Really glad that this one is over. We can't afford to fall a goal or two behind every freaking game. It's sickening, that our goalies can't make a routine saves let alone something more here and there.
Our current roster might be the weakest since the inception of the league. Our foreigners (besides Hossa) doesn't offer anything this team didn't already have.
I wouldn't say it's such a surprise that Moscow won Minsk in 4 games... and it won't be a surprise if Omsk will win Amur in 4 games. Both of these teams were great in the first half of season but in the second half they lost to everyone that needed a win... Amur and Minsk of last month and the beginning of the season are two different things. And on the other hand Moscow has Znarok who hasn't over-coached his players as last year. And Omsk has gotten rid of Jagr and other useless luggage... I mean, seriously, if Barys or Severstal played against both these teams, they'd win with no problem. Because if you look at Minsk and Amur results just before play-off... they were just awful. And these are teams that realied HEAVILY on foreigners to make the result for them. Can't win play-off without great domestic players.... As we couldn't do anything against Dynamo in the first season.
Severstal taking game 4 in style against Atlant. 2-2. Despite the sacking of head coach before the play-offs, I'd say now Severstal is a favourite. Atlant's just a mess.....
SKA and CSKA. Despite CSKA trying their best, it's over for Moscow. Next game it will all end.
Dinamo Riga vs Torpedo. With Jučers we will not win the series. And I doubt if with Holt too. Torpedo is a fighting team, not like SKA we faced two seasons ago and not really bad Dynamo we got last year with injured players and bad phisical form. Torpedo has virtually no weaknesses. Not much plusses too but no weaknesses. Our main weakness is goalie line.... 2-2, nothing's over but without Holt, Ņiživijs... the team just doesn't have depth.
As for the East, SYU vs AK Bars. Ufa has a better team and this series will be tough as always. Both teams have had their problems and they are not over yet (goalkeeping), so can go either way.
Barys- Magnitogorsk. Barys has to take the series, there's a perfect opportunity. Magnitka has many problems and if Barys make it 3-1 tomorrow, they should take it.
Traktor- Yugra. Today Garnett and Biryukov played like sh**. But I don't think Yugra can win with Masalskis. Sorry... If Biryukov finally started to play good in play-offs they'd have a good chance but I'm not sure he'll be good for the rest of series.
At this moment Dynamo/SKA - Omsk seems like the logical final. Only teams that don't have problems. Though, maybe in Omsk and Dynamo case it's because they didn't have the best opponents.
Last edited by Latgale_fan: 03-04-2012 at 12:39 PM.
It's sad to say, but his team isn't going nowhere this year. If we will loose M. Redlihs in offseason, you might as well disband this team.
Just get better foreigners, Dārziņš might be back, maybe sign Jekimovs from SM Liiga, Pelšs might return... not much in reinforcements but still. Regular season wasn't bad, it was as usual. And even now there's not much problem, except we are a bit weaker in goaltending and we face a team that is as much motivated and hard working as we are and in a good shape...
Really if you think that we were in play-off last few years because we were such a good team and won in the first round for the same reason, it's bulls***. We were in play-offs (also this year) because we had better roster than Vityaz and less problems than Spartak, LEV and CSKA (while at least Spartak and CSKA had better rosters). And we won last two years in play-offs because of the same thing- because we had less problems and/or wanted it more that our opponents.
Now it's all different. I'd gladly take Atlant than Torpedo because Atlant has these problems. They don't have Riha anymore, their results have been shaky all season long and they had problems with Kovalev... Yeah, they have Barulin. Torpedo has Koval. And ''law and order''.
Though we'd have even less chance against this year's Dynamo and SKA...
Really if you think that we were in play-off last few years because we were such a good team and won in the first round for the same reason, it's bulls***.
We are a worse team than we were last year, period. In past seasons we've lost core players like Masalskis, Hossa and Darzins (to much richer teams) and substituted bunch of foreigners (because of various causes, (Hartigan burned out, Trotter wanted to leave, etc)) with a worse bunch of them.
Rautakallio wanted to play grittier style of hockey, but I guess no-one told him that we already had one of the hardest working teams in the league already, and what we really are missing are some game-breakers like Hossa, that have some offensive talant. As I already said, none of the current foreigners offers something that we didn't have already (need a mediocre goalie? Jucers is cheaper than Holt. Need a grinder who can't score, Cipulis can play "as good" as Lucenius. Need a "player-bandade", Ankipans is better than Warg and for whatever reason Ankipans works well with Hossa).
