conundrumed

Let's go Let's go Let's move it biotches. It's time to take out our last year's failure and current slide to the Nation's Capital of pantywaifs, bureaucrats and Trudeau's autocracy minions. If ever a city needed a good, sound beating, LET'S DO THIS THING!!

Kyl is now angry about his mistakes, he's owning them. I think in the past he was downtrodden by them and tentative worrying about the next one. Not saying that observation is correct, but maturity plays a big role with young players. I like that he broke his stick over the crossbar, rather than put his head down going to the bench knowing he'll catch hell. That's the distinction for me. You can look at any player in the league. If they aren't getting angry (and I don't mean at the refs), they're missing the biggest emotion in the game. That's just the nature of the game. A burr under your saddle makes you twice the unrelenting player.

Who doesn't love chasing rabbit-holes? Let's revisit this epic 2020 trade deadline deal. Oilers acquire: Andreas Athanasiou Ryan Kufner AA: 9games, 1g, 1a. Playdown: 4games, zeroes. Neither player received a QO the following season. Detroit acquires: Sam Gagner 2020 2nd rd pick 2021 2nd rd pick Sam Gagner; 4th line LW; 60games, 10g, 12 a 2nd PP, 1st PK units. Detroit loves blue collar. Been extended twice on $850,000per deals. He's found a home. . 2020 2nd(45th): traded down for 51st & 97th oa 51st: Theodor Niederbach(C/W)19yo: currently RW for Frolunda(SHL) 19g, 2g, 2a 97th: Sam Stange (RW)20yo: U of Wisconsin Sophomore, 12g, 1g, 1a 2021 2nd (52nd oa): traded with Richard Panik to NYI for Nick Leddy. Nick Leddy (LD): Mentor for Seider/Hronek. Top paring, really impressing. I can see him being extended after this year and potentially retiring a Wing. $5.5 is very acceptable! What a nice gift Mr. Holland. If it weren't for the Mantha deal, this one would be the most epic fail.lol

That's a deal I would think ARI would at least listen. I think a lot would say that's a big overpay but it's a bonafide 1D on a stellar deal at $4.6per. What they lose in a 1D they improve on depth and potential with Vali plus a first.

Should I revert the title back to, Dillon Dube - Winger?😪 Not a fan of the change unless it was going to be Mony centering the speedsters. If you HAVE to split Mang-Dube... JG-Lind-Mangia Tkachuk-Mony-Coleman Dube-Backlund-Pitlick Lucic-Richardson-Lewis Tkachuk is deathly slow. Give JG an equal skater. Will Duehr ever get a sniff or his he just a warm body?

I like that Sutter will play Vladar against better teams, great for his confidence. My Bruins fan bro was pissed when BT got him for a 3rd. It really annoyed him last night.lol Can we just have the Dube-Mangiapane pair back now? We don't have a speed line now. Pretty much the 1st line and 3 Backlund lines. Lindholm has gone way too quiet on the 1st line offensively.

True story. You see teams and individual players over-perform for the 1st 15-20 games every year until the real NHL kicks in. I hope that isn't us, but it's a cause for concern. Hopefully they didn't get too high from trouncing NYR. Not a fan of the lines last night, I think they took away from diversity and the bottom 3 lines look like the same lines now. I feel like Sutter was foreshadowing in 1 of his interviews. Something to the effect of, "now we'll go on the road and if it doesn't go well there will be completely different questions".

can we NOT come out here and lose to these teams please...it's painful.

My guy! Cups with both Calgary and Detroit. Spilt some beers with him and Warrener at a preseason game. They're hilarious and so easy to talk to. Or I was being hilarious and buying the beer. Or both.lol

Let's maybe get skating. Enough mucking it up.

Tbh, I think Sutter's just playing 4D chess on the road. Opponent matches up for those lines, change them. Why wouldn't you? Create confusion when they have last change. Try anything. Fun to watch a wily, older coach hiding his hands. Any style a team wants to play on the road can be matched by our roster. Let's do this thing. I want a team angry about last year and sweep the east. Motivated.

I disagree. It's also important to establish your backup. Sure it's a risk. Oh well. He has to be up for it, all of the time. Not just weak starts.

The bolded is precisely what I mean. Let's find out. I'm okay either way. We don't know yet, so I don't really have a preference. The NHL falls out of AHL-mode at about the 15-20 game mark imo. I like our start, but keeping it up would be far more impressive as every team finds their game legs..

Hope it's okay to jump in early. Damn RD, I love that you're in Britain as I'm a 5am riser in Ontario.lol So it's 2pm there and 9am here. Sorry your game times suck though, I have enough trouble with 9-10pm starts here and love EST road trips. I'm surrounded by Leaf, MTL, BOS, DET fans here. Mind you, I'm a DET fan because Detroit's an hr away and way more fun than the hyper-tense Leaf and MTL fans. One of my fave US cities. "Hockeytown" may seem arrogant, but it is hockeytown with great, knowledgeable fans that are respectful of visiting fans if you didn't come to be an Hash Rate. Please Flames, own these frigging zero structure MTL and Leaf teams. It causes me tremendous pain when you don't. You have no idea how these fans look waaaaay down at you as a Sabres-type team. Always have, always will. Bury them. They truly deserve it. I wonder if Vladar is a must tonight, or if Sutter doesn't really care about weaker vs stronger team? I think I'm good either way. We'll see, there are 2 distinct schools of philosophy in the matter. Vladar needs some reps. Hopefully we'll get all over MTL and save some for tomorrow.

