You did NOT just write Pajama-jammy-jams!!Originally Posted by KingsAreMyIke
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Lotsa stuff to look at, but:
1) Part of the fall in many of the goalies mentioned above was the change in the rules that limited their equipment. They can't wear a house for a chest protector or a pair of king size matresses anymore. Its back to positioning, reflexes, and agility.
2) Part of the problem with AM was that he treated his players like teenagers and not men. Do you think that Crawford is going to make them write a paper during training camp?
3) Our new super scrub will be Richard Park.
4) He will get the best out of his top scorers because he will play them as much as he can. They will be allowed to create, not forced into playing the system.
5) His 3rd line will be a true stopper line. They will be veterans with character.
6) His 4th line will be filled with Penalty Killers and a thug.
at the draft party a couple of years ago, and under a considerable haze, i heard Birdman yell out the following (about 4 or 5 times, i think) - "don't marry yourselves to players!" he went on to reiterate that idea more than once on the boards, and i believe it to be absolutely sage.
---gescom
http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/l...006901996.html
6 20+ goal scorers, 4 that were 30+.
2 Solid scoring lines.
2 True stopper lines.
Superpest Claude Lemieux.
Chris Simon is his prime. Pounded people, scored goals.
Patrick Roy.
A powerplay quarterback who could still handle his booze.
A young mobile defense that played well in their own end.
That was a great team, but they rode Roy to the Stanley Cup.
at the draft party a couple of years ago, and under a considerable haze, i heard Birdman yell out the following (about 4 or 5 times, i think) - "don't marry yourselves to players!" he went on to reiterate that idea more than once on the boards, and i believe it to be absolutely sage.
---gescom
It's easy to confuse the 1996 Avs with future teams since it was now 10 years ago. I even had a hard time remembering that the Avs actually won a Cup prior to Drury, Hejduk, Tanguay, Blake, Bourque, etc. So let's review the facts..
1. Prior to Crawford taking over the Nordiques, they had missed the playoffs in 6 of the last 7 years. The one year that they made it they were out in the first round after putting up 104 points. The year before he was hired they had just 76 points.
2. The first year that Crawford was the coach, the Nordiques had 65 points in the lockout shortened year (48 games) but again went out in the first round.
3. In 1995 the Nordiques moved to Colorado and became the Avs, which could have/should have been a distraction to a young team that could have had trouble adjusting to playing in a new city/country.
4. Patrick Roy was acquired in during the season. Aside from Roy, the key players on the 1995-96 Avs were:
* Joe Sakic - former 1st round pick in 87 who many thought could not carry a team based on past failures. In seven seasons (including Crawford's 1st year) the Nordiques had only made the playoffs twice and won a total of ZERO rounds. At one point Sakic was rumored to be traded to Toronto. Much like Joe Thornton, Sakic was not considered to be a leader or a winner.
* Peter Forsberg - at age 21 he was now in his second season. He put up just over a point a game in his rookie year, playing under Crawford.
* Valeri Kamensky - an injury prone 29-year old winger who was coming off a 10-goal year in the shortened season. He had only 2 points in 8 career playoff games.
* Claude Lemieux - the ultimate pest and a true winner. At age 30 his offensive skills seemed to be on the decline - in his final four seasons in New Jersey he went from 41 to 30 to 18 to 6 goals. This was his first year in Colorado.
* Scott Young - a useful winger who was by no means a star. He had already played for Hartford and Pittsburgh and he went on to play with Anaheim, St. Louis, Dallas and St. Louis (again). You could call him a journeyman.
* Adam Deadmarsh - had put up 9 goals and 17 points in his rookie year playing under Crawford. He was now in his second year.
* Sandis Ozolinsch - acquired early in the year for Owen Nolan. Ozolinsch was a talented but erratic defenceman who had put up 26 goals and 64 points in his second year but followed it up with just 9 goals and 25 points in the shortened season and started the next year with 1 goal and 4 points in 7 games before being traded to Colorado. After five years in Colorado he would go on to play for Carolina, Florida, Anaheim and New York.
