our pp was hot for a month and a half and has been dogshit since then, especially since hughes went down. saying he’s not good enough for it is ludicrous - he had 17, 17 and 12 pp goals the last 3 years, more than anyone had last year and more than anyone is on pace for this year.
his shot is a weapon and since hughes has gone down we’ve had a tepid pass-first power play, there’s virtually no reason not to put bratt in hughes spot and meier as a trigger on the rw half wall.
I don't think Meier is a particularly good player on the power play. He has scored a lot of goals as a featured player on a bad to meh power play. Yes, it's true, if you feature a guy with a decent shot and just keep feeding him, he will score goals. What will he do to the rest of the power play? Anyone's guess. But hey, he's scoring, so it has to be good.
And all this is bearing in mind that Meier has played the vast majority of this season at less than 100% health. Last night his biggest chance, he flubbed and it ended up in the back of the Devils' net 20 seconds later. That's been the story of his season and why he's not on PP1.
There's plenty of precedent for this too. The Devils didn't just promote Alex Mogilny to PP1 when he arrived 20+ years ago. He played PP2 when he came here in 2000. There was more balance in ice time between the units back then, but Mogilny is a legendary sniper - they just wanted to spread the talent out and they did that.
they’ve played every righty on the lw at some point or another but won’t try meier on the rw, so saying there’s no spot for him doesn’t make sense. toffoli plays lw when bratts on the line and they’ve done all righty lines at other points. it’s stupid not to at least try him there.
What are you talking about? Holtz hasn't played LW and neither has Mercer, not for any length of time. Toffoli has played LW exclusively all season. They're very obviously not opposed to putting people on their off-wing, but to me Bratt makes a lot more happen on that side.
arguing that not maximizing meier is probably best for the team puts way too much faith in the coaching staff. they’re not above reproach for the way they handle certain players.
Meier has been injured almost all season. Leaving that out of this discussion is just wanting to find fault with the coaching staff.