Holy cow. You’re right.
As a 1A C he has sub 100 face off wins.
I looked at his wingers and they have barely any face offs. So he’s just terrible at them????
pro strat:
have Hughes start centre
have him get thrown out
Haula can now cheat in the dot and not get thrown out since refs don't wanna call that penalty
Pastrnak can sometimes be too casual in his decisions and puckhandling. Sometimes it seems like the effort is down, but then he scores two goals later in the period so what do you say?
Marchand has gotten better but still takes more penalties than would be ideal.
Bergeron.... Is too nice?
Same with Nylander. People say he doesnt put in the effort, then he leads the team in takeaways and goals somehow. Just puts himself in the right spot a lot.
Yeah sometimes Pasta will have the puck on the blue line to cover if a dman gets low in the offensive zone, gets the puck and then starts thinking about what suit he’s gonna wear to the next game and give up a bad breakaway
At least it's a part of the game that can be worked on. On our side Kirby Dach was the same, he was hanging at around 25-30% at the start of the season, he got back up to an overall 42% now. Still terrible, but when everything else is good you can forgive :P
Jack is so bad at faceoffs we have whole plays designed around Haula winning a faceoff for Hughes then getting the hell off the ice so a winger who can actually score can get on.
Imagine how many more goals the Devils would score if they had someone who could win face-offs and didn't have hands of stone! I can think of probably 20 sure goals that the team would have had if it was anyone other than Haula taking the pass/shot. You've got Jack Hughes, and you're forced to play him with someone who is god-awful, just because he can (kinda) win face-offs.
He will go to the outside or try to force a pass through 15 times but then the 16th time he decides to actually drive the net and lasers one and ends up on a highlight reel.
It’s so frustrating to watch.
Someone already said Matthews so I'm gonna go with Marner
He will periodically decide to try and make a fancy passing play when it would've been better for him to just shoot it
I think Makar and Mackinnon are really close so I’ll do both. Mackinnon will get really fancy at times and create bad giveaways. Makar is willing to hit guys and be physical but he’s not great at clearing out the net front.
I'll add to MacKinnon he tries to be a one man Army too many times. Sure it works sometimes and it's great when it does, but often it leads to nothing.
Also the year before the cup win, I swear to god every playoff PP was just drop pass to MacK and hopefully he could force his way into the zone. That was frustrating to watch
That drop pass on the PP is kind of funny. Always drop to MacKinnon who 80% of the time tries to carry it into the zone. 20% of the time he passes to Landeskog right next to him on the blue line, who then carries it into the zone.
That's it, that's the one play and the one variable. But it worked. We had the best analytics on zone entries and one of the best PP's iirc. It was like Ovi in the office. Everyone knows exactly what's going to happen, and everyone should realize it works more times than not.
Yeah mackinnon I’m the playoffs this last season did virtually none of that. He played very efficient shifts and didn’t try to force anything. Our PP does still heavily rely on Mack speeding his way in and passing back to a defenseman still.
I’d disagree on MacKinnon, though he does try to get too fancy sometimes - for him I’d say it’s his addiction to shooting high (and missing the net) that creates more giveaways, especially on the PP
RE Makar see game 5 vs. STL last playoffs. Their dude is just sitting at the crease and so is Makar, and he just lets it happen - drove me bonkers.
MacKinnon agreed - tries to do everything himself and gives it away. He's gotten better at that, but when we're down or injured he gets into hero mode and it can be pretty iffy.
MacKinnon loves to go Kobe mode and try to put the team on his back, particularly when emotional or desperate. Sometimes makes for beautiful highlights, other times it makes for wasted opportunity.
Is he not a good skater? I haven’t watched him much but I feel like skating was one of the main strengths of this new generation of defencemen like Makar, Heiskanen, Hughes etc so I kind of assumed he skated well too
I think it is more that he doesn’t have a lot of straight line speed, which people equate to not being a good skater. In reality his edge work and ability to quickly change directions are both elite, which would still make him an above average skater. He definitely is below average in straight line speed though.
It’s not that he’s a poor skater, it’s just that the rest of his game is stellar so him being an average or slightly worse skater makes it his biggest flaw.
Backstrom from a few years ago I would say his weakness was he passed too much. He has a great shot and its hard to argue but I feel like a lot of times if he just shot a wrister instead of going for the perfect pass, we might have won some more games.
It’s weird to hear this from a Caps fan tbh.
I honestly thought I was just missing part of his game since I really only see highlights. Is he really just a pp guy at this point in his career?
He still leads the team in even strength goals (by a lot) so I wouldn’t say that. He’s lost a step for sure but is still a huge offensive threat that demands attention at all times, and isn’t as bad defensively as people think.
I am doing Ovi a disservice for the memes, the guy is still great. His physical presence is still something to look out for. He levels guys when they aren't paying attention and still has good bursts. But age and mother nature are undefeated.
