FRONT OFFICE:
Campbell and Campoli for Montador and Leposto? Campbell and Campoli were a reason we made the playoffs last year. They played 22-24 mins. per game down the stretch. Who's gonna pick those minutes up? Keith and Seabs will be exhausted by the AS break. Who's gonna move the puck out of the zone on the Back end besides Keith, Seabs and Leddy?
Turco for Emery=both are pretty much washed up.
Center=We all agreed after last season we needed a veteran 3rd and/or 4th line Center. This was never address and we are entering our first game of the season with one legit center in the lineup because Boland's back most likely acted up. I think Boland is a great player but his back might hold him back from getting to that next level. Mayer is NOT a true center and Kane is an experiment.
Scott=Why are they still experimenting with John Scott? He brings nothing to the table when you have SOD, Carcillo and Mayer on your roster.
Brouwer=They replace a young banger for a 39 year old that can barely skate? This move really makes no sense at all to me and I'm not even a huge Brouwer fan.
Cap Space= Now they have all the cap space in the world with 4mil under the cap.
Not concerned at all about goals, even strengh or otherwise. Skille/Frolik were black holes offensively during the regular season and Kopecky played a lot of minutes and took a lot of shots (178) but only scored 15 goals. For comparison, his replacement, Brunette, took 117 shots and scored 18 goals. Kopecky was forced into the role Brunette has now and did as good as he could with it but he doesn't have the lower body strength or coordination to play that role as effectively as Brunette. That's why you hear a lot of people talking about a possible 25-30 goal season for Bruno. I think this team is going to be knocking at the door of 300 goals, but it will be important that Q provides more stability with the lines so the new guys can adapt to the lineup quicker and be as effective as they can be.
Our defense has a lot of speed/performances questions. We're relying on a bunch of unknowns such as:
- Keith's rebound
- Seabrook's return to defensive relevance (hopefully keeping up the offense at the same time)
- Hjalmarsson picking up the offense
- Leddy handling more minutes, replacing Campbell
- Montador solidifying the bottom pairing
- O'Donnell staying effective the whole season
- Lepisto managing anything
- Scott not playing at all
None of these are guaranteed, but all are pretty damn important. Color me concerned.
Elaborate. He plays a simple game and if he isn't performing, he'll go to the 4th line.
I like Bickell. I meant that I place a good deal of value on whether or not he comes into his own this season. He didn't see much ice his first few years so this is notionally his 5th season, one in which he turns 27 and enters what most consider the prime of a career. If he finds his "man strength" this year, uses his size and hones that heavy wrister he has some of the weaker areas of the team are mitigated.
One example would be him being more of the net presence which has been mentioned. His stature makes him seem a natural for it but so much of the job comes down to demeanor and willingness to do the job. Not everyone finds it: see Brouwer, Troy. If Bickell does and meets even the most conservative point projections he will very valuable to the team's success, especially in PO's. If he doesn't, and Oleszeye and Stalbroke don't find something useful to do, LW is a wasteland after Sharp. Someone Q may need to move back to center if Kane doesn't take to C and/or Bolland is out for any extended periods of time.
This is where I hope Brunette will have an influence on Bickell and the rest of the team. It's one thing for the coach to tell him to go to the net but when a guy more than 10 years older than him goes there like a moth and cashes in, I have to think the light bulb will go off.
This is an interesting point that I hadn’t given much thought to, and it could very well be a legitimate problem. This is exactly how I have perceived Canucks to be for a few years now, and they have proven that living and dying by the PP can only get you so far. Hawks PP was in the top 5 last season, not sure where the even strength goals sat league-wise, but I’d venture to say middle of the pack, but lower than it should be. Part of the answer would be to simplify our offence and get bodies to the net, and not always look for the pretty plays. This applys to even strength as well as the PP.
Our even strength play was good last year. Goals For/Against was 1.15 which was 7th in the league. The year of the cup was 1.2 and it was 4th.
