Quote:
Originally Posted by Bingo
The guy is elite when you're collapsing in your own zone and and hanging on for dear life ... he sacrifices his body and goes right after the puck carrier.
Unfortunately that only happens when the other team pulls their goalie or you're killing a penalty.
He had a decent stretch of five on five play with Lucic and Ryan, but that's not happening with last night's fourth line.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 1qqaaz
When Nordstrom was signed, a lot of people were saying "what is there to complain about? Depth never hurts so nothing can go wrong with a league minimum contract"
Except this just isn't true.
Yesterday, Nordstrom played 12:02.
Monahan played 14:56.
Mediocre coaches like Ward tend to overplay the zero-skill guys just because they're willing to block shots, get physical, and they put in solid efforts.
But Nordstrom has been played way over his head. It's not his fault per se. Nordstrom is simply one of the least productive forwards in the league, and he shouldn't be anywhere near the top 9. When you don't produce at all, it's nearly impossible to contribute to the success of the team. This is evident by the fact that Nordstrom has consistently had a horrendous +/-, even while on goods teams. Modern NHL games are too close - you can't sacrifice a line of scoring just for grit. Yes, he's fine as a 4th line forward who plays in tough situations. Be he shouldn't be playing even half as many minutes as Monahan.
The problem with players like these is that they somehow move up the lineup, then take the production out of the entire line. On the PK, they do nothing except block shots. Nordstrom takes way too many penalties and that's unacceptable when you're playing against teams that overly rely on the powerplay. He's not even very large or physically imposing. Lindholm is slightly larger than him.
Finally, guys like Nordstrom take opportunities away from ripened prospects who are clearly superior players. Development should always be the utmost priority.
Nordstrom embodies the reasons I don't like it when the Flames sign older depth players. Our coaches fall in love with them in a manner that detriments the team. It also hurts development.
It's not a coincidence that the Flames almost always play better when they are playing young rookies. The energy helps. So do the actually offensive contributions from the bottom 6.
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I'm not too big of a fan of his, but if they really want him in the lineup for his pk ability, which it seems like they do, then I'd definitely like to see him only playing about 5-6 minutes just in those roles. Rotate guys on that fourth line for regular shifts and keep Nordstrom for just the situations he excels at.
Ryan, Lucic, Simon, Leivo, or whoever ends up on that fourth line outside of Froese and Ronaldo have enough skill to be an effective line but are dragged down by Nordstrom.
Get Gaudreau, Tkachuk, Dube, Bennett and Mangiapane some extra shifts either because they are on and dangerous or use it as a way to get one of them going. But enough is enough of Nordstrom playing 10+ minutes a night