conundrumed

I was in line at a coffee shop in Chicago one summer day. Turn around and it's Debbie herself, Rachel Dratch behind me. She's a nice woman. I don't get starry-eyed. We exchanged niceties and I bought her ice coffee. I got mine with 2 extra espresso shots as usual, she informed me they come with 2 already. I said, "that explains a few things".lol

In fairness, I think Mangiapane's play handcuffed him. Ruzicka was a safe play at LW on the 3rd line, but Mangiapane couldn't elevate his play to be in the top 6. So he goes back to 3rd line, now you have a bunch of problems filling where you wanted Mangiapane to be. So you insert Rozie, sit Lucic and tell him you NEED him to eat hot dogs and watch the top 6 because you have a huge ask of him. And you start shuffling. I can argue that a lot of this has to do with Mangiapane being unable to translate into a top 6 fwd. Pelletier likely would have a golden opportunity right now on Backlund's LW, but there's Manpony. Now Pelletier has to wait, because we NEED him to be the top 6 fwd that Mangiapane can't be. It's created a lot of problems. You can't always point at the coach without pointing out the players. I doubt any of us thought Mangiapane can't be a top 6 fwd coming in. Now we've seen he can't. That's at the base of all of this. We need a top 6 fwd, handedness doesn't matter, to atone for Mangiapane. And I doubt any of us expected that. It's hard to fault Sutter when it's Mangiapane that created this mess. Our young guys are best served with Backlund-Coleman, but someone is stuck there. I'd trade Mangiapane and next year's 2nd for an upgrade personally. Backlund's LW is easily filled. Putting Lucic with our 2 massive fwd acquisitions just screams, "help".

Same. It's difficult to have a lot of goalie prospects with limited options where they can play after jr unless they're sent out on loan/overseas, which isn't ideal.

Chechelev is a nice prospect too. Those are good numbers for a 21yo in the E. He leads the league in starts and shots against so that's what we want, he's seeing lots of action. He just came to NA last year so plenty of time to grow. So that's 3 good prospects.

NHL Markstrom: 13-11-5; 2.81gaa; .894sv% (amazingly, no change in gaa or sv% Vladar: 8-4-4; 2.73gaa; .907sv% AHL Wolf: 21-5; 2.12gaa; .930sv% 4SO ECHL Daniil Chechelev 16-9-1; 3.20gaa; .905sv% NCAA Sergeev: 7-3-1; 2.55gaa; .918sv%

It may be short, but that's impressive!! I left out 2 major ones. Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena, but they were concerts. Grateful Dead, Yes and Rush at arena, Rolling Stones at Stadium. The Stones at Wembley Stadium was surreal. It was similar to a Grateful Dead show in the US but way more people. Hippies and hash joints everywhere.lol Prolly around '89.

It's beyond time to go Huberdeau-Lindholm-Dube. Dube keeps tracking down pucks, always back to the blue line because his fwds have no idea that they should get open when he gets on the hunt. Consistently getting the puck and Toffoli's never anywhere to be found because he's a snail. Forget Lucic, it's not like he wins enough board battles to matter. Try Pelletier with Kadri-Toffoli and don't put the 1,000lbs paralysis leash on him. Hopefully we're playing our consistent best for the final 20 games, we're gonna need it.

Not sure, needs to get his confidence back. He's been doing good in GR. The Wings can afford patience.

I watched a playoff game outside at MSG. Does that count?lol

Conditioning stint 2 weeks were up, so had to waive to keep him there. Hellberg is the current backup to Husso.

Not to get too off topic but if you want great live hockey for free, go watch u18(midget). Calgary/Edmonton have a wealth of the top teams in the country. Used to enjoy Royals/Buffaloes games occasionally. Now when I look at Cdn Midget AAA rankings Calgary dominates. https://myhockeyrankings.com/rank.php?y=2022&v=158

Absolutely loved him when he entered the league. Gaborik in Minny too. Datsyuk in Detroit. Game changers.

He's the only one power-playing correctly. Everyone is counting steamboats when they get the puck, Ruzicka is the ONLY one moving it fast. I'm not sitting him for that alone. The PP is terrible because they can't or refuse to move the puck around quickly. Rosie's the only guy moving it quickly.

Anyone care for a general hockey thread that's for our love of hockey and hockey stories? A place to talk about hockey and why we love it. For starters, off of the top of my head, I've been to all of these arena's. Pros, jrs, midgets. It's a lot I think, but I'm old.lol Saddledome, Max Bell, Father David Bauer (Calgary) Rexall Place, Rogers Place (Edmonton) Centrium (Red Deer) Enmax Center (Lethbridge) Rogers Arena, Langley Events Centre (Vancouver) Brandt Centre, Mosaic Place, (Saskatchewan) Maple Leaf Gardens, Scotiabank, a few various (Toronto) Budweiser Gardens (London) Bell Centre (Montreal) Scotiabank Centre (Halifax) Joe Louis, Little Caesar's, Compuware/USA Hockey Arena a few others (Michigan) United Center (Chicago) Excel Energy Center (Minnesota) They all have one thing in common. It was a lot of fun. Lotsa mems. Bell Center Montreal was the '96 super series final US vs Canada. Crossed the street earlier with Lindros.lol HNIC opening used to show the 2 fans with Rene Levesque and Brian Mulroney masks (huge enemies). Prior to the game, we were in a packed pub across the street and they rolled in. I got them over to our table to sit down (there were zero seats left). Never took the masks off. We got them Blockchaining hammered.lol Seeing them after on the HNIC intro video always made me laugh to tears. They were wrecked and it was all my fault. I kid you not!! Hockey's fun. Share your stories!!

