2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

[Stauber1]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Condon Matson Budish

Warning Haula Hansen

Larson Boyd Ambroz

Miller Isackson Sachetti

2nd and 4th line stay the same as last Saturday night

Where is Serratore?

I think Larson could play on either the 2nd or 3rd line for Warning or Ambroz and the lines could possibly be improved. Honestly, Warning has done little to nothing for me most of the season. Ambroz has been up and down. I wouldn't mind seeing either of those guys a little more sparingly and getting guys like Miller or Sachetti into the line-up. If nothing more than to light some fires under some asses. I don't think there would be much if any of a drop in skating Larson on the 2nd/3rd line, and going with either Miller or Sachetti onto the 4th line. The 4th line might not be as good, but I think it would be made up for in whichever line Larson moves up to.

As far as the Holiday Tournament goes? I'd like to see Haula and Hansen skating with someone who may become a permanent fixture on that 2nd line. Who that is exactly, I'm not entirely sure.


And to Ness...I don't think he had poor defensive positioning...at all. I don't understand that. He certainly wasn't very physical, but he did a pretty good job of offsetting that WITH his positional play and skating ability.
He struggled in the corners, and wasn't great in battles in front of the net. But in terms of taking away passing/shooting lanes, staying with guys on rushes, never getting turned, recognizing how/where the play was flowing, and recovering or covering up for his teammates, he was quite good. And the sad part is that I think most of that was more or less self taught.

 

[goldy_331]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

There's a fine line with many posters, and yes, I toe that line at best. SG does too.

Overall, get the feel to the board, it takes time. But you will figure out who's a blowhard, and who's not.

Wait, is Swami back? There isn't another one, is there?

 

[Driftryder]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Where is Serratore?

I think Larson could play on either the 2nd or 3rd line for Warning or Ambroz and the lines could possibly be improved. Honestly, Warning has done little to nothing for me most of the season. Ambroz has been up and down. I wouldn't mind seeing either of those guys a little more sparingly and getting guys like Miller or Sachetti into the line-up. If nothing more than to light some fires under some asses. I don't think there would be much if any of a drop in skating Larson on the 2nd/3rd line, and going with either Miller or Sachetti onto the 4th line. The 4th line might not be as good, but I think it would be made up for in whichever line Larson moves up to.

As far as the Holiday Tournament goes? I'd like to see Haula and Hansen skating with someone who may become a permanent fixture on that 2nd line. Who that is exactly, I'm not entirely sure.

Yeah it's a nice problem to have, it's better to have extra bodies to fill in than be left empty. I do like Serratore as well and would have no problem with him being in the starting lineup. I just liked the way that 4th line played Saturday night, they were all over the place and had some great energy.

 

[JDUBBS1280]

There's a fine line with many posters, and yes, I toe that line at best. SG does too.

Overall, get the feel to the board, it takes time. But you will figure out who's a blowhard, and who's not.

Thanks man

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Condon Matson Budish

Warning Haula Hansen

Larson Boyd Ambroz

Miller Isackson Sachetti

2nd and 4th line stay the same as last Saturday night

Trade Sachetti for Serratore and I'm fine with it. I will never agree with benching Serratore unless he's hurt or sick. Never.

 

[gopher wes]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Yeah it's a nice problem to have, it's better to have extra bodies to fill in than be left empty. I do like Serratore as well and would have no problem with him being in the starting lineup. I just liked the way that 4th line played Saturday night, they were all over the place and had some great energy.

It's tough to leave Serratore out, IMO. He has been a great, physical presence all year and that is perfect for a 4th line grinder. I think he embraced that role and even pitched in a couple goals here and there as well. I understand now why Lucia went away from the original 4th line on Saturday with Larson having the flu and wanting to get Sachetti and Miller in there to get some time before tClassic was important. But going forward I want to see Serratore in the lineup(unless he is sick or injured like Scoobs said).

 

[cross cheque]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

There's a fine line with many posters, and yes, I toe that line at best. SG does too.

Overall, get the feel to the board, it takes time. But you will figure out who's a blowhard, and who's not.

