JR Ewing

Gretzky scored #894 in his 1,477th game played. 1. Figuring it out was very easy: I went to his profile at Hockey Reference: https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/g/gretzwa01.html 2. Saw that he came into his last season with 1,415 GP. 3. Brought up his gamelog from his final season: https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/g/gretzwa01/gamelog/1999 4. Goal #894 came in his 62nd game of the year. 5. 1415 + 62 = 1477

Come on; you know that's not what I said. Yeah, it would have been close. The Sabres had a Pts% of .556 with Quinn in the lineup, which equates to around 91 points in the standings, like the Red Wings. The Caps and Red Wings were really only in the playoff hunt more for the types of losses they had than the wins they were getting. Would have been closer, though.

It's almost as if Buffalo's management isn't amazing at assessing talent.

Jiricek is already positively impacting results in Columbus, too. Big physical defenders with two-way skills trump all but the most productive wingers.

For a bit of fun, a comparison: Pierre Luc-Dubois 78 GP, 15-24-39, -10 Cap Hit – $8.5M Cost of Acquisition: traded for Alex Iafallo, Rasmus Kupari, and Gabriel Vilardi Warren Foegele: 77 GP, 17-20-37, +1 Cap Hit: $2.75M Cost of Acquisition: traded for Ethan Bear This trade-and-sign is the gift that keeps giving.

The Oilers hit with three picks in 1979, then four in 1980 and three in 1981 and built a dynasty from it. They did in three years what most teams manage in 25 seasons. The Red Wings hit with six in 1989, four in 1990, and four in 1991, and that gave them a dynasty run which let the winning run on fumes for about 20 years. When only two teams have ever done this, asking Briere to do it is just not a reasonable expectation.

There's hope and then there's hopium.

It would be better than nice if Briere could draft four actual NHL players; it would be an astoundingly successful result. The Flyers have done this three times since they began drafting in 1967. It's really quite rare. My own line in the sand for "actual NHL player" is one who can play 250 games in this league. Note that I'm not saying star players or impact players, but one who can provide enough value to play for a few years. 2003: Jeff Carter, Mike Richards, Colin Fraser, Alexandre Picard 1983: Rick Tocchet, Peter Zezel, Derrick Smith, Pelle Eklund 1972: Bill Barber, Tom Bladon, Jimmy Watson, Al MacAdam Danny Briere will almost surely not draft four NHL players this June.

No, this is one where perception, particularly from people who don't watch many western games, doesn't match reality. You'll hear that the Oilers can't defend AND have terrible goaltending, but they have the 9th-lowest GA/GP in the NHL, and the 5th-lowest since the coaching change.

From Field of Schemes: Scottsdale mayor to Coyotes owner on arena plan: “Not feasible, or welcome” 4–5 minutes Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: The Arizona Coyotes‘ proposed arena site is not in Scottsdale. It’s right next to Scottsdale, but it’s not in Scottsdale — much like the Oakland A’s proposed stadium site is on what’s called the Las Vegas Strip, but not actually within the city limits. Still, just like when Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said she thought the A’s should stay in Oakland, when the mayor of Scottsdale says that he doesn’t want a Coyotes arena on his doorstep, that’s not exactly a great way to create momentum for the Coyotes’ arena campaign: The prospect of a rookie developer attempting to buy Arizona State Trust Land with absolutely no infrastructure on the Phoenix side of the 101/Scottsdale Road intersection at the doorstep of Scottsdale is not feasible, or welcome… I admire the hockey sport, Arizona Coyotes community involvement and phenomenal youth clubs at the Scottsdale Ice Den. But I along with City of Scottsdale staff will continue to monitor any actions that occur, and negative repercussions for Scottsdale. As it stands today, the fantasy hockey project must move west, away from Scottsdale. Mayor David Ortega’s specific beef is about water and sewer lines, which he said he has no intention of providing from Scottsdale, and wants extended from Phoenix to the west instead. (He did say Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego “confirmed that all utilities must be extended from 56th Street,” which isn’t exactly clear about whether Gallego is offering to foot the roughly $100 million bill for that, or is just acknowledging that whoever gets the land would need to pay for it.) Ortega also complained that “the dream Coyote retail components sit too close to the retail lions of Scottsdale,” implying that he thinks it would just cannibalize economic activity from his city. Again, none of this is a death knell for the Coyotes project, as Ortega’s approval isn’t needed. But as we just saw in Kansas City, development subsidy plans are most likely to fail when all the “growth coalition” ducks aren’t in a row, so starting off with one elected official loudly proclaiming that the arena should stay offa his lawn is definitely not what Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo would want. For now, Meruelo needs to focus on winning a public auction for the land he wants — currently set for June 27 — and then getting both Phoenix and Maricopa County to sign off on the creation of what Arizona calls a “theme park district” within which a tax surcharge would be levied on sales or business income and then kicked back to pay off construction bonds. This isn’t a TIF, because it’d be a new tax on top of the development paying normal taxes to the city and county, but it’s also not quite like a tax just on tickets where the money mostly comes out of a team owner’s pockets because economics; I’m currently engaged in a lengthy email exchange with a couple of economists about how exactly to figure out what should count as the public cost, but since we don’t know the projected total amount of the tax surcharge it’s a bit premature anyway. If Meruelo doesn’t get what he wants, team CEO Xavier Gutierrez has warned, “the NHL has made it very clear” that “we would have to look at other markets,” which is not what commissioner Gary Bettman has been saying out loud, but sure, rattle that move threat saber. It doesn’t sound like at least one local elected is impressed, but maybe you’ll have better luck finding Phoenix or Maricopa County officials who are more admiring of the hockey sport. https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2024/04/09/21272/scottsdale-mayor-to-coyotes-owner-on-arena-plan-not-feasible-or-welcome/