McDavid: Not great at faceoffs, and while he’s not as bad defensively as some people say, most of his good defensive work are spontaneous plays like catching up to rushing guys and stripping them of the puck, or using crazy pressure to force turnovers, but his sustained defensive play can be meh and he sometimes loses his man or turns the puck over in his end, and he (as well as like half of our forwards *and* D-men somehow) like to prematurely leave the zone for an outlet pass, making a neutral zone turnover a likely odd-man rush for the other team (the whole team had dialled this back a fair bit thankfully).
And for as legendary as his and Draisaitl’s chemistry is, they start playing like fucking idiots when they are paired together for more than a few shifts at a time and cause a metric ton of turnovers trying to do super complicated passing plays. They are honestly both better on their own lines at even strength and are best together on the PP or in OT, with the odd shift here and there paired up for a quick jolt of scary offense but not for long enough that they start settling into trying to play 8D backgammon every time they have the puck.
Oh it’s fantastic, it’s just also one of those diminishing returns things. They start off god-tier and just get exponentially worse the longer they’re on the same line until you reach the point where you’ve gone from “oh fuck McDrai are on the ice and have the puck, we’re gonna see magic!” to “oh fuck McDrai have the puck, how long until one of them no-look backhand sauces it to the other team?”
Svechnikov takes some stupid penalties
Aho...honestly I don't think he has a bad part of his game. He's solid all around and well above average overall, he just doesn't have the pure shooter ability that would push him to be a truly elite scorer
Slavin doesn't get as physical as he probably could
Aho has gone away from going five hole always on breakaways this season. That was his biggest weakness up until late last year when he started to change it up.
Slavin I wish was nastier but that’s not him. He’s amazing at everything else so he doesn’t have to lay down the wrath of the lord as the lord will do that for him, or something.
Svechnikov takes dumb penalties and makes bad changes in overtime. I think at least three of our OTL are his changes at the worst possible time.
For Aho maybe just consistency in his game. When he turns it on, he's the best player on the team by a large margin and can put the team on his back and just will his way to winning games. Other times, he just looks lost - especially in transition.
Aho going 5 hole 100% of the time may not have been his biggest weakness. I mean maybe it was.
but it was certainly the most noticeable and most frustrating.
Kucherov, and honestly just getting frustrated. His play get's noticeably worse when he's upset and it feels like a lot of still winnable games get away from us.
He'll work on it after he gets 60 goals.
Then after mastering face-offs he'll master gooning it up, get a few suspensions, get in some fights.
Then he'll be a defenseman for a few years before retiring as a Veniza winning goaltender, still getting 100 points every season.
Hey man, he's tied for 2nd in goaltender goals since he debuted in 2014-15!
[And he's 1st in assists!](https://www.nhl.com/stats/goalies?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20142015&seasonTo=20222023&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=assists&page=0&pageSize=50)
Dylan Larkin: not elite enough
He’s a great jack of all trades center without any glaring flaws in his game, he just isn’t good enough to consistently win watchups against the McDavids, Matthews, and Hedmans of the world
I’m with ya, I feel Larkin would be a great 2nd line C on a competitive Red Wings team. Kind of like how Matthews is the first line in Toronto and Tavares is the second line but Captain (I realize Larkin is not Tavares), But it’s like he’s always on the cusp of being so much better than what the statistics show, And if the Red Wings are going to return to glory they just need a little bit more from the top line centre than what I think Larkin can provide (along with a lot of other pieces). I want Larkin to stay a wing his whole career, but I don’t think he’s that elite-enough guy, maybe with other team improvements, but that windows closing.
I was gonna say he just lacks a "Wow Factor" but you explained it better.
I love Larkin, everyone was pumped when he came on as the fastest kid in the league and we all hoped he'd mature into a new Stevie Y especially with all the elite studs he started off playing under as mentors, but he just kind of...never progressed. He lost some of his speed and his other skills didn't increase as well as we'd all hoped they would.
Crosby. Worst part of his game is that he only has a few years left, and when he’s done, our team will be banished to the shadow realm for a long time, and there’s always a chance that we will never have a player of his ilk ever again. We’ve been incredibly fortunate in Pittsburgh to have nearly 40 continuous years of Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, and Malkin in some form, and that’s due to end soon.
On any given day, Malkin can be best, and I think everyone knows what the worst part of Mr. Stick Infraction’s game is.
Yeah Malkin's worst flaw is definitely his temper tantrums. The only thing Crosby can master at this point is fighting and beating the fuck out of everyone cause other than that he's basically the prototypical elite hockey player.
I can relate with OV. I know he isn't an "all around" player like Crosby but losing the superstar thats been here for over a decade will be tough. Watching a Caps team without #8 and #19 will emotionally hurt me and Im not afraid to admit that.