And nobody blow's harder than you B-Ho.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Sometimes a guy might need to sit out for disciplinary reasons...

True...but there are other guys I would still play above Nico (which shows you how bad some of the last few years teams have been seeing as he saw plenty of ice time )

 

[The Rube]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Wait, is Swami back? There isn't another one, is there?

I miss Swami.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

I miss Swami.

Why did he bail?

 

[Biddco]

Why did he bail?

This is all IIRC
Player parents read is criticism of their players and brought it up to his face. He didn't post after that.

 

[Koho]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

And to Ness...I don't think he had poor defensive positioning...at all. I don't understand that. He certainly wasn't very physical, but he did a pretty good job of offsetting that WITH his positional play and skating ability.
He struggled in the corners, and wasn't great in battles in front of the net. But in terms of taking away passing/shooting lanes, staying with guys on rushes, never getting turned, recognizing how/where the play was flowing, and recovering or covering up for his teammates, he was quite good. And the sad part is that I think most of that was more or less self taught.

I agree completely. I thought Ness had very good positioning. His physical strength was his main defensive limitation as he would often lose battles. But when the battle in the corner was more stick work than physical, more often than not he came out with the puck. And there were several times where he made up for one of the multiple defensive gaffs the forwards made.

Offensively, I think his main problem was he never completely gained the confidence he had in HS. He has planty of tools, and on the rare occasion he carried it the length of the ice, he could pretty well avoid the opposition. But he did it rarely and sometimes dumped the puck off to another player when he could have probably moved it better himself.

It just seems that a lot of people judge him against his massive expectations rather than just his play as a college defenseman. I thought Fischer suffered the same fate. Huge expectations he never lived up to, but if you just focused on his play, you could see he wasn't as bad as most people claimed. One or two errors that stand out in an otherwise flawless game is all some people need to verify their opinion on a player.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

It wasn't about expectations, it was about results. Fischer and Ness had all sorts of talent but their play was erratic. Neither of them progressed as they got older and I am sorry but that is not how it is supposed to be. Ness was no better as a junior than he was a freshmen and his defensive zone decisions sometimes baffled me. Whats worse is, he was so physically weak that if he was stuck covering the guy near the net it was almost a guarantee the guy would get a shot off. Ness had talent, but none of the tools to play because he wasnt physically mature enough. I dont care that he was never much of a scorer, but his defense was not exactly lighting the world on fire.

And when you play defense, two errors is the difference between winning and losing. A bad pass in the zone leads to a goal, a missed assignment leads to a goal...these were the mistakes Fischer made. So yes, he could play flawless for most of the game but when you make a glaring error like that you fail and you will get called out for it. Especially when you are an upperclassmen! Fischer never got it, the game never seemed to flow for him. Every player makes the mistakes, but the difference between a dominant D man and a middling D man is that good ones learn. Fischer made the same stupid mistakes as a frosh that he did as a senior.

What did you see out of either of them that makes you think they were that good? Where would you play them on this years squad?

 

[The Rube]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

This is all IIRC
Player parents read is criticism of their players and brought it up to his face. He didn't post after that.

Also IIRC, some posters started to get really personal (revealing Swami's identity, threatening him armed with real-life info, etc). He was a really private person, so that really turned him off of the whole board thing.

The guy was a fountain of knowledge. Sooooo much info, and the stories he had about hockey....amazing.

 

[Koho]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

What did you see out of either of them that makes you think they were that good? Where would you play them on this years squad?

I don't think either were great players, just better than many of the people who constantly say they were bad. I think Schmidt is playing better than either did. But I think they would be in the mix this year. Paranteau, Helgeson and Marshall are all solid but also have each had their share of mistakes. I would guess a Senior Ness would have been 2nd to Schmidt at best, and in the mix with this second group of three at worse. I think he would have been clearly better than Alt and Hall, who have each had good games, but also not so great games. For one thing, if Guentzel is anywhere near the improvement over Hill that most attribute to him, it could only make Ness better. And I still contend, that the forwards are doing a much better job back-checking than the previous three teams, which makes it much easier on your D and much harder to compare the play of the D this year to last.

