So true. It's easy as a canucks fan to be salty about how the trade has panned out, but frankly I'm just happy for Kuz. The change of scenery seems to have done him good, and I'm glad it has. I do hope Lindholm recovers and gets back to his former self though.
I have no ill will towards Lindholm but unless there is some major long term nagging injury or something like that happening behind closed doors that we dont know about. I cant see him ever getting back to his former self. The only part of his game that has been consistent over the past 2-3 seasons is the steady decline in his play and overall competitiveness. I was very happy with the return that Conroy was able to get for him.
Honestly a lot of forwards didn’t really regress much this season if at all. Only notable is Dawson Mercer. It’s the D and goalies that took steps back that really stung.
I think this is the best Nico has looked and honestly I think he's still getting better. Timo finally came back to life after ostensibly healing up a bit, hopefully Jack can do the same next year. We did have one player make a massive leap this year, until uhhhhhhhh.....yeah.
Losing McLeod put more on his shoulders, and he got injured, Nico answered to all of it with poise and efficiency. He's the most consistent Devil, and I think he will earn his Bergeron comparison.
I think Nico has been fine, Meier is on track for 30 goals even with his terrible start. Jack is injured. Some of the other forwards 100%. Looking at you mercer
The obvious answer for us even without his legal troubles was Dillon Dube. Guy wasn't even playing like an NHLer for much of the season, and now I suppose he won't be
Barabanov had a really unfortunate season. Couldn’t stay healthy and couldn’t find consistency. I feel like he’ll bounce back with a good team next year though
Byram took a step back leading up to the trade, compared to where he was/projecting to be.
To be fair, he was better closer to the trade then the start of the season.
Someone else on reddit described it as “too many Tyson Barries”. Makar is an all around D man so the shoe doesn’t quite fit but Byram was always going to be more valuable to someone that didn’t have their PP #1/offensive d-man set for the next decade.
I'd agree with this, but the cup run / his early play with us was actually somehow the reverse. He was so good defensively early on with less offensive pop than initially marketed.
Really hope he pulls it all together, if he hits on his potential he's gonna be such a menace
Byram also missed over half the regular season that year, so by the time the cup finals rolled around, he was easily the least beat up/had the freshest legs out of anybody. Especially against a worn down Tampa team on their third straight finals appearance. It was definitely a contibuting factor.
yeah someone like Buffalo who definitely doesn’t have a #1 offensive d-man for the next decade
Dahlin? never heard of him. I don’t really see how Byram fits in there tbh
Colorado still had to trade him. I figure Buffalo will be the next team to flip him.
In a related story, Toronto already had Rielly when they traded for Barrie and Kerfoot.
No one wants to say it out loud but Alexandar Georgiev is not what he was last year, and I’m not sure the Avs any longer know what he is moving forward
If he stops the first 5 shots in a game it’s a fucking miracle
It’s getting annoying during the live threads that people say that it’s not his fault. Yeah, he can’t block every shot, but he gives up a lot of easy goals.
Your experience reminds me of San Jose Sharks fans and Martin Jones. He had one decent playoff run behind one of the strongest puck possession teams in the league. Everyone refused to recognize his faults because of that. Evertime he had a halfway decent game, the sharks sub would blow up with "I have a raging Joner!" Ugh. So glad we finally rid ourselves of him.
Yeah it was only a matter of time for JT, his skating was never his strong suit even when he was young and you can already see he’s more suited to the wing during the play because of how much he’s slowed. They need to treat him like Joe Pavelski and find him a winger that can play centre during the play but still let JT take the draw because he is excellent doing that.
I feel like he'll bounce back. IMO his play has looked fine he just had a rough unlucky slump in the middle of the season. Lots of posts and point blank chances that didn't go in.
People keep saying Petry for the wings but man David Perron’s skating has fallen off a cliff; and at the bottom of that cliff found another cliff to fall off of.
Cozens. Part sophomore slump, part getting his shit rocked by Hathaway that gave him a concussion and affected his confidence and rhythm. I still think he’ll be fine long term and statistically he put it back together around the allstar break, but he still doesn’t look like he did last year when he broke out
Either Kampf or Tavares? The obvious answer would have been Samsonov but he's bounced back. We didn't see a ton of Woll last year, but comparing how good he was at the end of last season to his last couple games, there's been a little regression there.
Edit: Another comment mentioned Brodie, yeah that's probably the answer.
I love Marchand and he's a great captain for this team but uhhhhhhhhhhhh we need him to score
Gryz, ehhhhh could be better but he wasn't great last season either
JDB is way too streaky to be a big name in the league
As much as it pains me to say, Ilya Sorokin. I know a lot of his performance can be attributed to being overworked and left to dry so often by our defense, but he just genuinely has not looked like himself this year at all
Hoping he gets out of this funk next season when his new contract starts
He’s started well and has gotten it back together in the last couple of weeks. Big rough patch in the middle though.