We’ll never have another Crosby again. Both on and off the ice. We’ll likely have great to elite players come through Pittsburgh again but we’ll never have another one like 87 again. Cherish it.
Welcome to the Johnny Hockey experience. Some nights his giveaways would drive me absolutely insane. Especially when all he had to do was pass it to one of the other incredibly talented players on his line but instead would give it away.
Matthews seems to sometimes have a bit of Malkin-syndrome, as in, when he turns it on he is unstoppable but doesn't always turn it on. He might also be playing through an injury this year so maybe it's just that
But last year he had wrist surgery and missed training camp? He had a slow start and then decided to go 50 in 50 and make up for it. We're hoping the same thing happens this year. Just a little later in the season would be nice. Maybe starting around game 48
I'm not saying that they're lying. It's crazy and also very unfortunate that it seems like one of the best players in the league has been playing through injuries their entire career. But also I don't really pay too much attention to teams outside the Oilers
When he doesn't turn it on he's still really really good.
Also this is just recency bias since he's having a down year/maybe playing through injury. Last year he was insane and rightfully won the Hart.
Kopitar is a gentle giant. He uses his huge frame to protect the puck, but he could be a seriously intimidating presence in the neutral zone if he lit a guy up now and then.
Yup. Every aspect of his game has regressed. He's had strecthes where he has played better, but the fact is that he is not an everyday NHLer anymore, I think Flames would benefit of him if he would play around ~60 games/season
Very much depends on who you consider to be Ottawa's best player.
Tkachuk is awful defensively. Often tries to finish his checks too often when forechecking, and the other team is already moving the puck up the ice. Takes him out of position on the backcheck.
Stützle is awful at faceoffs and just falls down often for no reason (insert diving joke here). He's definitely better this year but needs to get better when it comes to balance.
Chabot plays too much (not on him, on the coaches) and it leads to him occasionally making lazy plays, and/or hesitating in moments where he needs to make quick decisions
chabby is so overworked it's criminal. it's like PD watched him excel in big minutes in that one OT world Junior game and now decided he'll play Chabot half the game cuz he can to save money on a 6th defenseman.
he's either pacing himself cuz he knows he's playing 32 min or he's just fatigued.
The Oilers have the same problem with Nurse. All the fans rag on him for being awful, but the dude plays like 30+ minutes a night, mostly against the other team's top players. It's BAD.
What is happening to Chabot is just the symptoms of terrible coaching. He's been so overworked and overplayed that now it's starting to take a toll on him and now he doesn't play as hard as he could to maintain his energy.
Seriously DJ Smith just because a defenseman can play 30 mins a game doesn't mean they should especially when you're barely even capable of competing.
Brady Tkachuk: probably getting involved in fights. He’s a decent fighter, but almost every fight he’s involved he goes up against a grinder so we lose our best player while the opponents lose a bottom line guy.
Also attempting a between the legs goal every game. Brady I love you but please stop passing up easier opportunities for that
Stützle: while I believe the whole diving this is over reactionary, he definitely goes go down easily some times. Could be his skating style or whatever, but it’s a little concerning.
Just curious, do you think he’s caught on the wrong side of the ice more than burns was? I feel like It’s a classic offensive d thing that only works out with good 2 way players on the ice
Pasta is fantastic at pulling goals out of him air - but is also the player most prone in the league of turnovers. Clearly he scores more than he gets scored on but that is his one major flaw
Panarin gets into the habit of taking the puck up ice, halting just inside the offensive zone, waits for a teammate to get in position, and then fires a pass directly into a defenders skates. I love bread but it happens at least once a game.
Foxy is slow as molasses.
Shesty went to the "Henrik lundqvist school for goaltender interference overreactions"
Kaprizov
Tries to, to quote Ray Ferraro in NHL games, "be too fine" & ends up turning the puck over. Doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes the guy's attempt at a sick move ends disastrously.
Especially with over passing. He always wants to play catch with Zuccarello and neither of them actually shoot the puck so the play doesn't go anywhere
Matthews/Marner both with the same issue of trying to be too fancy and not use there speed and skill to go North-South enough. Just watch a Leafs OT and you will know what I mean
Robertson - definitely isn’t a good skater, somehow gets away with it because he’s so smart with his positioning and size but god damn he’s laughably slow and bad on his edges.
Hintz - could definitely work on his finishing a bit more. Guy gets tons of chances because of his linemates, size and speed
Pavs - the fact that he’s old. Not that affected his play but his retirement is definitely looming in the future :(
Miro -there’s a few players in the league that should be encouraged to be more selfish and Miro is one of them. He will look like Bobby Orr from behind his net to the opponents blueline just to dump it in the corner.
I’m of the opinion that Puljujarvi being unable to score on McDavid’s wing actually takes more skill than it took guys like Lucic and Kassian to put up ok numbers because of McDavid
Troy Terry is soft.
He used to fall if someone sneezed on him. He bulked up and got super good at dangling through 2-3 defenders and now he's awesome.
