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radoran

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Everything posted by radoran

  1. We can safely say the past decade would have been much different...
  2. Well they saw what a great job of it he did in Minnesota...
  3. It's not that hard to be mediocre in the NHL. You have to work to be bad (Arizona). You have to work to be good. You can muddle along in the middle for quite a long time.
  4. "The problem" was that Giroux and Voracek simply weren't good enough to build a competitive team around. Everything done in service of the idea that they were was doomed to failure.
  5. The Devil's picks in those drafts aside from Hischier aren't much to write home about. It's picking top 10 in five of the last six drafts. It's not "spending to the cap" just to spend to the cap. It's not an "aggressive retool." It's not "make the playoffs and anything can happen."
  6. He did spend the first two years digging out from under the Pronger, Lecavalier and assorted other cap problems. Sucks that the second best FA that year was then JVR... But a lot of what he was trying to do was set a floor foundation to build on and, having set that, he got fired and they immediately plunged back into the cap hell that they have been known for... He had his blunders and didn't do anything that makes you go "wow" but when you look at Seattle and St. Louis it might not have been the coaches that were the problem...
  7. No, but it is year one bad he's benched guys on long term deals. No, not a bad thing in and of itself and with potential benefits. It's year 3/4/5 where this approach starts to wear. It's not "playing for the money" but if you can play somewhere else where this guy isn't trolling you for three years you might consider it. Again, not a huge issue "today" but certainly one to be aware of in the medium term.
  8. You can't make a guy a guaranteed millionaire and keep treating him like a servant with the penalty being that he'll be paid millions of dollars to be somewhere you aren't. Again, it works sometimes but it really hasn't shown to be an effective tactic at least since the lockout.
  9. The thing is that the tactic works sometimes for him and so he employs it all the time. It works with some players, so if it doesn't work with this player it's the player's fault. Thing is, Sanheim has eight years and fifty million reasons that he doesn't give a rat's ass what Tortorella says. And his No Trade Clause likewise gives him a perspective that the coach just might not be here longer than the player. So, here's the deal, if I play bad, you might bench me, and they might trade me to another team, but it's far more likely they'll change the coach. They have before. That's the danger side of the tactic with "today's player."
  10. This has ALWAYS been the problem since Homer "won the trades" (and honestly before that, but they had actually built a core that their vaunted organizational culture apparently allowed to become party central - why don't they just buy everyone a Porsche? #toosoon - if you want to believe that instead of the obvious fact that they just BROKE Mike Richards and then dumped his contract). But I digress... The organization* insisted that building around the VeeGees would work, despite the fact that they were never the best players in their division, much less the league. They now insist that building around a bunch of guys in their late 20s and early 30s that no one else wanted is the core of a successful franchise. And that's not working. The Rangers and Devils are already ahead of the Flyers and the Flyers losing in seven to the Cup Finalist Rangers TEN YEARS AGO was a "good sign." Both of them never pretended that "spending to the cap" and "competing every year" was a viable strategy. The Rangers were a Cup Finalist, tore it all down, and are a seriously competitive franchise making deadline moves to acquire "star" rental players ALL SINCE THEN. The Flyers were a Cup Finalist and continue to aspire to be a middling bubble playoff team. The main difference between them and the Coyotes is that the Flyers don't need to pretend to get to the cap floor. Like the Habs, they spend to the ceiling to get mediocre results. That's the unfortunate truth.
  11. Tortorella took the 8th place Blue Jackets in the Metropolitan and over the course of five years transformed them into the 8th place team in the Central. In the middle were some playoff years, and they even won a round. And were right back where they started five years later. So, a middling, bubble playoff team that makes the playoffs more often than they miss, eh? Well, it's a marginal improvement on the past decade, I guess... Talent wins playoff rounds. Talent wins Stanley Cups. Grit, hard work, and determination can only get so far without talent. They have a fifth of the cap on IR - and I don't mean @OccamsRazor's fifth, either. Potentially for the next two seasons, and $13+M on the cap potentially for two more after that. It just goes to show that you don't build around guys in their early 30s.
  12. They point out the Coyotes Legends who never played for the team Hossa - Datsuyk - Little Weber - Pronger
  13. Well, he was five years in Columbus where he took the 8th place team in the Metropolitan, got them to the playoffs, won a round, and left as the coach of the... 8th place team in the Central.
  14. https://ca.sports.yahoo.com/news/nhl-coyotes-shea-weber-contract-vegas-golden-knights-dysin-mayo-013339627.html Back in the beforetime (2012), then-Flyers General Manager Paul Holmgren offered Predators RFA Shea Weber a 14 year contract just before the CBA was amended to stop these kind of cap shenanigans. Predators General Manager "had to match" the offer, got four years out of Weber and traded him to Montreal. The Habs got parts of five seasons out of him and he dragged them to the Cup Final despite a raft of injuries that subsequently sidelined him. He hasn't played since 2021. His contract went to Vegas for Dadonov, because Weber on IR was a better cap move than Dadonov on the ice. And now it resides in the desert, with the Arizona Salary Dump. The Coyotes traded a player to get the contract and a fifth rounder. They will pay $1M a year for the next three years to get $7.4M a year in credit on the cap and be the second team to have the player not play for them. And the Holmgren legacy lives on.
  15. Well, it was COVID, and then the injuries, or the injuries, and then COVID and then the injuries, and then I ran out of gas! I got a flat tire! I didn’t have change for cab fare! I lost my tux at the cleaners! I locked my keys in the car! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT'S NOT CHUCK'S FAULT! HE SWEARS TO GOD! "General Manager of the last Flyers club to win a playoff round" #legendary
  16. You may have that reversed. What has Felix ever shown, well, ever?
  17. I'm all for dealing him. Worried that the "may go back to Russia" aspect doesn't affect his value. Not to mention the whole "Chuck Fletcher" aspect of things.
  18. I mean, look at what he's done for Ottawa.
  19. I'm not sure that "value" is the same. When you go into a game "knowing" that the fight will happen is it the same as a response to a provocation? You don't want a Kurtis McDermid (0 shifts in the playoffs for COL last year) you want a Patrick Maroon who can also skate a reasonable shift (23 playoff games for Tampa the year before). Deslauries getting in staged fights for teams going nowhere helps no one.
  20. That wasn't his run. The Shift was two years later. They committed an entire decade because of one shift after trading two guys they committed an entire decade to after exhaustively researching everything about them. No, really. Well, OK, because committing the future of the franchise to a 34 year old defenceman didn't work out. No, really. #legendary #halloffame
  21. Two guys on teams going nowhere risking permanent head trauma for... I'm all for keeping fighting in the game. Goons facing off in literally meaningless games is stupid.
  22. The problem is that - yes - the Flyers have a nice group of young players. But they also have three seasons committed to guys who are in the way. If this year doesn't show that many expensive veteran guys aren't worth keeping solely in the interests of some lunatic "spend to the cap" maxim then I don't know what does. The team doesn't NEED Atkinson/Ellis - or even Couturier, Provorov, and... Sanheim!?!? "Laughts" can be the $3M transitional captain and "Catsey" can be the first line center and they can clear out a bunch of dead wood and cap space and set a foundation upon which to build instead of continually trying to "compete for a Stanley Cup." Stop planning to compete for one. Start planning to win the bloody thing. As it is they are the same bubbling middling "definitely a playoff team" they've been for ten freaking years.
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