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Post by Boston_Habs on May 18, 2015 12:58:30 GMT -5
I’ve been looking closer at the regular season stats of the Rangers and Lightning to see exactly where the difference lies and, not surprisingly, the big difference is secondary scoring.
A few stats: • The Habs top 6 forwards scored 136 goals. • The Rangers top 6 forwards scored 137 goals • Tampa’s top 6 forwards scored 155 goals.
Clearly Tampa had better production across the board, but note that the Habs and Rangers were basically even and that’s (Pacioretty, Plekanec, Gallagher, Galchenyuk, Eller, Desharnais) vs. (Nash, St. Louis, Kreider, Brassard, Hayes, Hagelin). The Bolts just dominated the league with their top 6, but you could argue that our top 6 forwards are good enough in terms of production with Galchenyuk poised to do even better. For example, Desharnais was our 6th best scoring forward with 14 goals. His counterpart in NY was Carl Hagelin (17 goals) and in TB it was Alex Killorn (15 goals). Pretty even.
The problem is it drops off badly after that. It’s the 7-10 forwards where we were much weaker • Habs 7-10 forwards scored 30 goals. • Rangers 7-10 forwards scored 51 goals. • Tampa’s 7-10 forwards scored 51 goals.
We’ve been focusing on getting more “top 6” talent or a “No. 1 centre”, but that’s not necessarily where the problem lies. Our 7-10 forwards in terms of scoring rank were (Weise, Parenteau, Sekac/DSP, Prust). They were awful compared to the Rangers (Stepan, Zuccarello, Moore, Miller) and the Bolts (Boyle, Fillpula, Paquette, Connolly (traded).
If Berg isn’t going to upgrade the top 6, he needs to find more offense in the 7-10 spots. Which concerns me because he’s tried to do that and failed each time. That was the goal of the Briere signing and it didn’t work, and was also the goal of the Parenteau deal which also didn’t work. Whether it’s free agents like Filppula or later round picks like Stepan, Hagelin, Kucherov, Palat, and Killorn, Bergevin has not been successful in 3 years of drafting or acquiring secondary level scoring. That needs to change. Whether it’s de la Rose, Hudon, Andrighetto, Gregoire or a smart UFA signing or trade, SOMEBODY is going to have to arrive on the scene to boost our scoring from the lower lines.
I've given up hoping that Berg is going to make a big draft-day trade to bring in a top 6 talent, but he needs to upgrade the scoring one way or the other. If it's not at the top end, he needs to do it from the lower lines.
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Post by franko on May 18, 2015 13:18:29 GMT -5
I’ve been looking closer at the regular season stats of the Rangers and Lightning to see exactly where the difference lies and, not surprisingly, the big difference is secondary scoring. the 4 teams left in the playoffs are solid in PP%: ANA 30.0% TBY 18.5% CHI 17.9% NYR 15.0% MTL 05.6% only ANA did worse than us during the regular season. another HUGE difference
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Post by Lord Bebop on May 18, 2015 13:28:19 GMT -5
I feel that we've been waiting for Lars Eller to shape into form but his consistency has been more off then on.... I was hoping DSP would help but he needs a lot of work....
Would A. Vermette look good on our third line....the shine is off him since the Chicago trade so maybe the price to sign him has come down a bit?? I agree we need a young guy or 2 to come in as well.. I really liked what Hudon has done on the farm....Him Scherbak, Mccarron, Andrighetto have been givin a huge vote of confidence by management if you listen to Bergeron news conference
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Post by Skilly on May 18, 2015 13:37:30 GMT -5
Good work BH, but the analysis is slightly flawed ...
How many of Weise's goals were scored while on the top 6 for instance. And Conversely, what about DD and Eller when on the bottom 6?
You'd have to go through each game and where they played that game to do a complete analysis. But it's a glaring hole when you see a third line guy in the top six in goals. So we obviously have a top six hole in the line-up
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Post by Boston_Habs on May 18, 2015 13:59:36 GMT -5
I think we need to upgrade the top 6 as well, but you're right that I was just rank ordering the forwards on each team to see where the difference lies.
The problem remains the lack of scoring overall. I say we need to find an additional 20-30 goals over this season and there are different ways to get there. One is to get more out of the existing roster (especially Galchenyuk) and upgrade the power play. You could argue that would result in an extra 20 goals right there, which would make Berg's job very easy.
But I suspect it will take more than that. Whether it's more pruduction out of the top 6 or balanced production among the top 9/10 forwards, we need to find that offense.