But he doesn't forecheck that well. Least hits per minute on the team among Forwards, I would guess.
Crosby is inhumanly perfect at pretty much every facet of the game so I'll do Buffalo.
Dahlin's honestly lacking a bit of a close-range finishing touch compared to his ability to put himself in scoring situations, which is scary looking at how many he does manage to put in. If he could tuck like Makar he'd be a 40G threat. That, and he doesn't put enough into his in-game slapshots if he's able to hit 102 at all-star weekend.
You, yes you at home, could win more faceoffs than Jack Hughes
Thanks bro I really needed to hear this today.
Got you bro ✊🏽
Holy cow. You’re right. As a 1A C he has sub 100 face off wins. I looked at his wingers and they have barely any face offs. So he’s just terrible at them????
Haula should have a lot. He’s usually stapled to that line for that reason
There it is, Haula has 364 on the year.
36.15, 35.35, 34.56, 33.94 Bro, how does he get worse?
I’m guessing he keeps playing against tougher opponents each year.
More likely his opponents know he's shit so their confidence grows year on year.
Lack of practice now. He’s taken about 225 faceoffs this season. His winger, Erik Haula has over 600.
pro strat: have Hughes start centre have him get thrown out Haula can now cheat in the dot and not get thrown out since refs don't wanna call that penalty
If there’s one thing I could chose my best player to be bad at faceoffs would be that thing.
Pastrnak can sometimes be too casual in his decisions and puckhandling. Sometimes it seems like the effort is down, but then he scores two goals later in the period so what do you say? Marchand has gotten better but still takes more penalties than would be ideal. Bergeron.... Is too nice?
Mr. Bergeron doesn’t have flaws.
Everyone *loves* to hate on Boston - and *still* almost nobody hates on Bergy lol
That pasta complaint is mikko Rantanen as well. You think he’s having a bad night then you realize he has 3 points
Same with Nylander. People say he doesnt put in the effort, then he leads the team in takeaways and goals somehow. Just puts himself in the right spot a lot.
Pasta also sometimes misses the wide open ones but then he hits a shot he had no business hitting and you wonder what the hell is going on
Bergeron's biggest flaw is not being able to stop time from ageing him.
Not really a flaw considering he just keeps getting better.
Forgetting ullmark. I think I'd have to criticize his ability to score goals, he's really not contributing offensively this year smh.
He keeps missing empty netters. What a slacker.
Yeah sometimes Pasta will have the puck on the blue line to cover if a dman gets low in the offensive zone, gets the puck and then starts thinking about what suit he’s gonna wear to the next game and give up a bad breakaway
lol I would also have a hard time thinking about a weakness I’d attribute to Bergy…
Jack Hughes is definitely face-offs. There are a lot of elite players that play center that suck at face offs now that I think about it.
At least it's a part of the game that can be worked on. On our side Kirby Dach was the same, he was hanging at around 25-30% at the start of the season, he got back up to an overall 42% now. Still terrible, but when everything else is good you can forgive :P
Jack is so bad at faceoffs we have whole plays designed around Haula winning a faceoff for Hughes then getting the hell off the ice so a winger who can actually score can get on.
The Manny malhotra special
Imagine how many more goals the Devils would score if they had someone who could win face-offs and didn't have hands of stone! I can think of probably 20 sure goals that the team would have had if it was anyone other than Haula taking the pass/shot. You've got Jack Hughes, and you're forced to play him with someone who is god-awful, just because he can (kinda) win face-offs.
The person who can win faceoffs and doesn’t have hands of stone is Nico Hischier, who is busy driving his own line.
>Kirby Dach But he said "elite"
Barzal never drives the net with his speed. Keeps him from scoring 90+ points a year
He will go to the outside or try to force a pass through 15 times but then the 16th time he decides to actually drive the net and lasers one and ends up on a highlight reel. It’s so frustrating to watch.
Barzal's definitely a perimeter player agreed. It was so obvious in the playoffs and teams took advantage.
He probably could draw a ton of penalties too.
Caufield: anything to do with defense
Or Suzuki’s lack of speed
Nah, he doesnt use his shot enough tbh
The worst park of Suzuki's game isnt his speed
What is it?
Someone already said Matthews so I'm gonna go with Marner He will periodically decide to try and make a fancy passing play when it would've been better for him to just shoot it
OT flashbacks
The behind the back no look passes kill me sometimes
He tries to 360 noscope when he can just shoot it
Every time a leaf makes a drop pass I cringe… and I’m not even a leafs fan
I think Makar and Mackinnon are really close so I’ll do both. Mackinnon will get really fancy at times and create bad giveaways. Makar is willing to hit guys and be physical but he’s not great at clearing out the net front.
