The Atlanta Braves - Hello darkness my old friend

#34,051
#34,051
Wickman said:
I wanna be mad, but you can’t be ass until the elimination game and win a series. BOLD strategy by Lavi to not make any scheme adjustments all season to the worst power play in the league. Amazing game to watch. Kick in the giblets to lose. Woke up the wife and kiddo 3 different times from the basement.
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Laviolette's gotta go, right? That power play is flat-out inexcusable.
 
#34,052
#34,052
Vercingetorix said:
Laviolette's gotta go, right? That power play is flat-out inexcusable.
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What REALLY hurt was the coach that got fired for the Sabres this year leaving us for Buffalo. He pretty much ran our power play according to most the local media here. Hopefully we bring him back. Poile probably won’t fire Lavy. He kept Trotz around like 3 years past due. He’s pretty patient when it comes to that so I don’t expect much to adjust there. My personal opinion, Lavy has ran his course here. We needed that offensive mindset when Trotz left. Idk what we need now but this isn’t it. You could tell the team was very uninspired all season. A lot of that falls on the players but a lot of that falls on the coach too. We’ll see.
 
#34,054
#34,054
Is it wrong of me to feel like the Braves and Press are in similar situations. The Preds make an improbable run to the Stanley cup a year early. The GM makes some minor moves. The next year the team flames out early in the playoffs and the GM makes no moves leaving the team intact year 3 get bounced out early in the playoffs.
For ATL make a run to the post season a year early. The next off season a few minor moves but nothing major.
I know that it is early and there is a long way to go for the Braves but both of these teams seem to be on similar paths to me
 
#34,055
#34,055
BigOrange15 said:
Our fans talk enough **** about it, it's fine. No reason it should be this bad.
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To touch on what you said in the RF, anyone that watches Preds games knows that Subban is slow and will turn the puck over at least 6 times a game. He is BAD. My buddy is a nurse at Vandy. He works with a lot of the players, going to Ford Ice Center and stuff. He said a few players have thought all year Subban will be traded in the off-season. Said Turris and Karlsson are close and if we can ship Subban, gonna make a huge run at him. No idea if that’s true though.
 
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#34,056
#34,056
Wickman said:
To touch on what you said in the RF, anyone that watches Preds games knows that Subban is slow and will turn the puck over at least 6 times a game. He is BAD. My buddy is a nurse at Vandy. He works with a lot of the players, going to Ford Ice Center and stuff. He said a few players have thought all year Subban will be traded in the off-season. Said Turris and Karlsson are close and if we can ship Subban, gonna make a huge run at him. No idea if that’s true though.
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Yeah, he has been a liability all season...the guy does something stupid to hurt the team at last once a game. He definitely needs to be gone. We have a lot of problems imo, some not easily fixable.
 
#34,058
#34,058
mr.checkerboards said:
Is it wrong of me to feel like the Braves and Press are in similar situations. The Preds make an improbable run to the Stanley cup a year early. The GM makes some minor moves. The next year the team flames out early in the playoffs and the GM makes no moves leaving the team intact year 3 get bounced out early in the playoffs.
For ATL make a run to the post season a year early. The next off season a few minor moves but nothing major.
I know that it is early and there is a long way to go for the Braves but both of these teams seem to be on similar paths to me
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The Braves have a super duper star in Ronald Acuna Jr and the Preds dont. I’d also venture to say that the Preds dont have a top five farm system
 
#34,060
#34,060
zjcvols said:
The Braves have a super duper star in Ronald Acuna Jr and the Preds dont. I’d also venture to say that the Preds dont have a top five farm system
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I would say that the Preds’ window is more wide-open now but the Braves’ will be open longer. The only thing they really need is a PP coach. The Braves still have some work to do on the roster.
 
#34,061
#34,061
Vercingetorix said:
I would say that the Preds’ window is more wide-open now but the Braves’ will be open longer. The only thing they really need is a PP coach. The Braves still have some work to do on the roster.
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The Braves roster shortcomings are easier to fix than the Preds. They’re one starter and two bullpen arms away. Hell Fried/Soroka/Folty/Gausman might be enough of a rotation in 2020 to win you a World Series (assuming health). And you can add bullpen arms pretty easily during the trade deadline. The Preds need a superstar offensive player.

The Preds were two wins away from a Cup and won the Presidents Trophy last year. They could win a cup but just seems they don’t have that super duper star that you need at forward to get over the hump. What was the last time a team that didn’t have a superstar offensive player win a cup, 2011 Bruins?
 
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#34,062
#34,062
This is like the third time Arrieta has said this since joining Philly. I wonder how much of this is at Kapler.

 
#34,063
#34,063
zjcvols said:
This is like the third time Arrieta has said this since joining Philly. I wonder how much of this is at Kapler.

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I'd say more than a little bit. Wasn't he the run away winner in "Manager You Would Least Want To Play For" catagory of the anonymous players poll a while back?
 
#34,065
#34,065
Make personal changes. Keep Lavy. He has earned more time. He has done things more good things here, than bad. Much more.


Also, who do you think is going to replace him?
 
#34,066
#34,066
I say give the reins to Saros. I don’t think Pekka has it mentally to win a Final. He has way too many post season games where he flat s hits himself.
 