Supporting Cast - Forwards
* Chris Simon - a young enforcer with 82 NHL games of experience
* Stephane Yelle - a 21-year old rookie center
* Mike Keane - veteran leader acquired with Roy
* Mike Ricci - a grinder with some skill who was part of the Lindros trade
* Troy Murray - 33-year old grinder at the end of his career. The long-time Hawk (he had three stints there) also played on Winnipeg, Ottawa and Pittsburgh
* Dave Hannan - much like Murray was a veteran winger at the end of his career. Hannan was acquired at the deadline.
* Rene Corbet - another rookie
* Warren Rychel - veteran enforcer
Supporting Cast: Defence
* Craig Wolanin - a veteran who had played just 127 games over the past three seasons.
* Alexei Gusarov - 31-year old Russian who played just 14 games the year before
* Curtis Leschyshyn - Long-time Nordique with all of 9 playoff games under his belt
* Adam Foote - 24-year old defenceman with about 200 games of experience in his first four games
* Sylvain Lefebvre - acquired from Toronto in the Clark/Sundin trade. He was known as a very good defensive d-man.
* Jon Klemm - 25-year old rookie d-man who had spent the past four years in the AHL.
* Uwe Krupp - the former Sabre and Islander, Krupp was a huge presence who was often hurt (and would only play 6 games in the regular season)
My point? This was a VERY young and VERY inexperienced team except for a few veteran role players (plus Roy and Lemieux). They didn't have much scoring depth and definitely didn't have a great defence (at least not as individuals).
Yes they had Sakic and Forsberg but Sakic wasn't Sakic as we know him before playing for Crawford and Forsberg was just starting his career.
5. In the Conference Finals the Avs beat a Detroit team that had 131 points. This was a team that featured:
Yzerman, Fedorov, Kozlov, Larionov, Primeau, Ciccarelli up front and Coffey, Lidstrom, Fetisov, Konstantinov on D (and of course Scott Bowman behind the bench).
This was probably THE best Red Wings team and maybe the best team in recent times. They went 62-13-7 (.799 winning percentage). By comparison they put up 7 more points than the team this year that played Columbus, Chicago and St. Louis 8 times each and received points for OTL/Shootout losses. This team had 37 more points than the Wings team that would win the Cup the next year.
6. In the Cup finals the Avs swept Florida and outscored them 15-4. Florida was coming off series wins of Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Boston. Pittsburgh and Philly were second and fourth overall respectively.
One could probably make an argument that leading the 95-96 Avs to the Stanley Cup was one of the best coaching jobs in recent hockey history.
If you look back through the list (http://www.nhl.com/hockeyu/history/cup/champs.html) this was one of THE most unlikely Cup wins you can find, especially considering how young and inexperienced the Avs were and how deep and powerful that Detroit team was.
Usually you need to have some playoff success/disappointments before you can win a Cup but we're talking about a team that hadn't won a round in 8 seasons (and only made the playoffs twice) winning the whole thing which in hindsight is extremely impressive.
You mean Toskala or Garon? I wouldn't say Toskala "flops" too much because to me "flopping" is about ending up prone on the ice and I don't see that as much as him just going down too quickly. If you mean Garon, I honestly don't have enough of a read on him yet. He played great for a while and players made adjustments then he made adjustments and now it's up to the players to make adjustments. Until I see how Garon adjusts to the adjustment adjustments that he adjusted to, I won't really know. The difference between them is that I think Toskala pretty much is what he is and won't change that much.
Hmmm...didn't Ohlund lead the D in goals with 13 and play 78 games? With Jovo's relative decline, I think it's safe to say Ohlund was in their top 3 and good enough to be one of their top two PP QB's (either way I think it's quibbling to imply they didn't have a PP QB since they had Ohlund). I'm not sure who the third injured top 3 Dman is.