He's in Philly for the rebuild, and was brought in for "accountability" and "culture change". If a winner is be made from this project (and getting a superstar is unlikely with the course they're taking) he won't be the coach by the time it happens.

100% This sentiment of "Oh, but he never won a Cup" seems to be widespread among the media, players and fans. At some point we may have to realize that the attitude of Stanley Cup or bust is not reasonable in an era with a salary cap, 32 teams, especially when randomness, goaltending (which is another species of randomness), and overtimes plays such a big role in who ultimately wins. And now, above all of that, we have a new model, which grants the best chance to win the Cup to the team whose General Manager is able to use LTIR to over-load his team with more impact players and still be cap-compliant during the regular season. This was raised to comic levels by Tampa Bay and Vegas, who had Kucherov and Stone practicing for a month before the playoffs, before finally being ready to go immediately after the end of the regular season. A million things have to go right in order to win the Cup and anybody with an approach of "Hey; if we get in we have a chance" is deluding themselves. They're plucky and have a strong Give a Sh|t/60 but, no, they're not remotely ready.

@radoran Right. He's not a bad coach at all, and I don't think he abuses his staff like some coaches, but his style wears on the players and the message gets old after about three seasons.

Sources: NHL, Arizona Coyotes working on agreement to sell and relocate to Salt Lake City Frank Seravalli UPDATE [3:02 p.m. ET]: Sources tell Daily Faceoff that the NHL, Arizona Coyotes and Smith Entertainment Group have made significant and meaningful progress on an agreement that would see the Coyotes franchise sold and relocated to Salt Lake City, Utah. The machinations of the potential deal, which would have a renamed and rebranded franchise playing in Salt Lake in October, are mentioned below in the original story from Wednesday morning. The NHL sent an update memo to the Board of Governors on Wednesday amid media speculation. Sources said Coyotes players have been informed a “verbal” agreement is in place, but we have received pushback on that characterization of talks. To date, no deal has been completed. There is much work to be done, and it’s complicated and will involve many layers and lawyers. Stay tuned. _____ The NHL is concurrently drafting two versions of a league schedule matrix for the 2024-25 season, one with the Arizona Coyotes and another with the Coyotes franchise playing in Salt Lake City in the event of relocation, multiple sources told Daily Faceoff. That does not mean the NHL has firmed up plans to relocate the franchise yet, just that the league has a viable contingency plan for next season. But the news comes on the heels of billionaire prospective owner Ryan Smith publicly soliciting potential names for an NHL team in Utah earlier this week. As the NHL has been working on dual paths, multiple sources indicate Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is intimately involved in both. The first, of course, involves the Coyotes remaining in the Phoenix area by building a new arena via Arizona State Land Trust auction, which is scheduled for June 27. But there is a real possibility that the Coyotes franchise is not based in Arizona come June 27. The second path involves Meruelo selling control of the franchise in a multi-layered process that would include Smith Entertainment Group paying north of $1.2 billion, part of which is a relocation fee that would be distributed to league owners. Smith owns the NBA’s Utah Jazz and the yet-to-be renamed NHL team would temporarily play in the basketball-oriented Delta Center until a multipurpose arena could be built to adequately house both teams. “We are interested. We are ready, and we’re a partner,” Smith told The Athletic this week. “The arena is done. We think we have a solution. And that’s my message to the NHL.” An announcement on a sale and relocation could come as soon as April 18, the day after the Coyotes’ final regular season home game at the 4,600-seat Mullett Arena on the campus of Arizona State University. Sources continually cautioned that no deal is done, Meruelo remains steadfast in his belief that he can build a gleaming new palace for the Desert Dogs, and the NHL is working hard to avoid a long and protracted battle that could surface if Meruelo is not satisfied with the terms of a transaction. Sources briefed on the ongoing discussions indicated Meruelo could receive up to $1 billion for the Coyotes. The exact figures of the proposed transaction are speculated and all details and mechanics of a proposed deal remain fluid. “Lots of moving pieces,” one source said. “Nothing is resolved at this point.” The NHL still has time to play this out for next season, but the clock is ticking. The sale and relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg was not substantially complete until May 20, 2011, and not formally announced until May 31. If a Coyotes sale and relocation does not materialize by late May, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said last month that waiting until a June land auction date would likely ensure the Coyotes will play at least one more season at Mullett Arena. Many questions remain, but one stands out: with all of this is happening behind the scenes, why did the Coyotes release arena renderings and a strongly worded commitment to Arizona last week? Perhaps the answer is that Meruelo intends to win the June 27 land auction and develop that sports and entertainment district in the hopes of luring the NHL back to Arizona with a future expansion franchise. Sources said part of the agreement to sell now could include language that would allow Meruelo to ‘reactivate’ the Coyotes franchise in future years, including name and trademarks, if a new arena is built and terms and conditions of the agreement with the NHL are met. That part shouldn’t be a surprise to hockey fans. After two decades of wandering in the desert, the NHL has ardently supported hockey in Phoenix at every turn, and commissioner Gary Bettman doesn’t have any intention of leaving fans or the market high and dry. https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/sources-nhl-drafting-2024-25-schedule-version-with-coyotes-relocated-to-salt-lake-city