In his first 4 games, Francis is up to 2g and 3a.

Yikes. That's awfully close.

This is all my fault. I went to bed after seeing my Wings up 3-1 after the 2nd and doing us a solid. Flames game was about to start, but I couldn't hold out. On another note, Seider is becoming the Calder fave, like, right now. That kid is sensational. I thought he'd be really good, but this is way beyond even my homer expectations. And the Wings got a little panned for taking him 6thoa in 19. He was ranked 6th European skater.. 6'4", 210ish. Great skater, great edgework, exceptional 1-on-1, even at the O blueline. He's frigging 20. Already better than 70% or more of the league's dmen. Mike Johnson on Overdrive said the Wings are at least 4 yrs from being competitive a few weeks ago. Ripped how bad they are. What a putz.

You know what makes me laugh, is Monahan will eventually be the captain. I've, for years now, listened to analysts and posters and what direction they're going. What I've learned is, they are wrong more often than not. Myself included. Just look at this past offseason. Most were up in arms. But we're playing the best hockey we have in a long time. Where the hell is cross and JTech? btw. Great posters like most here. I'm jonesing for their perspective. Anyways, if you haven't listened to the Sutter presser that I linked, do so. Played it for my bros last night, Leaf and Bruin fans. They were blown away. He really is being brutally honest. I think he always is. But the media spins it into something it's not. He just seems like, "I'm telling you guys how it works, I'm too old to care about how you spin what I'm telling you. It's that old adage, "You're not doing much learning when you're too busy talking". My Leaf bro was, " Then you listen to Keefe last night, he blames the players". It's coaching. The Leafs play a we're going North game and always getting caught by odd-man rushes going the other way. Matthews is a 1C that barely gets below the hash-marks in his own end. It's laughable. Keefe will be fired this year is my thinking.

They're pretty Covid-ravaged so hopefully we jump all over them early and often.

FO% can be a little overrated imho. Does it really equate to puck possession? I think it doesn't more often than not. The Dube-Mangia pairing doesn't seem to have a problem with possession. They're fast and dangerous. If you're going to have sub-par fo%, the fast and dangerous line is a good place to have it. They don't seem to have a problem with it.

Certainly one of the most insightful Sutter interview. I keep saying it, he's dumb like a fox. This is the most insightful on coaching that I've seen him. https://www.nhl.com/flames/video/sutter-081121/t-277437092/c-9459132

Coaching problem. Without question. Sutter's the best thing that's ever happened to BT. He's taught him what you have to do to compete. It isn't "name" players, it's the type of player. Last year, absolutely everything was, "no identity". Now, they're gaining one. Sutter came in saying they're the slowest team in the league, dumb, etc (I paraphrase). This is now a, "my way or the highway" team. It's ALL coaching imho. Jack Adams coach, here we go. He knows how to get the players to buy in. Buy in or don't play. Just look at the results. They're buying in. Sutter has "unfinished business". It's amazing to watch and wonder how he can do this, but he can. He's badass.

Did everyone watch After Hours Saturday night featuring Mangiapane? It was spectacular. A kid no one believed in, couldn't even get an agent. Loved the shout-out to fellow Sarnian and Flames scout Terry Doran. Yes, I do know him. BT getting punched by him isn't much of a threat. Just tell the cheap bastard to pay his entrance fee at golf tournies.lol He's a good man. His wife is an old school friend, he's close friends with my brother-in-law. I believe he flagged Beck as well, Andersson, Fox (USNDP is Michigan) and some misses of course. There is a ton of territory to cover here. If you draw a 4 hr driving circumference centered on Sarnia, there is a ton of great programs and teams going on. Literally non-stop. Almost to Chicago and encompassing Toronto. Should have half a dozen minor scouts just in this area. Great Mangiapane interview though. Any hockey fan would love the guy.

11 goals in 12 games. Almost expect a goal every game from him now!

Hrudey was saying he expected Mony to take about 3 months to fully get normal from his surgery. That makes a lot of sense with his 4th line minutes rn. Chychrun is never going to be a buy low option. But would always be a win. I feel horrible for him stuck in obscurity on that team. I can definitely speak to his character, he was a close 2nd only to Stamkos during his jr days in Sarnia. He was always at the arena with the kids on league practice Tuesday nights. Knew most of the kids by name. My daughter went to the same high school and said he wasn't goofy like the other hockey jocks, he was respectful to everyone. A hindsight look at the 2016 drafy: 1. Matthews 2. Laine 3. Dubois 4. Pujjijarvi 5. Juolevi 6. Tkachuk 14. McAvoy 16. Chychrun Based on now, where do the 2 NHL #1 dmen slot? I think to look at Chychrun's value, McAvoy is prolly a good comparison. That's a big pricetag.