Gonchar to Ottawa

PKC wrote:
Second on the team with 2:54 per game on the PK, behind Jordan Staal at 3:20.

That's much higher than I thought. Much higher, wow. I thought he'd be hovering around 1:20.

12.01% of Gonchar's shifts from last year were PK shifts.

The guy he just replaced, Anton Volchenkov: 13.25% of his total shifts were on the PK.

SpezDispenser wrote:

PKC wrote:
Second on the team with 2:54 per game on the PK, behind Jordan Staal at 3:20.

That's much higher than I thought. Much higher, wow. I thought he'd be hovering around 1:20.

He also played 24:23 per game last season. Which was ~2:30 more than anyone else on the team. The season before he played 25:11. The season before that 25:54.

The guy's a thoroughbred. I suspect though, given Clouston's tendency to distribute playing time more evenly, his ice time will come down slightly.

Of course Gonchar plays on the 1st Unit PK, he is a N1 defenseman. I've said that from the beginning when some were saying he is average defensively.

La Femme wrote:Of course Gonchar plays on the 1st Unit PK, he is a N1 defenseman. I've said that from the beginning when some were saying he is average defensively.

BUMP

Nice bump. Looking awfully bad right now.

I admit I was very enthousiastic about inking Gonchar. I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet as I believe he could rebound... and if he does, please trade him! there's not really a need for him on a rebuilding team. maybe we can send him to WSH in return for Poti's contract(dump) and colorado's 1st rounder... Dare to dream.

HEH! This is my favorite thread.

How's everyone been? It's been awhile.

hemlock wrote:HEH! This is my favorite thread.

How's everyone been? It's been awhile.

haha, the one time you and I don't think analogously and you turn out to be totally right.

TBH, though, I think I'm at the point where I've accepted this season and stopped thinking of what-ifs. I'm just hoping that everything works out for the best in the end, which it definitely has the potential to do.

Also Gonchar's lousiness this season has been a lot less surprising for me than last.

Going back to the 2010-2011 season, there were a lot of times where I was thinking "should I have been able to predict this?" And I couldn't see how. Although clearly you were able to predict Gonchar's poor play and a lot of others (mostly from other fanbases) predicted we'd be bad. But I kind of internally dismissed the latter as uneducated opinion.

Honestly so many players and even the coaching staff took such unanticipated nose-dives. I mean surely some would say Phillips would regress without Volchy but we Sens fans knew that when he played with Meszaros or Lee he looked as good as ever and their performances went way up. And Clouston wasn't the best coach in the world but we had a pretty darn good record under him for the past season and a half. Regin suddenly disappeared -- I guess we should have seen a sophomore slump coming but he was a 24-year-old with pretty substantial pro experience and had looked awesome in the playoffs and in the World Championships after that.

I could go on but I think the main point is that we made some risky moves (that obviously didn't work out) like Kovalev and Gonchar, but a lot of evidence suggested that we had a strong enough foundation in place to afford taking a risk or two.

Now we've got a team that's a mix of mostly younger players with a few veterans, which is a good thing for younger players' development, although Gonchar is certainly not setting a good example in-game. We're also above the cap-floor so I guess that's a positive. Mostly though we're getting a chance to focus on developing our young kids properly (rather than focusing on winning NHL games) and we're getting a chance at a high pick in a draft that looks like it has a really, really strong top-end.

I mean it's not the ideal situation but the only way this can go badly is if Jason "I dominate in low-pressure situations" Spezza decides to turn it on in the last month.

HA!

De-bump

hemlock wrote:HEH! This is my favorite thread.

How's everyone been? It's been awhile.

Still your favorite thread?

Gonchar on pace for 58 points.

Just shows how bad Clouston handled him last year.

Bust

jokes! he has been excellent.

he made some lazy plays last night, but yeah looks leaps and bounds better than he was at the start of the season.

Something about the way he skates...like his arms stiffen up and don't really move and he just moves his little legs.....kinda funny to look at it actually

Michallica wrote:he made some lazy plays last night, but yeah looks leaps and bounds better than he was at the start of the season.

Something about the way he skates...like his arms stiffen up and don't really move and he just moves his little legs.....kinda funny to look at it actually

I think I know which play you are talking about. It was the icing in the 3rd period and even I said "why the hell isn't he hustling back". Then I took a look and there was an open man to the right of Anderson, if Gonchar loses that race, best case scenario is a fantastic scoring chance for the Canes, worst and most likely with no Sen around, the Cane scores that goal. Gonchar let the Hurricane player win the race and he played it like he should have. In all honesty, that was a fanstic play, just shows you how well some players think the game. A younger player may go balls out there, lose, and then it's a 2 on 0 down low.

NEELY wrote:

Michallica wrote:he made some lazy plays last night, but yeah looks leaps and bounds better than he was at the start of the season.

Something about the way he skates...like his arms stiffen up and don't really move and he just moves his little legs.....kinda funny to look at it actually

I think I know which play you are talking about. It was the icing in the 3rd period and even I said "why the hell isn't he hustling back". Then I took a look and there was an open man to the right of Anderson, if Gonchar loses that race, best case scenario is a fantastic scoring chance for the Canes, worst and most likely with no Sen around, the Cane scores that goal. Gonchar let the Hurricane player win the race and he played it like he should have. In all honesty, that was a fanstic play, just shows you how well some players think the game. A younger player may go balls out there, lose, and then it's a 2 on 0 down low.

Yeah that's one of them. I don't remember a cane player being to the right of anderson but the camera focus is on Gonch. I'd agree with you but gonchar was ahead of the canes' player though. The cane's player just outhustled him. It did look like gonchar was looking elsewhere so you might be right, however I still think he coulda beat the other guy and got that icing call...I mean he was already ahead!