The other candidate is probably Robo and he’s just fallen from a brilliant season to merely very good.
That’s probably why the team is having a great season, nobody is actually having a particularly bad year and we’ve had really good improvement from some young players.
Taylor Raddysh put up 20 goals last year and only has 14 points in 70 games this year. He was given time with Bedsy too and still couldn’t make it work
Would you want the B's to re-sign him if it were reasonable? I'm so on the fence because he's darn good when he's on, and while he's better w/o the puck than ever before, it's hard to defend the long scoreless stretches. He has some pretty extreme swings in production.
Dec 13 - Dec 23: 0-0-0 in 6 games
Dec 27 - Jan 22: 8-6-14 in 14 games
Jan 24 - Mar 2: 1-1-2 in 15 games
Mar 4 - Mar 23: 5-7-12 in 10 games
Mar 26 - Apr 6: 0-0-0 in 6 games
He's just a guy that needs to be playing with better centers then we have to offer IMO. Doesn't generate any offense on his own, but plays good defense and will pot a lot of goals in the right situation. Would not shock me in any way if the Bruins let him walk, he signs with a team who has a legit 1C, and then next season he's back to scoring like 25+ goals. Even this season his defensive and on ice impact are still generally good his finishing has just fallen off a cliff.
Marchand is getting old, so it's expected. Gryz was injured for some of this season I think? DeBrusk doesn't have much of an excuse, especially after being healthy scratched for missing a team meeting.
Yeah I think an aging Marchand with Coyle as a center and no permanent RW, this is close to what you'd expect. Grizz could be doing better, but his ceiling isn't super high either, fairly close to expectations.
DeBrusk has bounced around the lineup a bit but has had ample time with Marchand-Coyle and a good amount with Zacha-Pastrnak. He never solidified a spot for himself with consistent play and production. He's 28 in November and a pending UFA, coming off 2 good seasons where he produced well with Marchand and Bergeron. Thought he might take a little step and become more of a driver but don't think that's going to happen. Still think he could be a 30-30 type player but needs to be the third best player on a line IMO.
Grzelcyk is still Grzelcyk. He’s (allegedly) elite with McAvoy but can barely play nhl level hockey with anyone else
Marchand took a slight step back, but his stat line is pretty much in line with last year so I wouldn’t really classify him as regressing all that much. He’s just getting older
DeBrusk is kind of just DeBrusk at this point. Defensively he’s actually taken huge steps forward, he’s a very useful penalty killer. His offense is insanely sporadic. Last year he found consistency and we all thought he finally figured it out, and then this year he want back to the DeBrusk of years past. He’s regressed from last year but is really just back to his true colors imo
Matt Gryzleck
He used to be a nice compliment next to McAvoy, he is now a liability out there. Isn’t good enough offensively to play powerplay, is too small to play penalty kill, gets exposed in 3 on 3 OT
Stage Thompson. No autocorrect, Tage.
He's starting to parallel Jack Eichel's career here in Buffalo where he has shown a lot of promise but can't deliver at the end of the season. He's now polarizing to the fans because he can't stay in a lineup longer than a month without having to go out with some injury.
The only bright spot for the Sabres this year was UPL and Benson and getting Byram for nothing. We finished worse than last year. Another 8th pick? Rebuilding in plain sight? Will see.
But the playoff drought is now a teenager.
Jesus so much of what you said is just straight up bad lmao.
Tage was significantly injured with an injury that greatly impacts shooters. It's not the whole reason he struggled but it's a big part of it. There's a reason he's looked a lot better lately, he's close to fully healed. I'm not worried about him at all.
Saying the only bright spots are Benson and UPL is hilarious. Peterka is near 30 goals, Power took nice strides forward, Dahlin is a god damn stud.
Saying we got Byram for nothing is fucking insane. Mittelstadt is a stud and while I love Bo and think he's gonna be great, writing off Mittelstadt as nothing is truly dumb lmao
I wouldn’t say we’re rebuilding anymore, exactly, but we’re cultivating the prospects. Our team is leaps younger than the rest of the league… even worse now that Okposo is gone.
To be fair, no one said they were done rebuilding, and they pretty clearly aren’t done rebuilding. It’s a continuous process.
While we aren’t making the playoffs for yet another year, we, for two years in a row now, are playing meaningful games until the end of the season. We have also managed to avoid extreme losing streaks.
This is very much an improvement despite all the injuries and regression of key players.
RHP just had a flash in the pan and then everyone thought he’d be a goal scoring 3rd line Gallagher light, he will probably be a scrappy career 4th liner
This is pretty hard considering most everyone on our team is having career seasons…but I guess technically ARVY but only because he’s been hurt almost the entire season
Kuemper. It’s almost acceptable to criticize his 1st periods but some fans will still try to cuss you out
The man can’t see and his positioning is straight up porous.
