TarHeelFlyer

You know at the time I didn't have a problem with it, but that was some other assumptions being made which don't look like they are working out. At the time: I was assuming that Hartnell/Giroux/Voracek was actually going to be our first line. That hasn't worked in any way shape or form. I was assuming that Schenn could actually make the transition to 2nd line LW. That hasn't happened. A line of Schenn/Vinnie/Simmonds was supposed to be a competent 2nd line. That hasn't worked out. Now that none of that has happened it looks REALLY bad, and I mean REALLY bad. Schenn must be at center in order to be what it is we want him to develop into. Vinnie isn't effective at the wing either. What does that mean? At this point, yes this signing would be a mistake.

I think the problem with Bryz is that in addition to his fragile mental status, it is all about him. If the goal is scored it is his fault and he focuses on bringing that attention onto himself. He has ZERO relationship with any of his teammates and it turns out his teammates in Phoenix pegged him exactly right.

Couts led the team in TOI last night with 23:33. The next closest player was Coburn with 22:13.

I'm not going to argue that he is a spring chicken or really young, but on a 2 year contract he could be a great asset as a stop-gap type deal. Here is a guy who is 34 years of age, but still leads his team in ATOI and is 10th in the league in scoring for defenseman. He also leads his team in +/-. We need an offensive defenseman, and is as close as is out there on the UFA market.

Guys who are UFA who I would at least look at adding to our group are somewhat limited. Guys to consider would be: Andrei Markov Ron Hainsey Dion Phaneuf Andrew MacDonald

Acquiring a guy like Myers comes down to cost for me. If they take Meszaros off our hands...I would consider it. That is a high contract this year only for a high longer contract. If they offset the salary this year by keeping back some of that money it could potentially work for us.

I am not saying he isn't struggling offensively, but his defensive game is getting back to the kid we saw at age 18. He is 20 years old. Go back and look at Henrik Sedin's first year in the league at the age of 20. 9 goals over the course of the year. 1 goal in 30 games while playing mostly on the 3rd line. Now, the all time leading scorer of the Canucks. Let's be a little patient with the kid.

I think that depends upon your definition of struggle. Offensively I think it is clear he is struggling, but I think Berube has gotten him back to finding his shutdown game with the hope that his offense then comes along. Personally, his line generated some good chances last night, but overall I think he still needs to work on his offensive game.

We do NOT miss Briere. We miss most the guys who produced last year....producing this year. Voracek, Giroux, and Simmonds were are leading scorers last year....they have a combined 2 goals in 39 games between them. That is HORRIBLE! If they can get it together and get the atrocious PP actually scoring, I honestly like our team.

From the "leadership" perspective, we more than replaced Briere's loss by adding Vinnie. Production wise, we more than replaced him. The problems we have are more than just the loss of one guy. We have issues because guys came in unprepared for the year.

I'm not sure I would put Couturier in that group which is in trouble. Against the Isles he led the forwards in ice time. At even strength he was 3rd among forwards, but was only about 20 seconds behind both Voracek and B. Schenn. The lowest minutes for defenseman at ES was not Schenn, but Timonen. I think you are seeing Berube giving the young guys responsibility.

My only issue with Coburn is that sometimes he does STUPID crap that ends up in our goal. A couple of games ago, what was the deal with that pass through the middle. Just dumb. If he keeps away from those and skates...he is fine.

I honestly think the most major issue with this team right now is PP hockey. We had 11 minutes of PP time last night and couldn't score. We are next to last in PP %. We have scored 3 PP goals and overall are 3 For 37 or we score on 8% of our PP opportunities. 3 for 37? That is HORRIBLE! Last year we were 3rd overall at 21.6%. At last year's percentage this team would have 5 more goals. Now I know that isn't alot, but should those goals have happened against Carolina, Phoenix and Vancouver, we could be looking at a team which was 5-4 not 2-7.

Yeah, I think in all honesty, we may need to pay someone to take him off our hands.

I haven't figured that out yet. I think he needs to be gone honestly. He is part of a culture that needs to be out. If we finish the month 1-10 or 1 for the month of October, changes are going to have to take place. They just will. It can't continue like that.

That only shows how little reading I do about the team when they suck! LOL! I actually saw something about moving someone off the PP unit, but I thought it was Voracek who was moved off.

Right now we need scoring more than we need ALMOST anything else. In light of that, I would put our best 3 offensive players together, make an acceptable 2nd line who you hope can chip in, and then do the others piece meal. Voracek/Giroux/Vinnie L. Read/Schenn/Simmonds McGinn/Couturier/Raffl Talbot/Hall/Rinaldo I would move Timonen off the top PP unit and replace him with Streit. I would try more acceptable D pairings with a Defense first guy and offense first guy as a pair using only big pairings like Grossmann and Coburn together for the PK.

