I was going to post this in the other thread but maybe it’s a bit long for that. Besides, OPirrate said he wants fanposts, and you don’t want to piss off a pirate.
I’m a bit worried about coaching. I like the way Bowness says what he feels, unlike the hump before him who’d spent nearly a decade bullshitting his face off, but his decision-making sometimes worries me. Despite his proclamations to the opposite, he seems overy reliant on old-school principles, and heavily defensive ones to boot.
Is he going to give Perfetti a real shot at centre? Perfetti has already shown he’s about the best defensive forward in the top 6 (at least among pre-trade Jets). He has the creativity and skills to handle the offensive side. But he’s not fast and he’s not big, and so far he hasn’t aced the faceoff dot, which to Bowness appears to be a key, or perhaps the key consideration. Is a Bowness bias going to pigeonhole Perfetti onto the wing without a real chance to show his worth in the middle, even through some bumps along the road?
With the former Kings and the Nino/Names holdovers providing the team with more offensive depth than they’ve had for some time, will Bowness try to create a more offensive top 9 that doesn’t necessarily include Lowry, who can still get his minutes with a more even distribution of ice time across four lines plus time on the PK, or will Lowry continue to be permastamped on the third line, thus ensuring the historical complement of stone hands is maintained?
Will Scheifele and Connor be on a line together? Sure, they might score, but chances are they’ll surrender more. Generally, is Bowness going to create line combinations to maximize his players or follow some personal bias or historical mismanagement that doesn’t do that? You can toss power play strategies and personnel in here too.
Is Ehlers going to get the usual short shrift or be given a chance to reach his full potential (if he stays healthy)? Kinda in the same boat is Heinola. The guy needs NHL minutes. There was a stretch last year where he got several games in a row. Over those games he progressed from bad to pretty good and was starting to look like the Heinola he’s supposed to be, but his reward was demotion to the Moose for some inane reason. After Morrissey, Dillon, DeMelo and Samberg, there’s nobody on the Jets defence that should be such a lock that he keeps Heinola from getting minutes that are crucial to his development. Injuries aside, Pionk and Schmidt (and even Samberg) should be sitting out games so Heinola can finally get some experience, be it on the right side or left side, and he should be given the confidence to play his game, not some square-peg-in-a-round-hole, our-way-or-the-highway Frankenstein game that dooms him to uncertainly, hesitation, and ultimately failure. More or less the same can be said for Chisholm, who needs time to show what he’s got.
Is Bowness going to overplay Hellebuyck, or is he going to catch up to the rest of the league and discover load management?
Beyond Bowness, we have Arniel in the warm-up deck. Nice guy, I’m sure, but I find that pretty scary too.
All IMO of course. And shiver me timbers!
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