I am sure you and others won't agree with this assessment, but that is fine.

 

[Handyman]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

I will give you Holl, but I would take Alt every day over Ness and I am not even a huge Alt fan. Holl is still a year away from looking like he belongs imho.

 

[Stauber1]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

Let me first say you won't ever hear me defending Fischer.

But where do I think Ness would fit in with this year's D corp?

A number of different places. But most simply, for the sake of this discussion, I could see Ness with either Alt or Helgeson with Marshall skating with the other, and Schmidt with Holl/Parenteau. I think you could also make a case to see Ness with Schmidt as a top defensive pairing. That pair could have been lethal attacking.

I guess it's pretty simple to me; I'd take Ness over either Holl or Parenteau. I'm a big Parenteau fan, but his play isn't nearly as dynamic as Ness's was.
I'd also say that Ness was a better defensive defenseman than Marshall *currently* is.
I'd also point out that even with the number of wins this year's team has racked up, there have been plenty of times where MN gets locked into their defensive end and have trouble transitioning out. That is an area where Ness is sorely missed. It's little things like finding seems to skate the puck, or eluding that initial body getting placed on the puck carrier to slow him down and allow the forecheckers to take away passing options and move into the skating lanes. Those are things that Ness was very good at and that often go overlooked.

But really, I agree with Koho that Ness was a bit of a victim to the team he was playing on. I think if you saw last year's Ness on this year's team he would have had much better offensive numbers. On the other end, having a group of forwards with a better understanding of defensive play and a greater willingness to put in the effort on the defensive side would have taken some of the responsibility off of Ness.

But, I understand that a lot of people were/are very willing to criticize Ness. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, just responding to Handy's question

 

[Hammy]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

What do Fischer, Ness, and Holl all have in common? All of them came right from HS hockey rather w/o one season of juniors. That's as big of the issue as any.

I can sort of understand it to a degree because of their draft situation (especially Fischer) but I really feel the coaches should take a hard line stance that you are not coming to the U as a defenseman unless you have a year of junior hockey before you come in. There might be the rare exception to that but I'd like to see them demand more before coming in.

It just seems like a lot of those d-men that come right from HS never reach a comfort zone until half of their eligibility is used up. What good is that?

 

[Koho]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

But, I understand that a lot of people were/are very willing to criticize Ness. I'm not trying to change anyone's mind, just responding to Handy's question

I guess what it comes down to for me, is that Ness seemed to receive more criticism than any other defensmen last year, and I don't see how anyone can say he was the worst D on the team. So if one accepts that premise, how can one argue that he is not being judged on expectations. Otherwise, the number 6 D would always receive the most criticism. And I would argue that if one DOES believe he was the 6th best D on the team last year, than I strongly disagree with that person's assessment of talent.

 

[Koho]

Re: 2011-12 Minnesota Season Thread (Pride On Ice Returns!)

What do Fischer, Ness, and Holl all have in common? All of them came right from HS hockey rather w/o one season of juniors. That's as big of the issue as any.

I can sort of understand it to a degree because of their draft situation (especially Fischer) but I really feel the coaches should take a hard line stance that you are not coming to the U as a defenseman unless you have a year of junior hockey before you come in. There might be the rare exception to that but I'd like to see them demand more before coming in.

It just seems like a lot of those d-men that come right from HS never reach a comfort zone until half of their eligibility is used up. What good is that?

I can agree that in general, defense is tougher to adjust to, so just about every player would benefit from a year of Juniors after college, and that it affected all the players you mentioned. I think Alt could have used a year too. But you know how the game is played. Sometimes a player will threaten to go to a different college that will play them right away, or a player leaves early so a prospect skips a year. I have trouble putting too much blame on the coaches for that reason. It is a constant jugging act. It is impossible to predict development too. Look at the jump Schmidt made in one year, then look at someone like Tallackson who looked good at the end of each year, then seemed to step backwards at the start of the next.