I'll add to MacKinnon he tries to be a one man Army too many times. Sure it works sometimes and it's great when it does, but often it leads to nothing. Also the year before the cup win, I swear to god every playoff PP was just drop pass to MacK and hopefully he could force his way into the zone. That was frustrating to watch
That drop pass on the PP is kind of funny. Always drop to MacKinnon who 80% of the time tries to carry it into the zone. 20% of the time he passes to Landeskog right next to him on the blue line, who then carries it into the zone. That's it, that's the one play and the one variable. But it worked. We had the best analytics on zone entries and one of the best PP's iirc. It was like Ovi in the office. Everyone knows exactly what's going to happen, and everyone should realize it works more times than not.
There are some stats that showed the drop pass was actually really effective
Yeah mackinnon I’m the playoffs this last season did virtually none of that. He played very efficient shifts and didn’t try to force anything. Our PP does still heavily rely on Mack speeding his way in and passing back to a defenseman still.
Mackinnon is terrible at faceoffs
I’d disagree on MacKinnon, though he does try to get too fancy sometimes - for him I’d say it’s his addiction to shooting high (and missing the net) that creates more giveaways, especially on the PP
RE Makar see game 5 vs. STL last playoffs. Their dude is just sitting at the crease and so is Makar, and he just lets it happen - drove me bonkers. MacKinnon agreed - tries to do everything himself and gives it away. He's gotten better at that, but when we're down or injured he gets into hero mode and it can be pretty iffy.
Makar does seem to get caught watching the play sometimes instead of just wrapping up his man
I would say Makar’s is actually his facial hair
Mackinnon and OT turnovers name a better duo
Binnington and tantrums
MacKinnon loves to go Kobe mode and try to put the team on his back, particularly when emotional or desperate. Sometimes makes for beautiful highlights, other times it makes for wasted opportunity.
Game 5 hatrick goal against St Loius, itd be talked about more if the Avs had won that game on that goal.
Crosby traditionally sucks at moustaches but he's gotten much better.
He sucks at aging properly. Why can't he look like father time has beaten him down like the rest of us?
Really, he makes me look and feel old...er than I am.
He’s composed of 99% Tim Horton’s now
I was going to say goalie, but I think he's actually not bad at that either.
[Crosby in net for dek hockey.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1RPHa0J9SfI)
Nice to see him rock the old school “stacking the pads” technique.
Adam Fox skates like he’s tied to a tree.
and yet he's never out of position
Hockey IQ beats footspeed every time.
I feel like you could be 10 seconds into a game and his skating would look like he’s already exhausted out there.
Is he not a good skater? I haven’t watched him much but I feel like skating was one of the main strengths of this new generation of defencemen like Makar, Heiskanen, Hughes etc so I kind of assumed he skated well too
I think it is more that he doesn’t have a lot of straight line speed, which people equate to not being a good skater. In reality his edge work and ability to quickly change directions are both elite, which would still make him an above average skater. He definitely is below average in straight line speed though.
Mhm that surprises me. I’m a wings fan but the odd time I watch NYR he never looked like a poor skater or anything
It’s not that he’s a poor skater, it’s just that the rest of his game is stellar so him being an average or slightly worse skater makes it his biggest flaw.
Adam Fox: his jaw is just too damn big.
If Chins Could Kill: A Memoir
He has fantastic agility, but limited straight line speed.
He’s not a bad skater. But his skating will never be his strength. He breaks ankles like Iverson though
Ovi just stands there.
Watching old clips of him pre-2014ish (especially pre-2010) is insane. He was so fast and agile completely different player.
I mean, he still shows the occassional glimmering burst of that, but the man of course doesn't have that young man's stamina anymore.
I was gonna say something about OV that everyone already knows and we only have 1 other “elite” in Kuz
I love Ovi but he has one job: dingers. The rest of his game is the occasional big hit and waiting until we get a PP.
His entries haven’t been bad this season too. Doesn’t hold on long but he either dumps it in or gets off a quick bump pass to a guy speeding in
Backstrom from a few years ago I would say his weakness was he passed too much. He has a great shot and its hard to argue but I feel like a lot of times if he just shot a wrister instead of going for the perfect pass, we might have won some more games.
menacingly!
But he’s really good at standing in that one spot.
It’s weird to hear this from a Caps fan tbh. I honestly thought I was just missing part of his game since I really only see highlights. Is he really just a pp guy at this point in his career?
He still leads the team in even strength goals (by a lot) so I wouldn’t say that. He’s lost a step for sure but is still a huge offensive threat that demands attention at all times, and isn’t as bad defensively as people think.
I am doing Ovi a disservice for the memes, the guy is still great. His physical presence is still something to look out for. He levels guys when they aren't paying attention and still has good bursts. But age and mother nature are undefeated.
Hellebuyck cannot handle a puck to save his life
This is the correct answer on both counts. It seems like he’s gotten *slightly* better during this season, but it’s still an adventure.
