AJgoal

@Bakanekimiwa: Exactly the point I was trying to make.

@brelic: It was offside, although you didn't notice it right away. The linesman was in bad position because even he was following the play up the ice. Got away with it, but at that point it was still 3-1, so it's minor in regards to the overall game. In regards to the Stall post - and if the Flyers had buried some of the great chances that they had early in the game, we wouldn't be talking about a comeback win, but a blowout win.

Aziz, Frankly, I agree. I don't believe the Pens were handed the cup. However I can see how some (many?) could argue the point. In my mind, it's similar to the no goal that gave Dallas the cup over Buffalo - the league bent/broke the rules in order to protect...something. Ratings? Reputation? I don't know. Removing Malkin from the POs, even for a game, would have hurt the league, probably moreso than the bending of the rule did. In the same way, ignoring the skate in the crease did less damage than it potentially might have to review the call and overturn the goal, after the Stars were out on the ice celebrating. How do you go back and reset and say, "No, sorry, it didn't happen?" They should have. I can understand why they may not have, though. And disagree with it wholeheartedly.

Except that Malkin went on to have a 3 point game in Game 3, getting the primary assists on the first three goals. One could easily argue that without Malkin, the Pens would not have won that game and been down 3-0 instead of just 2-1. It's impossible to tell, of course. But it's a serious possibility. Malkin dominated that game en route to the CS.

I think that this is a reference to how in Game 2 of the SCF, Malkin got into a fight with Henrik Zetterberg in the last minute of the game. Now, Carcillo had gotten a one-game suspension for a punch to Talbot earlier in the same playoff season under similar conditions: Less than 1 minute left in a game that was out of reach. At the time of the suspension, the NHL said thus: 'We held a conference call Monday with the general managers and coaches of playoff teams and told them explicitly we would not tolerate attempts by clubs to 'send a message' late in a game when the outcome had been determined,' said Colin Campbell, the NHL's senior executive vice president of hockey operations." While I can't find the quote, I remember at the time Campbell saying something to the effect that Carcillo had no business being on the ice at that point in time in the game. Stevens and Carcillo were also fined for the incident. Fast forward to game 2 of the SCF. Detroit's up 3-1, there's 20 seconds or so left. Talbot spears Osgood, a scrum breaks out, and Malkin jumps Zetterberg from behind, throws several punches into the back of his head, swings his stick at Zetterberg's back, throws some more punches, then Zetterberg can finally get turned around and an actual fight starts between the two. Rule 47.22 states: "A player who is deemed to be the instigator of an altercation in the final five minutes or at any time in overtime shall be suspended for one game, pending a review of the incident. The director of hockey operations will review every such incident and may rescind the suspension based on a number of criteria. The criteria for the review shall include, but not be limited to, the score, previous incidents, etc..." (At least it did at the time) Malkin was given an instigator penalty for the altercation, and the requisite 1 game suspension. But the suspension was then pulled back. The league's official statement on the no suspension of Malkin: "Suspensions are applied under this rule when a team attempts to send a message in the last five minutes by having a player instigate a fight. A suspension could also be applied when a player seeks retribution for a prior incident. Neither was the case here and therefore the one game suspension is rescinded." Video of the Malkin incident: Video of what Carcillo was suspended for: Hence the claim that the league "handed" the pens the '09 cup.

Anybody have any updates on Briere and Grossman? That is what this thread is about, right?

Well, there's also the fact that Briere and Giroux/Couturier are teammates, while Lemieux was the owner of the Pens and therefore Crosby's boss. If Giroux or Couturier moved in with Snider, it would have been concerning to me. Not so with another player, especially a team leader.

Playing Devil's advocate here cause I think the Atlantic and Central are the two toughest, but: Maybe the Atlantic teams are doing so well because the other two divisions in the East are poor.

While I would love to see Read get the Calder, Landeskog should probably win it at this point. Not only is he leading in goals and points, he's come on at the right time (21 of his 48 points in the last two months) and has helped Colorado climb back into the Playoff picture. He is second among rookies in +/- {Interesting note, Flyers have 4 of the top 10 - Couturier (3rd), Gustafsson (t-5th), Wellwood (7th in 17 games!), and Read (t-8th)}, plays in all situations, leads all rookie forwards in ice time, and is fourth among qualified rookies in points per game. The only thing that might propel Nugent-Hopkins over him is that he has one fewer point at this stage over 22 fewer games. Read, unfortunately, just won't get the consideration he deserves, even though he's second in goals and 4th in points. Writers are going to forget that unlike the other three of the top four, Read spent the majority of the season on the third line - yet, despite this, he only has 5 points less than Landeskog in 5 fewer games. Henrique has 4 more points than him, but is playing between Parise and Kovalchuk. If he didn't have more points than Read, it would be surprising.

It's amazing, isn't it? Before the season started, I thought the team was a 4-6 seed, and maybe a round one win in the playoffs. But the way the new guys and kids are playing, it's not hard to see them competing for the cup. A bit of a long shot, maybe, but within the realm of possibility, especially if everyone maintains their current level of play and playoff Briere shows up. In a few years, if the team is held together, could be a really strong group.

@Bertmega - I like those lines, but you left Read out. Read-Couturier-Welly might make a heck of a fourth line. I'm not sure if Rinaldo brings enough to the table to bench Wellwood in favor of him at this point, and I'm actually pretty alright with Rinaldo's game. @Jack - That's kind of what I was thinking. JVR did pretty well on Giroux's wing last year. Maybe take Bert's lines and put Voracek with Schenn, JVR with Giroux, and Jagr with Briere? The talent is definitely there, just need to tweak it to get the best out of every line.