The bolded is what I am alluding to. Sutter tends to say, here's what I'm going to do, stats back it up. But then he kinda gets hung up for awhile and then has to over-compensate to stay on task. 3 and 1 turns into 5 and one, then 3 and 2, then 3 and 0, then 2 and 3, then 4 and 0. Be consistent, this team needs to get consistent regardless of goalie. Seeing goalie usage have no real rhyme or reason (to my pea brain) makes me raise an eyebrow about consistencies in other areas. I get Sutter is excellent at hockey, but man I just can't understand him sometimes. With my vast topped out in Jr B intellect.lol We're going to run for a cup this year, aren't we? I always feel like Sutter's playing possum.

Not much to say, Sarnia dominated the whole game but lost 2-0. Beck is the PP QB and had some chances. Both goalies were good but Sarnia really dominated the zone time, by a lot. If Gaudreau can play like this consistently, Sarnia can make some noise. Very lucky win by Ottawa. Sarnia did a tidy job at tdl and look really good as it comes together. Realistically this should have been a 7-2 win. ALL over Ottawa, the top team in the O. Couldn't buy a bounce. Time to watch Ontario Hockey Academy(Cornwall) win the Silver Stick.

Honestly I like Markstrom as our goalie. My real only whinging has been giving him 4-5 starts in a row. I'd like to see a 3-1 ratio adhered to. It's more like, "that wasn't his best game, start the other guy", Make a plan and stick to it. It doesn't look like a plan. That's my biggest issue with usage. It doesn't need to be a game day decision. The team has to play consistently regardless of who's in net. Markstrom may lose a game mainly because of him. That happens. But for the love of god, saying he's no good is more on the viewer's frustration than it is on reality. Markstrom's a great goalie. I'm just pissy with him that he hasn't been scoring enough goals to help himself out.

Pretty perfectly timed 2pm Sting @ Ottawa today. Right between the Silver Stick Midget AAA semi’s and Final. Get to watch Beck in the lounge on the big screen.😃

Seeing Husso there makes me very suspicious of this chart. He’s done a lot to hide Detroit’s huge defensive zone issues. So I seriously have to wonder what hat these numbers get pulled from. Seems pretty erroneous.

I haven't liked this pairing defensively...that was quite a ride.lol 2 smaller things I noticed that I like. Duehr's back-checking and how fast Ruzicka moves the puck on the PP. Stupid Wings, glad I went to watch the u18's instead, great hockey and all day playoffs tomorrow u18 A, AA, AAA. Good win Flames, start the car and get outta there! Special thanks to Wedgewood. Dallas is good. That pushback showed that we're a pretty scattered and unstable team when the push comes. Same as last year's playoff exit. Gotta figure that one out.

This is being superfun!!

Vrana's been healthy-scratched for GR's last 2 games now. Still doing the PR stuff and having fun with teammates so not sure if his conditioning is too far behind for this year or what the story might be. Current fwd lines: Bert-Larkin-Raymond Kubalik-Rasmussen-Perron Fabbri-Copp-Berggren Erne-Veleno-Sundqvist Zadina Getting close to really solid with Rasmussen progressing, Berggren and Veleno only getting better. Need to get a lot better defensively as a group. When they're going on O, it's a full on assault at attacking the net. The Jets should have demolished them by the play, but those assaults on Hellebuyck kept leading to goals. Very fortunate to win that one. Follow it up with a 4-1 win vs the Leafs and we're witnessing the full model of inconsistency being the only consistency.lol Leafs beat us 4-1 on our b2b, we beat them 4-1 on theirs. Need teams to help us close the Leafs window for now, we'll do it in about 2 years. But we're entertaining and Mickey on the "ginger ale" is always fun-filled stories. Seeing a lot of Perron now. He's a player the Flames really, REALLY should have went after. He'd be killer with Huberdeau and on a better all around team (for now). Our PP wouldn't be so dismal. It's wild how well he can protect the puck.

Exceptional to have you back rd. Let's give these tossers the what for!! I'm hosting so the Flames best show all of my friends that they're good while I give my house up for this game. Then the US Football heads of which I'm not one. I'm torn. Do I put a TV (I set up 3) on the Wings vs CBJ, 1 on Leafs-Bruins(most are either or fans of them) or go watch the U18 AAA Silver Stick tourney tonight and leave everyone to watch football/Leafs/Wings? Damn. I guess consumption will call the shots.lol We haven't had a solid gathering in a while. C'mon Flames, show us your best!!

I'm not stating this is the case for anyone that enters the program, but the wealth of painkillers prescribed like candy in pro sports is really kept in the shadows. When someone speaks out about it, others join in support. Then that storyline is battered down within a week or 2, at most. We celebrate guys being "tough" by playing through stuff and doing everything for the team, but never ask, "How"? We aren't numb to pain. If we are, it's likely something else doing that. Then it becomes part of that individual's life. This is a massive problem in pro sports that hides in the shadows. Let alone the matter of having to isolate everyone in your life away from the general public and social media.

From Friedman’s 32 thoughts: 5. At some point, Calgary has to give their top prospects a legit shot. I don’t know if Jakob Pelletier — 96 points in 97 career AHL games — is the scorer they need, but I do know we’re not going to find out if he spends his NHL call-up eating press-box hot dogs (although they are tasty).