I know it's early - BUT

I can't believe we are being dominated by the BULLS - Our start is puzzling

6 more games left to the series, but yes dissapointing. Wheres are fire power. We have one line going and they Bulls only needed to worry about that one line.

You got it acher_gens we have only one line and thats why it's more important to get Andreoff back as an OA than getting back Valantine (but I still would love Scott back)Andreoff give us a second line and you can't get a quality OA via trade that can score without giving up alot in a trade but if Valentine dosn't come back you can find a replacement OA with the same amount of talent.
Still early hopefully the Gen's can turn it around and soon

archer_gens wrote:6 more games left to the series, but yes dissapointing. Wheres are fire power. We have one line going and they Bulls only needed to worry about that one line.

Team looks disorganized. Christian Thomas looks uninterested and out of shape. Altshuller let in some real soft goals last night. With the expectations of this season, and if I was a team owner, I'd be pissed. I think DiPiero is on a very very short leash. If this continues expect a huge shakeup.

sdspencer wrote:

archer_gens wrote:6 more games left to the series, but yes dissapointing. Wheres are fire power. We have one line going and they Bulls only needed to worry about that one line.

Team looks disorganized. Christian Thomas looks uninterested and out of shape. Altshuller let in some real soft goals last night. With the expectations of this season, and if I was a team owner, I'd be pissed. I think DiPiero is on a very very short leash. If this continues expect a huge shakeup.

Completely agree.

This team has looked BRUTAL. Disorganized, confused, unconfident, lost, selfish. On paper, they should have NO problems getting the puck in the net. I will not blame Altshuller at all as I think he's played pretty well.... the players in front of him have really hung him out to dry on several occasions but overall, I've been impressed with him and do not feel he is the reason for any of the losses. For the amount of talent on this hockey club there is NO excuse for the types of performances that they've shown in there 3 losses. It will be really interesting to see the types of performances they put on display in Sarnia and Windsor.

[quote="sdspencer"]

archer_gens wrote:Team looks disorganized. Christian Thomas looks uninterested and out of shape. Altshuller let in some real soft goals last night. With the expectations of this season, and if I was a team owner, I'd be pissed. I think DiPiero is on a very very short leash. If this continues expect a huge shakeup.

Didn't you say that last year? And the year before? Do you keep your fingers on the panic button all summer or do you take a break and get back on four or five games into the season?

It's not how you start, it's how you finish. If they're winning percentage in March is sub .500, fair enough, I'll eat crow and I was wrong all along. For that matter, if they aren't at least in the final four, the same applies. Good teams get off to slow starts all the time. And on the other side of the coin, the Leafs started off 4-0 last year. The first few games mean nothing (Yes, technically two points is two points but you know what I mean). Once Christian gets his first goal, he'll have 10 before you know it. Sometimes you just hold your stick too tight when you've had some bad luck getting that first one. If Chartrand didn't make that ridiculously awesome save against him when the Bulls played @ the GMC, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And for that matter, Thomas was robbed on a pretty good chance last night as well. Yes, the Gens should score more than 2-3 a game and they will. Having a bunch of players coming back from NHL camps struggle to adjust back to the OHL for 4-5 games is perfectly normal and happens all the time. They'll get over it.

beats thats the best post ive read since the beginning of the year....everybody take a deep breath

[/quote] Team looks disorganized. Christian Thomas looks uninterested and out of shape. Altshuller let in some real soft goals last night. With the expectations of this season, and if I was a team owner, I'd be pissed. I think DiPiero is on a very very short leash. If this continues expect a huge shakeup.[/quote]

My biggest peeve with Altshuller is his apparent disinterest in getting whistles. Watch him at least a dozen times a game make a save and just let the puck sit at his feet. He's not kicking out insane rebounds, but rather just leaving the puck at his feet. I'm assuming he wants the D to pick it up and move out, but many times I think he would be better off getting a whistle. It doesn't take much for the Gens to go into chicken with their head cut off mode when the play gets a little scrambly.

[quote="hockeybeats"]

sdspencer wrote:

archer_gens wrote:Team looks disorganized. Christian Thomas looks uninterested and out of shape. Altshuller let in some real soft goals last night. With the expectations of this season, and if I was a team owner, I'd be pissed. I think DiPiero is on a very very short leash. If this continues expect a huge shakeup.

Didn't you say that last year? And the year before? Do you keep your fingers on the panic button all summer or do you take a break and get back on four or five games into the season?

It's not how you start, it's how you finish. If they're winning percentage in March is sub .500, fair enough, I'll eat crow and I was wrong all along. For that matter, if they aren't at least in the final four, the same applies. Good teams get off to slow starts all the time. And on the other side of the coin, the Leafs started off 4-0 last year. The first few games mean nothing (Yes, technically two points is two points but you know what I mean). Once Christian gets his first goal, he'll have 10 before you know it. Sometimes you just hold your stick too tight when you've had some bad luck getting that first one. If Chartrand didn't make that ridiculously awesome save against him when the Bulls played @ the GMC, we wouldn't be having this discussion. And for that matter, Thomas was robbed on a pretty good chance last night as well. Yes, the Gens should score more than 2-3 a game and they will. Having a bunch of players coming back from NHL camps struggle to adjust back to the OHL for 4-5 games is perfectly normal and happens all the time. They'll get over it.

