He was a Magician for the first 60 games or so then fell off so I would give him B plus . Hopefully he turns round his play off downturn next time . He brings a skill set no one else on the team has so we need him creator and finisher .
If you want to run Bourque with Duchene (which I think we'll see at some point this season), how are you working the lines? I assume Seguin goes up top? Don't see him centering Benn and Stank in that case
I don't think it'd be a bad idea though. Benn and Seguin stopped working because they were declining WHILE playing in those ridiculous Moar Defense systems together. In DeBoer's system next to a mad man? Probably.
I'm not opposed to it either, just that we've never seen it long term in the PDB era. Anytime they had played together tho, a brief spell with Marchment last year and then Dadonov in the playoffs here for a couple games, they looked OK. And Stankoven is EXACTLY the bulldog type of player you'd want alongside them
Could PDB run Stank as a center? I get that hockey brain says little guys can only be wingers, but that same brain also says Miro can't be a shutdown defender.
Stankoven played center in juniors. He was a beast on faceoffs thanks to his low center of gravity. It's hard to see it happening with how the roster is configured, but I would totally advocate for this experiment at some point.
If we think about Duchene like we think about Pavelski, Marchment and other dudes on the proverbial poster but not at the center, he did a pretty decent job this year. 65 points is solid and what you'd expect. When you qualify that with the Cap hit he brought, just think if Dadonov put up those numbers.
But then you look at the end of the season and playoffs and it is a supernova, one big bright flash, and then well, nothing. He ended up playing a lot closer to his cap hit, which none of us expected. I gave Stankoven grief for slowing down on his stats once he clearly wasn't going back down 35, but he was always noticeable.
My hope for next season is that Duchene gets more planning and that his line isn't just a luxury junk drawer (nice stuff that you don't know what to do with). Also, with those defensive numbers, do you look at moving him to wing if he gets to play with Bourque next season.
What a pick up! And great job resigning him to a team friendly deal again. There were many games last year where he was our best and most dangerous player, with Seguin and Marchment picking up his scraps. Love the idea of putting him with a true playmaker in Bourque, something Duchene didn’t benefit from last year!
He was a Magician for the first 60 games or so then fell off so I would give him B plus . Hopefully he turns round his play off downturn next time . He brings a skill set no one else on the team has so we need him creator and finisher .
If you want to run Bourque with Duchene (which I think we'll see at some point this season), how are you working the lines? I assume Seguin goes up top? Don't see him centering Benn and Stank in that case
I don't think it'd be a bad idea though. Benn and Seguin stopped working because they were declining WHILE playing in those ridiculous Moar Defense systems together. In DeBoer's system next to a mad man? Probably.
I'm not opposed to it either, just that we've never seen it long term in the PDB era. Anytime they had played together tho, a brief spell with Marchment last year and then Dadonov in the playoffs here for a couple games, they looked OK. And Stankoven is EXACTLY the bulldog type of player you'd want alongside them
Could PDB run Stank as a center? I get that hockey brain says little guys can only be wingers, but that same brain also says Miro can't be a shutdown defender.
Stankoven played center in juniors. He was a beast on faceoffs thanks to his low center of gravity. It's hard to see it happening with how the roster is configured, but I would totally advocate for this experiment at some point.
B+ for me. Recency bias and all. The contract value is still wonderful
If we think about Duchene like we think about Pavelski, Marchment and other dudes on the proverbial poster but not at the center, he did a pretty decent job this year. 65 points is solid and what you'd expect. When you qualify that with the Cap hit he brought, just think if Dadonov put up those numbers.
But then you look at the end of the season and playoffs and it is a supernova, one big bright flash, and then well, nothing. He ended up playing a lot closer to his cap hit, which none of us expected. I gave Stankoven grief for slowing down on his stats once he clearly wasn't going back down 35, but he was always noticeable.
My hope for next season is that Duchene gets more planning and that his line isn't just a luxury junk drawer (nice stuff that you don't know what to do with). Also, with those defensive numbers, do you look at moving him to wing if he gets to play with Bourque next season.
What a pick up! And great job resigning him to a team friendly deal again. There were many games last year where he was our best and most dangerous player, with Seguin and Marchment picking up his scraps. Love the idea of putting him with a true playmaker in Bourque, something Duchene didn’t benefit from last year!