with the news that mikael backlund has signed his first NHL contract, i decided to finally sit down and take in what ol' daz had to say, on garbage bag day, about the rest of the team. and i was a little surprised by this particular gem:
"if you look at us from an organization standpoint,... and obviously going back to kipper, i think it's a great position for us... i think defense.... our young guys ---something that gets taken out of context, really--- our defense is... below the league average in age. quite honestly i wish we had some more experience but...with robyn and dion and cory as the cornerstones and being young guys, and knowing how good they are.... especially with robyn and dion --knowing , that they're different types, looked on as #1 and #2 guys in the league, we may be... not MAYBE, we're PROBABLY in a position where we can put a couple more young guys into that, and we have three guys in our organization that will... that will... that we think can fight [for] and/or fill those spots this coming year."
um....... SORRY ???????
okay. so first off, let's address that ol'sutter doesn't pick and choose his words the way some other dudes do, and he definitely has a tendency to jump around a bit mid-sentence. i considered adding in all of the 'uhh's' and 'ummm's thought it detracted from the meaning of the statement above. which fascinates me for the following reasons:
1. "i wish we had some more experience [in the defensive corps]"
um.... HUNH ??? sure, the guys that were eating up the most blueline minutes were the young guys (as mentioned, regehr, sarich, phaneuf) but that's because the other guys that sutter amassed weren't any good !! this statement makes me honestly believe that eriksson was brought in purely due to age/experience over ability.... as though last july, after signing sarich longterm, sutter suddently realized he had five players in their 20's (i added hale and gio into the mix, here). on the flipside, he only had warrener and aucoin as 'oldies,' both of whom often spent time on IR. here's to hoping he doesn't make the same mistake this summer....
2. "we have three guys in our organization that... can fight [for] and/or fill those spots this coming year"
okay, WHOAH. slow down there, daz. this is intense....
THREE GUYS ???? i can only presume that two of those guys are giordano and negrin. the third could be hale, or it could be ramholt, or it could be pardy or pelech.... do i expect any of those guys to end up in a flaming C next year ? well, gio YES. but the problem is that, in order to have your "#1 and #2 guys" help shelter new talent, you've got to split regehr and sarich (cause i can't be the only one thinking that a rookie paired with dion is a bad idea). then our D would look a bit like this:
phaneuf - sarich
regehr - negrin
giordano - aucoin
and i'll tell you what....? i actually don't mind the look of it.
okay everyone: this is your chance to tell me negrin ain't ready....
meetchya at prospect camp and we'll discuss it at length.
PS: congratulations to me, as this is my 300th post !!! HIT IT !!! ;)
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9 comments:
okay, you actually wrote a lot. you can smack me when you see me.
line up looks good, where is vandermeer? i hope sutter can get giordano back...do you think dynamo wants eriksson?
eriksson's done. i can't imagine ANYONE wanting him.... if the brass at dynamo knew gio was worth hiring, they'll know that bubba's worth steering clear of.
vandermeer's gone, IMO. i like the guy, alright but i'm not convinced he's stayin'. if we're gonna re-sign a 6th man, i hope it's hale (cheaper). vandermeer will be too costly for a 5/6. especially if we're stuck with warrener and/or eriksson.
Mmmm... Negrin, Ramholt, and Pardy. The latter two were up here during the middle of the season (and played one shift between the two of them), but they're the best of the QC kids.
Negrin didn't impress that much during training camp but I saw him play when he was back up with the Ice, and he impressed.
maybe the three "ready" guys he's referring to are giordano, ramholt & pardy. or maybe he's disregarding gio, and the three are ramholt, pardy, and negrin.
i wish he just told us, already.
I can't see Ramholt being counted as one of the ready guys. His one shot was pretty terrible. 2 shifts, -1 rating. He went out, got scored on, and never came back.
Pardy was supposed to get some playing time in December when Regehr was supposedly out, but then it turned out that Regehr wasn't hurt badly at all, and we never saw Pardy. I remember him standing out during the preseason, however.
the D at QC are:
ramholt
pardy
cunning
cole
pelech
palin
baldwin (??)
burke (??)
and in JRs: negrin, aulie.
baldwing and burke are the oldest but there is some value in thinking sutter's hubris would promote pelech (a first rounder).
of that list, i recall being suitably impressed by pardy and palin in prospect camp last year....
rob kerr, fyi, specifically mentions giordano, pelech and pardy, which would lend itself to the assumption that negrin will get another year of seasoning....
Negrin looks like a good prospect, but I saw him in late March versus the Hitmen and he wasn't the best player on the ice. In order to make the jump directly from the WHL to the NHL, that would have to be true. The only Flame to do that in...um...ever(?) was Dion Phaneuf. And he spent his rookie season - as a 20 year old - behind Warrener/Ference and Regehr/Leopold.
I don't know much about Negrin, but I think it would shock me to the core to see a young defenceman come in and not play on the third pairing or as the 7th man. That said, the proposed group is probably both attainable and better than 07-08 so I'm ok with it.
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