Quote:
Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
Team Canada tried that crap in Turin and embarrassed themselves.
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Exactly. This is idiocy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
Do you really think Evan Bouchard can play a shut-down D role and the PK as well as Travis Sanheim? Or a coach would be as confident sending Cole Caufield over the boards to protect a lead against McKinnon’s line as Brock Nelson?
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This comment is ridiculous. First, Bouchard is at most your 7th D on this roster - the issue is not including Noah Dobson, Dougie Hamilton, or Doughty in favour of - at this level - plugs like Parayko and Sanheim. You do not need shut down PK defensemen at this level. Dobson had 70 points last year and is perfectly capable of PK1, and that's after Pietrangelo, Toews, Theodore... all these guys
routinely play significant minutes against the top of opposing rosters.
The suggestion that you'd be matching lines against MacKinnon with Cole Caufield OR Brock Nelson, rather than Auston Matthews or Jack Eichel, is absurd. No, you bring Caufield because when you get a third period power play in a one goal game he is a one-shot scorer who can credibly say, "yes, I'm about to shoot this puck, and it doesn't matter if you know that because you can't stop it anyway". That's not Brock Nelson, it's not Chris Kreider (who is a good finisher but is a supporting player), and it's not Vinny Trochek.
Same thing goes for Bedard. Are you playing him against Auston Matthews? No. But you can play him against Dylan Larkin and (apparently Trochek, Nelson and Kreider), and it's very possible he just goes out there and breaks the game open without warning, because he has that in him. That ceiling simply does not exist for Hagel, Cirelli or Jarvis - there are maybe 10 guys in the league who can go into "ah, I see, so there's just really nothing we can do about this guy" mode on a given night. If you have such a player available to you, BRING HIM.