#34,068
#34,068
zjcvols said:
The Braves roster shortcomings are easier to fix than the Preds. They’re one starter and two bullpen arms away. Hell Fried/Soroka/Folty/Gausman might be enough of a rotation in 2020 to win you a World Series (assuming health). And you can add bullpen arms pretty easily during the trade deadline. The Preds need a superstar offensive player.

The Preds were two wins away from a Cup and won the Presidents Trophy last year. They could win a cup but just seems they don’t have that super duper star that you need at forward to get over the hump. What was the last time a team that didn’t have a superstar offensive player win a cup, 2011 Bruins?
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Nobody on the Blackhawks or Kings was a superstar offensive player. You don't have to have a Crosby; you just need to have four lines who can score some and a goalie who can steal you a few games. Vegas was in the final last year despite not even really having a single _top-line_ quality forward, much less a superstar. Nashville's roster is and was ready to win right now, which is why that PP is such a grotesque problem.

Meanwhile the Braves more or less need to build a whole pitching staff. They've got some arms but barely any settled roles. You seem far more confident than I am at the feasibility of them pulling an entire bullpen out of their asses, and until they fix that there's effectively zero chance of them winning a title.

Maybe I'm just more pessimistic about them than the Preds because I'm a fan? The Braves are set up about as well as you can be for the next 7 sh years, but the apparent organizational assumption that if you just accumulate some young arms and shake them around a great pitching staff will eventually fall out seems pretty shortsighted.
 
#34,070
#34,070
The Preds this year and last were just a classic less than the sum of their parts team. On paper, where is the weakness? The roster has no glaring weaknesses. It's all in how they play as a team.

Pekka is taking some heat again for playoff performances, and that has been deserved at some points in the past (2017 Cup Finals in particular), but I don't see how that could be directed at him this year. He's the only reason they won Game 2 and Game 3, and he was absolutely hung out to dry via turnovers and penalties in Games 4 and 5. I thought he was fantastic last night.

I think you keep Laviolette, but clean out with his assistants and try and get Housley back. I will say that Lavy has a pattern at every long-term stop he's been at where he wins/makes it to a Final early in his tenure, then the team regresses, then their play really falls off after that and he's ultimately fired. It's uncanny:

Carolina: won Cup in year 2, then missed playoffs 2 years in a row, fired 25 games into year 5
Philly: made it to Cup Final in year 1, then lost in conference semis 2 years in a row, fired 3 games into year 5
Nashville: made it to Cup final in year 3, then underachieved in playoffs 2 years in a row...

I don't think Poile would make a midseason firing, but if the Preds miss the playoffs next year or limp into the playoffs and get quickly eliminated, I bet he's done. I do wonder, based on the team's play at various points this year, if at least some of the guys have tuned him out.
 
#34,071
#34,071
Wickman said:
To touch on what you said in the RF, anyone that watches Preds games knows that Subban is slow and will turn the puck over at least 6 times a game. He is BAD. My buddy is a nurse at Vandy. He works with a lot of the players, going to Ford Ice Center and stuff. He said a few players have thought all year Subban will be traded in the off-season. Said Turris and Karlsson are close and if we can ship Subban, gonna make a huge run at him. No idea if that’s true though.
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I can see that. P.K. eventually wore out his welcome in Montreal too. The change of scenery in Nashville was great for him, and Nashville absolutely won that trade, but he has a way of wearing on people.

I totally disagree that Subban is slow (although I don't think he's as fast as he was a couple years ago) but his turnovers are absolute killers. He can be so nonchalant with the puck in his own zone.
 
#34,072
#34,072
05_never_again said:
I can see that. P.K. eventually wore out his welcome in Montreal too. I totally disagree that Subban is slow (although I don't think he's as fast as he was a couple years ago) but his turnovers are absolute killers. He can be so nonchalant with the puck in his own zone.
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Hey man, that’s fair. I think he is incredibly slow now.
 
#34,073
#34,073
Wickman said:
Hey man, that’s fair. I think he is incredibly slow now.
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He's definitely slower than he was a couple years ago. I went a Preds game during his first season - I think they were playing Dallas, actually, and killed them - but anyway I was amazed at how good of a skater Subban was. I always knew that about him and you could kind of tell on TV, but in person it was just incredible how powerfully yet effortlessly he moved. He was obviously the most fluid, effortless-looking skater on the ice for either team. I was amazed at how, even at the NHL level, there was that much separation between him and the other players.

He still seems to have good speed today, but he certainly isn't an outlier. On TV and in person today, he doesn't seem any quicker than any other top 4 defenseman. Heiskanen and Klingberg seemed to move around better than any Preds defenseman, save for maybe Josi.
 
#34,074
#34,074
Laviolette is a classic play-harder-rah-rah coach; those guys are a dime a dozen in the NHL and they're all more or less interchangeable. If the locker room isn't listening anymore then IMO there's no reason not to dump him and try somebody different yelling at them next year.
 
#34,075
#34,075
(Cf. Craig Berube over in St. Louis, who is a spectacular meathead but who I'm sure has been the subject of some glowing articles talking about his inspired leadership or something)
 
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