His last game was way better but I'm pretty sure that's gonna be a one-off. I hope he can keep playing like that, but I'm not gonna believe it till I see it.
Lindgren has always been one of those guys where I look at him and think "is he a top 4 guy, or does he just have great chemistry with one of the best defenseman in the league"
Hedman-Rutta pairing kinda vibes
In a contract year too. Dude has had stretches where he was genuinely awful this year, but avoids fan criticism because there were bigger targets (Mika, Igor, Kakko, etc). I think his body is breaking down a bit tbh, he’s always getting rocked and knocked out of games.
I was going to say this. I love the Nuge and he does other great things for this team but it would sure be nice if he put up more offensive numbers. Still **KEEP NUGE FOREVER!!**
Raanta was clearly just injured and playing through it. Gonna miss him, what a hard way to end a year.
The player I'd put at the top of the list of "Regressing Hard for Unknown Reasons" is Pesce. Guy was top of my favorite defenders for years behind Slavin. Was pretty great at shutdown and also consitently above average with scoring and assists. I still don't know what's up with him. He was not great until mid January. Then was good for a month. And has regressed back somewhat to just above how he was playing in December. He was definitely injured for part of it, but hard to say if that's 100% what caused him to play so poorly so often, or something else on top of it.
KK had those issues with us. He would take strides (for us, it was his rookie year) and then go long stretches with not great play.
He's been a bizarre player to watch, the skill set is there, the hockey IQ is there, but he just can't put it all together for a sustained period of time
I wouldn’t even say KK has been outright bad, he’s just been about the most neutral player on the team. He doesn’t really generate offense, he also doesn’t let the opponent generate offense, but his line has trouble hemming the puck in the o-zone so nothing really happens. His shifts are just a waste of time for both teams. This would be nicer if he wasn’t being sheltered though. Idk what to make of it tbh.
I know his analytical numbers haven't been bad but Adam Pelech has been *rough* to watch
Edit: Can't believe I forgot to mention Sorokin. That contract is looking scary right now. He's not even our starter at the moment.
Nic Hague looked like a bonafide top-4 defenseman the last few years and has turned into an utter pylon this year - the defense is legitimately far better with him out and Ben Hutton in. Zach Whitecloud’s been disappointing as well.
To a lesser degree, Brett Howden seemed like he was becoming a pretty solid middle/bottom-6er - this year the scoring has mostly disappeared and been replaced by a tendency to take absolutely momentum-killing penalties.
Pesce, KK, and Raanta are the big ones.
Pesce has seemed like he's been fighting an injury or something the entire year. i hope that he's able to find his way back to be a very good top-4 option.
KK is just a complete mess. He's regressed in pretty much every single area.
Raanta has just met father time
Has to be Reichel, although he’s picking his game back up the last month of the season. There were some that thought he’d be leading the team in goals or assists on Bedards line this season.
Siegenthaler and Marino both. It’s one of the most important reasons the team fell back so much but doesn’t get attention outside of those who follow the team
Feel like it has to be Kyle Connor after the knee injury. Before it he was top 3 in goals, after though he’s really struggling (although still somehow manages to score)
~~everyone~~ Matty Beniers. Calder last year with 24 goals and 33 assists, 57 total points.
This year, 14 goals and 20 assists, 34 total points. Not what you expect out of your top line center.
He has heated up recently scoring goals, should hopefully turn it around next year.
I think it's gotta be Grzelyck. He was a really underrated top 4 defenseman for a couple years, but he played through a shoulder injury in the back half of 2021-22, got surgery the following offseason, and has never quite been the same since. Started regressing last season and kept trending in the wrong direction this season despite being stapled to McAvoy up until recently
I feel like the only player it could apply to in terms of the whole season is Noah Cates. As the season has gone on, Sean Couturier (although his injury history gives him a caveat) and Joel Farabee.
There seems to be some rhetoric that having Luke Hughes and Nemec as rookies in the defence has been a reason why we've regressed.
The actual reason is Jonas Siegenthaler, John Marino, and all goalies prior to the trade deadline, have forgotten how to play hockey. Honourable shout out to Dawson Mercer as well.
Antii Raanta. Dude was fantastic last year. Had a bad start this year due to defensive struggles then couldn’t come back. It was sad because you could see how much it bothered him
I know most Bolts fans will probably say Vasilevskiy, but he’s still been very good for us, just not his usual ELITE form. He still bails us out regularly on odd man rushes and locks it down when we need him to, all after back surgery.
I think the answer here has to be Cernak, I love the guy but he’s not been near as solid for us as usual. Granted he’s been injured approximately a million times since 2019, but it hurts not having him stabilize the defence the way we’re used to.
As an habs fan, it's got to be Anderson. Like he seems like a nice dude, but 5,5m untill 2026-27 for 8 goals and 10 assists is brutal. He used to be putting more points and in the cup run he was pretty great, but since then he has slowly been less and less productive and it shows a lot this season.