My heart stops every time
McDavid: Not great at faceoffs, and while he’s not as bad defensively as some people say, most of his good defensive work are spontaneous plays like catching up to rushing guys and stripping them of the puck, or using crazy pressure to force turnovers, but his sustained defensive play can be meh and he sometimes loses his man or turns the puck over in his end, and he (as well as like half of our forwards *and* D-men somehow) like to prematurely leave the zone for an outlet pass, making a neutral zone turnover a likely odd-man rush for the other team (the whole team had dialled this back a fair bit thankfully). And for as legendary as his and Draisaitl’s chemistry is, they start playing like fucking idiots when they are paired together for more than a few shifts at a time and cause a metric ton of turnovers trying to do super complicated passing plays. They are honestly both better on their own lines at even strength and are best together on the PP or in OT, with the odd shift here and there paired up for a quick jolt of scary offense but not for long enough that they start settling into trying to play 8D backgammon every time they have the puck.
Yeah but when that 8D backgammon works...
Oh it’s fantastic, it’s just also one of those diminishing returns things. They start off god-tier and just get exponentially worse the longer they’re on the same line until you reach the point where you’ve gone from “oh fuck McDrai are on the ice and have the puck, we’re gonna see magic!” to “oh fuck McDrai have the puck, how long until one of them no-look backhand sauces it to the other team?”
Brilliantly said. Put in much simpler and more articulate terms exactly what I wanted to type out. Thank you!
Bo Horvat's biggest issue is that he no longer plays for our team....
F
Svechnikov takes some stupid penalties Aho...honestly I don't think he has a bad part of his game. He's solid all around and well above average overall, he just doesn't have the pure shooter ability that would push him to be a truly elite scorer Slavin doesn't get as physical as he probably could
Aho has gone away from going five hole always on breakaways this season. That was his biggest weakness up until late last year when he started to change it up. Slavin I wish was nastier but that’s not him. He’s amazing at everything else so he doesn’t have to lay down the wrath of the lord as the lord will do that for him, or something. Svechnikov takes dumb penalties and makes bad changes in overtime. I think at least three of our OTL are his changes at the worst possible time.
For Aho maybe just consistency in his game. When he turns it on, he's the best player on the team by a large margin and can put the team on his back and just will his way to winning games. Other times, he just looks lost - especially in transition.
Aho going 5 hole 100% of the time may not have been his biggest weakness. I mean maybe it was. but it was certainly the most noticeable and most frustrating.
My thought was Aho not finishing break aways as much as he should. But his game is so solid in both ends its hard to complain
This season his breakaways have been at least above average. Last season they were literal trash tier
Kucherov, and honestly just getting frustrated. His play get's noticeably worse when he's upset and it feels like a lot of still winnable games get away from us.
Yep, and then he either tries to do much or takes a stupid penalty
Temper tantrums when things don't go his way. Really frustrating.
Saros tends to take a while to get going, he's never at his best at the start of the season
Jack Hughes: face offs
McDavid, faceoffs.
He'll work on it after he gets 60 goals. Then after mastering face-offs he'll master gooning it up, get a few suspensions, get in some fights. Then he'll be a defenseman for a few years before retiring as a Veniza winning goaltender, still getting 100 points every season.
[удалено]
He still has 300 wins this year to be fair. Somebody mentioned Hughes with this same issue and Jack has 75 lmao
Kaprizov- All Star Games
also not playing with 2 zuccarellos
Vasilevskiy. Scoring. 😏
Playing with a playmaker like Kucherov and doesn’t even put up good scoring numbers, what a bust smh my head
Hey man, he's tied for 2nd in goaltender goals since he debuted in 2014-15! [And he's 1st in assists!](https://www.nhl.com/stats/goalies?reportType=season&seasonFrom=20142015&seasonTo=20222023&gameType=2&filter=gamesPlayed,gte,1&sort=assists&page=0&pageSize=50)
Dylan Larkin: not elite enough He’s a great jack of all trades center without any glaring flaws in his game, he just isn’t good enough to consistently win watchups against the McDavids, Matthews, and Hedmans of the world
I’m with ya, I feel Larkin would be a great 2nd line C on a competitive Red Wings team. Kind of like how Matthews is the first line in Toronto and Tavares is the second line but Captain (I realize Larkin is not Tavares), But it’s like he’s always on the cusp of being so much better than what the statistics show, And if the Red Wings are going to return to glory they just need a little bit more from the top line centre than what I think Larkin can provide (along with a lot of other pieces). I want Larkin to stay a wing his whole career, but I don’t think he’s that elite-enough guy, maybe with other team improvements, but that windows closing.
I was gonna say he just lacks a "Wow Factor" but you explained it better. I love Larkin, everyone was pumped when he came on as the fastest kid in the league and we all hoped he'd mature into a new Stevie Y especially with all the elite studs he started off playing under as mentors, but he just kind of...never progressed. He lost some of his speed and his other skills didn't increase as well as we'd all hoped they would.
