J0e Th0rnton

Edler suspended the same amount for his headshot on Hertl

I wrote before the season started in the prediction thread to watch or Hertl to be a rookie of the year finalist

There's a problem with making fighting a game misconduct in that you'll get coaches sending goons out to try and force star players to fight. You see it happen already with it being a 5 minute penalty. I think you'd also just see fighting put off until the end of games where a game misconduct doesn't make as much of an impact.

 

I think end game solution will be to ban fighting all together, just like any other team sport. 

I used to hate this idea as a fan of Hockey before the old instigator rule, but I am kind of falling into this mindset now. Fighting no longer serves the purpose it once did, and is in fact usually a sideshow with enforcers fighting enforcers for no reason other than to fire the team up, or the targetting of star players by goons to get them off the ice.

Brent Burns has been a quasi-star player for the Minnesota Wild and the San Jose Sharks, an offensive defenseman who has holes in his game on the blue line that he makes up for with his size and his ability to move and fire the puck. Essentially halfway through his career, he is being moved to forward, playing the Wing where he will be a six foot five behemoth and the hope is he will be able to adjust to the forward role and take advantage of his obvious skills and hide his glaring weaknesses.

He excelled down the stretch with the position change last year, a true power forward, a giant forward playing mostly with Joe Thornton for the final 23 games, he had 9 goals and 11 assists for a total of 20 points in 23 games. He has been moved up to forward on occasion throughout his career and this seems to be a natural move for him. A monstrous power forward with a snarl and the willingness to crash the net seems to have been a natural match with Joe Thornton. Slick passing to a big body out front who is impossible to move seems ideal.

Mid career position switches for stars or near stars are rare, Red Kelly, a hall of fame defenseman for the Wings who finished his career with eight sterling seasons playing center for the Leafs comes to mind as the ultimate example. Kelly, who won eight cups (the most of any Non Montreal Canadien) had played a little forward in a pinch for the Wings was coming off a severely broken ankle with the Wings which robbed him of a lot of his maneuverability used his hockey IQ to star with the Leafs Dynasty that ushered out the original six era. Others have done it Ken Houston not a star but a hell of a hockey player with the Flames bounced between forward and defense in the seventies and early eighties, it is rare that it has any long term success but I have felt for a long time that Burns was a man out of position and give the brain trust in San Jose credit for seeing it and giving him this opportunity.

heh. I have liked what i have seen so far. Hertl being on that line is going to improve it as well. Hertl has been playing very well so far

2 goals and an assist for hertl in the first 2 games!!

The Sharks seem to have similar problems

Tmac for SJ if they get off to a bad start 

Hertl or Nieti will be candidates for rookie of the year

My own vote went top option #3. The code basically boils down to "we need enforcers top stop the dirty crap from being in the game. However, enforcers may only fight other enforcers, even if the other guy hasn't been doing any of the dirty stuff. As such let's just have the goons fight other goons after faceoffs."

 

JR

The code does not exist anymore.

It did long ago, but the instigator and the upbringing of players really made it go away.

Back in the day, an enforcer would go after a guy for intentionally spearing Yzerman, or slashing Gretzky, etc, and often you would see the other team get the message and back off when they saw probert or Semenko skating on the ice with that look. It often opened up a lot of space for the superstars.

But few are afraid of a little scrap these days.

Mind you, a goon like that has no business targetting a tiny skill player unless Kessel did something I did not see.

 

Just read this over at Sportsnet forum.......a lot of Leaf fans cannot stand Damien, me I like him!

 

Maple Leafs: Kadri signs, but relationship far from cozy

Maple Leafs and Nazem Kadri have awkward relationship that isn't getting any better, despite two year deal in place

 

By: Damien Cox Sports Columnist, Published on Wed Sep 11 2013

 

From Damien Cox’s blog The Spin.

 

Of course Nazem Kadri caved.

 

Then again, he’s just received a 75 per cent pay increase and at the tender age of 22 will earn $2.9 million this season as the second line centre for the Maple Leafs.

