Bødker is not going. Rumours has it that he has lost ten kilos of pure muscles. He will not have time to fully recover before WC. With Coyotes being out of the PO race and trading Vermette last night I am not even sure he is going to return to Coyotes this season if he is not 100 % ready.
I didn't expect him to. Could mean zero actual NHL forwards coming.
Compared with our available forward roster, Oliver Bjørkstrand would have no problem playing. [Assuming no NHL or AHL players]
It's him or someone else that has to be “thrown to the wolves“. [Same logic here below also goes with Ehlers]
With: Hardt, Madsen, P. Bjørkstrand, M. Christensen, J. Jensen, Storm, M. Poulsen, J. Jakobsen, Green, Staal we have 10 players with routine and quality [Green have probably had his worst season ever, but will be included for his routine, even if it is only for 4th line].
The final three forward guys (assuming 13 forwards) will either be Danish leaguers (Lasse Lassen, Thomas Spelling, Jannik Karvinen, Morten Andreasen etc) or other fairly young unexperienced forwards from Allsvenskan (F. Maegaard Scheel, A. Poulsen)
Then also Starkov if they want him back on the NT......
With what is available, O. Bjørkstrand could easily enter at the very least a fourth line.
Why not with Kim Staal for rolling some surprise attacks and use them fairly little on defense?
Staal has managed the most points for Denmark the last two WC playing mostly 4th line, so O. Bjørkstrand with him and then a center (likely Madsen or Green).
J. Jensen, J. Jakobsen, Madsen, Green in whatever order looks like the 4 centers....
I agree 100%
There is no doubt that both Ehlers and Bjorkstrand would fit in fine in this line-up. I seen all of Ehlers preseason games, and one of Bjorkstrand, and I think they would do fine. If we have no NHL talent, we need players who can do something special to make something happen. We know that we have players who will provide some goals, and that will take chances....Like you said, we have gotten a lot of production from our veterans, and top euro guys, but we definently need some of that special speed and hands that those two guys provides, even if they are not used to this kind of game.
Jesus in net once more. I guess 29 wins in this season means nothing....well no surprise to be honest. Good thing Freddy only have one season left before his contract expires.
BB must be the worst coach in terms of messing his the minds of goalies..
Playing Gibson a lot right now makes perfect sense. He is actually playing very well at the moment. He has a .926 SVS % over the last 5 games and by the looks of it another strong start tonight vs DAL... The team is a lock for one of the top seeds in the playoffs. So, why not see what you got in Gibson, while resting the guy who is going to be your starter in the playoffs? Andersen is just back from injury, so why not ease him back in? And so many teams have been punished in the playoffs by having a tired over-used No 1 goalie play 65+ games in the regular season.
Besides, a lot of people who knows a lot more about evaluating goaltenders than I do, consider Gibson one of the biggest goalie prospects in the world right now. It is not unreasonable at this point to believe that Gibson has a higher ceiling than Andersen. If that belief is shared by the Ducks brass, it makes perfect sense for them to plan for Gibson being the long term solution for them.
Just tough luck for Andersen if even his second NHL organization doesn't turn out to be the right fit. But this kind of thing happens for goalies all the time. Just look at Bishop in TB and Dubnyk in MIN.
At the end of the day, there is no doubt in my mind that Andersen is good enough to be a starter in the NHL - maybe even a top 10 or better. If it does not happen in Anaheim, he will find the right spot eventually.
Gibson had good games, but Freddy has been consistent during a long season while carrying a massive work load because the Ducks didn't have a good backup...I think looking at the Ducks board gives a good impression,...
There seems a clear popular opinion that this is andersens job to lose, and that he hasn't done that yet...And that doesn't mean they don't love Gibson...
There is justified hype about Gibson, and there has from the beginning but even they are shaking their head at BBs way of handling this and supposely saying that the starting job for the playoffs is up for grabs.
Freddy has not nothing to lose the starting job, and I have seen two people saying that he should lose his job over this if he does it.
This is not about Gibson being a great prospect, this is not even the best way to handle him. This is the way to ruin prospects.
He puts extreme pressure on both young goalies...Freddy by making it clear that any mistakes could be fatal, and putting Gibson in the exact same position, because what exactly happens if he blows it in the playoffs....where do they go then?
The idea with the change of system where we control the puck is not so we can win against the big nations. It is so we can win on a regular basis against Germany, Norway, France, Latvia etc. We will never be able to win on a regular basis against the big 6.
Agreed! We should not set up our team to beat the big teams, because thats not the objective...Ofcourse its massive fun when we have beaten the US, the Czechs, or Finland but that is not how you survive in the division. We need to be able to take it to our direct competition...