I honestly think that our only question from last year to this year is how will our PK do?
The only reason we couldn't repeat last year was our PK. Last year we ranked 25th at 79.2. The year of the cup run it was 4th at 85.3.
If Q can get a system in place that works, then we'll see ourselves right back in the Stanley Cup Finals and we'll see Captain Awesome lift the trophy once again bringing it back to where the Cup belongs. On Madison Ave.
If Q can get a system in place that works, then we'll see ourselves right back in the Stanley Cup Finals and we'll see Captain Awesome lift the trophy once again bringing it back to where the Cup belongs. On Madison St.
I like Bickell. I meant that I place a good deal of value on whether or not he comes into his own this season. He didn't see much ice his first few years so this is notionally his 5th season, one in which he turns 27 and enters what most consider the prime of a career. If he finds his "man strength" this year, uses his size and hones that heavy wrister he has some of the weaker areas of the team are mitigated.
One example would be him being more of the net presence which has been mentioned. His stature makes him seem a natural for it but so much of the job comes down to demeanor and willingness to do the job. Not everyone finds it: see Brouwer, Troy. If Bickell does and meets even the most conservative point projections he will very valuable to the team's success, especially in PO's. If he doesn't, and Oleszeye and Stalbroke don't find something useful to do, LW is a wasteland after Sharp. Someone Q may need to move back to center if Kane doesn't take to C and/or Bolland is out for any extended periods of time.
Hate to nit-pick but Bickell is 25 years old and will turn 26 in March.
FRONT OFFICE:
Campbell and Campoli for Montador and Leposto? Campbell and Campoli were a reason we made the playoffs last year. They played 22-24 mins. per game down the stretch. Who's gonna pick those minutes up? Keith and Seabs will be exhausted by the AS break. Who's gonna move the puck out of the zone on the Back end besides Keith, Seabs and Leddy?
Turco for Emery=both are pretty much washed up.
Center=We all agreed after last season we needed a veteran 3rd and/or 4th line Center. This was never address and we are entering our first game of the season with one legit center in the lineup because Boland's back most likely acted up. I think Boland is a great player but his back might hold him back from getting to that next level. Mayer is NOT a true center and Kane is an experiment.
Scott=Why are they still experimenting with John Scott? He brings nothing to the table when you have SOD, Carcillo and Mayer on your roster.
Brouwer=They replace a young banger for a 39 year old that can barely skate? This move really makes no sense at all to me and I'm not even a huge Brouwer fan.
Cap Space= Now they have all the cap space in the world with 4mil under the cap.
Scott brings nothing but we don't have to dress him, and if cutting him means somebody picks him up and we have to play against him that will suck. Keep Scott allow him to play 25 games and get his 3 minutes in blowouts. I don't want to face this goon if he gets released and picked-up.
Frolik isn't an upgrade over Skille? Last year we had Nick Boynton playing on our 2nd pairing to start the year. How about Crawford over Turco?
Hawks got in trouble in October and November last season when Boynton, cullimore, Skille, and Turco were getting major minutes
not an upgrade...? what? he didn't play here a full season and was mixed and matched by Q... Finally Q got him linemates Bolland when he came back from his injury... Bickell and Frolik had a better than average playoffs when they had Bolland. Frolik gelled with Bolland and had no assigned role for 2 months.
Huge upgrade over Skille! Frolik will do well with Bolland or Pirri and suck with Kruger. You give Frolik an offensive center and he is dangerous. You give Skille a offensive center and he slow things down and has less finishing skills.
If you didn't see it in Frolik last year I get it. Look what he was surrounded with spare parts until the playoffs. Frolik even played center. I like Q's experiments but Frolik and Stalberg experiments are not their faults.
Anyway, I think you will reconsider Frolik and see his value this year. His cap hit is light for 3 years. Well worth the money.
You don't think Olesz is an upgrade over Pisani?
SOD > Boynton in my mind.
Cullimore?
Actually, Olesz replacing Brouwer may be a more appropriate question. And the answer is Olesz<Brouwer.
