Article: John Hynes's Tweaks Leading To Power Play Success

[Justin Wiggins]

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[Patrick]

Scheme is important, execution is even more important. How does Hynes stop KK from throwing away zone possession with blind passes to nobody? The Wild live and die with Kaprizov and there is something wrong with his play this year.

[mnfaninnc]

I was not aware of the "Royal Road" on the PP. However, what I've noticed is constant movement. Under Evason, there seems to be a lot of standing still and being in position. There was a lot of perimeter passing and very little breaking down of boxes. It was easy to defend.

With this movement, there seems to be some breaking down of boxes. But, there is still a huge flaw, the left wing player who would set up in Ovechkin's office. We simply don't have an RHS player who can fill that spot. Spurgeon has chipped in a few from there over his career, but he's just not often moving that way. 

If they are changing things on the PP, it would seem to me that acquiring an RHS forward who can play there would be in the team's best interest. I'm sure there could be some available, but it would cost some rostered players, likely. 

Let's examine our current options:

1. Freddy Gaudreau simply can't unleash a huge shot. His are more accurate than powerful but he's not that guy.
2. Ryan Hartman simply doesn't have a good shot from outside. He needs to be in the middle and tight, and even then he duffs a lot of his chances. 
3. Jared Spurgeon plays at the top. He's our best chance at sliding over there and I saw it happen vs. the Canucks, but he didn't stay long. 
4. Brock Faber is an RHS and PP2 high D guy. 
5. Zach Bogosian, enough said.

Currently we don't have an option like this in the A, nor in the K. Hunter Haight and Charlie Stramel are our possible replacements within the organization. So, this is something that would need to be solved via trade. I would be in favor of a couple of trades of prospects to get them within the organization. Someone with a Beckman mentality but right handed is what is needed. Lettieri, Swaney and Hentges are not good enough to play there. 

The guy I'm suggesting would be Patrick Laine. He's making $8.7m for the next 3 seasons (including this one), so at 50% retained, it would be $4.35m retained. We would have to subtract about that amount from our current team, and I do not see an easy way to do that. But, what he would add is that lethal shot from Ovechkin's office. 

Laine is a -9, but CBJ is pretty bad anyway. I would think playing on a better team would be good for his effort. I would also think that FO guy Mikko Koivu might be able to motivate him a little more. Would he even be available? CBJ is not a good team, and Laine was recently benched and scratched. There is more to him than he's shown. He had 44 goals in his 1st year and has plummeted since then. To me, he's a great fit with Ek, and Boldy. A lot of people don't like him and feel he has an entitled attitude. Perhaps a change of scenery could help? 

The player has warts to his game, but he was an elite draft pick and can absolutely hammer a puck. I just think a guy like Hynes and our leadership can get more out of him than he's currently giving. It would be a long shot trade, and may require 3 teams to take on some cap, but the guy is only 25 years old and gives us a type of player we do not have. He'd likely cost us some of our prospects/high picks too. But, when his deal is up, we would have cap to pay him again.

[Justin Wiggins]

16 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I was not aware of the "Royal Road" on the PP. However, what I've noticed is constant movement. Under Evason, there seems to be a lot of standing still and being in position. There was a lot of perimeter passing and very little breaking down of boxes. It was easy to defend.

With this movement, there seems to be some breaking down of boxes. But, there is still a huge flaw, the left wing player who would set up in Ovechkin's office. We simply don't have an RHS player who can fill that spot. Spurgeon has chipped in a few from there over his career, but he's just not often moving that way. 

If they are changing things on the PP, it would seem to me that acquiring an RHS forward who can play there would be in the team's best interest. I'm sure there could be some available, but it would cost some rostered players, likely. 

Let's examine our current options:

1. Freddy Gaudreau simply can't unleash a huge shot. His are more accurate than powerful but he's not that guy.
2. Ryan Hartman simply doesn't have a good shot from outside. He needs to be in the middle and tight, and even then he duffs a lot of his chances. 
3. Jared Spurgeon plays at the top. He's our best chance at sliding over there and I saw it happen vs. the Canucks, but he didn't stay long. 
4. Brock Faber is an RHS and PP2 high D guy. 
5. Zach Bogosian, enough said.

Currently we don't have an option like this in the A, nor in the K. Hunter Haight and Charlie Stramel are our possible replacements within the organization. So, this is something that would need to be solved via trade. I would be in favor of a couple of trades of prospects to get them within the organization. Someone with a Beckman mentality but right handed is what is needed. Lettieri, Swaney and Hentges are not good enough to play there. 

The guy I'm suggesting would be Patrick Laine. He's making $8.7m for the next 3 seasons (including this one), so at 50% retained, it would be $4.35m retained. We would have to subtract about that amount from our current team, and I do not see an easy way to do that. But, what he would add is that lethal shot from Ovechkin's office. 

Laine is a -9, but CBJ is pretty bad anyway. I would think playing on a better team would be good for his effort. I would also think that FO guy Mikko Koivu might be able to motivate him a little more. Would he even be available? CBJ is not a good team, and Laine was recently benched and scratched. There is more to him than he's shown. He had 44 goals in his 1st year and has plummeted since then. To me, he's a great fit with Ek, and Boldy. A lot of people don't like him and feel he has an entitled attitude. Perhaps a change of scenery could help? 

