conundrumed

Man that's a bitter memory. Watched camp and all of the home preseason. The D looked horrendous the whole time. BH says we lost in Game 1, I'd say before game 1. What really bothered me was I thought Nakladal looked pretty darn good. But got hung with tons of minuses due to being paired with Gio and Hamilton. Wideman and Russell looked pathetic. Wideman slow as molasses and Russell forcing every pass into a crowd. Hard to say but maybe the goaltending could have gotten off to a better footing if the D hadn't been a complete travesty. Come see come saw. I believe Hartley should have completely collapsed his system into EVERYONE D first, forget the long bombs. He must have saw it coming into the season but chose to ride it out. imo.

There is nothing wrong with difference of opinion. Bennett is our 3C for now, because we really don't have the parts to settle into his style. I expect most aren't on my wavelength on Fiddler and Chimera. Not a big deal. But I have to ask, do you not think a young roster needs that? The 4 remaining teams right now rely on vet presence. We need at least some imho.

I pretty much agree with you, but we're so jammed up to the cap pdq, if we can't shed some salaries we'll stagnate for another year. I believe that's a real possibility. I think Shinkaruk had a decent audition, but I think he still needs more 3rd and 4th duty to ramp his D game up and see if he can find a consistent and effective style. I'd like nothing more than Ferland really working his coordination this summer because he's close imo, he shouldn't have to be a goon but I believe that's what was asked of him. Another thing we don't do is retaliate, like, at all, and if you don't push back, teams take advantage. I'd liken Pribyl to Nakladl, in that you really have to let him adjust in the A, plus he'll be coming off surgery so I don't think there's a lot of realistic hope there. A lot of this is why I scour the lower FA's for experienced grit. I'm not looking for an answer, just short-term transitions to look at style of play and show the young guys what hard work looks like. I think of guys like Chimera and Fiddler that you might buy for a year on the cheap. Chimera will be 40 for god's sake, but he still has forechecking wheels, still potting 20, so it's not like I'm not thinking it through. Fiddler is 36 I believe, basically a journeyman career, but he'll do 50% at the dot and give you a lot of stability instead of Stajan. These aren't solutions, but I believe our forwards need this kind of leadership on the 3-4 lines. I think those kind of adds strengthen your locker room, scarred up old vets that have done it all, outside of Gio if Stajan is gone, they don't have that. "Hey Chims, tell us what it was like playing against Phil Esposito!" lol Fiddler has drawn every C in the league, plays a hard game and could give Bennett a lot of insight. Not solutions, but I think it's a good way to get your locker room of young kids a lot of perspective.

I wonder if we'll get an answer this year, or just back into holding pattern as Hiller/Ramo was. I guess if expansion is a go, might give us more clarity. Supposed to be announced by June.

I agree completely. The hardest thing is to get those gritty players that have enough skill to compete. I honestly see next to none of that in our ranks. I believe "size" is kind of overrated because there are lots of avg sized guys in the league that play that way. Heck, you could also look at Gallagher and Marchand as undersized and play a hard game. I see Jooris first coming in with it, and Hathaway too, but we need that in a higher skill level. One thing I think we really lack is wingers that really go hard to the tough areas and know what to do when they get there.

No one suggested the coach gets a free pass and no accountability. All accountability is now on the GM. Fair enough.

Impartial to the firing, but the roster is currently a mess. Hence the hairy eyeball lol.

You're good DD, I'll give you that. I agree with your points, but it's probably time to move on. With the hairy eyeball on BT of course...

Not suggesting Lehtonen, but if a buyout makes him a $1.5 1B, why not? Still leaves cash to further the position. He may be up and down, but he stole games in the 2nd rd of the playoffs when Dallas was under siege. Everyone's focusing on what he didn't do, but you have to look at what he did do.

Keep listening to the talking heads... The only reason Dallas was involved in a game 7 was because Lehtonen stole 2 games. Lehtonen isn't better, A LOT BETTER, than Ramo? Yeah sure, whatever. The way Dallas played, they deserved to be swept. But he had a bad game 7, that makes him horrible. Listen to analysts much? There shouldn't have even been a game 7 the way Dallas played. So I guess you could say Lehtonen brought this on himself for stealing 2 games single-handedly. At what point is the roster letting their goalie down?

Okay! I'm guessing at one or 2 of our 2nds gets a goalie. Our 6th oa is untouchable in exchange for a goalie. I agree the price is lower than even a mid 1st rounder for sure.

Like beating a dead horse innit! I have no problem getting rid of Hartley, for clarification. Treliving just should have chosen his words more carefully. The "he's taken this team as far as he can", for me, is underhanded to almost malicious. You can call it nitpicking, but if your a pro GM, you need to know what implications that will raise in the media and for Hartley's future employ. Most GM's stick to, "we want to go in another direction" and they stick to that for a reason. Keep it professional is all I'd have wanted to see from our GM. Don't feed the lions. Especially if it's the team you're managing and has holes as big as the sky. Outside of that, BT, carry on, no problem. And as far as the players not liking him rumours, I'd love to know which ones, because I'm guessing the underperformers and not good enough ones, god knows we have enough of those. It's 23 different personalities to motivate. I pay that rumour no mind, that is every coach in the league.

A Lehtonen buyout is possible, which would get him for us cheap. We're still buying time to "fix" the position.

Right. Okay, it's coaching. We have more high end talent than Winnipeg? When did that happen? Scheifele=Monahan. Care to break down the rest? Being a homer doesn't make us better than a lot of our roster being crap. Maye Ferland is Lucic, maybe Colborne is Franzen. Guess what? They aren't.

That's little consolation. Yet, why do you think that? Winnipeg and Columbus look a lot better to me, the Oilers look close. Arizona has a ton of young depth. How are we in better shape? Not to mention, those teams have goalies. I love how we treat that as, yeah but... Yeah but what? It's a huge issue. Huge.

But it's true. The roster is not very good. There are some nice pieces, sure. But it isn't a roster that gets you to the playoffs.

Actually pretty much yeah. How we got Raymond at such a great price, I don't know, talk to BT lol. Have a luv in lol.

What? Those guys are just happy to keep playing lol. They're not exactly holding the cards lol. "A bunch of cap", lol. 3 yrs? Man you trippin', it's the bottom of the UFA list under 2.2 mil rofl

Consensus is over-rated boss, hence, discussion and disagreement. Turns out, everything you thought was right is wrong lol. I hate when that happens!

They are UFA. He's now telling us how we want to be harder to play against, he's done next to zero in that regard for 2 years.

How about, "He's taken this team as far as I think he can". So much for being a "classy" org. Let's see how far BT can take it.

Not sure how I'm biased. For/Against who?

It's looking like, for Bouma money or less per: M. Richards Travis Moen Vernon Fiddler Jason Chimera Jarrett Stoll Trevor Lewis *perhaps* Alex Tanguay Scott Upshall Not one of these is over 2 yrs, yet most of them provide a "black and blue" haha, j/k. But they provide a backbone for our young guys, so to speak. None of these guys will lead your team in scoring, but they've played a lot of NHL. They're the type of players, mainly, that keep you honest, good or bad, been there done that.

"A bunch of resources" are low risk, low contract experienced NHLers to help the young guys along and to buy time from everyone judging our prospect development. You're confusing it with trading off the future for vets. You can sign a vet quite easily at ufa and lose nothing for the rebuild. There's great cheap ones that don't show up on the score sheet but sure make you a hard team. The young guys need more than 2 or 3 of those around them imho.

Alright, run with that thinking, I'll wait to see what he improves this offseason. We'll see what he does, but while you write everything off to something else, I have huge question marks. No harm, no foul.