SOD over Boynton? Probably, but both are 2011 versions of Len Frig.
Frolik over Skille? Probably, but marginal difference IMO.
Better moves, that could have been made, would have been to sign Jagr and Max Talbot instead. Jagr will outproduce Brunette and Talbot would a good center. Both also know how to win.
not an upgrade...? what? he didn't play here a full season and was mixed and matched by Q... Finally Q got him linemates Bolland when he came back from his injury... Bickell and Frolik had a better than average playoffs when they had Bolland. Frolik gelled with Bolland and had no assigned role for 2 months.
Huge upgrade over Skille! Frolik will do well with Bolland or Pirri and suck with Kruger. You give Frolik an offensive center and he is dangerous. You give Skille a offensive center and he slow things down and has less finishing skills.
If you didn't see it in Frolik last year I get it. Look what he was surrounded with spare parts until the playoffs. Frolik even played center. I like Q's experiments but Frolik and Stalberg experiments are not their faults.
Anyway, I think you will reconsider Frolik and see his value this year. His cap hit is light for 3 years. Well worth the money.
Obviously you missed the point of the Dude's story
Our defense has a lot of speed/performances questions. We're relying on a bunch of unknowns such as:
- Keith's rebound
- Seabrook's return to defensive relevance (hopefully keeping up the offense at the same time)
- Hjalmarsson picking up the offense
- Leddy handling more minutes, replacing Campbell
- Montador solidifying the bottom pairing
- O'Donnell staying effective the whole season
- Lepisto managing anything
- Scott not playing at all
None of these are guaranteed, but all are pretty damn important. Color me concerned.
For defense I like these. I'm not as concerned about Keith or Hammer as they both had stretches of defensive relevance last year and came off years where they were both good to great. The guy that has me worried the most is Seabs. Since his concussion he's been downright awful in his own end (save for 2 series in the Cup playoffs), equating to over a year and a half's worth of play. Many lauded him last year for his "offensive improvement" but the reality is he was nearly the same player at even strength and garnered most of his extra points being on the lethal #1PP unit. Assuming Keith regains his shot of 2 years ago (his shot looked great in last season's playoffs so I'm very optimistic) Seabs will rarely, if ever, receive PP1 time so is point totals should plummet. He needs to focus on staying away from the ridiculous odd-man yielding pinches, quit losing men around the net, and get back to efficiently clearing the crease. This team will score more than their fair share of goals, we just need to keep them out of our own net. If Seabs can play like he did in the first part of the Cup season this team will be set.
The other thing relating to defense is the PK. There is no way in hell, with the forwards and dmen this team has, we should EVER be outside the top 10. Strategically we run the most pathetic PK I have ever seen. Our forwards need to use their skating ability to pressure the puck, and we need to have better spacing in our box...not all 4 guys in a 5 by 5 square down near the net. Cut down the space from the point men to the front line, use the sticks (Hammer has gotten bad on going down on EVERYTHING) instead of diving, and increase awareness. I'm not high on Q so this is a big question mark.
Here's something that flies a little under the radar: our 5 on 3 PP. It is downright pathetic to be 3 of 14 (or whatever) with the 2 man advantage...it just can't happen. Passing and movement should be quick to get the defense moving and out of position, not slow, deliberate, and methodical as it is. It's utterly amazing to see a great 5 on 4 only to see a horrifically run 5 on 3 a short time later. This one's hard to quantify, but I think it's safe to say it probably cost us a win or 2 and definitely some points. Not only do you not get the goal, you let the other team get pumped just from "stopping" you. We can't be giving these easy goals away.
The last thing I'm worried about is health. Particularly Glass Bowlly.
Defense is biggest concern. And health. I think splitting up Keith and Seabs will help even out the ice time, and Leddy has certainly improved since last year, imo. Hjalmarsson is still a big ??? but hopefully he is ready to step it up. As long as we have a solid top 4, our defense should be fine.