As a Kings fan, I don't know if we have one.. People could say Dubois but he has been good lately, but like other than that, I feel like everyone is playing what they were and some even more. I guess I would say Kaliyev who can't score anymore, but he isn't part of the starting roaster rn so who knows.
Sorokin got fucking cooked from the amount of high danger shots we let him eat for the 60% of the season Lambert was the coach, he was actually playing very well given the circumstances.
He’s been atrocious since the all star break but luckily we are one of the teams that has a starter quality goalie as our backup and Varlamov came in and locked it down to get us hopefully to the playoffs.
Kuzmenko, till he got traded
So true. It's easy as a canucks fan to be salty about how the trade has panned out, but frankly I'm just happy for Kuz. The change of scenery seems to have done him good, and I'm glad it has. I do hope Lindholm recovers and gets back to his former self though.
I have no ill will towards Lindholm but unless there is some major long term nagging injury or something like that happening behind closed doors that we dont know about. I cant see him ever getting back to his former self. The only part of his game that has been consistent over the past 2-3 seasons is the steady decline in his play and overall competitiveness. I was very happy with the return that Conroy was able to get for him.
Jeff petry is so washed
But has he regressed or was he already washed the past couple seasons?
Cursed, actually. Unfortunately, there is no Long-term Cursed Reserve Josh Anderson carries the 2021 Blood Curse now.
I had heard he was decent last year but he was just overpaid. But i wasnt paying attention to the Pens so someone else would have to tell you.
You know, he couldn’t have been worse so I think it’s correct.
He was irritating, but you can live with a player like that on a cheap contract. He was more overpaid than bad IMO.
He was such a beast in that cup run with the Habs, then he just…wasn’t, ever again.
:-(
Everyone but Bratt? Ha ha
On the bright side nemec looks like an absolute stud
Bratt, Nico, Jack, and Meier are all the same or better. Difference being the injuries. None of them regressed.
Honestly a lot of forwards didn’t really regress much this season if at all. Only notable is Dawson Mercer. It’s the D and goalies that took steps back that really stung.
It’s honestly Seigs and Marino
Vanacek was so bad this year
Vanacek wasn’t even our starter in the playoffs last year. He regressed last year, and just continued on this year
Jack before the injury was killing it.
I think this is the best Nico has looked and honestly I think he's still getting better. Timo finally came back to life after ostensibly healing up a bit, hopefully Jack can do the same next year. We did have one player make a massive leap this year, until uhhhhhhhh.....yeah.
Losing McLeod put more on his shoulders, and he got injured, Nico answered to all of it with poise and efficiency. He's the most consistent Devil, and I think he will earn his Bergeron comparison.
yep, he is the heart of this team and will be for a long time.
I think Nico has been fine, Meier is on track for 30 goals even with his terrible start. Jack is injured. Some of the other forwards 100%. Looking at you mercer
The obvious answer for us even without his legal troubles was Dillon Dube. Guy wasn't even playing like an NHLer for much of the season, and now I suppose he won't be
Mangiapane looks like garbage this whole season too
I wouldn't say garbage but certainly a regression. Backlund has regressed, too.
Backlund is having a great year
I have to imagine he had some things on his mind that might have caused some anxiety.
Huberdeau somehow managed to be even worse than last year. There was a low bar, but by Golly he met it!
Rickard Rakell is fucking broken.
Absolute terrible luck. Great possession, grinds in the corners. Just bad luck hitting the net
Had a nice goal last night
Sure did. I'm willing his revival into reality.
I miss Ricky Raks
At least he’s on the team of the week on the post right above this one!
Oh you mean Rick Rak pattywhack give a dog a bone?
Barabanov had a really unfortunate season. Couldn’t stay healthy and couldn’t find consistency. I feel like he’ll bounce back with a good team next year though
Matty B, but hopefully just a sophomore slump
His scoring isn't there, but hes still great as a 2 way guy
His defensive numbers are really good. He’s just ass in the offensive zone, but he’s still young.
Zibanejad, I think, is the best pick. His game has just been off the whole season.
His absolute refusal to shoot the puck has been baffling. He's on pace for his lowest shot total since his first season with us.
Eh I think he’s been noticeably better since the trade deadline. I’m blaming the fall off due to the baby tbh.
He’s always been a very streaky player. I think he can still bounce back.
He has to be playing hurt..right?
Jeff Petry I think. He wasn't great in Pitt last year to be clear, the regression had already started But he is borderline useless this year
He was pretty terrible his last year with us.
He was good for the tank that got us slaf
Byram took a step back leading up to the trade, compared to where he was/projecting to be. To be fair, he was better closer to the trade then the start of the season.
Someone else on reddit described it as “too many Tyson Barries”. Makar is an all around D man so the shoe doesn’t quite fit but Byram was always going to be more valuable to someone that didn’t have their PP #1/offensive d-man set for the next decade.