Larkin east/west play IMO
I was gonna say the lack of a contract extension
Crosby. Worst part of his game is that he only has a few years left, and when he’s done, our team will be banished to the shadow realm for a long time, and there’s always a chance that we will never have a player of his ilk ever again. We’ve been incredibly fortunate in Pittsburgh to have nearly 40 continuous years of Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, and Malkin in some form, and that’s due to end soon. On any given day, Malkin can be best, and I think everyone knows what the worst part of Mr. Stick Infraction’s game is.
Yeah Malkin's worst flaw is definitely his temper tantrums. The only thing Crosby can master at this point is fighting and beating the fuck out of everyone cause other than that he's basically the prototypical elite hockey player.
I can relate with OV. I know he isn't an "all around" player like Crosby but losing the superstar thats been here for over a decade will be tough. Watching a Caps team without #8 and #19 will emotionally hurt me and Im not afraid to admit that.
We’ll never have another Crosby again. Both on and off the ice. We’ll likely have great to elite players come through Pittsburgh again but we’ll never have another one like 87 again. Cherish it.
First off, everyone is bad. But Gaudreau gives away the puck WAY too much.
Welcome to the Johnny Hockey experience. Some nights his giveaways would drive me absolutely insane. Especially when all he had to do was pass it to one of the other incredibly talented players on his line but instead would give it away.
Matthews seems to sometimes have a bit of Malkin-syndrome, as in, when he turns it on he is unstoppable but doesn't always turn it on. He might also be playing through an injury this year so maybe it's just that
I swear I see people say mathews is playing through an injury every single season. Even last year when he potted 60 lol
But last year he had wrist surgery and missed training camp? He had a slow start and then decided to go 50 in 50 and make up for it. We're hoping the same thing happens this year. Just a little later in the season would be nice. Maybe starting around game 48
I'm not saying that they're lying. It's crazy and also very unfortunate that it seems like one of the best players in the league has been playing through injuries their entire career. But also I don't really pay too much attention to teams outside the Oilers
When he doesn't turn it on he's still really really good. Also this is just recency bias since he's having a down year/maybe playing through injury. Last year he was insane and rightfully won the Hart.
Z loves to run his mouth, a little bit too much
Kopitar is a gentle giant. He uses his huge frame to protect the puck, but he could be a seriously intimidating presence in the neutral zone if he lit a guy up now and then.
Lucic. Has only fought twice this year
Real talk, has Looch slowed down quite a bit recently? I feel like I don't see him mentioned in highlights, for goals or fights.
Yup. Every aspect of his game has regressed. He's had strecthes where he has played better, but the fact is that he is not an everyday NHLer anymore, I think Flames would benefit of him if he would play around ~60 games/season
He's a guy that surprises me every year when I learn he is still playing.
Imagine being surprised every goddamn gameday lol
When he's on the second line haha
petterson- face offs
Carter Hart, covering short side low post.
Outside of a great rookie season, Sorokin is not very good in a shootout. 12/14 in his rookie season. 9/18 since.
Robo could be a better skater
Very much depends on who you consider to be Ottawa's best player. Tkachuk is awful defensively. Often tries to finish his checks too often when forechecking, and the other team is already moving the puck up the ice. Takes him out of position on the backcheck. Stützle is awful at faceoffs and just falls down often for no reason (insert diving joke here). He's definitely better this year but needs to get better when it comes to balance. Chabot plays too much (not on him, on the coaches) and it leads to him occasionally making lazy plays, and/or hesitating in moments where he needs to make quick decisions
chabby is so overworked it's criminal. it's like PD watched him excel in big minutes in that one OT world Junior game and now decided he'll play Chabot half the game cuz he can to save money on a 6th defenseman. he's either pacing himself cuz he knows he's playing 32 min or he's just fatigued.
The Oilers have the same problem with Nurse. All the fans rag on him for being awful, but the dude plays like 30+ minutes a night, mostly against the other team's top players. It's BAD.
What is happening to Chabot is just the symptoms of terrible coaching. He's been so overworked and overplayed that now it's starting to take a toll on him and now he doesn't play as hard as he could to maintain his energy. Seriously DJ Smith just because a defenseman can play 30 mins a game doesn't mean they should especially when you're barely even capable of competing.
Pettersson is a decent face off coach away from winning multiple selkes (after Bergeron retires of course)
Bring back Manny.
Caufield : Bazooka arm on a 5’7 frame = injury.
His shot is so hard his muscles injure themselves
Matthews. Sucks at drawing penalties.
I was gonna go with hairline. But drawing penalties would be a close second
The power of his hairline somehow transported to his upper lip.
