Tomdog

8 minutes ago, RBGordie said:

It's absolute disgusting that the refs could decide the game. Sickening. 

The refs decide a series every year, I can't remember a year where they haven't in one way or the other. 

Is Demko available, or is he still injured? 

Am I onto something, or on something. 

When BG look for guys who fit the "room" is he really looking for someone who is fine with being mediocre. Good enough to make the playoffs and not get crazy passed about losing in the first round. 

I picked Vegas to win in the family brackets, but I'm glad they lost.

More truth from Illa.

After looking at the playoff rosters to make my picks for the family playoff bracket, I find that every team has multiple top 10 or better drafted players. 

Most have at least 1 top 5 draft pick.

The only way we will have top talent on this team is to be bad or draft Russians and wait for them.

The Wild missed a huge opportunity to get a top 5 draft pick this year.

It doesn't require be epically bad for multiple years,  but a team does need to have a bad season occasionally. 

Maybe it really is time to trade away everyone they can and start over.

4 hours ago, tucson83 said:

unless the maple leafs win the cup, i still think this team needs to be broken up because there's too many top heavy forwards that want the puck and it's causing a divide in the locker room, they have to get rid some of the core and fix the d.

Even if they win the cup I would move on from Marner. 
Just don’t send him to Minnesota, we want playoff performers, and he isn’t one. 

Watching the Oilers PP with all the rotation and movement was pretty impressive. 
Most teams PP has players scattered around and moving side to side or front to back but everyone moving really creates confusion for the defense.  I don’t think you really need the best player on the planet to make it work. 

16 hours ago, JR Ewing said:

There's not much to say about this one... The Kings were never really in it, and when they tried to press, generated next to nothing. One thing remains obvious, considering the times these games start: Gary Bettman will gleefully lose hundreds of millions in the desert to try and secure a big TV audience...but then he'll have Connor McDavid playing at 10:20 est.

 

I think you’re right about this and I think half the of the NHL fans underestimate Mcdavid’s talent because they don’t stay up late enough to see him. 
I hope the Mn Wild watched that PP so they can emulate it. 
Just so scary good on the PP. 

OMG does Ovie look like a statue on the power play. 

He really needs to get in shape for next year if he wants to catch Gretzky. 

And maybe that the Wild lead the league in attendance gives the owner the idea that all is well with his team.

Watching 2nd overtime and the Islanders just score.

But it looks like the arena is not full!

Come on Islander fans, where are you? 

Going into 26-27 with Foligno, Hartman, and Gadreau carrying the team will mean the Wild will be in tank mode whether they know it or not.

I honestly don't know how the Wild can play their youth if they deserve it without straight out releasing the dead weight. 

If you don't have cap space to healthy scratch a player so a young guy can play and you can't trade them because of a ntc, how do you make cap space?

Does it come down to straight out releasing the dead weight?

On 10/9/2023 at 8:41 PM, Tomdog said:

That's 240 goals, hope that's enough. 

Evidently not enough. 

I was off by 11. They ended up scoring 251 for the season.

3 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

Said rookies / young players are going to have step up and take spots occupied by vets and encouraged them to do it, or at least push for it to push the vets to be better.  

Hard for a young player to push a vet out of the way when the coach insists on playing the vet.

Merril and Gaudreau were out played all year by younger guys and still got their ice time.

Time for the coaches to stop playing favorites and play the producers.

10 hours ago, Jimtown guy said:

Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin made a rather startling revelation about Brock Faber as he met with the media Friday for the final time this season.

"Brock's been playing with fractured ribs for two months," Guerin said. "That's the type of kid he is. He never complained ... he could've been out of the lineup a number of times, and he just wasn't."

"I'll take him with one rib," Wild head coach John Hynes joked.

That probably explains the lack of shooting for the last month.

At Least I thought he was shooting less.

Imo I don’t think they get scolded at all.

I think the staff suggests stuff and they go out and do what they want. 

 It's almost as if everyone is playing for themselves - including staff - because they know they're always on the hot seat - almost like they're being forced to all play together - or like they're being forced to play a certain style that they don't want...  

I disagree completely with this part of your post, not that you're wrong,  I just don't see it.

In fact I see it completely in the opposite. How many times do we hear coaching say they want more North/South play, take it to the net, get deeper? But it seldom happens, other than the 4th line.

It appears to me that the top 3 lines really don't need to do what coaching says because coaching has no choice but to play them.

For 3 games EEk, Kap and Boldy played deep north south take it to the net hockey and tore it up.

Then they stopped and went back to curling above the face off circle and try the rink wide pass. Why?

I doubt there will be anyone left at 13 who are talented with size.

IMO that leaves 3 choices, draft size and hope the talent develops, draft small and talented or draft talented with a chance of a huge growth spurt,

It seems this team has an over abundance of small with some talent. 

And all that is accurate,  but if you never break the comfort zone of what is a known commodity you won't find anything better than what you have.

And what we have isn't good enough. 

1 hour ago, IllaZilla said:

But if you look at CapFriendly.com, the money is comparable to other players with similar stats and age. But those players didn’t get NTC/NMC’s too. 
So none of the Wild players took a team friendly deal PLUS they got the NTC/NMC. 

I guess we could start calling BG Fletcher 2.0

I read some of the article on his firing. Said they were expected to compete for a playoff spot this year. 
In what alternate universe was that?

looking at their roster makes me wonder how they finished as well as they did. 

The only reason for these nt, nm clauses should be for taking a serious team friendly deal. 
I could see a 1 year clause, like Zucc wanting one this year for the birth of a kid, but other than that no. 

That's a new scoring trend. Bounce it off the goalies head.

How long until goalies are concussed?

5 minutes ago, Alexandron said:

McJesus has an impressive outstanding stats. In 9 played NHL seasons he had more than 100 points per season in 7 seasons in his career. 

That's the kind of player you tank for.

Oilers with 3 field goals over San Jose.