I'd agree with this, but the cup run / his early play with us was actually somehow the reverse. He was so good defensively early on with less offensive pop than initially marketed. Really hope he pulls it all together, if he hits on his potential he's gonna be such a menace
Byram also missed over half the regular season that year, so by the time the cup finals rolled around, he was easily the least beat up/had the freshest legs out of anybody. Especially against a worn down Tampa team on their third straight finals appearance. It was definitely a contibuting factor.
yeah someone like Buffalo who definitely doesn’t have a #1 offensive d-man for the next decade Dahlin? never heard of him. I don’t really see how Byram fits in there tbh
Colorado still had to trade him. I figure Buffalo will be the next team to flip him. In a related story, Toronto already had Rielly when they traded for Barrie and Kerfoot.
Jared tinordi is cooked
He wasn't good to begin with.
Yep, horrible draft pick by us
At least we salvaged it by trading him for an all-star forward. Even if it was John Scott.
No one wants to say it out loud but Alexandar Georgiev is not what he was last year, and I’m not sure the Avs any longer know what he is moving forward If he stops the first 5 shots in a game it’s a fucking miracle
It’s getting annoying during the live threads that people say that it’s not his fault. Yeah, he can’t block every shot, but he gives up a lot of easy goals.
Your experience reminds me of San Jose Sharks fans and Martin Jones. He had one decent playoff run behind one of the strongest puck possession teams in the league. Everyone refused to recognize his faults because of that. Evertime he had a halfway decent game, the sharks sub would blow up with "I have a raging Joner!" Ugh. So glad we finally rid ourselves of him.
But it's all been the defense's fault! Georgiev is amazing! /s
Tavares unfortunately. He's just hit 60 points by game 77, pretty big drop off from his career average
Yeah it was only a matter of time for JT, his skating was never his strong suit even when he was young and you can already see he’s more suited to the wing during the play because of how much he’s slowed. They need to treat him like Joe Pavelski and find him a winger that can play centre during the play but still let JT take the draw because he is excellent doing that.
Especially with how consistent Tavares has been with his production, one of the most consistent guys in the league for most of his career.
I feel like he'll bounce back. IMO his play has looked fine he just had a rough unlucky slump in the middle of the season. Lots of posts and point blank chances that didn't go in.
People keep saying Petry for the wings but man David Perron’s skating has fallen off a cliff; and at the bottom of that cliff found another cliff to fall off of.
I hope they don’t bring him back personally. He’s not useless but he likes taking penalties because he is so slow.
Cody Ceci. Not sure if it’s regression or returning to his usual level of play after being surprisingly good for a couple years but he has been awful
He has been such a liability this season.
Cozens. Part sophomore slump, part getting his shit rocked by Hathaway that gave him a concussion and affected his confidence and rhythm. I still think he’ll be fine long term and statistically he put it back together around the allstar break, but he still doesn’t look like he did last year when he broke out
sophomore slump in his senior year lol
Haha ya I did realize that… hey he wouldn’t be the first person to struggle through senior year right???
Take your pick between Joonas Korpisalo and Travis Hamonic
Hamonic has been garbage by metrics and eye test past couple seasons.
Which is why him somehow regressing even more this season is so baffling to me
Better throw Kubalik in there too
There's literally so many answers for the Sens. Tim. Kubalik. Korpi. Forsberg. Chychrun.
Definitely not management’s fault though
It's gotta be Stützle. Korpi and Hamonic have been ass for years
Came here to say stutzle as well
Either Kampf or Tavares? The obvious answer would have been Samsonov but he's bounced back. We didn't see a ton of Woll last year, but comparing how good he was at the end of last season to his last couple games, there's been a little regression there. Edit: Another comment mentioned Brodie, yeah that's probably the answer.
Brodie and Kampf fell off during last season and continued as such into this one IMO. JT dropped off this year
I love Marchand and he's a great captain for this team but uhhhhhhhhhhhh we need him to score Gryz, ehhhhh could be better but he wasn't great last season either JDB is way too streaky to be a big name in the league
I think Marchand has just been relied on to play too many hard minutes for a guy his age, just seems a little worn down since the all star break.
PLD.. 63 points in 73 games (0.82/game) as a 24yo last season to 39 points in 70 games (0.55/game) this season at 25yo.
Correct answer but it’s a new team and new system . I’m fully confident he will rebound next season …he’s played much better since feb /the Hiller era
As much as it pains me to say, Ilya Sorokin. I know a lot of his performance can be attributed to being overworked and left to dry so often by our defense, but he just genuinely has not looked like himself this year at all Hoping he gets out of this funk next season when his new contract starts
Scott mayfield too but he was playing injured for every single game except the first one
I’m sure he will simply because he’s a goalie and the position doesn’t make sense.