 

May we all “cave” at work today in such fashion.

 

Yes, Kadri wanted more, a lot more, with many more zeroes and more than a two-year commitment. Something in the neighborhood of John Tavares’ deal with the Islanders, six years and $33 million.

 

After one lockout-shortened season, it’s hard to say whether his demands were delusional and the product of an inexperienced agent, or perhaps a canny play to set the bar unreasonably high and then settle for a “bridge” contract that’s a little richer than most have been involving similar players.

 

Maybe it will impact similar contractual disputes between the Rangers and Derek Stepan and Buffalo and Cody Hodgson, maybe it won’t.

 

Aside from the financial implications, however, there’s a larger story here, and it’s that the relationship between Kadri and the Leafs continues to be fractious. Prickly. Contentious.

 

Pick whatever word you like. But this player and this team remain anything but on the same page.

 

It’s been that way almost since the day Kadri was made a first round pick by Brian Burke, and continues to be so.

 

The team has never been impressed with his commitment to fitness, or lack thereof, which one might think is a basic for elite NHLers. Kadri has pushed back - although, to his credit, never with angry public comments - and received counter-productive support from media types who never see him practice or play but want to tell the world the Leafs are being mean to him.

 

If anything, Kadri is one of the rare examples of a top prospect being intelligently and patiently developed by the Leafs, a franchise that has traditionally rushed and wrecked young players.

 

For that approach with Kadri, the team has been criticized in some corners for unreasonably holding him back.

 

There’s been internal concern about his “lifestyle” and friends. Kadri, for his part, insists he’s done everything that’s been asked of him along the way, which is sort of true and sort of not true. It’s not just been him butting heads with one Leaf figure; in succession Burke, Ron Wilson, Dallas Eakins, Dave Nonis and Randy Carlyle have all found Kadri lacking in terms of professionalism and performance.

 

Other players call him “The Dream” in the Leaf dressing room, and not necessarily in a complimentary way. He took all kinds of ribbing in recent weeks from his teammates for his exorbitant salary demands, and he couldn’t stop himself from publicly insisting he was being “fair” in what he was asking for, which implied his employer was not being fair.

 

So now he’s signed for two years, and now we’ll see if he can back up his self-belief with performance. He’s made it all about points, which means he will be judged by the points he can produce. If he can’t continue at the pace he set last season, Lord knows there will be enough people out there who will scream the team isn’t giving him the proper opportunity, as was the case with Mikhail Grabovski.

 

Which brings us to the truly salient point here; like Grabovski, it’s hard to see this marriage between Kadri and the Leafs being a long-term arrangement.

Even Kadri’s tweet last night after signing seemed muted, measured and anything but celebratory:

 

“Happy to be with leafs for next couple years, looking forward to camp #leafnation #best nation”

 

The Leafs have bought themselves two years to see what they’ve really got in this talented offensive player. But can you really see this player-team relationship going on much longer than that?

 

He might be the most talented offensive player the Leafs have drafted since Vincent Damphousse in ‘86. Or at least since Brad Boyes in 2000.

But Kadri and the Leafs are like bone rubbing against bone right now. The only former top Leaf pick with a similarly problematic relationship with the team who comes to mind would be Al Iafrate, who struggled under a weak organization and with his own insecurities and only truly blossomed after he left Toronto.

 

Iafrate never believed that the team appreciated him, at least not as much as others. You sure get that feeling with Kadri.

 

If Kadri succeeds under this contract, it’ll be with vindication in his heart and massive financial demands, regardless of how the team does. If he doesn’t, this contract fight will resume in two years, and it’ll be nastier, this time with Kadri armed with arbitration rights.

 

The likeliest scenario? Sometime in the next 2-4 years, Kadri will moved elsewhere in the same way Boston moved Tyler Seguin this summer. The Leafs, in calculating fashion, will extract what they can from Kadri’s abilities, then move him for maximum value to another team.

