Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
The whole “everyone is obtuse, can’t read, needs to relax” schtick is pretty boring. I don’t think you need to lash out because you’re receiving pushback on your opinion.
I’m not sure any of Kuz, Solo, or Brz looked much better than anyone. And, at best even by your measure, they maybe looked good enough to be on the bottom pairing. So what then? Having two rookies on the bottom pairing isn’t great. Having another two rookies sitting in the stands isn’t great either.
Who is having Kuz and Parekh as a pairing and then Solo and Brz sitting in the box good for? Who benefits? Bean, Pachal, Miro, these are all guys that can play or not, move up or down, it doesn’t matter.
And as far as the vet games go, what else would you expect? What do you think is going to happen next year when it gets reduced to 4 games?
Vets and rookies approach preseason differently. Maybe it doesn’t meet your fantasy of what competition looks like, but coaches know what they’re getting from vets, so when rookies are in the process of getting cut, it’s because they’re not above the level of the vet whose place they’re trying to take. You still have to earn a spot in the NHL.
What “we all said” doesn’t matter, because for one, we didn’t all say it, and second, if you followed popular sentiment through training camp you’d have evaluations of the same guys swinging wildly from game to game. They had seven vets on D that needed to prove they were top five given the likelihood of Parekh making it, and they didn’t all do that. The rookies also needed to prove they were among the top 6, and only Parekh did.
I don’t think you can say there’s no meritocracy when the guys who earned it are still here and the guys who haven’t, aren’t. Kerins didn’t earn a spot in the top six, and he didn’t show he could play 4th line. Sucks, but if you aren’t one of the 9 best players and can’t play on the 4th line, then you didn’t earn anything. Same goes for D.
They’re not keeping rookies up to sit and watch the game.
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Agree to disagree. We’re good.
I do agree that “what we all said” is a terrible way of putting it. It was definitely a narrative for some heading into camp and maybe a hope for myself.
I felt strongly that some younger players on the back end, who have either been sent down already or are being waived today, are capable of contributing more to the roster today than those we have kept up. I felt their play in preseason backed that up.
I know that vets don’t try as hard in preseason. It’s pretty widely known that they mail it in sometimes. Some vets have earned that right. Makar doesn’t need to go full throttle on a Tuesday night preseason game if he doesn’t want to. He just needs to get himself ready however he wants. For most though, I don’t think it’s an acceptable attitude or practice. Call it a fantasy. If our players are complacent with their positioning in the org then that to me says we need new players.