The players we brought in this season, have really made our team more one-dimensional, were not a well balanced team anymore. As you said it's fixable, release washed up Ozolins and Nizivijs, here's money to bring in atleast 3 player's Trotters calibre. I know that Sejejs is reluctant to bring in foreign defenders, but there seriously isn't a thing that Ozolins can do, which Galvins currently can't do better. Bring back Masalskis, try to lure Pujacs back and maybe Ozolins money could go to a long-term deal to bring Kulda back, to get a defender, that can launch the pack from blue-line as it's sad to watch how easily Torpedo blocks the weak Galvins, Kr. Redlihs attempts from blue line.
Actually in regular season this duo worked even better than I'd hoped. There weren't really many games where you could see they were lost only because of goalkeepers. We had some nice wins with Jučers too and his save percentage was good considering it was his first year in such a league. But it feels like neither Holt, nor Jučers are play-off goalies. According to eliteprospects, Jučers hast even really played play-off games before this season (at least in Belarus league it says he has 1 game), so maybe it's understandable that you can't ask much for him. Speaking about Holt, he can be a good 2nd goalie or work in duo with Masaļskis if he comes back or some other goalie if we cannot afford or find really great nr.1 but in this series I can't really be confident about our goalie line at all. Yeah, we had euphoria yesterday against great comeback and win but he's played 1 good game out of 3 now and that's not good for play-offs...
The president of the club has said we want to keep Holt. And I agree, he's not that bad as people say and he can play as a second goalie or share playing time with some other goalie and we can save some money. He likes it here and plays decently and we're not SKA or Ufa that can waste money on star names who often do not produce good game
I just didn't understand why Jučers before the season. We have better goalies than him. Raitums is stellar in Kazakhstan. Why not try him in KHL? Maybe KAZ is not the elite league but he was already 2nd in team Latvia goalie line last year (Jučers was 3rd goalie) and has small but World Championship experience. Mustukovs is a top goalie of Danish league, Raitums- in Kazakhstan. Jučers was a so-so goalie in Belarus League...
We are a worse team than we were last year, period. In past seasons we've lost core players like Masalskis, Hossa and Darzins (to much richer teams) and substituted bunch of foreigners (because of various causes, (Hartigan burned out, Trotter wanted to leave, etc)) with a worse bunch of them.
Rautakallio wanted to play grittier style of hockey, but I guess no-one told him that we already had one of the hardest working teams in the league already, and what we really are missing are some game-breakers like Hossa, that have some offensive talant. As I already said, none of the current foreigners offers something that we didn't have already (need a mediocre goalie? Jucers is cheaper than Holt. Need a grinder who can't score, Cipulis can play "as good" as Lucenius. Need a "player-bandade", Ankipans is better than Warg and for whatever reason Ankipans works well with Hossa).
The players we brought in this season, have really made our team more one-dimensional, were not a well balanced team anymore. As you said it's fixable, release washed up Ozolins and Nizivijs, here's money to bring in atleast 3 player's Trotters calibre. I know that Sejejs is reluctant to bring in foreign defenders, but there seriously isn't a thing that Ozolins can do, which Galvins currently can't do better. Bring back Masalskis, try to lure Pujacs back and maybe Ozolins money could go to a long-term deal to bring Kulda back, to get a defender, that can launch the pack from blue-line as it's sad to watch how easily Torpedo blocks the weak Galvins, Kr. Redlihs attempts from blue line.
Yes we are a worse team than we were last year, no doubt. But not by as much as some would like to think.
The problem's not with Rautakallio. The problem's with Sējejs not being able to sign good players. Yeah, Rautakallio also had a say in that (and I remember how many angry voices there were when information appeared that Petruzalek might've played in Riga but Rautakallio didn't understand Czecho-Slovak hockey, so he didn't take him).
But all in all, as Savickis said, the team didn't manage to get players it wanted and had to take 2nd rate players. Now maybe that's only the problem with money but maybe Sējējs didn't do his best job together or without Rautakallio. And that created all the problems ith foreigners coming and going during the season.
We also had injuries. Maybe not to the key players (except Nizivijs who didn't really look like he can play Rautakallio hockey) but to our grinders and that played its role too.
I don't think we had problems in defence or goaltending during the season and statistics prove that. We allowed less goals than last season... but we scored a lot less. We still have to concentrate on attack for next season. But just sign a couple of good foreigners, maybe get some guy like Jekimovs or Pelšs in a team and it all might work again, for another year. But we can't hope, with the budget we have, to do much better as we're doing now...
We can also try to grow players but it's even more hopeless than in Russia. At least in Russia some Russians stay to develop at home. In Latvia basically all that have talent have left the country... maybe we could try to get back little Bukarts, we have Lipsbergs and Jevpalovs in MHL but for how long? They might be in CHL next year...
