King Knut

Why do I care if Staal is 7 or 8 years older when he's playing better and his contract ends much sooner (than Zucker's at least) and he costs half as much? What am I missing? Why do you want a worse player who costs more and is under contract for much longer? I've said all along I'm good with trading Ghost. I just think it looks bad for the organization and if they trade him for Brandon friggin' Saad. As an aside, they'll also have to trade Laughton or Raffl to make that deal work unless the Hawks retain $1.5-2 million of Saad's contract. How's this helping anything? Trade Ghost! Great. Looks terrible to prospective UFA and RFA D-men coming through the system, but you can weather that by overspending on them like Fletcher did with Hayes. In the mean time, let's at least trade him for something that improves the situation and doesn't make it worse.

Honestly, I don't disagree on the change of scenery. And I don't mind trading him for something of value. I just don't think either Saad or Zucker are that value... at least not in any way that doesn't make the cap situation even worse. I don't think two years ago was an anomaly, I think when you watch him now, you see a stark difference. He doesn't skate as much and he doesn't take the same shots from the same places. He's changed his game ostensibly for the sake of the team playing better. I've long been a proponent of trading him for value (long since past peak at this point because Hextall and then Fletcher delayed it) rather than trying to squeeze Ghost into a skillset that doesn't jibe with what he does best. It's a waste to neither use Ghost for what he does best nor to trade him for maximum value while he's doing it (if you think your staff can't handle making his skill set work with their system). I genuinely think Ghost has been trying his darndest to do what A) Hakstol said, then B) What Gordon said and now C) What AV says and none of the above include doing what he's actually good at. If Therrien's changes had totally revamped and fixed the PP, I wouldn't even have a twinge of criticism in the above. I mostly just think you have to maximize your value for your assets as they will benefit your team (aka if you can't use, him, trade him). As it is, I think all that AND am a little grumpy because Therrien hasn't really fixed much of anything and the PP from two years ago and before when Ghost was dancing and shooting like mad from the point and G was playing down low on the left side and Jake was on the right is still better than anything we've iced since.

Brandon Saad RW, LW 27 CHI $6,000,000 $6,000,000 = 16:22 / night and 21 points. Jason Zucker LW, RW 28 MIN $5,500,000 $5,500,000 $5,500,000 $5,500,000 = 16 mins/ night and 28 points. all of which is right at or below JVR and Hayes (who coincidentally cost more). Eric Staal maybe? One more year (he'll likely retire) at just over $3million and producing far better than Saad or Zucker. It's also difficult for me to look at trading Ghost when the team clearly needs a PP specialist to light a fire there and they're sitting on a guy who used to be just that and hasn't been so for two years for reasons no one seems to be able to explain.

Those are both $6million dollar bottom 6 wingers. At least Saad is on a shorter contract. You have to lose $2million more if you trade Ghost for them. They're likely both improvements that can help in the short term. But IMHO, it'll be one of this team's more tragic legacies if it can't figure out what the hell is going on with Ghost and fix it rather than trading him for an overpaid 3RW.

Just so much doesn't add up. I understand that Lindros was not well liked and that he hit hard (it was a little difficult or him not to given his size, speed and skill) and I understand that the Flyers in general never did a damn thing to protect him (or their investment in him) which was utterly idiotic and for which the organization (not to mention the league) is still dealing with residual consequences IMHO. But I'm not sure how that gets us today where it's relatively acceptable to come up high and late with your elbow on a skilled player who happens to be making a play.

I've witnessed a chopper crash (thankfully no one was killed) and I've been on a couple of precarious rides myself. It's too tragic to second guess, but it's also important to learn lessons, respect dangers and use caution when needed.

Really plays like someone trying to make a buck from a quick settlement.

So why do you think it was Gretzky and Lemieux never got targeted for head shots the way Lindros did? I mean that as a genuine question. No opinion or agenda. It's not in exactly the same way now, but guys do specifically target quality players. When that sort of thing happened to my memory in the 70's and 80's there was hell to pay, the benches cleared and everyone dropped the gloves and got bloody. Now you get suspended for defending your targeted team mate. Clarke might break your ankle and Schultz would break your nose if you dropped them with him, but they didn't head hunt. I personally feel as though that just makes the game more dangerous and succeeds in softening nothing, but it does result in more injuries to popular and quality players.

It's killing me that his daughter, her classmate and another parent were with him. Setting aside the fact that they were flying in a helicopter to a traveling team game for his kid, it's just beyond heartbreaking that he died being a dedicated parent.

It was an OT Stanley cup winner that’s why. At at least Joe Carter actually hit the ball hard and fair and out of the park. Kane barely flipped a shot at an AHL goalie who’d herniated a disc in his back in game 1 and didn’t tell anyone because he thought he could be a hero.

