Bakanekimiwa

Statistically speaking, yes.

Hey! That's MY line!

It's right there in black and white (or whatever your particular settings conjure)

Again, Laviolette is a "good" coach. He's not a "great" coach. Yet.

I'm not sure why this is so hard to grasp...

As for the Isles, let's remember that this was 10 years ago. Yang was throwing buckets of money around. Alexi Yashin was their top center. Michael Peca was on that squad. Chris Osgood was the goalie (in front of some guy named Snow).

Laviolette was there for two years, and was let go for the most part because they felt he should have been doing better with the talent he had than back to back first round losses and player disenchantment.

The Islanders then... lost in the first round the next season.

I guess there's some semantic issues here. It's not that your point is hard to grasp, I guess we just have different connotations of the words 'good' and 'great' when it comes to hockey coaching. I think you overvalue 'great' and I undervalue it. I'm not meaning to say that laviolette is the 2nd coming of Herb Brooks, I just think he's done a great job with what he's got. This season is a very good example of that. This team is playing very well despite injury problems and goalie issues.

But.. Using the islanders as an example of why you think he's not 'great'!? That org has been a mess ever since crazy Wang made Garth snow gm. 15 year deal to dipietro tells you all you need to know about how they operate. No clue.

I'm not buying into "Laviolette is a great coach". When did he earn these accolades?

He lost in the first round twice with the Islanders. Made the playoffs once in four years with Carolina and rode Cam Ward to the Cup - after first going with Gerber.

In two years the Flyers went from the Finals to an ignominious departure in the Second with the team stumbling and bumbling around this year.

I can't see any adjustments he's made to this situation. I can't see where he's really excelled at anything - expect well-timed time outs.

But I'm ready to be enlightened as to why he's a "great coach."

I've only see 1 & 2 of the 24/7 series - but I haven't heard him say much about the real problem on this team which is clearly not goal scoring and is clearly "defense." The "word is out" not just on our goalie, but our team defense. Deflections and "own goal" deflections are frequently associated with playing out of position and "bad rebounds" to open guys are frequently a result of players not covering their man (see: Stamkos, Steven).

They don't need to fling more pucks at the opponent's net. They need fewer pucks at their own.

this is an interesting argument... the isles playoffs losses. i'm just curious why you would also choose to leave out the fact that he won a stanley cup in carolina? every coach loses, but i've never seen a coach win a game... is that it? players do have an effect on the game... the fact the isles made it to the playoffs with their perennial losers is testament enough for me that lavy is a great motivator.

i think the thing that strikes me about lavy is that he treats the players with respect. as a coach, he can't get out there and do the little things they need to do, so he's an instructor and motivator. that's all he can do, and from where i sit, he's pretty damn good at it.

the interesting thing about 24/7 is to see the contrast in coaching styles with torts. torts manages by fear. he treats them like kids and motivates them negatively. i think lavy is a far better coach in so far as his repoire with the players leads them to want to play for him. not just want to play well to avoid being in the doghouse.

@hf101

ok, cool. wanted to check before i directly offended anyone, because someone obviously spent a lot of time on that. imo, it completely misses the forrest for the statistical trees. i agree that the bryzgalov of the last two weeks has been more off than normal, and we've seen that over the course of this season. i have a problem with the basic and repeated premise, though, that bryzgalov is basically no different than henrik lundqvist. statistically, they've had similar ups and downs over their careers, but the two are very different goalies who have developed those statistics in very different situations. it also fails to go back further than two seasons, and so doesn't capture any of bryzgalov's not-statistically-great seasons, things that lundqvist has never had. lundqvist has only ever had one season with a sv% below .916, whereas bryzglov's career *average* is .914.

i admire the work put into this piece, and it's an interesting take. it misses the bigger picture, though, in my mind. thanks for posting it, just my $.02.

Yeah.. It's reaching for a positive angle a bit. Statisticians also know how to pull out numbers to prove their point.... Any point.

I saw # 10 during warm-ups,but not much during the game.Did he play the whole game?

one game back with very limited ice time. i thought the same thing last night, but it is very early to ride the kid.

i think it's actually time to put bob in there and see how he does. give him a string of starts and let bryz go home and think about it for awhile.