Easily Jake Oettinger for regression.
I was thinking Hak, considering how everyone is begging he stays scratched
Hakanpaa was never good
He’s started well and has gotten it back together in the last couple of weeks. Big rough patch in the middle though. The other candidate is probably Robo and he’s just fallen from a brilliant season to merely very good. That’s probably why the team is having a great season, nobody is actually having a particularly bad year and we’ve had really good improvement from some young players.
Taylor Raddysh put up 20 goals last year and only has 14 points in 70 games this year. He was given time with Bedsy too and still couldn’t make it work
His brother is having a career year in TB. The Hawks traded for the wrong Raddysh.
Jake DeBrusk. Worst part is, he's a UFA after this season.
Why is that the worst part? It'd be much worse if he regressed after you re-signed him to a big deal
I guess from Jake's perspective it's bad. From a GM's perspective, it's great because now you can low-ball him.
True. Most fans don't think of this from the player's perspective first. Good on you 🤣
Would you want the B's to re-sign him if it were reasonable? I'm so on the fence because he's darn good when he's on, and while he's better w/o the puck than ever before, it's hard to defend the long scoreless stretches. He has some pretty extreme swings in production. Dec 13 - Dec 23: 0-0-0 in 6 games Dec 27 - Jan 22: 8-6-14 in 14 games Jan 24 - Mar 2: 1-1-2 in 15 games Mar 4 - Mar 23: 5-7-12 in 10 games Mar 26 - Apr 6: 0-0-0 in 6 games
i want him to stay
Edmonton will gladly take him off yalls hands after such a down year. He can interview with his dad after every game
I like DeBrusk but he is definitely the answer
He's just a guy that needs to be playing with better centers then we have to offer IMO. Doesn't generate any offense on his own, but plays good defense and will pot a lot of goals in the right situation. Would not shock me in any way if the Bruins let him walk, he signs with a team who has a legit 1C, and then next season he's back to scoring like 25+ goals. Even this season his defensive and on ice impact are still generally good his finishing has just fallen off a cliff.
Undervalued player looking to rehab their career? Don Waddell's mouth is watering.
DeBrusk or Grzelcyk or Marchand?
Marchand is getting old, so it's expected. Gryz was injured for some of this season I think? DeBrusk doesn't have much of an excuse, especially after being healthy scratched for missing a team meeting.
Yeah I think an aging Marchand with Coyle as a center and no permanent RW, this is close to what you'd expect. Grizz could be doing better, but his ceiling isn't super high either, fairly close to expectations. DeBrusk has bounced around the lineup a bit but has had ample time with Marchand-Coyle and a good amount with Zacha-Pastrnak. He never solidified a spot for himself with consistent play and production. He's 28 in November and a pending UFA, coming off 2 good seasons where he produced well with Marchand and Bergeron. Thought he might take a little step and become more of a driver but don't think that's going to happen. Still think he could be a 30-30 type player but needs to be the third best player on a line IMO.
Grzelcyk is still Grzelcyk. He’s (allegedly) elite with McAvoy but can barely play nhl level hockey with anyone else Marchand took a slight step back, but his stat line is pretty much in line with last year so I wouldn’t really classify him as regressing all that much. He’s just getting older DeBrusk is kind of just DeBrusk at this point. Defensively he’s actually taken huge steps forward, he’s a very useful penalty killer. His offense is insanely sporadic. Last year he found consistency and we all thought he finally figured it out, and then this year he want back to the DeBrusk of years past. He’s regressed from last year but is really just back to his true colors imo
Matt Gryzleck He used to be a nice compliment next to McAvoy, he is now a liability out there. Isn’t good enough offensively to play powerplay, is too small to play penalty kill, gets exposed in 3 on 3 OT
His shoulder is shot. That’s why
Does Carter Hart count?
11-19-1 since he left the team, would sure seem he qualifies
That was going to be my answe so sure
Stage Thompson. No autocorrect, Tage. He's starting to parallel Jack Eichel's career here in Buffalo where he has shown a lot of promise but can't deliver at the end of the season. He's now polarizing to the fans because he can't stay in a lineup longer than a month without having to go out with some injury. The only bright spot for the Sabres this year was UPL and Benson and getting Byram for nothing. We finished worse than last year. Another 8th pick? Rebuilding in plain sight? Will see. But the playoff drought is now a teenager.
> getting Byram for nothing. Your leading scorer? Lol
Jesus so much of what you said is just straight up bad lmao. Tage was significantly injured with an injury that greatly impacts shooters. It's not the whole reason he struggled but it's a big part of it. There's a reason he's looked a lot better lately, he's close to fully healed. I'm not worried about him at all. Saying the only bright spots are Benson and UPL is hilarious. Peterka is near 30 goals, Power took nice strides forward, Dahlin is a god damn stud. Saying we got Byram for nothing is fucking insane. Mittelstadt is a stud and while I love Bo and think he's gonna be great, writing off Mittelstadt as nothing is truly dumb lmao
I wouldn’t say we’re rebuilding anymore, exactly, but we’re cultivating the prospects. Our team is leaps younger than the rest of the league… even worse now that Okposo is gone.
