GDT: Blackhawks @ Sabres 2/1/2019, 7PM EST

[Samson's Flow]

Read through the whole thread this morning. Was exactly what I was expecting. Frustration is high right now

[...]

23 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Why? Because he can't single handedly propel a deeply flawed roster to a high level of success? The problem isn't Eichel, it's everyone on the ice when he isn't. What are we supposed to do, triple shift him? 

I suppose you see the captain's role as on-ice liaison, team administrator, and nothing more.

[TrueBlueGED]

6 minutes ago, ... said:

I suppose you see the captain's role as on-ice liaison, team administrator, and nothing more.

Everything is secondary to having enough talent and good coaching. I know we don't have the former, and I don't really think we have the latter. If this roster was stacked like Tampa or Toronto and we still sucked, then okay, let's talk about other factors. But you could drop Mark Messier on his prime into Eichel's slot and it wouldn't move the needle at all. 

Edit: speaking of Toronto, they don't even have a captain. Seems to be working okay. 

Edited February 2, 2019 by TrueBlueGED

[Stoner]

9 hours ago, Ross Rhea said:

I like Jack and think he is real good but he cant hold Kaners jock.

Approaching the end of his fourth year, a picture of Eichel is emerging. Real good sounds about right. Is he capable of carrying or leading a team? This is the first stretch of his career where that can be examined. January says no. February is another shot for him. Last night is the first time I've had a weird feeling about the guy. He made some very odd plays. The postgame with the hat pulled over his eyes added to my spidey sense.

[Carmel Corn]

In the first period last night, our Risto rocked Kane with a hard check.  Captain Toews immediately goes after Risto despite not being known as a fighter and giving up some size as well.  They did not drop gloves, but his actions demonstrated how he cares about his team and will take matters into his own hands. 

I like Jack's talent, but I do not see the same kind of leadership quality and willingness to put himself at risk to support his teammates.  Jack would not do the same thing if Skinner got rocked by the other team.  It's just not in him and I wish it was.

 

[Weave]

24 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Approaching the end of his fourth year, a picture of Eichel is emerging. Real good sounds about right. Is he capable of carrying or leading a team? This is the first stretch of his career where that can be examined. January says no. February is another shot for him. Last night is the first time I've had a weird feeling about the guy. He made some very odd plays. The postgame with the hat pulled over his eyes added to my spidey sense.

Pierre Turgeon

[TrueBlueGED]

27 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Approaching the end of his fourth year, a picture of Eichel is emerging. Real good sounds about right. Is he capable of carrying or leading a team? This is the first stretch of his career where that can be examined. January says no. February is another shot for him. Last night is the first time I've had a weird feeling about the guy. He made some very odd plays. The postgame with the hat pulled over his eyes added to my spidey sense.

No player, no matter how great, can carry a team. This is hockey, not the NBA or NFL. McDavid is clearly the best player in the league, and the Oilers still stink. They brought in a proven winning coach in Hitchcock. And they still stink. 

Culture shmulture leader shmeader. Teams with enough talent win, teams without it lose. 

[Stoner]

2 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

No player, no matter how great, can carry a team. This is hockey, not the NBA or NFL. McDavid is clearly the best player in the league, and the Oilers still stink. They brought in a proven winning coach in Hitchcock. And they still stink. 

Culture shmulture leader shmeader. Teams with enough talent win, teams without it lose. 

Well, Jack's making 10. Skinner's going to want (insert number a little below 10) and the Sabres likely will pay it. What will Dahlin be making in two years? How much more high-end talent can they add? It's like when people said Dom couldn't do it all, he needed some help. He was the superstar. He was making 10 then!

Those three guys better be able to carry them.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

15 minutes ago, Weave said:

Pierre Turgeon

Yikes.

I know what you are getting at here, but I think / hope that Eich will become more like who Oh la la was turned into.

[Carmel Corn]

3 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Well, Jack's making 10. Skinner's going to want (insert number a little below 10) and the Sabres likely will pay it. What will Dahlin be making in two years? How much more high-end talent can they add? It's like when people said Dom couldn't do it all, he needed some help. He was the superstar. He was making 10 then!

Those three guys better be able to carry them.

Avatar change?

All three are talented yes, but I think there needs to be other players added that can be part of a critical mass that demands accountability from the rest of the team.  We can use a few more guys who play hard every shift and stick up for their teammates.

 

[TrueBlueGED]

12 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Well, Jack's making 10. Skinner's going to want (insert number a little below 10) and the Sabres likely will pay it. What will Dahlin be making in two years? How much more high-end talent can they add? It's like when people said Dom couldn't do it all, he needed some help. He was the superstar. He was making 10 then!

Those three guys better be able to carry them.

Kane and Toews make a combined $21 million dollars and all they're doing is leading the Blackhawks to the bottom of the West. They've won 3 Cups and they can't carry a team when the rest of the roster is garbage. If they can't, why should we expect Eichel and Skinner to? 

[Stoner]

5 minutes ago, Carmel Corn said:

Avatar change?

All three are talented yes, but I think there needs to be other players added that can be part of a critical mass that demands accountability from the rest of the team.  We can use a few more guys who play hard every shift and stick up for their teammates.