I don't think we had problems in defence or goaltending during the season and statistics prove that. We allowed less goals than last season... but we scored a lot less. We still have to concentrate on attack for next season. But just sign a couple of good foreigners, maybe get some guy like Jekimovs or Pelšs in a team and it all might work again, for another year. But we can't hope, with the budget we have, to do much better as we're doing now...
Our defencemen are mediocre at best, their stats are improved by our crop of forwards - we have really good bunch of defensively responsible forwards, that bail us out often. J. Redlihs is useless turnover machine, Andersons simply isn't good enough, most of them have positioning issues, none of out D-men possess a shot that scares the potential shot blockers and almost all of them are offensive blackholes in general. But the worst problem lies in the fact fact that one of our D-men makes more money than rest of them combined and doesn't play any better than his partners. If our captain doesn't want to earn a wage which is identical to his partners, we absolutely have to let him go. Unfortunately, his only ability to chat friendly with refs doesn't help us win hockey games.
I'm fine with keeping Holt as #2 and finding a new starter (Masalskis as preferred choice), Jekimovs, Pelss, Saulietis in place of Nizivijs, Stals, Bukarts and Podzins. Kulda or Pujacs in place of Ozolins and maybe Lavins too. Cibulskis isn't playing much lately, maybe he could be loaned for season somewhere where he would get ice time, if so, sign Jerofejevs as 6-7th D-men. Keep Hossa and I guess we can keep Lucenius as well, he at least isn't a negative on ice. Would love someone like Hartigan, fairly weak defensively, but he has that urge to go to the front of net and getting ugly goals (maybe let's bring back Surovy, there's certainly no place on CSKA roster for him next year?).
And we can certainly hope, but this hope depends on the quality of foreigners that are brought in yearly.
wil he stay in Dinamo for next season? Or he signed only one season?
both are 94guys, it is their second MHL season. Why did club sign then only for 2 seasons?
Rautakallio has two year deal.
Roberts Lipsbergs and Nikita Jevpalovs are in their first season with HK Riga. Why would club risk and take on bonds beyond two seasons with 17-year old players, that most likely will never be good enough to play anywhere else than in Riga.
Roberts Lipsbergs and Nikita Jevpalovs are in their first season with HK Riga. Why would club risk and take on bonds beyond two seasons with 17-year old players, that most likely will never be good enough to play anywhere else than in Riga.
They're both IMHO better than Podziņš was at their age so I think they definitely most likely should be good enough to play at least on the 4th line of Dinamo Riga after some time. One of them might appear in Dinamo already next season.
ZSC Lions has signed Ķēniņš to 13/14, and he had a big contract already at the junior age. Andersons has contract for next season too with Bern... Teams usually sign long term contracts with their top prospects, if these ones don't have such a contract..... then it's bad for Dinamo. Though they are junior contracts and I guess it's easy to get out of them anyway, no?
I have really been enjoying these playoffs so far. Some great great games. Anisin is just Glad he got out of Chekhov. True diamond in the ruff.
Don't you think that what he did at Chekhov helped him to where he's now? In 2010/11 he was handed from Severstal to Yugra without impressing much.. I have mixed feelings about Nazarov, but I must admit that he's good at pushing young players. By the way, I haven't seen any AKB matches in the PO's. How's Panarin doing?
Dinamo Riga weren't trying hard enough last night, it's understandable, cause we lost our starting goalie and 2 forwards, while Torpedo came out firing on all cyllinders. In Nyzhny the tables might turn around.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ozo
Our defencemen are mediocre at best, their stats are improved by our crop of forwards - we have really good bunch of defensively responsible forwards, that bail us out often. J. Redlihs is useless turnover machine, Andersons simply isn't good enough, most of them have positioning issues, none of out D-men possess a shot that scares the potential shot blockers and almost all of them are offensive blackholes in general. But the worst problem lies in the fact fact that one of our D-men makes more money than rest of them combined and doesn't play any better than his partners. If our captain doesn't want to earn a wage which is identical to his partners, we absolutely have to let him go. Unfortunately, his only ability to chat friendly with refs doesn't help us win hockey games.
Ozo had a down year, but despite that he can still move the puck and he's a great guy to have for the play-offs: he has 7 NHL Game 7s under his belt (our other guys don't even have 1 KHL Game 7), tons of experience.
I won't speak about roster changes until our post-season is over.
On an unrelated note, there finally are some rumours about Estonian team joining the KHL in 15/16 season. The yet to be created team would play in Mestis next season.
On an unrelated note, there finally are some rumours about Estonian team joining the KHL in 15/16 season. The yet to be created team would play in Mestis next season.
On an unrelated note, there finally are some rumours about Estonian team joining the KHL in 15/16 season. The yet to be created team would play in Mestis next season.
Glad he got out of Chekhov. True diamond in the ruff.