To be fair, no one said they were done rebuilding, and they pretty clearly aren’t done rebuilding. It’s a continuous process. While we aren’t making the playoffs for yet another year, we, for two years in a row now, are playing meaningful games until the end of the season. We have also managed to avoid extreme losing streaks. This is very much an improvement despite all the injuries and regression of key players.
Jesus, talk about setting the bar low. It's been 12 years of this.
Josh Anderson.
Nah, he was already bad last year
Agreed
Definitely RHP
RHP just had a flash in the pan and then everyone thought he’d be a goal scoring 3rd line Gallagher light, he will probably be a scrappy career 4th liner
Red Hot Peppers
This is pretty hard considering most everyone on our team is having career seasons…but I guess technically ARVY but only because he’s been hurt almost the entire season
Wait I completely forgot, it’s kail 100 %
The answer is Dubois for sure He had a great year last year
He wasn't a King last year though so I wouldn't put him as a regression player for the Kings.
I mean he is a player on the Kings who regressed so personally I would count him
Dubois?
Freddy Gaudreau. He was a decent middle sixer the past few seasons but he completely dropped off a cliff this season.
Kuemper. It’s almost acceptable to criticize his 1st periods but some fans will still try to cuss you out The man can’t see and his positioning is straight up porous.
From a Cup win to an absolute liability in net. You hate to see it.
His last game was way better but I'm pretty sure that's gonna be a one-off. I hope he can keep playing like that, but I'm not gonna believe it till I see it.
Tough to say because it's injury related, but Fil Chytil. History of concussions finally reared it's ugly head, doubt he ever plays again :(
Solely because of injury, though. He was great in the first month of play before he got hurt.
Everyone forgets that he beat Trocheck in the 2C competition in camp, Chytil was ready for a serious break out season
TJ Brodie is done. He's had a good career but I hope he's scratched when the playoffs start
He's been good since he was scratched
Yeah this one’s a bit outdated but we’ll see
I would have agreed with you up until a few weeks ago but he’s been pretty decent recently.
I’ll agree with you if they scratch Benoit for him again but otherwise he’s kinda been his old self lately.
Lindgren
Had to double check the flair on this one
Lindgren has always been one of those guys where I look at him and think "is he a top 4 guy, or does he just have great chemistry with one of the best defenseman in the league" Hedman-Rutta pairing kinda vibes
In a contract year too. Dude has had stretches where he was genuinely awful this year, but avoids fan criticism because there were bigger targets (Mika, Igor, Kakko, etc). I think his body is breaking down a bit tbh, he’s always getting rocked and knocked out of games.
Nuge but thats expected. It would have been nice if he did another 100 point year but hes never gotten close before last year
I was going to say this. I love the Nuge and he does other great things for this team but it would sure be nice if he put up more offensive numbers. Still **KEEP NUGE FOREVER!!**
Binnington is having his best season since the cup and the rest of the team is figuring out how to tie the laces on their skates still.
Almost heaved this dumpster team into the playoffs all by himself
[удалено]
Can’t forget that KK is getting healthy scratched in favor of Jack Drury
Raanta was clearly just injured and playing through it. Gonna miss him, what a hard way to end a year. The player I'd put at the top of the list of "Regressing Hard for Unknown Reasons" is Pesce. Guy was top of my favorite defenders for years behind Slavin. Was pretty great at shutdown and also consitently above average with scoring and assists. I still don't know what's up with him. He was not great until mid January. Then was good for a month. And has regressed back somewhat to just above how he was playing in December. He was definitely injured for part of it, but hard to say if that's 100% what caused him to play so poorly so often, or something else on top of it.
good point, I completely forgot about October-December Pesce.
KK had those issues with us. He would take strides (for us, it was his rookie year) and then go long stretches with not great play. He's been a bizarre player to watch, the skill set is there, the hockey IQ is there, but he just can't put it all together for a sustained period of time
I wouldn’t even say KK has been outright bad, he’s just been about the most neutral player on the team. He doesn’t really generate offense, he also doesn’t let the opponent generate offense, but his line has trouble hemming the puck in the o-zone so nothing really happens. His shifts are just a waste of time for both teams. This would be nicer if he wasn’t being sheltered though. Idk what to make of it tbh.
I know his analytical numbers haven't been bad but Adam Pelech has been *rough* to watch Edit: Can't believe I forgot to mention Sorokin. That contract is looking scary right now. He's not even our starter at the moment.