Yeah, I saw that kid on the broadcast last night dancing with his friends. It's perfect, right down to the slug. Even at a young age, he knows the score.

[inkman]

13 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Kane and Toews make a combined $21 million dollars and all they're doing is leading the Blackhawks to the bottom of the West. They've won 3 Cups and they can't carry a team when the rest of the roster is garbage. If they can't, why should we expect Eichel and Skinner to? 

Thank you for being the voice of sanity.  The population of Chicken Little Ville has grown immensely. 

[Weave]

21 minutes ago, New Scotland (NS) said:

Yikes.

I know what you are getting at here, but I think / hope that Eich will become more like who Oh la la was turned into.

Turgeon was a highly skilled player.  Jack still has a bit to go before he becomes Pierre Turgeon. 

Pierre was expected to be a savior at a time shortly after the team was torn down for a mess of draft picks.  It wore Pierre down and led us to needing to make a change of scenery trade.

The similarities to now are hard to ignore.

[Carmel Corn]

17 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Kane and Toews make a combined $21 million dollars and all they're doing is leading the Blackhawks to the bottom of the West. They've won 3 Cups and they can't carry a team when the rest of the roster is garbage. If they can't, why should we expect Eichel and Skinner to? 

They're 30+ years old now, so I don't know if it is fair to compare Jack (22) and Skinner (26) now.  Go back 4 to 6 years ago and Kane/Toews were leading the Hawks to Stanley Cup Championships.  My point is, your top players can carry a team when they are in their prime....which may be the case now with Eichel and Skinner.

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

1 hour ago, ... said:

I suppose you see the captain's role as on-ice liaison, team administrator, and nothing more.

Why should it be only on Eichel? What about his supporting cast of veteran leadership?

Why is everything on Botts and not on ROR? why is everything on PH when no other coach in a long time has been able to resurrect this team from the dead?

Somebody said: "but he catastrophically misjudged the center position"

Let me fix that......"but he catastrophically misjudged the character at the center position" and should have gotten rid of ROR  before last season started. Maybe the return would have been better.

 

[TrueBlueGED]

23 minutes ago, Carmel Corn said:

They're 30+ years old now, so I don't know if it is fair to compare Jack (22) and Skinner (26) now.  Go back 4 to 6 years ago and Kane/Toews were leading the Hawks to Stanley Cup Championships.  My point is, your top players can carry a team when they are in their prime....which may be the case now with Eichel and Skinner.

Kane is second in the league in scoring. As to the rest, they were leading future HoFer Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith. Seabrook was in his prime and a stud. Among others. Those teams were loaded. Take 4 years off Kane and Toews and this year's team would still stink. It's about the whole of the team, not specific individuals carrying turds to glory. 

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

2 minutes ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Kane is second in the league in scoring. As to the rest, they were leading future HoFer Marian Hossa and Duncan Keith. Seabrook was in his prime and a stud. Among others. Those teams were loaded. Take 4 years off Kane and Toews and this year's team would still stink. It's about the whole of the team, not specific individuals carrying turds to glory. 

You beat me to it....that's what I get for smoking.

[...]

1 hour ago, TrueBlueGED said:

No player, no matter how great, can carry a team. This is hockey, not the NBA or NFL. McDavid is clearly the best player in the league, and the Oilers still stink. They brought in a proven winning coach in Hitchcock. And they still stink. 

Culture shmulture leader shmeader. Teams with enough talent win, teams without it lose. 

 

33 minutes ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Why should it be only on Eichel? What about his supporting cast of veteran leadership?

 

Whatever we may think, in real hockey culture my guess is the captain means a bit more than the guy who can talk to the refs and lead the practices.  I think the captain does set the tone of the locker room which, in my opinion and certainly not verified by any metric, affects the play on the ice.

It is ridiculous to think that the captain can "carry a team" all by his lonesome and certainly I haven't suggested that.  Assuming that I, or anyone else who talks about it, believe that's what a captain is supposed to do is as insulting as thinking every religious person believes God is some dude actually wearing robes, actually sitting in the clouds.  

None the less, as stated above, I do think the captain sets the tone for the team and that translates across the roster.  Some players buy in to the captain and side with him, look to him for direction and leadership, maybe others don't like him and therefore are surly toward the idea of the person who is the captain actually being the captain. Whatever realistic human drama you can conceive of is likely within the dynamic inside the team.

So what if Jack is feeling overwhelmed by being "the face of the team", the focal point?  If he's out there, distracted, unfocused, how do you think that might affect someone like Dahlin?  

I dislike making overly long posts because I dislike reading them, so hopefully I can finish my point succinctly.

We've seen the argument "they get paid enough, they should be self-motivated" applied to how players respond to coaches.  The argument against this is that a good coach ought to be able to reach/inspire/focus his team.  Fine, but if it's acceptable reasoning that a good coach should be able to get a response from the team, then it's also acceptable to consider that the team's own leader, the captain, should be able to get a response from the team as well.

You can argue the degrees to which this might have an impact, either coach or captain, but we're not talking robots here, it likely does have an effect.  Just like a good teacher versus a poor teacher attempting to reach kids with the same material.