The combination of losing their best two-way defender and gaining a sub-replacement one is a thing.

Yeah, I don't disagree with trading him at all. He's on the wrong side of 30 and not a core player going forward. The "keep him around" part was in reference to the post to which I originally was responding, where the other poster was asking which players could be expected to maintain their level of play.

As cheesy as it may be to quote myself...

I don't know if it's so much that Ersson has been badly over-worked as that the the club traded their best blue-liner and added their worst one during this stretch.

Owen Tippett is an offense-first guy who is below average defensively, and he's still light years better than Skinner, who has no interest or ability to help on the defensive side of the puck and would rather do just about anything other than dig in the corners. Skinner is overpaid by about $4.5M and Tippett's next contract is right on the money for AAV. I know who'd I rather have every day. I think the chief difference between them is that Torts generally treats his players with respect while Sutter's players mostly despised him and felt constantly disrespected. Tortorella usually stands up for his players and doesn't air dirty laundry to the media, while Sutter's teams have locked him out of the dressing room rather than be subjected to more of his sh|t. Guys are willing to push themselves for somebody who challenges them, but not so much for coaches who kick players in the back on the bench, constantly kick/throw garbage cans around the room, forbid them to eat on flights if they lose, etc. When Jonathon Huberdeau left the game due to injury, the press was amused when Sutter said he left "to take a ****" but the player and his teammates felt it was disrespectful and belittling of him being hurt. When Jakob Pelletier made his NHL debut, Sutter was dismissive, asking what his number was and that he has a long way to go as a player, which was another point against him with Flames players. Sutter is a throwback to the days when coaches were allowed to abuse players as they wished, and I've never heard that Tortorella pulls any of that kind of crap. It's just one player after another who has say that's demanding but fair, and that he always sticks up for them.

I love it when teams other than my own over-pay low calorie wingers after being paired up with a high end centre who brings them career highs. The Sabres pairing Jeff Skinner with Jack Eichel and then laying out a $9M AAV, will never not be funny. My guess is that people around here will think that I just care about stats, but it couldn't be further from the truth. I like to read the numbers because it gives me an understanding of what happened when I can’t watch. It surrounds the player’s upside & downside in some ways. But for me, the sport has always been about one-on-one battles when it comes to serious hockey. Not the hockey you see in January between a top 4 team and one out of the playoffs, but between evenly-matched skill during the Spring. Some refer to it as Darryl Sutter hockey, and I guess that's right, although I didn’t really like him as a HC because he makes his teams play that way all season, so they're gassed come playoffs – but I ramble. When I watch d-men in their own end, I watch who comes out of the corners with the puck. Along the boards, I watch to see which forward gets the puck out over the line when they have the chance; who ties up the guys stick in the slot. Things like that. I love watching the beautiful plays, of course, because the skill makes watching the game fun & exciting. But the trenches are, for me, where games are won and lost once the skill becomes neutralized. I've seen Jeff Skinner score some pretty goals, and that's great, but I'm not sure I ever saw Jeff Skinner come off the boards with the puck when it was contested. To me, that is a problem when people are discussing numbers getting close to 8,9,10, etc million dollars per season.

This is where I'm at as well. I *loved* the energy and emotion in games back when there was a lot more fighting, but it's tough to see so many men dying so young, and their last years being spent in so much pain. When I was a kid, the constant message was "nobody really gets hurt in hockey fights" and that it was just fat lips and black eyes. Just check out this article from the CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-enforcers-study-1.6838788

To add my bit to the pile... For anybody who has a VPN, this site has amazing quality: https://nhl66.ir/

This is such a silly point of conversation, just like most ridiculous conspiracy theories. Nobody can prove that the NHL didn't rig the draft in Edmonton's favour just like nobody can prove that the Easter Bunny doesn't exist. So what; it doesn't make it true.

Arizona? The league has bent over backwards to keep that sorry franchise where they are, to the extent that they're now playing in a tiny college arena where the fans of opposing teams outnumber people cheering for the Coyotes. The team is almost literally just a dumping grounds for LTIR contracts.