Pre-Game Talk: Week 4: Saint Louis Blues and @ Vegas Golden Knights. Time to panic? Or time to calm down?

[Pokecheque]

Gonna need guys like Toews and JJ to step up a bit more this year (Manson is probably already a vocal presence), and probably the new guys as well in RJ, Colton, and Wood.

Judging by his pointed comments the other day I think Toews is starting to do just that.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

Looks like Drouin and Tuna are at least off the #2 PP unit

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Ceremony]

3 minutes of MacDermid in place of Drouin. What a time to be alive.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

The game is also on Altitude, so I supposed the TNT broadcast will be blacked out for anyone with Xfinity and Dish.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

3 minutes of MacDermid in place of Drouin. What a time to be alive.

Possibly 3-minutes of MacDermid... Possibly not. Kind of like my sex life. Possibly 3-minutes of bliss, possibly none at all.

 

[S E P H]

Man I'm sick of these multiple days between games nonsense. Get this shit going so we can go through the L's a bit quicker.

I'm not one to usually complain about refs, on-ice products, injuries, or whatnot on here (oh but I do complain about the practice facility and I will continue to be butthurt about that lol), but the schedule has truly been effed up this year. No consistency whatsoever.

Vegas is bound to hit a wall or at least some adversity soon. No way they keep rolling like this.

Even if that's the case, have you seen the Pacific division recently? Even when Stone gets his 5 month back injury, they will cakewalk that division easily.

 

[S E P H]

3 minutes of MacDermid in place of Drouin. What a time to be alive.

Not surprised, Blues are one of the goonier teams in the league where Drouin or Tatar might struggle against teams like this. Good point though, 3 minutes of McDermid will stop any douchebag play that Bortuzzo will conduct today.

 

[Pokecheque]

What I wouldn't give for Landeskog to be out there to beat the living tar out of "Captain" Schenn again.

 

[LOFIN]

What I wouldn't give for Landeskog to be out there to beat the living tar out of "Captain" Schenn again.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Gruyeriev]

I'm not one to usually complain about refs, on-ice products, injuries, or whatnot on here (oh but I do complain about the practice facility and I will continue to be butthurt about that lol), but the schedule has truly been effed up this year. No consistency whatsoever.


Even if that's the case, have you seen the Pacific division recently? Even when Stone gets his 5 month back injury, they will cakewalk that division easily.

Oh no doubt. They will probably seal the number one spot in the Pacific 20 games in but I refuse to believe they will continue to show no signs of a cup hangover. (At least I hope)

 

[bradrich99]

This should be an easy 2pt game for Avs. Reality for Blues is that they'll need Binnington to stand on his head most games to finish as a .500 team this year.

 

[GeoRox89]

What I wouldn't give for Landeskog to be out there to beat the living tar out of "Captain" Schenn again.

Hate Schenn on the ice but have a lot of respect for Schenn as a person after the story of him, Leddy and Saad going to congratulate the boys outside the dressing room after winning the St Louis series

 

[Leaf Rocket]

haven't watched you guys play this season? I see Drouin is riding the pine has he been that bad?

 

[Ceremony]

It'll be unfortunate when Schenn suffers violent diarrhoea and is unable to play tonight.

 

[Pokecheque]

haven't watched you guys play this season? I see Drouin is riding the pine has he been that bad?

Yeah he's been bad. Can't say it's been unexpected though, we were obviously hoping for better.

 

[Foppa2118]

This is just Bednar nipping things in the bud early. He wants to set the tone this season. It's like the Cup season, they have one goal, and he's not gonna play favorites.

Drouin and Tatar haven't played poorly enough to scratch them. MacDermid isn't a better option than them.

They were just 6-0 two games ago, but they haven't really played to their capability all season. This is message sending. The message is, "don't get comfortable we have a job to do."

 

[lionsDen]

My phone hates typing Drouin. It keeps autocorrecting to different things. I think I'll just stick to calling him JD from now on.

I’m to lazy but can’t you just click on how it’s spelled and it allows it instead of autocorrecting

My phone hates typing Drouin. It keeps autocorrecting to different things. I think I'll just stick to calling him JD from now on.

I’m to lazy but can’t you when entering it drouin

 

[sethro109]

I’m to lazy but can’t you just click on how it’s spelled and it allows it instead of autocorrecting

That would involve me adding an exception to my phone or actually spellchecking what I wrote. I'm too lazy for both.

 

[lionsDen]

That would involve me adding an exception to my phone or actually spellchecking what a wrote. I'm too lazy for both.

My brother from another mother

 

[Ararana]

I've been using hockeystatcards game score composition metric to rate each of the defensemen as the season progresses.

Couple things that stand out (all metric based thoughts - clearly adv. stats don't tell a complete story)

- Toews... WTF man. Manson and JJ have put up better advanced stats on a nightly basis than you
- Byram had a rough first four games, but has consistently been their best defenseman since then
- Girard is a tale of two different players, he jumps back and forth quite a bit
- I still don't think Makar is 100% healthy, which is probably impacting Toews (as I believe Toews' success at least somewhat depends on Makar carrying that pairing)

 

[RoyIsALegend]

Saturday night in Vegas is going to be a great game.

Already looking forward to that one. 10 PM EST start so hopefully the kids are in bed and just me, the dogs, and the captain for puck drop.

 

[McJedi]

I've been using hockeystatcards game score composition metric to rate each of the defensemen as the season progresses.

View attachment 761675

Couple things that stand out (all metric based thoughts - clearly adv. stats don't tell a complete story)

- Toews... WTF man. Manson and JJ have put up better advanced stats on a nightly basis than you
- Byram had a rough first four games, but has consistently been their best defenseman since then
- Girard is a tale of two different players, he jumps back and forth quite a bit
- I still don't think Makar is 100% healthy, which is probably impacting Toews (as I believe Toews' success at least somewhat depends on Makar carrying that pairing)

Byram needs more 5 vs 5 minutes with Makar. Probably every time we get an Ozone faceoff. He's a better player than Toews. And that delta will only grow the more we play Byram. Byram hit his 100 NHL game played last night (not counting the 30 or so postseason games). He's still got room to grow and has figured out how to avoid taking unnecessary hits like Sam and Makar figured out before him.

Girard was fantastic last night. He is skating like he did a few years ago and it's very entertaining to watch. The play he made last night dancing thru two Blues to feed Tufte was every bit as good a play as guys like Q Hughes make. Glad he's at least enjoying several really good games to more than offset the bad ones. He's certainly earning every penny of his AAV so far this year.

Toews has a robotic game and he needs to step of the swagger with and without the puck to play with more creativity. He did jump a passing lane beautifully in the 2nd period last night to create a high danger chance. Was a play Toews made routinely a back in the 2021-22 season