Phillips re-signs

hemlock wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:

hemlock wrote:

NEELY wrote:

Big Ev wrote:I remember people saying that some Sens fans were idiots for disagreenig with the Gonchar signing. Well, look how that turned out. Point is, we have no idea a signing is good or not until he actually plays out the contract.

I still don't think it was a bad signing. He didn't become an awful D man in 6 months vs being world class. He's had a bad year but he is not as bad as some people would like to have you believe.

The team as a whole is brutal. I don't think there is a glarring need for him now though as a few guys seemed to be ready and Lee has really stepped up. You can argue he is now the wrong fit, that's a legit argument right there. Saying "Gochar sucks and can't play anymore" is just BS, though.

Well, if he doesn't fit, how is it a good signing?

No one argued on day one that 'Gonchar wasn't a good fit." People argued, 'too much, too long, etc', but not 'he isn't a good fit.' Problem there is you can't know if it's a fit until you try it on.

Hasn't been a good fit as of yet and, even worse, the team's circumstances have changed so much that he's not needed like he once was. When we were a team who thought we could legitimately contend for the cup and wanted a PP boost, it made sense. But now he doesn't make much sense here.

So we're in agreement then that it is a bad signing, even if it seemed like a good move at the time? For the record, I've been (one of the very few here) against this signing since minute one.

The terminology you're presenting me with here is tough to work with. It was a signing that made sense at the time, with a necessary overpayment. It hasn't been a fit so far, and it doesn't look like much of a fit going forward, either, because we no longer need this kind of guy to 'put us over the top' like we once did. That's about all I can say.

To be, bad signings are all about term and per year dollars. We overpaid a year, and we all knew it at the time. To me, at the time, it was a necessary evil.

DirtyDave wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:The bottom line in all this is, if you go out and try to sign a guy like Phillips on July 1st or after, you're going to pay him more than we just had to pay Phillips.

A lot of those deals above are older ones that are about to expire, and the players in question are in line for raises. You can't point to deals signed 2-3 years ago and compare them to the deal just signed. Measure the Phillips deal against the deals signed last UFA period -- the Volchenkovs and Mitchells. Those are the better comparables.

He wanted a list of players that were cheaper that I may want on my team. I gave it to him. And then he tells me why my thoughts are wrong ... Who is this guy? The site was better without him

+1000000

Redden was a bad signing, Kovalev was a bad signing, I don't see Gonchar being a "bad signing", I see it more as of a "didn't really work out".

A bad signing to me means it hurt the team.

Number Twenty Nine wrote:

DirtyDave wrote:

rooneypoo wrote:The bottom line in all this is, if you go out and try to sign a guy like Phillips on July 1st or after, you're going to pay him more than we just had to pay Phillips.

A lot of those deals above are older ones that are about to expire, and the players in question are in line for raises. You can't point to deals signed 2-3 years ago and compare them to the deal just signed. Measure the Phillips deal against the deals signed last UFA period -- the Volchenkovs and Mitchells. Those are the better comparables.

He wanted a list of players that were cheaper that I may want on my team. I gave it to him. And then he tells me why my thoughts are wrong ... Who is this guy? The site was better without him

+1000000

Agian, Dobber hockey, his name is Notch. He can lie to you there.

Hoags wrote:This entire team sucked this year, from amateur coaching to amateur goaltending.

Everyone's numbers are down, I don't know why certain players are singled out for unproductive years when its universal. Players are only as good as the team to an extent. If Gonchar and Philips had bad years when everyone else on the team had a good year I'd understand.

We'll see what happens once we get a real coach next year and hopefully Anderson is resigned so we'll have a goalie who can bail out our young defense when the inevitable errors occur. Elliott and Leclaire rarely bailed out the team. Defenceman had to play a flawless game in front of the them.

I'm going to keep re-posting this cause I don't know if it's actually possible for me to say it as well. Bravo!

Bass Destruction wrote:

Hoags wrote:This entire team sucked this year, from amateur coaching to amateur goaltending.

Everyone's numbers are down, I don't know why certain players are singled out for unproductive years when its universal. Players are only as good as the team to an extent. If Gonchar and Philips had bad years when everyone else on the team had a good year I'd understand.

We'll see what happens once we get a real coach next year and hopefully Anderson is resigned so we'll have a goalie who can bail out our young defense when the inevitable errors occur. Elliott and Leclaire rarely bailed out the team. Defenceman had to play a flawless game in front of the them.

I'm going to keep re-posting this cause I don't know if it's actually possible for me to say it as well. Bravo!

I'll just say Clouston has looked a lot more compitent with Anderson in nets vs Elliott. I think that has to be mentioned.

Whats your point? Anderson is a better goalie. Bottom line. Are you saying the quality of goalie is linked to how the coach performs?

