How have all of the ex Hawks looked in preseason and are you guys happy with them so far? Im going to be Following Atlanta this season and they are now my 2nd favorite team due to all the ex Hawks you acquired.
When the games get more meaningful you are going to see you picked up a couple of special players in Ladd and Byfugelin and some nice role players in Eager and Sopel.
On Buff moving to defence,personally I prefer him as a forward. Some are making it out like he was moved to forward cause he was horrible on D, and that was not the case. Campbell coming back gave us a solid top 4 and his net presence at forward was much more needed at the time. He is a unique player and has solid attributes to offer at both postitions. And he has a cannon of a shot and should rack up some PP goals from the point.
And Ladd is as good as a two way forward as there is in the game.
So far, Eager has scored 2 goals in 3 games played. He's done well. Ladd hasn't shown much offensively. Byfuglien has only played 2 games and is 2 for 2 in sending guys to the hospital. Was impressed with his first game on defense. He really skated hard all night. Hope it lasts.
He has an ankle sprain right now. Hope it's healing quickly.
Sopel has only played a couple of games too. First one was really solid. Second was paired with Ron Hainsey, our new whipping boy on defense. Hainsey sucks, Sopel had no idea how to handle playing with him. Hope this changes.
How did your season start last year? We are all very worried with all the change because there's NO offense so far. Defense is better.
eager has been profoundly average. he's reasoner's replacement, so i guess that's good. we'll probably have more to say about him once the regular season starts and we aren't all focusing on our prospects trying to make the team.
sopel hasn't really done a whole lot either. he might be a healthy scratch some nights depending on what happens with our other d guys
ladd has impressed me a bit. he's certainly improved since he was with carolina. he reminds me a lot of peverley
the thing about byfuglien is that we have so much more depth at d than at forward. on defense he is bottom pairing for us while on offense he might be a 2nd liner. he's also holding back kulda, valabik, and zubarev from spots they might otherwise get.
in other words he's hindering our development as a defenseman by taking away spots from younger players that honestly might be better than him anyway. if he was at forward however the worst he would be doing is making one of our plethora of third liners a healthy scratch.
that's the main problem i have with the move. not to mention we didn't give up one of our best forward prospects along with two high draft picks for a bottom pairing d-man. we just didn't, but ow because byfuglien thinks he can demand to play wherever he wants we did.
I don't recall seeing anywhere that Buff demanded to play D. I remember seeing that when asked, he preferred to play D and that Dudley and Ramsay were willing to give it a shot, but never any mention of any demands...
maybe i'm just inferring too much but somehow i don't think the coaches would have him play d when clearly we need him more at forward. just doesn't make sense
correct. saying he prefers to play d and the coaches taking up him on that =/= demanding the coaches play him on d
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Originally Posted by Rhodes 81
maybe i'm just inferring too much but somehow i don't think the coaches would have him play d when clearly we need him more at forward. just doesn't make sense
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More on Byfuglien on defense: “From the first scrimmage where I first saw him lining up as a defenseman I thought ‘Uh-oh, this could be trouble,’ Ramsay said. “But his enthusiasm has been wonderful. His great stick is really a key for a defenseman. He’s got a good stick down low, picking off pucks. Again, he’s got a lot to learn and it’s not ideal, but he really has figured out a lot of things. He’s got a ways to go but he’s a big body back there with a good stick which is really a nice thing to have. And he can jump up from there which makes him hard to cover.”