Sure, but there are degrees and Bryzgalov should be way better in this department. Even for $51MM, I don't expect him to be as consistent at a high level as Lundqvist. I do however expect him to be in the same zip code consistency wise and not at the bottom of the league in this regard.

I think you meant $73M.

at their best, the rangers can be a scarey team. they aren't always at their best, though. they had their A game running last night, but it is far from a given that's what they'll bring on any given night.

same with the flyers, really. i can see them switching places on the 2nd, and i think a playoff series would be up for grabs.

This is how I look at it. But, if stall comes back and gets back into form, I think they've got an edge on us. Especially since they've got a consistent fancy lad in net.

@doom88

I'll start with what I don't believe is the root cause:

• New time zone
  
• New shooters
  
• New defensemen/defensive tendencies
  
• Injury
  

I think it is more likely a combination the following:

• Obsessive nature causing difficulty in adapting to new team, circumstances
  
• Lack of focus brought on by lifetime financial security
  
• Exhibitionism + active press corps + 24/7 = preoccupation with press at the expense of preparation
  
• Difficulty hacking the pressure of playing in a hockey market (the wise cracking is a cover)
  
• 9 year deal, willingness to blame others results in lack of any sense of urgency to play better
  

In other words, it is all mental. It is going to get worse now of course because we see signs that the honeymoon is over. The combination of his horniness for attention, bizarre comments (like the dog thing; WTF?), uninspired play and the shots at his teammates are going to lead to exactly the kind of attention that he appears unequipped to deal with. I predict he will be an even worse mess in a month.

Yah, the thing that worries me most is that the press and fans are turning on him and that will only make it worse.

yup. for whatever reason he didn't react to the puck bouncing off callahan's skate.

It's tough to say he should have had it because it was a deflection, but I agree that he just didn't look ready. He wasn't anticipating the play and wasn't in great position. So he *could* have stopped it, but I have a hard time jumping to *should* have. Suffice it to say, he's not been great, and he is being paid to be much better than he is.

That said, bob has not been great either. He let in a bad goal the other game and then settled down and played well, but he was guilty of the same thing as bryz... Letting in a bad first goal. We can argue back and forth about being rusty from not starting, but I think everyone realizes its bryz's job to lose, so bobs simply gotta be better before we can talk about sitting our $70m* man.

*seems his price just keeps getting higher with every complaint, so there you go.

I must admit... I raised an eyebrow at this signing at first. But, he's been the perfect 'character guy'. Quite frankly, you *need* guys like him on your team... And he's one of the best. Great season for him thus far.

The universe is humongous... Big. We don't have to worry.

I watched it last night with the steam and maybe I had to much to drink but I didn't think it was that good.

I'm going to watch it again this morning

Same here... It wasn't as good as the first one. Btw, am I the only one who doesn't give a sh!t about the rangers side of things!?

Split the episodes in two... Sorry, but the cripple boy angle is touching and all, but I don't need to see it in this show.

It's clear, to me, that lavvy is a great motivator. Torts sucks. Who'd you rather play for? Torts treats them like children.

Once again.. It's rinaldo... I'm surprised a penalty was called, let alone a major. I'm disappointed in shanny on this one as well. Lucic is a repeat repeat offender.

Fire all the things!!!

Bob has let in some soft goals but not as many as Bryz has at this point. Bryz needs to learn how to stay focused.Too many times he is watching the game on the ice and then he is like a dog seeing a SQUIRREL!!! and stops paying attention to what is transpiring in front of him...

well... we haven't seen bob start as much as bryz, so who knows how many softies he'd let in. anyway, suffice it to say... we're not getting the goaltending we're paying for. we probably have the highest $'s to goaltending tandem in the league, but i think we are also collectively at the bottom in many of the goalie stat categories.... combined.

just terrible. what a disappointment.

We don't need Giroux right now, let him get healthy. See you in 2012. Don't rush.

even though he's practicing and it looks promising... early 2012 is probably still the likely timeframe for him to return. if there are no setbacks. let's hope, but this is a positive sign.

here are a few thing to realize:

1. bryzgalov is not a franchise goalie. he's a really good goalie, but he isn't one of those 4 or 5 otherworldly elite goalies.

2. games like today are going to happen. really, they happen to everyone, but are going to happen to bryzgalov more than, say tim thomas. but not as much as, say, michael leighton.