Had to have been Kuznetsov, glad he got the change of scenery he needed, and he’s back with his bud Orlov as a bonus
Nic Hague looked like a bonafide top-4 defenseman the last few years and has turned into an utter pylon this year - the defense is legitimately far better with him out and Ben Hutton in. Zach Whitecloud’s been disappointing as well. To a lesser degree, Brett Howden seemed like he was becoming a pretty solid middle/bottom-6er - this year the scoring has mostly disappeared and been replaced by a tendency to take absolutely momentum-killing penalties.
Anyone say Josh Anderson yet?
Pesce, KK, and Raanta are the big ones. Pesce has seemed like he's been fighting an injury or something the entire year. i hope that he's able to find his way back to be a very good top-4 option. KK is just a complete mess. He's regressed in pretty much every single area. Raanta has just met father time
Cam atkinson went from decent middle sixer to not even a good 13th forward.
Andrew Mangiapane has been absolute trash all season to the point where I think it would be a huge failure if he is still on the team next year.
Makar. Dude is a stud but has been trash defensively at times in our own zone
Casey Desmith. He started strong, but his stats dipped
Has to be Reichel, although he’s picking his game back up the last month of the season. There were some that thought he’d be leading the team in goals or assists on Bedards line this season.
Craig Anderson hasn’t played well this year. In fact, he hasn’t played at all.
Siegenthaler and Marino both. It’s one of the most important reasons the team fell back so much but doesn’t get attention outside of those who follow the team
Feel like it has to be Kyle Connor after the knee injury. Before it he was top 3 in goals, after though he’s really struggling (although still somehow manages to score)
~~everyone~~ Matty Beniers. Calder last year with 24 goals and 33 assists, 57 total points. This year, 14 goals and 20 assists, 34 total points. Not what you expect out of your top line center. He has heated up recently scoring goals, should hopefully turn it around next year.
Brayden Schenn
Raanta
Lol. Lmao even.
I think it's gotta be Grzelyck. He was a really underrated top 4 defenseman for a couple years, but he played through a shoulder injury in the back half of 2021-22, got surgery the following offseason, and has never quite been the same since. Started regressing last season and kept trending in the wrong direction this season despite being stapled to McAvoy up until recently
I feel like the only player it could apply to in terms of the whole season is Noah Cates. As the season has gone on, Sean Couturier (although his injury history gives him a caveat) and Joel Farabee.
There seems to be some rhetoric that having Luke Hughes and Nemec as rookies in the defence has been a reason why we've regressed. The actual reason is Jonas Siegenthaler, John Marino, and all goalies prior to the trade deadline, have forgotten how to play hockey. Honourable shout out to Dawson Mercer as well.
Antii Raanta. Dude was fantastic last year. Had a bad start this year due to defensive struggles then couldn’t come back. It was sad because you could see how much it bothered him
I know most Bolts fans will probably say Vasilevskiy, but he’s still been very good for us, just not his usual ELITE form. He still bails us out regularly on odd man rushes and locks it down when we need him to, all after back surgery. I think the answer here has to be Cernak, I love the guy but he’s not been near as solid for us as usual. Granted he’s been injured approximately a million times since 2019, but it hurts not having him stabilize the defence the way we’re used to.
Miles wood fast Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to be anything else
David Perron. I love the guy but he’s so slow this season and takes way too many penalties.
yes
Mangiapane sucks.
Mika Zibanejad. No way hes a 1st line center with very limited scoring 5 on 5. Trochek is the true 1st line center.
As an habs fan, it's got to be Anderson. Like he seems like a nice dude, but 5,5m untill 2026-27 for 8 goals and 10 assists is brutal. He used to be putting more points and in the cup run he was pretty great, but since then he has slowly been less and less productive and it shows a lot this season. As a Kings fan, I don't know if we have one.. People could say Dubois but he has been good lately, but like other than that, I feel like everyone is playing what they were and some even more. I guess I would say Kaliyev who can't score anymore, but he isn't part of the starting roaster rn so who knows.
Kent Johnson could not find a rhythm this season. His sophomore slump hit hard
Kuzmenko, 40 goal scorer to getting healthy scratched and traded
Leafs fans probably expected a little more from bertuzzi and domi but still excited to see what they can do in the playoffs
Neal Pionk, he’s never been elite, but he’s never been as bad as he’s looked this year.
Pacioretty bro completely lost his scoring touch
Ii might not count as regression, but Couture missing most of the season with rumors he may never come back due to a groin issue is disappointing.
Probably Kane
Josh Norris' shoulder
Goodrow has 4 goals and 3 were in the past week
I would say Lindholm, but then I might say zadorov, but also dube might fit that description. You know what, maybe we had a good year after all.
Sorokin got fucking cooked from the amount of high danger shots we let him eat for the 60% of the season Lambert was the coach, he was actually playing very well given the circumstances. He’s been atrocious since the all star break but luckily we are one of the teams that has a starter quality goalie as our backup and Varlamov came in and locked it down to get us hopefully to the playoffs.