about how Pacioretty and Cole were pathetic on Saturday?
I'm almost as big of an Eller supporter as there is, but his line was the least effective last game.
The top 2 lines played a sloppy offensive game that resulted in getting few real chances on net. But they prevented the other team from getting much either.
Eller's group on the other hand got exposed a bunch of times in the defensive zone.
Oliver's scoring chances show this, I also re-watched the game to check up on what actually went on sans first game emotion.
On the other hand, I don't think Eller is particularly to blame for that. His individual efforts were largely fine, its that the line combination was frequently discombobulated on positioning. They obviously did not have much practice together.
The biggest culprit for their problems was Boullion though. His complete inablity to defend down low was a major factor in most of the chances against, and it also forced the forwards out of perferred positioning to cover his mishaps.
Gorges was no great shakes either, he played sloppy a bunch of times but he could manage his area of the ice most of the time. Also pairing the two with Gorges on right was a mistake. Since Boullion was the one on his correct side for controlling the puck, he both got the bulk of the puck-handling and a larger area of the ice to cover.
Contrast this to the Markov-Emelin pairing that was pretty good. Markov is the best guy for range and puckhandling on the pairing and is on his correct side. Emelin is on his off-side, but it matters less because he's there to support Markov, not carry the play on his own.
What might have been if Subban was with Gorges rather than Boullion is left as an exercise for the reader.
I'm almost as big of an Eller supporter as there is, but his line was the least effective last game.
The top 2 lines played a sloppy offensive game that resulted in getting few real chances on net. But they prevented the other team from getting much either.
Eller's group on the other hand got exposed a bunch of times in the defensive zone.
Oliver's scoring chances show this, I also re-watched the game to check up on what actually went on sans first game emotion.
On the other hand, I don't think Eller is particularly to blame for that. His individual efforts were largely fine, its that the line combination was frequently discombobulated on positioning. They obviously did not have much practice together.
The biggest culprit for their problems was Boullion though. His complete inablity to defend down low was a major factor in most of the chances against, and it also forced the forwards out of perferred positioning to cover his mishaps.
Gorges was no great shakes either, he played sloppy a bunch of times but he could manage his area of the ice most of the time. Also pairing the two with Gorges on right was a mistake. Since Boullion was the one on his correct side for controlling the puck, he both got the bulk of the puck-handling and a larger area of the ice to cover.
Contrast this to the Markov-Emelin pairing that was pretty good. Markov is the best guy for range and puckhandling on the pairing and is on his correct side. Emelin is on his off-side, but it matters less because he's there to support Markov, not carry the play on his own.
What might have been if Subban was with Gorges rather than Boullion is left as an exercise for the reader.
I thought individually Eller was better defensively than Desharnais. The difference being that Desharnais was playing with Cole and Pacioretty, who had atrocious offensive games but have the speed and strength to cover.
Not that Eller was anything closed to memorable, but I didn't notice anything particularly wrong with him.
Boullion was of course the biggest problem, and if he sees another 20+ minute night tonight it's going to be obvious what direction this team is heading in this season.