3. bryzgalov's sv% is going to come up. by season's end, that lost-in-the-woods bit will be lost statistically, and he'll have decent .91something numbers. as it stands, those 5 bad games still make up 25% of his total starts. the numbers get pushed around pretty easily at this point.

4. bryzgalov can't be waived. no movement clause means he can't be put in a situation to be moved.

5. as we saw for 6 games, the team can win in front of him. yes, his contract is dumb, but it isn't like we're talking about robert esche here. over the course of a season, bryzgalov can be the goalie behind a winning team. yes, i'd rather the team wasn't married to him, but they are, and that by itself isn't going to kill them.

Stop making sense! Fire all the things!!!

this explains a lot dynamo!!! i kid... i kid. sorry to hear about your continued problems. i had a mild concussion this past summer. who knows how many i might have had as a kid, tackle football with no gear every weekend probably left my head like that watermelon.

anyway, i had some of the symptoms that you have mentioned here. albeit, probably a lot more mild than yours, the one very striking thing to me was also the personality changes. that's what was most disturbing to me. i just didn't feel like myself... and, in short, it was really bumming me out. inability to focus, headaches and irritability were pervasive for a few months. i'm still having 'off' days, but my symptoms have pretty much subsided 6 months after impact.

suffice it to say... it's a truly awful feeling that i wouldn't wish on anyone. i hope your symptoms fade away. i also hope prongs can have his wear off, but it doesn't seem likely... sadly.

people wonder why these guys make so much money to play a game. well, they're very often sacrificing their quality of life later in life. some might say that you couldn't pay them enough to take that deal.

be an excellent indicator of how bad we need another D'Man at this point of the season. Both teams oplaying at there best. Questions will be answered tomorrow.

the team is playing very well right now, but no one should be under any illusion here. we're gonna suffer without pronger... over the long haul, but especially in the playoffs. i don't think december hockey is really a good indicator of playoff hockey intensity.

but, to your point... i think you're absolutely right. boston is probably the best team in the league right now(not going by records as they stand right now)

I'm trying to figure out what's up with Schenn's cap hit. Based on what was reported early in the season, it shouldn't be 3+ million anymore, since he didn't play in all 82 games this year.

i believe schenn's adjusted cap hit is $2,115,000 for this season.

I'm willing to trade bob for a good D-man but I just can't see fitting Weber under cap

as much as i'd love to see weber here... he's on the verge of norris trophy and i have a very hard time seeing nashville give him up for anybody. suter might be had, though.

at this point... i'd be surprised if his career *wasn't* over. i've had mild posts-concussion symptoms for a few months and it really sucks. when you don't feel like yourself, it's stressful and very concerning. i couldn't remember the hit to my head that caused the concussion, so i'm not surprised neither could pronger. seems to be one of the tell-tale signs.

i think we'll see him go on LTIR, and stay there for 5 years!???, since that way they can use his cap money during the season. i'd be surprised if he just up and retires... the flyers will be pretty screwed if he does.

At this point, Pronger may never play again, sounds dire, but given his age and how bad this concussion appears to be, it's not out of the question. Given the long term prognosis, naming a new captain only makes sense. Not disrespecting Prongs at all, it's just business....they need a new leader.Maybe naming Briere gives him a spark, he seems like the type to shoulder that type of responsibility with no problem....although Kimo would be a excellent choice also. Is this team cursed or what?

this is what i'm thinking.... pronger could be done for more than just this season. i could very easily see him LTIR ala lappy, rathje... etc, etc. people wondered how we'd get away from his monstrous contract, well, i know LTIR isn't exactly 'getting away from it', but it's the next best thing. over the summer, i said.. you just never know what can happen. well, i wasn't expecting this either.

NOT saying i'm happy about his injury or that i don't want him back. i think pronger is a game changer still.. at his age. i just think that he's got to be thinking more about life AFTER hockey at this point and with the bevy of surgeries, serious eye injury... and now THIS. at 37, being told your season is over with ??? hanging over the beyond... he's not stupid.

Great. This is really becoming pandemic. The league has to do step in and do something radical before they lose half of the players to the retirement. Ridiculous.

and remember that elbow to the head from leino!? wonder how that might have played into it. i mean... i know they have their baseline tests and all that, but let's face it, read's a young guy trying to make it in the nhl and this is the best opportunity for him right here and now. would not come as a shocker for him to downplay any symptoms.