 

It’s not written in stone that way. But a great deal would have to change for this to become a happier, long term relationship.

Sometimes players and teams just don’t fit.

 

Kadri and the Leafs are like a Christmas morning sweater two sizes too small.

 

Uncomfortable.

 

In the case of grabs, I think they had a point.

This contract works. Short term, let's see if he can bring it

No matter how that rule is written, it will always remain a grey area. You won't find two people interpreting some hits the same way.

Agreed.

Usually it becomes a battle between fanbases.

Thornton's suspension over his hit on perron a few years ago made me wonder why this is even a contact sport anymore. He never really laid into him or put his weight behind the hit, but he was tall so boom, headshot. Perron was skating right at him, but looking for that suicide pass.

@J0e Th0rnton  It's the crest on the front, not the name on the back?!?!  Words to live by...lol.

haha. Well, I was a fan of a lot of players when i was younger. Particularly Neely and Bourque. So I naturally followed the bruins. but I always have followed players more than teams.

But things got tricky for a fan around the time Bourque retired. But still I cheered. But since around 1996, anytime a player on the team got, well, good, if his name was not Ray Bourque the Bruins management would trade the player because he wanted money. It was almost impossible to have favorite players. Saw so many players leave just because management wanted to have the second lowest budget in the league.....

No fan should have to put up with that for 10 years.

When they traded Thornton, it was kind of the last straw for me. All my favorites had retired or been traded and now the team was trading the only guy doing anything on the team. I decided to follow Thornton to the 2nd last place Sharks out of principle. I still cheered for certain bruins players like Bergeron and watched the games, but hated management. The Sharks went on a meteoric climb after the trade, while the Bruins plummeted to nearly worst in the league for 3 years. Seeing Sinden's face during the awards ceremony when Thornton was awarded the Hart trophy is still one of my favorite LOL moments of all time.

I cheered for the Bruins when they won the cup, but I still cheer for the sharks more and have gotten to know and love their players.

Unless they face the Bruins...

Sure

Remember I am a sharks fan now

All talk from the sharks indicate Hertl will play on the team. The question is in what capacity. Sheltered minutes or will he crack the top 6 as a winger? Pavelki often switches to wing.

I think they said it was his first time ever swinging golf clubs.

He will get plenty of practice for Golf come playoff time if he stays with the Habs

Uh oh. now I did it

In 3.....2.....1...

Thanks for the welcome. You have JT to blame for that.

 

As for Briere, I'm not sold on him but let's wait and see.

I invited you to our group PM so you would get to say hi to everyone

It is hard to pick goalies because they have such hit and miss seasons lol.

@Habsterix

Hey JL

Good to see you

I understand the guy has his off ice antics, but the impact he made for them in the playoffs was immediate, He has to at least be somewhat of a presence in the locker room or at least was.

 

Its also understandable that you can't keep a cancer outside of the team on the team.

See, when I heard he was suspended by nashville for a game in the playoffs, I figured it was something major. By the version I heard, him and Kos were only at the bar because the only places to eat were on the other side of town, the whole team went there and that he was only 15 minutes late for curfew.

http://www.edmontonsun.com/2013/07/22/ex-predators-winger-alexander-radulov-opens-up-about-night-out-in-phoenix

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1198348/

 

The soiree at the W—alcohol free, according to a source—was followed by an L for the Predators: The Coyotes dominated uncharacteristically sloppy Nashville 5--3 that night. Kostitsyn scored, but Radulov, other than an assist on a power-play goal, was noticeable only for his sloth. During the second intermission NBC Sports Network in-studio analyst Keith Jones, who customarily prepares highlight clips that range from 23 to 27 seconds, offered one minute and seven seconds of Radulov's hockey misdemeanors during the first two games of the series, a devastating show-and-tell that stripped the two-time MVP of Russia's Kontinental Hockey League and sold him for parts.

Then Radulov's evening really turned lousy.