The player has warts to his game, but he was an elite draft pick and can absolutely hammer a puck. I just think a guy like Hynes and our leadership can get more out of him than he's currently giving. It would be a long shot trade, and may require 3 teams to take on some cap, but the guy is only 25 years old and gives us a type of player we do not have. He'd likely cost us some of our prospects/high picks too. But, when his deal is up, we would have cap to pay him again.

I'm 1,000% with you on the need to acquire a RH shot to diversify their forward group. But also, they've adjusted nicely to just flipping their PP setup from Washington with Ovie as you mentioned. Just imagine Kaprizov as a LH Ovie in what the Wild are trying to do. I don't mind this iteration of that 1-3-1 setup. (still need an impact RH forward though)

[mnfaninnc]

20 minutes ago, Justin Wiggins said:

I'm 1,000% with you on the need to acquire a RH shot to diversify their forward group. But also, they've adjusted nicely to just flipping their PP setup from Washington with Ovie as you mentioned. Just imagine Kaprizov as a LH Ovie in what the Wild are trying to do. I don't mind this iteration of that 1-3-1 setup. (still need an impact RH forward though)

I think Laine has more to his game than just the hammer shot. I remember him and Puljujarvi having a pretty good connection together for the Finnish team coming up in the WCJs in their year. But the other thing he adds is that PKs cannot cheat. 

Currently, PKs know who has an Ovi clone and who doesn't. Because we are one that doesn't, the PKs can shade to our right side attack knowing there's nothing on the left side that is a threat. They can clog up passing lanes and create traffic making it harder to navigate. 

That RHS shooter evens that out, and creates lanes for a Kaprizov to show off his 1-timer which is really good. 

The other thing I'm seeing is a lack of setting things up from behind the net. It seems to me it all comes from the top. If you could have 2 setup points on the north-south end, it seems to me that would make it more successful. However, a problem is that there is still no threat from the left side so everything gets clogged up from behind the net...currently. 

This is a pretty easy fix, and I'm really shocked Shooter hasn't fixed this problem. He obviously is not a believer in handedness balance on the roster, or we wouldn't be here. Maybe he's tried and hasn't found a deal to his liking? But it is a need and a need that does not have a short term solution within the organization. Maybe Evason thought he could overcome it? Maybe Hynes will ask him for that guy? Maybe PP guru guy will ask Hynes to ask Guerin for that guy?

[Dango]

23 hours ago, mnfaninnc said:

I was not aware of the "Royal Road" on the PP. However, what I've noticed is constant movement. Under Evason, there seems to be a lot of standing still and being in position. There was a lot of perimeter passing and very little breaking down of boxes. It was easy to defend.

With this movement, there seems to be some breaking down of boxes. But, there is still a huge flaw, the left wing player who would set up in Ovechkin's office. We simply don't have an RHS player who can fill that spot. Spurgeon has chipped in a few from there over his career, but he's just not often moving that way. 

If they are changing things on the PP, it would seem to me that acquiring an RHS forward who can play there would be in the team's best interest. I'm sure there could be some available, but it would cost some rostered players, likely. 

Let's examine our current options:

1. Freddy Gaudreau simply can't unleash a huge shot. His are more accurate than powerful but he's not that guy.
2. Ryan Hartman simply doesn't have a good shot from outside. He needs to be in the middle and tight, and even then he duffs a lot of his chances. 
3. Jared Spurgeon plays at the top. He's our best chance at sliding over there and I saw it happen vs. the Canucks, but he didn't stay long. 
4. Brock Faber is an RHS and PP2 high D guy. 
5. Zach Bogosian, enough said.

Currently we don't have an option like this in the A, nor in the K. Hunter Haight and Charlie Stramel are our possible replacements within the organization. So, this is something that would need to be solved via trade. I would be in favor of a couple of trades of prospects to get them within the organization. Someone with a Beckman mentality but right handed is what is needed. Lettieri, Swaney and Hentges are not good enough to play there. 

The guy I'm suggesting would be Patrick Laine. He's making $8.7m for the next 3 seasons (including this one), so at 50% retained, it would be $4.35m retained. We would have to subtract about that amount from our current team, and I do not see an easy way to do that. But, what he would add is that lethal shot from Ovechkin's office. 

i thought i heard theyre increasing the cap by 4 million next year 

[mnfaninnc]

19 hours ago, Dango said:

i thought i heard theyre increasing the cap by 4 million next year 

This is true, but that's already been baked into the room for next year. I am also talking about acquiring this season, where we have no room.

[Dango]

1 hour ago, mnfaninnc said:

This is true, but that's already been baked into the room for next year. I am also talking about acquiring this season, where we have no room.

I wonder what Vegas cap situation is because they have a right shot free agent that would fill that spot   .  Probably couldnt compete with other teams offers anyways  .

[mnfaninnc]

19 hours ago, Dango said:

I wonder what Vegas cap situation is because they have a right shot free agent that would fill that spot   .  Probably couldnt compete with other teams offers anyways  .

Are you thinking Marchessault? Currently at $5m, but is a UFA at season's end. I suspect he will get a raise. The cap space for Vegas is cloudy. They're dealing with plenty of LTIR to keep them under the cap currently. Capfriendly says they have $4.5m in space, but it's smoke and mirrors. They do have Shea Theodore and Robin Lehner on LTIR so it's probably pretty legit.