It is impossible to know if Pronger would still be playing at the level he was at the last time we saw him play, but I think it is without debate that if he was still playing at that level, we would be better without a doubt. I'm not sure how much better our record would be because he doesn't fix our scoring issues greatly, but it would make everyone else's minutes go down and THAT would be huge.

I posted this on another site, but right now the whole team is playing so poorly that I don't know who to keep. This offense just sucks.

I have a completely different perspective on this than I think anyone here. First, I don't think Vanek's age is a large factor here. At 29 he is still one year younger than Briere was when we got him and he gave us some good years. Obviously I would have loved to have gotten better regular seasons from him, but he was lights out come playoff time. Second, I think Vanek makes Giroux instantly better and he makes Vinnie instantly better. Giroux gets better because he gets an elite teammate who is still in his prime. Vinnie gets better because he gets a guy on his line who used to be on the first line...assuming he isn't moved in the trade. Third, I think getting him is a great idea, assuming you can find a financial deal which works for the team. I don't think he needs to be paid 7 million per anymore, if we can get the average hit down to a more reasonable number, it might make sense. Fourth, to me the deal comes down to cost. I don't know if I'm willing to move Couturier, Coburn, and a first for him, especially with how high our first could potentially be this year, but if you make that a 2nd, I would have to consider it for sure. I would like it even better if they would take Meszaros instead of Coburn, but would be okay with either one. Fifth, the thing I DON'T like about the trade would be it is a "win now" type of move. Personally, I think we might need to move into more of a win 2-3 years from now mode. So the question for me becomes one of....do we do this now, or should we wait. Maybe we need to give some of our young guys a shot first. Guys like Akeson, Cousins, and Straka. Yeah, I know Straka doesn't play a lick of D, but put him on a line with guys who are responsible defensively and lets see if he can learn it here AND score some goals.

So maybe it wasn't Lavy? I don't think it was all Lavy, but Lavy was def. one of the issues the team had. The habits he created in their game are being seen still.

I agree completely. Some of our inability to pass the puck out of the zone IMO was purely the system we were trying to run. It is the rare player who can make a goal line to center line pass on the tape with the receiver of the puck in motion consistently let alone the far blue line which we frequently were trying to do. I think this is why we were streaky as a team under Lavy. When we were hitting these passes we looked like gang busters ready to beat anyone, when we weren't we looked like dog poop. This D is a capable as put together, I truly believe that. We have a good mix of players. Granted we don't have a true #1 guy, but I think we have about 7 guys who are capable of playing 18 minutes a night regularly. That leaves you about a 6 minute hole some of which is going to be taken up by Voracek playing the point on the PP. The biggest issue I think this D had was the fact that the passes needed to be so long and they didn't have the skill set to do that. I think the players knew they couldn't do it and that is why training camp was so bad. They didn't even give the effort there because the system was the problem. IMO, Berube is doing this right. The fix happens this way: 1. You fix your own zone first. 2. You fix the breakouts second 3. You fix the attack last. The goals will come on their own, but will come more consistently when you actually know what you are doing in your own end and how you are going to get out of that zone.

After watching the Blues/Blackhawks game last night, I realized just how pathetic this team is right now. We are a LONG way behind them. That is not to say we don't have talent and can't get better, but this team is currently brain dead. When it comes to system, I don't care what we play as long as it promotes winning. When Lavy arrived, I supported him because he had won a cup recently. If you look at my posts from earlier this year though, you will see I wanted him fired...for sure. His system had led to nothing but shots from the points and desperate attempts to catch the other team in a change with us throwing passes from our goal line to the other blue line. This is just dumb and you must be super talented (ie Pronger) to actually make that pass accurately consistently.

The way they won was ugly...okay. I think they need to relearn how to play. Some of these guys have never actually had a system other than attack...attack...attack. It needed to be more than that, and it just wasn't. Schenn and Couturier and Read have pretty much known nothing but Lavy's "system". It is going to take the guys some time to figure out how to play again and for Berube to put in place his system. Look back at the coaches Berube played for and coached under and my guess is you will see some blend of them to get what he wants to do. My guess is they will play much much harder and much more defensive in the long run.

I don't know which it is, but I think they need to work a rotation or something. Guys like Gill and Gus are going to go stale. They haven't played now in over a week. For Gus' development alone he needs to get some minutes. Gill, I am fine with sitting, but I think they need to take advantage of the luxury of having Gus and get him some games while resting Timonen.