Although one team official learned about 30 minutes before Game 2 that Radulov and Kostitsyn had broken the Predators' midnight curfew, he did not feel that it was the appropriate time to relay the news to coach Barry Trotz or general manager David Poile. Trotz learned of the indiscretion after his postgame press conference, when a reporter pulled him aside and mentioned that media members had spotted the two players out late the night before. When the Predators returned to the team hotel adjacent to Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, Trotz checked the security logs: Radulov and Kostitsyn indeed had returned around 1 a.m.

Radulov was summoned to a lobby restaurant, where Trotz was waiting, stiff in his white shirt and suit slacks. The tableau looked like a scene from The Godfather. They talked for 45 minutes. Two days later the Predators suspended the 25-year-old winger, their leading playoff scorer with six points, and Kostitsyn, a 27-year-old second-line wing. The players missed Game 3, an industrious 2--0 Nashville win, and then, because Trotz was not inclined to change a winning lineup, were scratched for Game 4 two nights later, when the Predators, lacking finish, lost 1--0. "It was a pretty easy decision," Poile said in announcing the suspension. "Our creed has always been to do the right thing." The moral high ground had a spectacular view of the abyss; down 3--1 in the series, the Predators faced elimination in Game 5 on Monday night.

For hockey's chattering classes—including some NHL executives—the Scottsdale episode represented a "Russian problem." Forget that while Radulov grew up in Nizhni Tagli, Kostitsyn is actually from Belarus. In the Russian Devolution all semblance of nuance is lost. Although it has been more than two decades since marquee players left a crumbling Soviet Union to play in the NHL, players from former bloc countries often are still tossed into the same pot of borscht. When former Flyers captain Mike Richards and teammate Jeff Carter—who helped the Kings into the Western Conference finals with a sweep of St. Louis—were exiled by Philadelphia last summer amid rumors of excessive partying, their story was never framed as an example of the shortcomings of Canadian players. But Russians (and fellow travelers) are not given the same benefit of individuality. They are, in the collective imagination of many in the league, me-first players who are shy on sacrifice and not fully committed to the idea of the Stanley Cup as the ultimate hockey prize.

"Their mentality is what it is," says Devils forward Patrik Elias, who is Czech. "A lot of the times they're being brought up to be individual players throughout their careers, because if you have the skills, you've got to show it.... And I think it's an adjustment for some of the guys to come here and build into that team system."

Thornton was also absent but as a new parent, I completely understand since his kid is in the hospital

Hahaha. Once a loafer always a loafer. Getting rich is a true character and discipline test. One a lot of guys fail

Hmmm. I can agree mostly

Chris Pronger

http://youtu.be/1hzlI1TqL6w

Can't really argue that.

But god I loved him as a player and hated him at the same time

@flyercanuck I don't want to get into a great debate either, but I do think that people that kill cops while committing a crime should face the death penalty. There needs to be more deterrents to insure police officers get to go home every night to their families. If it's totally clear cut and on tape, if irrefutable evidence, they should die. Just my 2 cents. For instance, in my Canada, a disgusting crime like Paul Bernado and Karla Homolka committed would be a death sentence. They got caught on tape, so it's irrefutable, tax payers should not be footing the bill for them. Now we find out Homolka got a sweetheart deal and Paul is applying to a minimum security prison, where they have actual condos for prisoners....DISGUSTING!!!

I actually agree.

Not to get into politics here, but when it is a "no chance this is an error" kinda case with Bernardo, and his videos he kept of himself raping innocent 13-14 year old girls and then murdering them......

I don't want my tax dollars paying a guy to watch him in prison, I want him dead.

I honestly feel like the penalty for Rape and child molestation(Without murder) should be castration. The laws we have are really not harsh enough to be a deterent. We see serial rapists who raped 10 people get out in 3-4 years. Christ, they should do 3-4 years per person with no chance of parole.

Been checking that site for years

Love it, although i often disagree with some descriptions and reviews of a fight