@Bertmega. I somewhat agree with Briere. He's working hard, getting to and controlling the puck, but he's not finishing. He's been getting helpers, but it seems they're more "luck" (bad word for it, but the best I can come up with) than due to chemistry with any particular player like he had with Leino and Hartnell in 2010. This is not to say I think he's playing poorly, just that he seems like he's not really clicking with anyone on the team, except maybe Jagr when they're together in 4-on-4 situations. And I'm loathe to split up Jagr and Giroux. I think Danny needs a banger on his line to give him some space, but he maybe needs someone to control the puck like Leino did to give him a little extra time to get to open areas when he doesn't have the puck as well? I dunno.

They need to get 6 points vs. the Rags and Pens to have a shot. I don't have time to look at the Pens and Rangers' schedules, But with both ahead of the Flyers in the standings and the Pens having a game in hand, strength of schedule is going to be important. Looking at the schedule, I'd say the Flyers have a good chance to go 7-3 or 8-2.

There's another out in the CBA which was brought up in the offseason, that is often overlooked: The cap floor. Now, let's assume that Bryzgalov is an average goaltender at 37. His contract is actually quite tradeable. Why? Say you're Columbus, or Florida. A team with an internal budget that doesn't come close to the cap. You can pick up Bryzgalov for an actual monetary cost of 2.25 million dollars, but he gives you 5.67 million, more than double his actual salary, towards the cap floor. That can be invaluable to a franchise with a thin wallet.

The CBA expires on September 15. It's expected that as a part of the new CBA, the owners will want to roll back players' salary percentages. 20 percent of 72 million is roughly 14 million, or a drop to 58 million. Since the new CBA would have to be signed this offseason, it creates a cap rollercoaster. Spending to the cap this offseason is not advisable. Edit: To clarify, the drop from 72 to 58 is expected to be THIS summer. That is, it's expected to go up to 72 until the CBA expires on September 15, then drop to whatever the new number is once the new CBA goes into effect.

Not really. Say Holmgren spends to the 72 million dollar offseason cap. If the cap then falls to 58 million, the Flyers would be forced to shed a ton of salary, and not necesarily in players they want to get rid of. This is problematic since the CBA expires with only a couple weeks to go until the season starts. Teams may put off signing free agents until the new cap is in place, but those players will miss training camp and most of the offseason, unless they come in on "tryout" contracts. The best solution may be to keep the cap for the season, then lower it next offseason, allowing teams to buy out players at that time. Small market teams may not like it very much, but I can see the way the cap is anticipated to behave this summer playing hell with just about everyone.

It's a function of the current CBA. The big jump is probably at least partially related to the loss of Atlanta in favor of Winnipeg. However, the prevailing conventional wisdom is that the owners will want to cut back on the percantage that the players get, and decrease the cap in the new CBA.

Classic Philly-Boston game on the comcast network. Macleish just scored to make it 1-0.

One of the other benchmarks used for charging that seems to have been forgotten in recent years was always the number of strides taken into a hit. That is, if you kept skating into a hit, rather than gliding and letting your momentum carry you into it, it was a charge. The definition of charging has always been fairly open to interpretation.

Honestly, I thought he'd do a lot better than he did this season. But he was a victim of the play of the rooks as much as anything else. And going to Carolina isn't going to be really good for anyone's point totals.

@ Aziz - everyone's allowed to make a mistake every once in a while. Even if they are pretty big. -ducks-

Guesswork. It's a crappy way to do it, and I'm sure they'll push to get it installed sooner rather than later. Just not sure how far apart the groups are. I doubt anyone wants a stoppage like a few years ago.

@Vanflyer: The cap is expected to rise over the summer, HOWEVER, it's expected to go way down once the new CBA is in place. I posted a link about a month ago about how teams are trying to come up with "internal budgets" for this offseason to try to compensate for not knowing what the cap will be once the CBA goes into effect. Edit: ""Temporary salary cap In what has been a vastly under-the-radar story, a buzz item among NHL GMs these days is how they’re going to approach this summer with what will be a higher but temporary salary cap number. Confused? The collective bargaining agreement doesn’t expire until Sept. 15 at midnight ET. But NHL teams have to conduct business under this current CBA until then. As per the current system, the salary cap is once again expected to rise as of June 30 from the current $64.3 million upper limit to as high as $68 million to $69 million, according to guesstimates from some team executives. That new cap number will exist only from June 30 to whenever a new CBA comes into effect. The obvious issue is that most teams believe the cap will go down in the new CBA as owners try to scale back the players’ percentage of revenues (the players will have a mighty say in that, however). So, you could have a situation where the cap is around $69 million for the summer and then much lower come the fall with a new CBA (again, the players will have a say in that). This will force teams to come up with their own internal cap number based solely on guesswork this summer, because the last thing a team wants is to have a $69 million payroll on Aug. 30 and then be told it needs to shed a chunk of it come the new CBA in the fall. Either way, just another wrinkle for this summer’s free-agent market."

See: Florida Panthers?

The play of the new folks. Bundy and Saunders trotted out a stat during the Washington game that nearly 50% of the Flyers goals have been scored by first-time Flyers. Not necessarily rookies, just guys who haven't played in a game for the team before this year.