The talent of the roster is another story and, really, this roster hasn't changed much since the 10 game streak.  I contend that, while of course the streak was beyond sustainable, the team that made that happen is still there and they should be able to get more wins of that ilk than they have been getting lately.  In other words, I think they're playing below, maybe well below, the cumulative talent level of the team and that is because it lacks the type of leadership that reinforces on-ice discipline and in-game engagement. Who leads the list of people responsible for that?  The coach and the captain in my book.

 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2019 by ...

[MakeSabresGrr8Again]

9 minutes ago, ... said:

 

 

Whatever we may think, in real hockey culture my guess is the captain means a bit more than the guy who can talk to the refs and lead the practices.  I think the captain does set the tone of the locker room which, in my opinion and certainly not verified by any metric, affects the play on the ice.

It is ridiculous to think that the captain can "carry a team" all by his lonesome and certainly I haven't suggested that.  Assuming that I, or anyone else who talks about it, believe that's what a captain is supposed to do is as insulting as thinking every religious person believes God is some dude actually wearing robes, actually sitting in the clouds.  

None the less, as stated above, I do think the captain sets the tone for the team and that translates across the roster.  Some players buy in to the captain and side with him, look to him for direction and leadership, maybe others don't like him and therefore are surly toward the idea of the person who is the captain actually being the captain. Whatever realistic human drama you can conceive of is likely in the dynamic within the team.

So what if Jack is feeling overwhelmed by being "the face of the team", the focal point?  If he's out there, distracted, unfocused, how do you think that might affect someone like Dahlin?  

I dislike making overly long posts because I dislike reading them, so hopefully I can finish my point succinctly.

We've seen the argument "they get paid enough, they should be self-motivated" applied to how players respond to coaches.  The argument against that is that a good coach ought to be able to reach/inspire/focus his team.  Fine, but if it's acceptable reasoning that a good coach should be able to get a response from the team, then it's also acceptable to consider that the team's own leader, the captain, should be able to get a response from the team as well.

You can argue the degrees to which this might have an impact, either coach or captain, but we're not talking robots here, it likely does have an affect.  Just like a good teacher versus a poor teacher reaching kids with the same material.

The talent of the roster is another story and, really, this roster hasn't changed much since the 10 game streak.  I contend that, while of course the streak was beyond sustainable, the team that made that happen is still there and they should be able to get more wins of that ilk than they have been getting lately.  In other words, I think they're playing below, maybe well below, the cumulative talent level of the team and that is because it lacks the type of leadership that reinforces on-ice discipline and in-game engagement. Who leads the list of people responsible for that?  The coach and the captain in my book.

 

 

 

Just asking because I'm not sure......does Jack sit in the front seat of the bike or the back seat?

[...]

1 minute ago, MakeSabresGrr8Again said:

Just asking because I'm not sure......does Jack sit in the front seat of the bike or the back seat?

I don't understand what you mean.

[Gatorman0519]

the bottom line is these guys need to get in the playoffs soon... if this season continues to spiral down the drain I could think of no worse scenario for the franchise.  It would of been better for the 10 game push to happen at the end, not the beginning of the season.   

[JJFIVEOH]

6 hours ago, TrueBlueGED said:

Enroth's career numbers are worse than Hutton's, so yea, we probably do lose something. Wanting Hutton to play less is totally fine, but bringing up Enroth as some kind of alternative is comical. 

Enroth spent most of his time on the worst team in the league. Hutton is spending his time this year that is on a playoff contender. 

Hutton has 3 wins in his last 14 starts. 

You do the math. 

[Wyldnwoody44]

I don't think I've seen a team in thr league pass up as many shot opportunities as thr sabres, the 5th and killer goal last night came off an offensive zone turnover where (I forget who) maybe chi chi, tried making a perfect pass when a man was going to the net wouldn't had a legit rebound shot, instead, it missed, came out of the zone and on transition a clean shot beat ullmark from a spot where he should have Mayne had it. 

Idk if this goes back to this team not going to the dirty areas, but that was an example of being fancy, failing and then losing. 

This team is thoroughly dissapointing to me, regardless of the record right now, the way they cower to other teams, the lack of grit and the overall feel is just, blah. 

[Kruppstahl]

34 minutes ago, Wyldnwoody44 said:

I don't think I've seen a team in thr league pass up as many shot opportunities as thr sabres, the 5th and killer goal last night came off an offensive zone turnover where (I forget who) maybe chi chi, tried making a perfect pass when a man was going to the net wouldn't had a legit rebound shot, instead, it missed, came out of the zone and on transition a clean shot beat ullmark from a spot where he should have Mayne had it. 

Idk if this goes back to this team not going to the dirty areas, but that was an example of being fancy, failing and then losing. 

This team is thoroughly dissapointing to me, regardless of the record right now, the way they cower to other teams, the lack of grit and the overall feel is just, blah. 

A little game I like to play is noting when a Sabre passes the puck OUT of a good scoring area, to a much worse area, leading to a shot attempt from there.

I.E., pass out of the prime real estate into the cheap stuff for shot attempts from there.

It happens all the time.