If they were in the PAC, they’d be in first place. Yes, they lost at home (with a minor league goalie in net because AV isn’t insane with goalies like the past 3 coaches have been) after taking the champs (who were still on fire) in St. Louis the night before. They beat the Caps, gotnoutlast d by the on fire Bolts in a hard, tight one, then after the Habs loss, they handily took the Kings (as they should) and they took the Penguins (who couldn’t seem to lose). Giroux, Jake, JVR, TK and Coots are all putting up points fairly regularly. Moose has performed admirably and been steady with then inconvenient injury to Hart. They had a bad road trip which goes back to my major issue with the team and the bottom 6. Other than that, I just can’t see complaining about this team right now. I think we’ll see where things really are as the conference starts to play itself more regularly down the stretch offer the bye week. Raffl and Hart and Ghost get the extra time to heal up. AV gets his pontoon boat and Martinis and maybe that’ll help him sort out dealing with not having last change. But at the All star Break they don’t need a miracle. They need to work on a few things that they might be able to fix and might not, but overall, to not be pleased with the improvement is to have one’s vision clouded by spite and unrealistic expectations from where I sit.

apparently it's my fingers' own personal Tourette's <HONG!> symptom. See what I <HONG!> mean?

I'm with you on most of this, though I don't think most of us knew what was going on with Patrick until camp and they didn't announce what it actually was until the season started. Then the whole Oskar thing is just a major wrench in the works (obviously more importantly for him and for his whole damn life than the team) but nonetheless, the point is, if the team enters the season and maintains having both those guys (remember Oskar was leading the team in goals), the bottom 6 has a completely different look. Suddenly you're not relying on Raffl and Laughton for 15 minutes a night and secondary scoring. I think they're easily 2nd in the division with comfortable playoff hopes if Oskar and Patty were playing all year. As it is, top players can only safely play 20 minutes or so a night (and that's not really even that safe), so we have to roll 4 lines and right now the 3rd and 4th are a bit more scketchy... at least when AV can't control who they're out there against. On the hysterics... Amen... no, I mean AMEN! Overall, they're significantly better than they were last year and they don't need a miracle to make the playoffs, they just need to lose a bit less on the road. That's it. That really SHOULD be manageable. The main thing I feel like getting hysterical about this year is the damn schedule, which just seems absolutely insane with these back to backs. I have no idea what the league is thinking, but frankly, I'm a little surprised, we're ONLY missing 7 players to injury right now (granted 3 of them can't be blamed on the schedule).

Of course it's also a sign of dementia, so... I make no guarantees.

I can say it because I straight up don’t agree with the idea that they’ve lost more games due to lack of scoring than to lack of defense. If you have to score 5, 6 or even 7 goals to win, the defense is your problem. In those games it doesnt doesn’t matter if you lose 5-1 and G and Jake disappeared or if you lose 5-3 but heck at least Jake and JVR and G all got goals and are consistent. That’s not a thing that works. Hot ot and cold is pretty much how the game goes and a lot of it has to do with the fact that other teams play strong defense too. They can shut down good players some nights. That gets back to the matchup problem. Its an easy, old and worn worn out gripe to blame G and Jake and JVR for not caring or having heart or for taking games off. The other thing Hong I really REALLY hope everyone can keep in mind this year is that Oskar is a popular player in the room and a strong one on the ice and the fact of the matter is, they all basically know he’s off for a game of Russian roulette that could take months or the rest of his life. They’re professionals, but they’re also human. They’re going to have to process this and frankly, I think the fact that they learned about it on the road is psychologically having a huge impact on their road mentality.

Repetition is a rhetorical technique. I would still prefer exploited to exposed. I believe they’ve been exposed, which is what enables teams (mostly on the road) to exploit the weakness.

If any NHL team has to regularly score 5 goals to win games, they’re just not going to win many games. When the Flyers give up a bunch of goals, and they don’t score a bunch more, the problem isn’t the bunch more they couldn’t get. So I’m sorry, but offense just isn’t the problem. The injuries and illnesses to Nolan and Oskar have really screwed with the bottom six. When the bottom six get exploited, the Flyers lose. What was was meant to be our 4th line or our 13th man is regularly filling in on the third. Now with Raffl out again, they’re going to be even more exploitable once again. I really have trouble with how Misha and Ruby haven’t progressed. Bunny, Andreoff, NAK are trying but they’re exploitable. They’re just not solid bottom Sixers. Myers and Sanheim are also both still working out their own end kinks and are exploitable at times too. They didnt score against Tampa, but they only gave up 1 goal themselves and it was a very tight game against a great and hot team. Other than that, their recent losses have been in games where they gave up 4,5 or 6 goals each time. Doesn't matter what your offense looks like. If you need to outscore that, you’re not winning a ton of games. They need to figure out how to make the bottom six a safer option for the stretches of the game where they need them.