But the answer is no...well, a qualified no. 11th is respectable, but if you were a Vancouver fan and they'd had Salo, Jovo and Ohlund in the lineup with Naslund, Morrison, Bertuzzi, the Sedins and Carter...would you think having the 11th best PP is a "success"? I wouldn't. Even with "only" Naslund, Morrison, Bertuzzi, the Sedins, Carter, Ohlund and Baumgartner (with a forward on the point plenty of time), is 11th really a "success"? As a Kings fan, I would be disappointed with that.
Then we see things differently. Toskala didn't rip the #1 job from Nabokov. If his .901 save% gets you giddy, then great. Nabokov sucked his way into the #2 job. Yes, Toskala got better (it's not hard to when he started off letting in 1 out of every 6 or 7 shots), but then in the playoffs his weaknesses were exposed. And if you think 37 games proves he has "stamina" then you and I have different definitions of the word stamina.
I'll go back and watch the games against the Oilers if you watch the goals that were scored. Particularly in games 6 and 7 when the chips were down. Those were some of the weakest goals in this year's playoffs. It doesn't matter how many good saves a goalie makes, it's the softies that kill you.
Toskala is the epitomy of an older goalie who steps in for a veteran and gets hot...and then gets figured out. Garon may or may not be a #1 in the NHL (I think it's funny that you think you have him all figured out...I sure don't), but Toskala will not be a #1 on a playoff team. The big difference between Garon and Toskala is that Toskala has had TWO seasons to take the job from Nabokov (when Nabokov sucked) and couldn't do it. Garon has had ONE season and didn't. He may or may not take the #1 job, but IMO it's one season to early to give up on him. If there was a way to make a bet on this, I'd make it. I'll tell you what, you see if there's a way to ask DL if he would trade Garon for Toskala and see what he says.
Yeah, but LOTS of goalies fell long before the rules changes. Jim Carey and Jose Theodore to name a couple.
YEAH!! Damn those system-playing coaches like Randy Carlyle, Peter Laviolette and Lindy Ruff. THEY SUCK and so do their teams!!4) He will get the best out of his top scorers because he will play them as much as he can. They will be allowed to create, not forced into playing the system.
How can you call Toskala an "older" goalie when he's ONE year older than Garon? I think we've seen exactly what Garon is and will be, inconsistent. Last season in the AHL he started off amazingly well and faded while playing 52 regular season games and 6 playoff games. This season he played 63 games and he was clearly getting tired before the Olympic break. What's going to happen next season when there isn't a 3 week break in February? Have you ever heard of a playering gaining stamina after the age of 28? I personally haven't.
Curious, you said Toskala had two season to take the job from Nabakov yet you claim he didn't. Maybe you missed it but Toskala did EXACTLY that. He was the starting goalie the final two months of the season for the Sharks including starting every playoff game the team was involved in. I've heard numerous interviews involving Sharks players calling Toskala the number 3 reason behind Thornton and Cheechoo as to why the Sharks ended up in the playoffs. Now, do I see Toskala as the Opening Night goalie for the Sharks next season? No. Why? Nabokov makes 5.5 million dollars next year. You can't trade him and you can't sit him.
And I would love to ask DL his thoughts on Toskala vs. Garon. I don't see why DL would stick with Garon. Garon was a DT project. I wouldn't be surprised if DL projects him to be a backup next year. Which is where he would excel the most IMO.
I think probably the most interesting move Lombardi will make this summer will be in goal. This was one of the first positions aggressively addressed when he came to San Jose and based on this past season it's tough to get a read on whether Garon can be a legit #1. I'd like to think the answer is yes but I'm not completely sold..
Agreed. At this point I doubt it's more than a one-year deal. There will be a ton of roster changes and pretty much everyone else will be auditioning for a long-term role with this franchise.
I keep coming back to Luongo and if there is any chance of him leaving Florida I could see it as the perfect move for this franchise, especially given Lombardi's history focusing on goaltending and Crawford's history with Roy.
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