Big Ev wrote:I remember people saying that some Sens fans were idiots for disagreenig with the Gonchar signing. Well, look how that turned out. Point is, we have no idea a signing is good or not until he actually plays out the contract.

Yeah, exactly. I disengage myself from arguing it back and forth right now. I'm good with the signing, it's slightly below market value, the term is good, the NMC doesn't apply in year 3 form what I understand and Phillips will be great for Cowen (and he's been a pillar for us, something people don't want to remember for some reason).

I could have gone either way on this one, I would have taken a 2nd + prospect, but I doubt that was even available. I'll just wait and see if Murray can unload Kuba - then I'll re-assess.

DirtyDave wrote:Whats your point? Anderson is a better goalie. Bottom line. Are you saying the quality of goalie is linked to how the coach performs?

Without a doubt.

DirtyDave wrote:Whats your point? Anderson is a better goalie. Bottom line. Are you saying the quality of goalie is linked to how the coach performs?

Oh yeah man, IMO the goalie can cover up a lot of things from poor D, to lack of offence, to poor decisions made by the coaches. If Anderson had been here from the beginning, who knows what this year would have looked like.

DirtyDave wrote:Whats your point? Anderson is a better goalie. Bottom line. Are you saying the quality of goalie is linked to how the coach performs?

Yup. 1000 times over I am.

NEELY wrote:

DirtyDave wrote:Whats your point? Anderson is a better goalie. Bottom line. Are you saying the quality of goalie is linked to how the coach performs?

Yup. 1000 times over I am.

How so?

I think Spez just summed it up nicely. A good goaltender changes the way a team plays and can make a coach look a lot better than he actually is. A bad goalie can make a good coach look a lot worse than he is.

NEELY wrote:
I'll just say Clouston has looked a lot more compitent with Anderson in nets vs Elliott. I think that has to be mentioned.

Only in the sense that the team is now winning not losing. I'd say Anderson covers up a lot of his mistakes whereas Elliott exposed them.

1) Our PP is still abysmal, with players like Karlsson and Gonchar that shouldn't be the case, I see other teams on the PP and I wonder why ours can't be like that.
2) Mind boggling line up changes every few minutes (usually to give Ryan Shannon more ice time).
3) Suspect working relationship with (star players). Say what you want about Heatley and Kovalev but that's at least 2 players he couldn't get along with. If he's an NHL coach he has to find a way to resolve the problem and get along with problematic millionaire players. He didn't.
4) Still a bad system we are playing, we dump the puck in, and the puck comes right out. We rarely sustain much pressure in the offensive zone. If we do get in, we do a line change killing any momentum.
5) Bad motivator, this team never really recovered from the Luke Richardson tragedy and I doubt Clouston was any good at helping and motivating the team to put it behind them.
6) Misuse of players, playing Gonchar on his offside, benching Lee for 20+ games over David Hale etc.
7) Got solidly outcoached by Bylsma in the playoffs (another coach with little NHL experience). We'll never win a playoff round with CC

On the plus side we don't seem to get any bench minors anymore.

I don't think Clouston is that bad, definitely better than Hartsburg and Paddock but that's not saying much. I do not see him sticking around.

I don't see Clouston sticking around after this year either, I am just stating that he isn't an incompitent as he looked earlier in the year.

I think the team has been playing a lot better since things started happening on the trade front as well. I think Clouston and his players were just waiting for something to happen and it effected everyones game, coach down to the players.

I think Clouston is an o.k coach, but they need a fresh face next year for sure. He's taken way too much heat for things he can't control IMO, though.

NEELY wrote:I think Spez just summed it up nicely. A good goaltender changes the way a team plays and can make a coach look a lot better than he actually is. A bad goalie can make a good coach look a lot worse than he is.

That doesn't change the way the coach performs... the coach is not performing in this case, only looking better by comparison. A good head coach is not going to change the way a goalie performs... the goalie and his training can only influence that. From there, the responsibility also goes toward the quality of players infront of him.

NJ has "the best goalie in NHL history" on their team and changing their coach turned their season around.

Dash wrote:
NJ has "the best goalie in NHL history" on their team and changing their coach turned their season around.

MacLean was using the wrong system for NJ's roster.

It's a case of forcing the coach to adapt his system to the team he has vs. forcing the team to adapt to the coach's system.

The second one doesn't work too well we've seen.

Dash wrote:

NEELY wrote:I think Spez just summed it up nicely. A good goaltender changes the way a team plays and can make a coach look a lot better than he actually is. A bad goalie can make a good coach look a lot worse than he is.

That doesn't change the way the coach performs... the coach is not performing in this case, only looking better by comparison. A good head coach is not going to change the way a goalie performs... the goalie and his training can only influence that. From there, the responsibility also goes toward the quality of players infront of him.

NJ has "the best goalie in NHL history" on their team and changing their coach turned their season around.

He was injured for a huge portion of the season. Brodeur hasn't been much of a factor this year.