Here's a pickel

[IslandersHKY]

murph said:

I don't care what PEI's lineup was, and if you think it's justified. I'm just relaying the reasoning given from St. John's perspective as to why the kept their veterans out of Halifax.

And I am just stating that is false reasoning for why some people may think that St. John's sent a rookie lineup to Halifax.

Paiment may have wanted to respond to the 2 big losses but he wasn't doing it as retaliation for PEI's roster choices as they were balanced lineups.

And from PEI's perspective the loss was no big deal it was the 3 game in 3 nights after playing 2 intersquad games on Sat. I certainly don't see that as a message being sent.

I really don't understand what Paiment was thinking.

[CrazyJoeDavola]

billy said:

murph said:

Halifax's scratches last night:

G- Kennedy and Yetman

D- Bodnarchuck, Monast, Lund

F- Swan, Hillier, Corsi, Peters, MacMillian

It could have been worse....

Like it's been said before, Halifax had little choice. They have 20 returnees, and odds are they'll be either cutting, releasing, or trading some of those. St. John's knew Halifax's line up days in advance, and were supposed to send their other squad, only PEI the day before decided to dress a lot of their vets against the Fog Devils rookies, so the Fog Devils deided to pay PEI back.

It wasn't so much Halifax that iced too many vets, it was more SJs that sent a crappy squad to Halifax. All their vets and top young players were basically in PEI.

Well yes... it was just jimmy's point about how Halifax were lucky Voracek didnt get run makes it seem like Halifax were in the wrong here... when its been more or less concluded that Paiement wanted revenge on PEI (rightly or wrongly) so he sent all the rookies to Halifax.

As its been mentioned, most of our top players were sitting out.

[chsb]

jimmy said:

gman said:

Except that most of the offense came from the rookies. Halifax dressed almost every player still on the bubble including all 3 rookie goalies. Think before you speak... you sound like fred.

Look at the Lewiston Bathurst match-ups this week ... it appears Lewiston left virtually all vets home, brought just the rookies ... in game one, their rooks pummelled the Bathurst rooks ... in game two, lo and behold, Perreault and several other vets were out running up the score on Lewiston ... if I was Lewiston's GM, I would think twice before agreeing to a two game set with the Titan next year in pre-season.

A couple of things here:
first the Titan made 14 cuts plus 2 other players left camp on Monday and Tuesday morning, therefore cutting dowm the roster to 32 players including goaltenders.
Now we had at least 16 players who practiced and played Sunday, Monday and practices....making it hard to have all the rookies playing again Tuesday night.
Meanwhile the Titan had 18-20 vets waiting in the wings and getting unpatient for ice time.....

And....about Monday's game....it is true that Lewiston pummeled us in the first half of the game, but the Titan came back in great fashion in the latter part of the game scoring 3 unanswered goals from the mid 2nd period up after finding their groove together.

[seahawk]

Who really cares about pre-season games/stats anyways. IMO it is too long. Teams should be on the ice for a week practicing and playing intra-squad games against themselves to cut down to at least 30 guys. Then there should be 4-6 pre-season matches maximum for each team to finalize roster spots. BUt getting $10 a butt to put on a show with 97% of the players on both teams not having a chance to play this season is too much for owners not to take.

[mikeb]

What kinda funny here is people in here have it all figured out that Paiement had a team with SOME veterans on it playing PEI out of revenge.

It could be something as simple as Paiement had to start playing his veterans. It was after all game #3 vs PEI whereas Halifax was playing it's 1st preseason and Paiement still had a lot of rookies he wanted to look at, so he played SOME veterans vs PEI and played his rookies vs Hfx seeing as it was Hfx's first game.

I think Paiement has bigger things to think about than who won what preseason game.

If Paiement wanted revenge he would have played 15 veterans vs PEI.

Much ado about nothing.

[13th tribe]

jimmy said:

gman said:

Except that most of the offense came from the rookies. Halifax dressed almost every player still on the bubble including all 3 rookie goalies. Think before you speak... you sound like fred.

A touch defensive this morning are we? I guess I must have hit a nerve ... don't take it so personally, we did the same thing earlier this week when we showed up in Bathurst with a half-dozen vets (albeit bubble guys) to play a squad full of no-names.

As I understand it, the teams schedule the pre-season games of their own accord, they can play who they want when they want. My point is, you would think a key consideration in setting up these games would be to match up with teams in similar stages of development ... if one team has 50 guys in camp, and is planning on playing guys #22-42 on the organizational depth chart, then you probably shouldn't arrange a game with a team planning on dressing half of their regulars ... play them later in the pre-season sched when they have their team close to picked as well.

Look at the Lewiston Bathurst match-ups this week ... it appears Lewiston left virtually all vets home, brought just the rookies ... in game one, their rooks pummelled the Bathurst rooks ... in game two, lo and behold, Perreault and several other vets were out running up the score on Lewiston ... if I was Lewiston's GM, I would think twice before agreeing to a two game set with the Titan next year in pre-season.

I look at it a different way. What a great chance to throw out a bunch of rookies against the likes of Perreault and company and see how they perform. A game of rookies agaisnt rookies just shows everybody what it was like when these guys played Junior A last season. Throw them into the fire, forget about the final score, and see how they do. Now that is a test.

Also - when you buy your ticket is says EXHIBITION GAME or PRE-SEASON game on it. If you want to see veterans then be sure to buy a regular season ticket. Nobody promised you anything but an exhibition game. Why would you expect more?

[13th tribe]

mikeb said:

What kinda funny here is people in here have it all figured out that Paiement had a team with SOME veterans on it playing PEI out of revenge.

It could be something as simple as Paiement had to start playing his veterans. It was after all game #3 vs PEI whereas Halifax was playing it's 1st preseason and Paiement still had a lot of rookies he wanted to look at, so he played SOME veterans vs PEI and played his rookies vs Hfx seeing as it was Hfx's first game.

I think Paiement has bigger things to think about than who won what preseason game.

If Paiement wanted revenge he would have played 15 veterans vs PEI.

Much ado about nothing.

Reminds me of how some would say "obviously Paiment was out for revenge" when truthfully they have no idea, just assumptions.

I still have no problem with unbalanced lineups. Coaches have their own reasons for dressing certain players. And in a one-sided game - the younger team gets thrown to the wolves and only the strong survive - great way to see who will make it in this league. The older team gets a chance to get their timing back, get to know potential wingers, ease back into a game situation. It works for everyone - except the fan expecting a 5-4 shootout win.

[SteveUL]

This is the only time of the year (for most teams) where winning and losing just doesn't matter. Its simply a time to evaluate players and see how they react in certain situations ... when the score is lopsided against them do they roll over and die or do they work harder and maybe even get a little pissed ? Its a time to watch a 17 yr old rookie take a shift against some of the best players in the league ... bigger, stronger, faster players ... do they get intimidated or do they work harder ?

Coaches don't care about winning or losing in pre-season ... all they care about is the 60 mins of icetime they have to evaluate players they have to make decisions on ... especially in the first week of pre-season. The last couple of pre-season games are used for close to final rosters and working on systems.