It will get better but only because of a principle of variance. The Gens are on a fated collusion course reminiscent of past years from Tavaras on and it is because of coaching. They have had the talent to go further they just max out when it comes to in game coaching. It's that simple. There outclassed in that department.

no disputing Dipiero's assesment of team talent. It's evident though he does not know how to than get the best out of them in in game strategize like the other good/great coaches in the league. You put Stan Butler at the helm of this team or the past few years as far back as Tavaras last year with Maclean and they go at least a round further.

In his time as coach of the Gens, De Piero has taken them exactly where they would have ended up with pretty much any other coach. You go as far as your talent takes you. In 2009-10, the Gens would have missed the playoffs whether they were coached by De Piero, Stan Butler or Jesus Christ. They simply were too young and inexperienced to put together a playoff team. There is no miracle coach that would have won it that year. The following season, they got better at exactly the level you would expect them to, losing to a very talented and more experienced Niagara team. This year, they will again make a corresponding increase. Seven games is not enough to assess a season. You're putting way too much belief in what any coach is capable of doing. The level of talent decides how far a team goes. If there was a coach that had such ability far beyond that of the average OHL coach, he would no longer be coaching in the OHL because he would have moved up already. The real barometer of how good a coach performs in the OHL isn't even championships, it's graduating players to the next level and getting them drafted. Stan Butler was a victim of his own success in this regard because his teams in Brampton actually failed to make the jump up to the next level so many times because he would lose players. On the NOOF, people called him an overrated coach because of this, completely missing the point of OHL hockey. With the Generals, everyone who had the talent level coming in to get drafted did get drafted. That's why we have so many players that were away at NHL camps and a couple that might not be back at all - because of how great a coach they have. Their development was not hindered by poor coaching as it might have been in Kingston which is the only place in the OHL that had coaching so bad that it actually had an effect on the team. The other 19 coaches have little to separate them, they're all quality guys. What separates them is the talent they are given to work with. You put way too much emphasis on the impact of coaching on junior hockey success.

And if anything, as a younger coach, De Piero has an upward trajectory as he becomes more and more familiar with the OHL game. If you get someone who has been around ofor 15-20 years, they're as good as they were and won't get better to the same degree. You have zero evidence for saying the Gens are not being well-coached right now. They haven't underperformed at all over the last two seasons, they finished right where most analysts would have put them. Basing it on a season that's 7 games old is nonsense. If they haven't gone further than last year (at least winning two rounds) with this team, then criticize the coaching because that would be the first point at which they would have performed below expectations.

hockeybeats wrote:...The real barometer of how good a coach performs in the OHL isn't even championships, it's graduating players to the next level and getting them drafted....
... And if anything, as a younger coach, De Piero has an upward trajectory as he becomes more and more familiar with the OHL game... .

I cherrypicked these two sentences from the last post, to keep the size of the post to a minimum. Graduating players to the next level should not be the barometer, but improving the players that you have. Thanks to two seasons in which we missed the playoffs, and the Tavares trade, we ended up with some pretty high end prospects on our team. Going into last season, Jenner was ranked the 7th best North American skater coming into this past draft, with Jensen 9th and Lessio 17th (http://www.nhl.com/ice/page.htm?id=65880). Now, if your goal is to just have your players get drafted, then I guess you're right. He's a wonderful coach. If you would like your coach to help improve these prospects, then I would have to say that he fell short with these three high end prospects. (mind you, Andreoff and Suellentrop exceeded expectations). Tavares, despite being granted exceptional status, seemed to almost slip to 2nd or even 3rd on a lot of people's lists.
Also, as far as upward trajectory, this team has the exact same deficiencies (lack of defensive system/coverage, discipline, work ethic for 60 minutes, a powerplay that consists of 5 people passing it around until Thomas gets a chance to try and snipe one, etc) that they had when he took over 4 years ago. For 4 years now, you have been preaching that he was building a team with the players he wanted and to give him a chance. This year, he has a stacked forward group that's averaging 3 goals a game. While the goals against has improved significantly, it appears to be due to the fact that this is the best goaltending that this team has started with. Wednesday night, we say the same thing we've been seeing for 4 years, with the opponents standing uncovered in front of the net banging in rebounds while our defence are nowhere to be seen.
This season, I think that anything less than a division title and the third round of the playoffs, should be considered a huge disappointment. 10% of the regular season is over, and they better start to pick it up soon.

A continuation of something many posters have mentioned before...I'd love to see a PP that can execute. With our talent up front, we should have one of the most efficient PP's in the league. We rarely see crisp passes and consistent possession like other team's PP's have when we're killing penalties. For quite a while now, plan A for the PP has been the Thomas one-timer. Everyone knows it though. When plan A doesn't work, I can't say I've seen an effective adjustment to a plan B. I'm all for PP goals any way we can get them, but if the Thomas one-timer doesn't pan out, it seems like any kind of PP organization/structure gets abandoned. Plan B quite often results in dump/no chase (giving up possession immediately) or an individual effort by someone who draws more coverage, and then the puck gets cleared no problem.

Is the OHL no longer a business hockeybeats? Becuz putting players in the NHL does not translate to putting people in the seats. You could have 20 drafted nhl prospects on the ice every year, but if your so terrible as to always lose people are gonna stay away.