Thank you for the episode Kronos! 😀 Whew! What a finish. To say we’re limping into the PO would be an understatement. Two things happened: I. The offense completely dried up league wide (e.g. Barker was on pace for 58 goals, 112 points at the halfway mark, yet finished with 45 goals, 82 points). II) Goaltending took a nosedive after Askarov got injured and never regained its footing. Based on what we’ve seen, some serious changes are in order if we’re aspiring to go on a long PO run. 1. Eklund transitions to 2C Last time we won the cup (2 years ago), Patrick slotted as the 2C in the PO, scored 15 goals in 21 games and hasn’t looked back since. He led the team in scoring last year (53 goals, 89 points as the 2C) despite centering rookie Quenneville & sophomore Dowd. Meanwhile, Eklund centered the two best wingers on the team (Svensson/Kennedy) and the 1st line struggled in both the regular season and POs. As a winger this year, Patrick yet again led the team in scoring, though his offense was muted despite his promotion up the lineup. What’s the common denominator? Eklund was his center. Just like Scheifele and Perfetti before him, it's time to transition Eklund to 2C, as he’s no longer bringing the best out of our top offensive weapons. 2. Matheson & Mills to PP1, Dowd & Stempniak to PP2 Matheson deserves a spot on PP1 after scoring 35 goals as a rookie. Patrick's best season on the PP (26 points) came playing LD. He hasn't slotted there since because of the need for a center on PP1. Matheson solves that issue. As a TWF, Dowd is proving that he’s not a PP1 player, although he’s a monster at 5v5. He scored 13PP points this season after scoring 10 as a sophomore last year. For context, 79ov rookie Tukio just scored 15PP points on PP2, while sophomore Quenneville scored 20PP points on PP1. Stempniak scored 6PP points despite playing PP1 all season. That’s not good at all, but it was also his first go at it. Mills on the other hand scored 12PP points on PP2 this season, which is outstanding. It’s not an indictment on Stempniak, as Mills wasn’t great in his first go as the PP1 quarterback either and got better with time. Next year, Stempniak should be given another shot at manning PP1. However, putting our best foot forward to win a cup this postseason means Mills to PP1 for the PO. 3. The PK units can stay the same. 83% is spectacular compared to where it was last year. 4. Power should be mandated with locking down the 3rd pair and leaving no hole on defense for the PO run. 5. Knowing how much $ defensemen cost, we should look to extend Hoffman (& Quenneville + others) at 85% before the PO run to avoid signing phase shenanigans. Hoffman’s a UFA too, so there’s no margin for error if we wait until the 11th hour to re-sign him. We’re a very young, but dangerous team and those tweaks should help us go on a deep PO run. Let’s see if we can bring a 3rd cup in 5 years to Winnipeg!
Thank you for the episode Kronos! 😀 Whew! What a finish. To say we’re limping into the PO would be an understatement.
Two things happened: I. The offense completely dried up league wide (e.g. Barker was on pace for 58 goals, 112 points at the halfway mark, yet finished with 45 goals, 82 points). II) Goaltending took a nosedive after Askarov got injured and never regained its footing.
Based on what we’ve seen, some serious changes are in order if we’re aspiring to go on a long PO run.
1. Eklund transitions to 2C
Last time we won the cup (2 years ago), Patrick slotted as the 2C in the PO, scored 15 goals in 21 games and hasn’t looked back since. He led the team in scoring last year (53 goals, 89 points as the 2C) despite centering rookie Quenneville & sophomore Dowd. Meanwhile, Eklund centered the two best wingers on the team (Svensson/Kennedy) and the 1st line struggled in both the regular season and POs. As a winger this year, Patrick yet again led the team in scoring, though his offense was muted despite his promotion up the lineup. What’s the common denominator? Eklund was his center.
Just like Scheifele and Perfetti before him, it's time to transition Eklund to 2C, as he’s no longer bringing the best out of our top offensive weapons.
2. Matheson & Mills to PP1, Dowd & Stempniak to PP2
Matheson deserves a spot on PP1 after scoring 35 goals as a rookie. Patrick's best season on the PP (26 points) came playing LD. He hasn't slotted there since because of the need for a center on PP1. Matheson solves that issue.
As a TWF, Dowd is proving that he’s not a PP1 player, although he’s a monster at 5v5. He scored 13PP points this season after scoring 10 as a sophomore last year. For context, 79ov rookie Tukio just scored 15PP points on PP2, while sophomore Quenneville scored 20PP points on PP1.
Stempniak scored 6PP points despite playing PP1 all season. That’s not good at all, but it was also his first go at it. Mills on the other hand scored 12PP points on PP2 this season, which is outstanding.
It’s not an indictment on Stempniak, as Mills wasn’t great in his first go as the PP1 quarterback either and got better with time. Next year, Stempniak should be given another shot at manning PP1. However, putting our best foot forward to win a cup this postseason means Mills to PP1 for the PO.
3. The PK units can stay the same. 83% is spectacular compared to where it was last year.
4. Power should be mandated with locking down the 3rd pair and leaving no hole on defense for the PO run.
5. Knowing how much $ defensemen cost, we should look to extend Hoffman (& Quenneville + others) at 85% before the PO run to avoid signing phase shenanigans. Hoffman’s a UFA too, so there’s no margin for error if we wait until the 11th hour to re-sign him.
We’re a very young, but dangerous team and those tweaks should help us go on a deep PO run. Let’s see if we can bring a 3rd cup in 5 years to Winnipeg!
I love these changes Alex! I implement most of them with some tweaks of my own in the upcoming video! It should be up in a couple hours!
@Kronos_12 A bit late to the party, but about to catch up now! See you in 2 hours haha
Matheson - Patrick - Svensson
Quenneville - Eklund - Dowd
Tukio - Pinto - Meech
Brookbank - Johnston - Stoll
Stempniak - Mills
Kreutzer - Hoffman
Power - Nikulin
Askarov
Gundersen (please, please no more Milic 😭😭)
PP1
Quenneville - Matheson - Svensson
Patrick - Mills
PP2
Tukio - Eklund - Dowd
Stempniak - Hoffman
PKs
Meech - Svensson
Stempniak - Hoffman
Patrick - Tukio
Power - Mills
Pinto - Dowd
Nikulin - Kreutzer