Yep, that's a huge plus in DeBoer's book. He has his faults, but that is one of his real successes.Originally Posted by VaxjoDevil
Yep, that's a huge plus in DeBoer's book. He has his faults, but that is one of his real successes.
Remember, after meeting me.
I'm withholding judgment on DeBoer until next season. I expect him to be around a while, and as far as I'm concerned the key is going to be his ability to grow as a coach and adapt to his team. Right now we're seeing the high-pressure offense that fits very well with the games that Zach Parise, Adam Henrique, Dainius Zubrus, and Petr Sykora play. Ilya Kovalchuk didn't fit it exactly at first, but he's adapted his game to it and he's become more effective as a consequence - and, most importantly in the long run, perhaps - his newer game is going to be much more effective in the playoffs.
The big team weaknesses: the defense and the powerplay, can both be attributed to absence of personnel as much as to poor coaching. As good as the forwards on the PP are, we still lack the PPQB, which isn't a necessity for a good PP, but it's a good start. I'd like to see some steady improvement in the PP as the year goes on, that will be a good sign.
The defense, though, I think is much more of a personnel problem. The problem is our forwards are suited to one kind of game, and the defense is suited for another, and we're playing to the strength of the forwards as opposed to the weakness of the defense. In the short-run that probably hurts us; in the long-run, it probably helps us, if we can find a way to improve our personnel.
Overall, I'm willing to be patient with the defense. I think that you always look into acquiring the Suter-type players, but I think with the young defensemen that we have already on the team, and in the pipeline, I think that the future is bright there. I do not think that we have a PPQB type on the roster right now, although I would like to see Tao get his long overdue shot to QB the PP.
But in terms of strong, 2 way defensemen, I think that we're going to be very strong in that department eventually. Larsson's going to be a big time top pairing D, and I see Fayne developing into a Paul Martin-type for the 2nd pair. But you also expect that DeBoer will also need to get better D from the forwards as well. That's been missing almost as much as what we've seen from the defensemen.
Great post. It could be that we are closer to solving personnel problem on D than we imagine. I could think one single acquisition of a real top pairing defenseman, together with time: let Tallinder be one of the second D-pairing, let Larsson develop into a real first D, and our top four would be pretty good, with Fayne developing nicely into a high level second pairing D.
Where our highest paid D, Volchenkov, is fitting in all this I honestly have no clue.
You never want to have a defense that is absent the Volchenkov-type. I know everyone's seen my ideal distribution of defensemen before: 3 mobile, two-way guys, 1 powerplay quarterback, 1 shutdown defenseman (any variety, preferably physical), 1 punishing shutdown defenseman (someone who can throw the huge checks). Volchenkov fits one of the last two spots. His paycheck doesn't bother me, nor does any disparity between his paycheck and his minutes, so long as he is doing exactly what he was brought in to do. It's when players you pay to do something specific aren't able to do that something that the team gets into trouble.
In truth, I've got confidence in the future personnel of the defense. I think there are enough young prospects (Gelinas, Burlon, Merrill, etc. on top of Larsson and Fayne) that we'll be able to fill the 3 mobile spots without difficulty. Then we'll probably have extras we can pawn off to fill other holes.
Last edited by Classic Devil; 01-08-2012 at 11:09.
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