Quote:
Originally Posted by HighLifeMan
It's certainly not easy to lead the league in HDCF - especially when by every metric available you are having an incredibly positive impact on the game. It's not Darryl's way - so it's not good enough. That's how he looks at it.
And just remember - they made it just as far as we did in the playoffs against far more difficult opponents. You need your top players to perform - and they are not being afforded that opportunity here and the results speak for themselves.
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Well, hockey is a pretty crazy game and things can shift in an instant. Gaudreau went from an absurd league leading +64, a number we haven't since the 1980's to a -16. There's no telling what happens when you go to a different team with different coaches and different players, that's why you have to exercise restraint, especially in a cap world where risk is extremely high.
Like I said, I don't know how well Huberdeau and Weegar perform in the playoffs. But judging by the statistics alone, their points per game dropped considerably (shown below) from the regular season to the playoffs. We all know that the style of game changes drastically in the playoffs. There's no more wide open run & gun hockey, it's generally tight checking, heavy and methodical. It's possible that this is what Huberdeau and Weegar will be every year going forward under Sutter, not so much their regular season stats, but their playoff stats.
Their points per game from regular season to playoffs:
Huberdeau: 1.44 ---> 0.5
Weegar: 0.55 ---> to 0.1