What's going on with him is that he has a new coach who has him playing differently. He's beginning plays and often controlling zone entries while the other guys get into position. Then two or three passes later there's an opportunity. He's playing more of a point guard role and I don't see it as being a problem. He's had a quiet stretch, but before that he had 8 points in 10 games (half of which the team got beat soundly so you know he was trying when it was 'really' needed). Now, Yes. In Situations like the Tampa game... it would be nice if he figures out how to shake it off and make a goal happen. That's kinda what you need to see happen from your stars/captains. But the fact that didn't happen in January annoys me mildly, but I don't see it as a grand scheme of things problem. Coots couldn't do it either, and lately Coots is the guy who can step up and just make poop happen out of thin air. it was a tight game against the hottest team over a recent stretch and one would hope in a playoff situation, that "get 'er done" mentality comes through a bit more. But right now, I think it's usually more important to figure out what can be done on a more systematic level to compete more consistently. This team has a much larger fundamental problem in that it's bottom six really can't be trusted. A lot of that has to do with Patrick and Lindblom being out, but the long and short of it really seems to be that when AV can control who the Bottom six are out there against (i.e. put them out against other bottom 6ers), it doesn't result in that many terrible goals against. But when the other team gets the chance to put out who they want against the bottom 6, it can get ugly fast. What's worse, the other teams know it now. And I'm not sure how it gets better because they've tried everyone even remotely possible for these roles and Fletcher spent right up against the cap, so they can't afford to bring anyone in to help. I think it would help win a few games here and there if Therrien pulled his head out of the sand, put G on the LW side board and get the PP going, but I think the larger fundamental problem is that the bottom six can't hold their own against other teams top 6.

Also... He's got 18 goals and 31 points and a plus 7. It's not like he's producing horrible numbers! Yzerman scored less when the Redwings finally started winning cups. And you're definitely right about the "puck luck" I think when it's this prolonged, it's more than luck, but it's not like he's slacking off out there.

The Redwings cups were a bit more spread out and could be attributed more to an approach to the entire game from management, to coaching to players than to a specific talent pool. The Devils cups in a historical context (forgive me) come down to Clutch and Grab and Brodeur. The Blackhawks appear to mostly have been the right group at the right time (which has passed) and the same for the Kings teams. I will not even mention the other team that has won multiple cups in recent decades. I don't want to get into a whole thing... and that will definitely get me into a whole thing.

This is the thing. They won a cup right away without him (beat the Bruins and Andy Moog and our old Pal Reggie Lemelin I think) but in the years after, there was a cascade of players exiting (Messier, Coffey, Tikkanen, Kurri, Graves) and other guys started aging out (Huddy, Lowe, Fuhr) of their effectiveness and the organization got little in return for any of it. They were an epic Dynasty and it's extremely difficult to have the lengthy run they did (based almost 100% on skill) and be able to refuel yourself with talent so a few years of tanking was inevitable. Their managemenet has done little in 30 years though to take advantage.

Didn't the Oilers win the cup the next year? Anyway, Trading Giroux is no path to making this team better. He's not putting up huge numbers, but I think too many people are watching the stat sheets and seeing the problem and not noticing how much he does in the games. He's often the guy who starts the play that three other guys get the points on. His shooting % is oddly terrible this year, but he's dominant in generating opportunities and driving the play. The line with him and Hayes and TK got a goal, but gave up (I think) three last night, so maybe that doesn't need to continue, but as far as I'm concerned, very little good can come out of trading Giroux.

Can't Buyout anyone until Summer. JVR's buyout would be weird and would take 6 years. You could do it, but it jumps oddly after the first two years of a just under $3million cap hit and the third year his cap it is almost 5 million. Then it drops below 2 for the last 3 years. Doing the above could make resigning Hart, Sanheim and Myers a bit easier, but it's not a key to doing so AND bringing in a new guy. As far as we know, with Fletcher, it might already be part of the plan.

I mean 2 home losses at this point in the season is a bit more than just playing bad teams. But you’ve got a good point and both our points are likely contributors. Losing to bad west coast teams this badly though... that’s got to stop. They’ve got to have the tools for that.

The other point I'd like to make is that (sorry Occam, no pun intended) I don't think we're seeing the simpler solution. They are a dominant home team despite the fact that we keep hearing about how there are so many empty seats. They are a pretty bad road team. To me the simplest solution is that not having that control of the matchups is taking a toll on them. Maybe they don't like hotels, maybe they drink too much on the plane, maybe G misses his bride and baby and maybe, they're jet lagged... or maybe teams are just getting the matchups they want instead of AV getting the matchups he wants. The fact that they've been playing through so many injuries and don't have the depth that they had when they were really hitting their strike bears this out to me. I think teams are simply able to exploit the Flyers weaknesses the way they want to. The Kings game doesn't bear this out simply because so many of the goals were on special teams. But the Sharks game certainly does.