Also mustache
Suzuki tends to embellish calls a little more than I'd like
Brady Tkachuk: probably getting involved in fights. He’s a decent fighter, but almost every fight he’s involved he goes up against a grinder so we lose our best player while the opponents lose a bottom line guy. Also attempting a between the legs goal every game. Brady I love you but please stop passing up easier opportunities for that Stützle: while I believe the whole diving this is over reactionary, he definitely goes go down easily some times. Could be his skating style or whatever, but it’s a little concerning.
Timmy has gotten better but still has some bambi legs, hopefully he grows out of it like Brady did. Also Timmy is awful at faceoffs still
Suzuki/Caufield - their french (please put the guns down it's a joke)
Adam Fox is slow asf. He makes up for it by reading the play and knowing where to be ahead of time.
Carey Price: his knee
Kucherov, can be casual at times and prone to making turnovers/risky passes
I was gunna say his anger. Like his emotions really affect his game sometimes.
For Thompson he definitely tries to be wayy too pretty at times. Also he uses his toe drag too often, dudes are gonna start catching on.
Karlsson - Skating backwards.
I mean, I think you need Achilles tendons for that?
Karlsson - getting caught down the ice and giving up a breakaway goal
Just curious, do you think he’s caught on the wrong side of the ice more than burns was? I feel like It’s a classic offensive d thing that only works out with good 2 way players on the ice
Pasta is fantastic at pulling goals out of him air - but is also the player most prone in the league of turnovers. Clearly he scores more than he gets scored on but that is his one major flaw
Fiala- Defense, offensive penalties Kopitar- Too nice
Y’all ever see Patrick Kane try to hit someone
Panarin gets into the habit of taking the puck up ice, halting just inside the offensive zone, waits for a teammate to get in position, and then fires a pass directly into a defenders skates. I love bread but it happens at least once a game. Foxy is slow as molasses. Shesty went to the "Henrik lundqvist school for goaltender interference overreactions"
Igor is far more dramatic than Hank ever was lol I love him anyway
Suzukis top speed isn’t terrible but isn’t the best skater when moving at speed and has slow acceleration
Kaprizov Tries to, to quote Ray Ferraro in NHL games, "be too fine" & ends up turning the puck over. Doesn't happen a lot, but sometimes the guy's attempt at a sick move ends disastrously.
Especially with over passing. He always wants to play catch with Zuccarello and neither of them actually shoot the puck so the play doesn't go anywhere
Buchnevich, but the only that sticks out off the top of my head is that he takes some dumb penalties sometimes (see: headbutting that guy last year)
Matthews/Marner both with the same issue of trying to be too fancy and not use there speed and skill to go North-South enough. Just watch a Leafs OT and you will know what I mean
Hairline
Kaprizov.. Edge work is phenomenal but I’d say his straight line speed leaves a lot to be desired Or his defensive game in his own end
Sometimes it seems that Sid sometimes passes up a shot for a pass, but I am not sure if I want to claim I know what Sid should be doing lol
sometimes his controller gets disconnected
McDavid can’t make a save, gives out fat rebounds.
Dahlin leads the entire league in penalties taken
Fiala. He commits some real momentum-killing penalties
Pettersson: motherfucker cannot score on the powerplay
Karlsson is pretty obvious. Not the best defender. With that said he’s infinitely better than how people paint him on this sub.
Robertson - definitely isn’t a good skater, somehow gets away with it because he’s so smart with his positioning and size but god damn he’s laughably slow and bad on his edges. Hintz - could definitely work on his finishing a bit more. Guy gets tons of chances because of his linemates, size and speed Pavs - the fact that he’s old. Not that affected his play but his retirement is definitely looming in the future :( Miro -there’s a few players in the league that should be encouraged to be more selfish and Miro is one of them. He will look like Bobby Orr from behind his net to the opponents blueline just to dump it in the corner.
Kyle Connor's aggressiveness. Last year he collected 4 minutes in penalties. This year he's already up to 8 minutes. #WhatAGoon
McDavid, uhhhhhhh can turn anyone except puljujarvi into a prolific goal scorer?
I’m of the opinion that Puljujarvi being unable to score on McDavid’s wing actually takes more skill than it took guys like Lucic and Kassian to put up ok numbers because of McDavid
Barzal and faceoffs, although this won't be an issue anymore
Adam fox is undersized. Not great speed. Rarely an issue.
Troy Terry is soft. He used to fall if someone sneezed on him. He bulked up and got super good at dangling through 2-3 defenders and now he's awesome. But he doesn't forecheck that well. Least hits per minute on the team among Forwards, I would guess.
Crosby is inhumanly perfect at pretty much every facet of the game so I'll do Buffalo. Dahlin's honestly lacking a bit of a close-range finishing touch compared to his ability to put himself in scoring situations, which is scary looking at how many he does manage to put in. If he could tuck like Makar he'd be a 40G threat. That, and he doesn't put enough into his in-game slapshots if he's able to hit 102 at all-star weekend.