Thomas Vanek in games in which he's played 20+ minutes:

37gp, 25g, 10a, 35 pts.


Take out his rookie year and its the same stats in 34 games played.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

so why doesnt he get 20+ every night?

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Or those are the nights he earned the ice time because he was playing well enough to take it.

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Wheelhouse

One way or the other, I think 16-17 minutes of icetime isn't enough for the best player on your team.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I don't know about the term superstar but with the right linemates and enough minutes he can be a 40+ goal scorer and/or a ppg guy.

I've always wondered how he would do on a line with the Sedin twins (and on their PP unit). Unfortunately we will never know.

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That's probably it. Lindy always rewards his guys with icetime, even if that means the third line plays 20+ minutes. I don't have a problem with that system.

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As I posted before, he's the 5th most prodigious goal scorer since the lockout in terms of goals per 60 minutes of icetime behind only Stamkos, Ovechkin, Semin, and Gaborik.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

I read that and it's an interesting stat which implies that Vanek is underrated.
I've always been a Vanek bandwagoner and I consider him a hockey superstar (as an Austrian) but he is a bit too streaky to be called a NHL superstar in my eyes. As a natural goal scorer he needs to hit 50 to be in the superstar category for me...BTW, I don't consider Semin and Stamkos as a Superstar yet. Stamkos will probably get there after this season though.

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Not sure I can subscribe to that theory, because some guys who are getting decent ice time sure as fuck don't deserve it. So Vanek has only EARNED(by performance) 40 more seconds/game than Hecht. Once again a huge fail at trying to understand why Ruff does what he does. Btw, Pominville has EARNED 25 MORE seconds/game, while Connolly has only earned 23 seconds less. You can blame it on +/- if you wanna reach for straws, but defense isn't his forte. I think it's more on the other 4 skaters to play more defense than him, or more realistically for Ruff to develop BALANCED lines than it is to hold back Vanek to play D .

I disagree, and there's been evidence to refute that theory, Ruff saying earlier in the season that Connolly was going to "play through," his struggles is not rewarding performance with ice time.

Part of the reason that some guys log more time than others, namely Pominville and Hecht, is because they play on the penalty kill.

And to be fair, my gripe isn't just with Vanek, but with Stafford and Ennis (and Roy when he was healthy) as well.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Vanek isn't as bad on defense as his used to be. He is an efficient PKer, him and Kaleta paired together led to a shg more than once I believe and was very effective.

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Connolly is just lucky that we have no C depth. Ruff has to play him because there is nobody else.

I don't really care about Vanek playing on the PK. I would rather see him playing every PP minute. That's were I disagree with Lindy. I think Vanek can play close to 2min of PP and I'm always shaking my head when Gaustad gets on the ice 30 seconds into the PP.

Another reason for his low TOI might be that Vanek rarely extends shifts and that's a good thing. On the other hand, he did it against Washington and it resulted in an awesome overtime winner. I don't know

He also did it at the end of the winter classic, and almost won it. You'd think with Having Roy and Connolly as centers, you'd have no need to even play Gaustad on the PP. I know he wins draws, and stands out front, but those are things you could use someone else for. Worse case scenario, you run a different strategy for PP2(which isn't a bad idea seeing the PP is usually abysmal). I know we are ALL sick of just throwing different random guys out on the PP hoping for a different result.

To me, all those numbers mean is that the more power play chances the Sabres get, the more productive Vanek is offensively. Not very surprising but keep digging.

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"I love that you know how to do that." Cheryl/Carol/Crystal

"And I love that I have an erection that doesn't involve homeless people." Kreiger

Cause Lindy will bitch Vanek out a la Max when he's out there too long. But when Grier is huffing around like Chris Farley in a marathon after a 1:00+ shift...


In all seriousness though, I agree with playing Vanek the majority of a power play. Some of that is based on the ineffectiveness of our second unit (I wish there were stats somewhere detailing the effectiveness of each pp line because there has to be a HUGE discrepancy).

It seems that getting Vanek in a mindset where he has to be a workhorse is good for him (Lindy said as much when asked about Vanek's success after getting PK time two years ago), it's kind of puzzling why it doesn't happen more often. I tend to be the same way, when challenged I rise to the occasion whether its more responsibilities in a sport, or taking on more difficult projects at school/work.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

You're making a bit of a leap. More icetime can be indicative of more power play time, but not always.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

In two games in 08/09 (the season Vanek was on an absurd goal-scoring tear), it led to one SHG and two other chances.

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mechaphil

I wouldn't mind seeing them out there every once in a while, especially when we might need some offense on a pk to get back into a game. Worst case scenario, we know he's capable of killing penalties with success and he does that.

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Proud LGBTQQ Individual

Exactly, you may need to struggle through defense in order to play it well, but Vanek isn't that detrimental to our PK, especially since Roy is out, give him his chance to show he can play it again.

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Thing about Vanek on the PK is, no one knows why he was stopped playing on it. His PK unit was entirely successful those three or four games, and we've never seen Vanek on a regular PK shift since.

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mechaphil