If that’s high sticking, so was Teddy Green getting knocked unconscious by Wayne Maki. Jesu Christo, that’s a horrific look for Trouba and the NHL DoPS.
Trouba would not fight Lucic or any other heavyweight. Nobody is afraid of “enforcers” anymore. Having a goon does nothing but take up a roster spot. I’m all for tough guys that can get in on the forecheck and hit hard in order to wear defenseman down over a playoff series, but the notion that having someone who’s only function is to “fight the heavy’s” doesn’t accomplish anything.
I think Kane would be a plus addition, but I am much more concerned that the defense is ultimately going to fall short.
The defense is going to go as far as McAvoy, Lindholm, and Carlo take it. There really isn’t any moves that they can realistically make to improve other than Lohrei taking a big step in Providence and getting called up for the playoffs. Every team going into the playoffs would like to add a “big, nasty, top 4 defenseman that can clear the crease and move the puck”, but if any of those guys are actually available, they are going to cost first round picks that the Bruins don’t have, and young roster players/prospects like Lohrei, Poitras, or Lysell.
I agree about top4. Not much they can do there. As you suggest the end, the bigger concern is much more with bottom 2 than top 4. Assuming Forbort is going nowhere, I've yet to see any of Shattenkirk, Mitchell or Lohrei step up as #6, though Lohrie has that potential. I suppose it's easier to improve on the bottom of the D than the top.
It's kind of hard to overstate how bad Lohrei was and how detrimental he was to the overall defense. They've allowed 29 5x5 goals against this season and 11 came with Lohrei on the ice. And he only played 10 games. By any of the defensive rate stats like shots against, chances against, and expected goals against, he is last among defenseman by a signficant margin. They were winning so it didn't really hurt them but he probably should've been sent down after McAvoy came back. He was so bad I wouldn't consider him for a call up the rest of the way, I'd bring Wotherspoon and Zboril up first.
I thought Debrusk, Poitras and Heinen were excellent last night. That’s a line I would keep together.
I dont know what the solution is, but I think that both Debrusk and Frederic are wasted (or their skills are substantially under-utilized) in those groupings.
I think the big problem is what to do with Geekie. I read somewhere recently that the team has had very limited practice time over the last month. Hopefully with some additional game and practice time they can start to gel. Lots of new players.
We’ll see if DeBrusk can score more goals/improve his shooting % with this move to the first line. Spreading the talent around should give the Bruins some matchup advantages. Something needed to change, even if it is temporary.
I'd swap Frederic and Heinen. I think I am just considerably higher on Frederic than I am on Heinen. I agree that Heinen has been good. I just think Frederic's ceiling is higher.
Frederic and Coyle have something cooking together. In 801 minutes at 5x5 together since the beginning of last season the Bruisn are up 44-21 with those 2 on the ice together. It's an extensive sample size and the underlyings are good too. The actual results are a bit inflated but the underlyings are still excellent.
I was going off eyes, not numbers, so I'd have to agree. Especially with the bolded.
I think it's a handful of things. First, I agree with you on Pasta, I had no clue why he was out there, maybe he got caught on the ice when the goalie pulled(Pasta taking seemingly unnecessarily long shifts is whole other thing)? We've seen so many of these situations the last 2 seasons I think we just feel like its happening a lot, the league PP% is usually around 20% which feels inline with how many they give up. I also think they have philosophy when they can't ice it like normal on the kill that they try to just get it out of the zone a lot, which is leading to failed clears. I would rather have them just hammer it down ice and take a chance at the dot, where I feel like they have better odds than the missed clears. More bodies on the ice creates more muck as well.
As to Toronto specifically sure I could see that line of thinking, but it's been a thing since Monty came in. The Beecher night off was absolutely bizarre to me. I haven't looked at the advanced stats but I feel like he's been our best or second best defensive center. He's extremely reliable in his role. I don't necessarily mind giving him a night off every now and then, and we obviously won, but I'd rather see him get a game off against a bottom team. Getting reps against a team as talented as Toronto in that atmosphere is only going to help him. Plus the obvious fact that the team is better with him playing over at least 5 or 6 other guys
Awesome line... and I am sure something that many of us have had to reconcile with.
Forgive me for not knowing this, but what is the minimum number of games he has to miss?
