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2013-2014 Miscellaneous League News and Discussions

JamesNorthern said:
From spectors:
NBC SPORTS: Mike Halford lists Dustin Penner, Jamie McBain, Shane O’Brien, Ryan Malone and Andrei Loktionov as five potential training camp tryout candidates. O’Brien could be headed to the Florida Panthers for a tryout.
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Is that a list the Canes have supposedly invited to camp?
 
TheBigKahuna said:
OK, that makes more sense. I couldn't imagine half those guys getting calls from the Canes.

I laughed at this though:

On Jamie McBain...

McBain is the kind of D-man who can really eat up minutes and on a good team can be a force. Tampa, who let Salo go and wants toughness, is a team to watch, but so is Winnipeg and Montreal.
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It's the last name...

2011-02-06-mcbain.jpg
 
Jeez ... a force for what exactly?

I feel terrible that McBain got stuck in our spin cycle instead of going to a team that has a clue how to develop d-men. We ruined that guy.
 
jeffbear said:
Jeez ... a force for what exactly?

I feel terrible that McBain got stuck in our spin cycle instead of going to a team that has a clue how to develop d-men. We ruined that guy.
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We might have thwarted his development, but showing up to camp out of shape is on the player.
 
He hasn't fallen this far simply by showing up to camp out of shape. Not with his skill set. This is a guy who's a shell of his former self. He was one of the top 3 or 4 d-men in all of college hockey at one point and a pretty solid rookie NHLer. We broke this kid a long time before it got to this point.
 
Just how, in your opinion, did we "break him"?

I'm more of the opinion he broke himself as a NHL player, showing up out of shape and playing soft. Apparently did the same for Buffalo, so it's not just us.

You can lead them to water, but just can't make 'em drink the kool-aid if they don't like kool-aid.
 
I don't believe it's possible to break someone with talent. If they have talent, the right coaching can get them to perform at the best level possible regardless of what mismanagement of his or her talents occurred previously. Thus, if Jamie has the talent, he will excel when he's in the right situation. Time will tell...
 
Another reason for my optimism about the new non-JR led management team in place...

http://hurricanes.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=729672

Little things like finding room in the budget for one of your marketing people to provide web coverage of every home and road game are what often separate great organizations from mediocre ones.
 
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How do you break a player? Criticize his every move/play, start making him second guess himself, ensure he loses his self confidence.
 
Not that big a budget item if you're flying a chartered jet and he's sharing a hotel room with the equipment manager or stats guy. But it's still a detail the org managed to get wrong.

Next, figure out parking. Specific lanes go to specific lots (so when you pick a lane, you know where you'll end up), and none of them cross, forcing ridiculous waits.
 
I think it's a bit crazy to think that the Canes mistakes made McBain a bad player. There was a hint of offensive talent there. But I don't think his progress was stumped in any way by anyone but himself.
 
dwind said:
How do you break a player? Criticize his every move/play, start making him second guess himself, ensure he loses his self confidence.
Click to expand...

Quickest way to break a green young d-man? Pair him with an unreliable, unpredictable partner and then cram 30 minutes a game down his throat ... all the while not doing anything to teach him how to be better at what you're asking him to do.

Oh wait ... that's EXACTLY what Carolina did to McBain. He was a shell-shocked ghost of his former self by the end of that second year in the league. Because we killed the guy.
 
Well, that's admittedly no way to handle a rookie, and anyone paired with Joni was guaranteed to be confused.

But his most excellent views of goals scored while sorta kinda poking in that general direction with his stick had little to do with that crazy experience. And kid just would not play the body even to nudge someone off a chosen vector. Stick-poker, and not a very good one, either.

Turned out, all he had was a shot, and didn't even use that.

But, man, look at what the coaches had to work with that season: Kaberle, Gleason, Harrison, Sanguinetti, Allen, Joslin...and then there was McBain and Faulk, about the only two of the bunch that could even begin to keep up with Pitkanen when he was going for it...which was like...always.

Man, we sucked. Thanks, JR.
 
jeffbear said:
Quickest way to break a green young d-man? Pair him with an unreliable, unpredictable partner and then cram 30 minutes a game down his throat ... all the while not doing anything to teach him how to be better at what you're asking him to do.

Oh wait ... that's EXACTLY what Carolina did to McBain. He was a shell-shocked ghost of his former self by the end of that second year in the league. Because we killed the guy.
Click to expand...

This. A thousand times this. Remember how good McBain was in the ASG skills competition? We rarely saw those skills on the ice when he was paired with Pitkanen because he was defending a steady stream of odd man rushes when Joni went off to never never land.

TheBigKahuna said:
Faulk was handled the same way, was he not?
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No. Faulk played with mostly Harrison, Gleason or Allen. In Faulk's rookie year in 11-12, Pitkanen only played 30 games. In 12-13, he only played 22 games.
 
Frankly, McBain had his best days during that 13 game callup was it? After that? Nothing. Nothing at ALL. I never really thought he had a 'fluid' style to his game either, looking rather ackward out there quite often. He was the langy rag doll who played with a stick that seemed a little to short for a defenseman. Over rated?
 
JamesNorthern said:
Frankly, McBain had his best days during that 13 game callup was it? After that? Nothing. Nothing at ALL. I never really thought he had a 'fluid' style to his game either, looking rather ackward out there quite often. He was the langy rag doll who played with a stick that seemed a little to short for a defenseman. Over rated?
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This mostly. Except I felt like he used a 4' section of garden hose for a stick. His callup gave a lot of us a LOT of promise and hope, he looked to be better than average during that short stint. He never showed anything that resembled promise after that. It does't help that he was built like a college freshman with a drinking problem.
 
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