My sneaking suspicion is coaching and systems play a role. I'd like to take a look at Vigneault's track record but my sense is that he's gotten more out of the Rangers than Tortorella did or would at this point. And Therrien's track record is typically one of declining production over time.
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Post by franko on May 18, 2015 14:01:37 GMT -5
I feel that we've been waiting for Lars Eller to shape into form but his consistency has been more off then on.... I was hoping DSP would help but he needs a lot of work.... Would A. Vermette look good on our third line....the shine is off him since the Chicago trade so maybe the price to sign him has come down a bit?? I agree we need a young guy or 2 to come in as well.. I really liked what Hudon has done on the farm....Him Scherbak, Mccarron, Andrighetto have been givin a huge vote of confidence by management if you listen to Bergeron news conference Why do we want to pay for another 3rd line centre when we have so many already?
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Post by Disp on May 18, 2015 14:59:41 GMT -5
One of the side effects of having a great goalie is that you just don't need to score that much. That plays into our goals for total as well. There's a big difference in how the guys play when they need a goal or when they're defending. Stats are fine and all, but how most of the games play out is a factor too. My point is, that the guys probably would have scored more if Carey wasn't so great this year. It's still not enough though. Need more from our bottom 6, and ideally, more from the top 6. How's that for obvious? A better pp would probably take care of our top guys totals. Hopefully DSP, DLR, some of the usual suspects, or a guy in the system, can chip in more from the bottom. Seems like, during the playoffs, we got more from the bottom and d than usual, and our top guys wore out the posts. It's really too bad, we were pretty close.
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Post by Skilly on May 18, 2015 15:05:08 GMT -5
I agree we have to add goals, lots of goals.
I'm not sure the Galchenyuk is where we will add them though. Especially if he is left on the wing. There are a few places I think we can, and desperately need to add goals.
1) Lars Eller - I think the time is now to make a call on who our top two center men will be moving forward. I think Eller should be the second line centre. Give him PP time and a year with more skilled wingers, and he will get 20 goals.
2) David Desharnais - he just doesn't shoot. He averages about 1 shot on net a game. That's just not good enough for a #1 centre. As above, the time is now. Are we going forward with DD? If so, then I think we need to make him a third or fourth line centre. If we keep him, (or Plekanec) then Galchenyuk is a defacto winger again next year. I want Plekanec Eller Desharnais or Galchenyuk Eller Plekanec as our centres next year. Wherever he plays on the team, he needs to shoot more, we can get 3-5 more goals from him
3) PK Subban - if we can ever get that PP working, Subban can get 20 goals or more.
4) the Defense. - last year, Subban got 15 goals, Markov got 10 goals. Our third highest scoring defenseman was Tom Gilbert. That's not good enough. We need more production from the second and third pairings that 4, 3, and 1 goals.
Any increase in Galchenyuk's goals, is likely to be offset in a decrease in Plekanec's 26 goals. But some increases in the above + a player addition, and we will be ok
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Post by Lord Bebop on May 18, 2015 15:06:56 GMT -5
I feel that we've been waiting for Lars Eller to shape into form but his consistency has been more off then on.... I was hoping DSP would help but he needs a lot of work.... Would A. Vermette look good on our third line....the shine is off him since the Chicago trade so maybe the price to sign him has come down a bit?? I agree we need a young guy or 2 to come in as well.. I really liked what Hudon has done on the farm....Him Scherbak, Mccarron, Andrighetto have been givin a huge vote of confidence by management if you listen to Bergeron news conference Why do we want to pay for another 3rd line centre when we have so many already? I don't really know what u mean.....as in Eller and Mitchell or you mean desharnais and plekanecs lol I don't really think Eller has been providing the necessary production and I don't think Mitchell could for a extended period of time... And desharnais is our number 1 center whether the fan base likes it or not for the time being and plekanecs has been a pretty good number 2 center for many years
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Post by franko on May 18, 2015 15:14:28 GMT -5
Why do we want to pay for another 3rd line centre when we have so many already? I don't really know what u mean.....as in Eller and Mitchell or you mean desharnais and plekanecs Yes. As in we need an actual number one in the number one slot. DD May slot into the number one but he isn't one.
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Post by Lord Bebop on May 18, 2015 15:24:35 GMT -5
I don't really know what u mean.....as in Eller and Mitchell or you mean desharnais and plekanecs Yes. As in we need an actual number one in the number one slot. DD May slot into the number one but he isn't one. Well that would be nice..Galychenyuk?? My guess is our best hope. Some talked about Hudon but I'm not sold he will be any better then Desharnais
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