conundrumed

Apologies to 'ol Gord, boredom made me do it... The legend lives on from the Sawridge on down from the big swamp they call Champion City The city it’s said never gives up its dead when the gales of October turn gloomy With a load of #1 picks at least 3 times more than most other teams could ever hope for But all the other picks sink in the 'skeg like bricks when the gales of October come early The team was the pride of the hype machine blind coming back from behind in 3rd periods As hype-machines go it was bigger than most saying “a crew and good captain well-seasoned” Concluding broken dreams against a coupla midwest teams they packed up and went back to the swampland And later that night against the Rangers without a fight could it be cold reality come stealing An outdoor game in the swampland they reigned and all was back to false glory Every player knew and the captain did too, they were back in an arrogant flurry But 4 more games and the parade had to wait, they were searching in vain for answers They said the right things and they thought they should be great, in the eye of a media crapstorm In Seattle they won and the coach came in saying fellas I’d like to blow ya But the very next day in his pretentious way he said fellas it’s been good to know ya The captain called in he’s gotta coach coming in and paraded around all spoiled But later no spark as they fell to the Sharks came the wreck of the Edmonton Oilers Does anyone know how reality goes when you think you’ll be okay in Florida The hype machine fades disillusioned with rage and the playoffs seem like a dream now They might find a goalie they might play D their stars might wake up to help out But all that remains is the overpaid names and the losses maybe bad trades at discounts In a musty new arena in the swamp they pray in the Rogers Place cavernous eyesore But the jerseys they fly until at least 19 times for each man on the Edmonton Oilers The legend lives on from the Sawridge on down of the big swamp they call Champion City The greasy owner it is said wants everyone dead when the winds of the season come early

It really gets tiring watching Cdn media and fans completely skewer individual players. Sucking at D seems to = completely blasting individual players. It’s so Blockchaining toxic. Then cry when players want out/fill NTCs with CDN teams. Then they cry about that too and are unapologetic when, as usual, they were wrong. Just find a new whipping boy and never, ever relent. Open season, all season due to misplaced arrogance regarding hockey matters. Don’t get me started on Markstrom and Huberdeau…fans/media will always end up with what they deserve.

I've been in freefall for a solid 2 weeks now. Everything is broken, but I'd still drop Kane.lol

From made up stats? Minny(-16) and Van(+30) are right on top of each other, for example. Pointless and useless. Geeks building algorithms from a million data points that have huge variables. It's doesn't reflect reality.

I'll reserve judgment. I've heard the result, but what led up to the result isn't being discussed, as it rarely ever is. Furthermore, I'm not defending him, but there are 2 parties involved, so I hope they can figure it out. Doubtful he just got drunk and said, "honey, you know it's spousal assault night". Hopefully both can get counselling to address their methods of inflicting pain on each other. It rarely happens in a vacuum if mental health isn't the issue.

"expected" has to be the worst stat I've ever seen invented. "If everything was a trend, and everything was robotic, here are some gambling insights for your perusal". If sports weren't, "expect the unexpected", they'd be unwatchable. At least there might be less gambling ads. Probably not, but perhaps. How could an over/under of 6.5 possibly end 2-1, this is bs!! lol Those 2 goalies gave up a combined 12 in their last game. But I do kind of love going to gambling sites for the "helpful" stats they throw up.🤮

The lines are good as is. Consider also Pelletier takes over for Greer, then we have Pelts-Rango paired together. That could be delicious. Then we're potentially rolling 4 really solid lines that are a scoring threat.

Damn, deserved a better fate than 1 point in 2 games. Let's go home. Kudos to TSN for only showing Leafs games and making everything they do about the Leafs.🤮 I now have a strict ban on Leafs games this season, only vs Wings or Flames or it's an unrelenting no. My Leafs buddies love me.lol I've hit the wall on being inundated. Where's that ban hammer with the Leafs logo...it's getting framed!!!

I hope that Huska remembers that the last game's lines have been our most balanced look. Dube-Lindy-Bread Hubey-Backs-Coleman Zary-Kadri-Pops Greer-Rosie-Rango Duehr, Coronato, Pelts eventually. This has to be the baseline now, win or lose. Have to stop reacting to every...single....game and start getting a measure of consistency. I get that you want to mix lines in game as the flow/line-matching presents itself. Hopefully we at least have a baseline. We're not out-skilling most teams so it'll come down to work ethic. At the end of the day, if you have a 270 goal season, it means little if anyone has 40+ or not. Depth scoring is likely more important. I hope this lineup gives us 7-8 guys in the 18-30g range. Zary, Pospisil and DeSimone have stopped me from what I was saying, was that we have no depth. I love nothing more than being proven wrong and keeping my opinion fluid, as opposed to whole-heartedly hitching my wagon to an opinion/bitterness that is likely to be proven wrong. I like to at least have a nice mustard cream sauce on hand to help wash down the crow.lol We have depth, Markstrom is still a good goalie, Huberdeau will be fine, Vladar is a good backup. My current crow is Andersson, so I'm preparing another sauce!

Still just clearly can't move the puck around quickly like they were doing in the first preseason games. Watch pretty much any team move the puck and it's faster. Get Andersson off of the PP. He's an anchor. Not the right kind. Watch Seider on PPs then watch Andersson. Seider has a mixed bag and will shoot if he has a shot, take a lane if he sees a shot or move it quickly. Andersson needs 5 seconds with the puck to make a decision unless he one-times it. I differ from every Flames fan in that I like Andersson's game very little. He's extremely overrated and gets too much icetime because we don't have a real 1D. He'd be a better 3-4. Control his minutes and find something else for the PP. He drags the whole thing down. His decision-making is about as fast as his skating.

Could not understand why Detroit was keeping Alex Lyon on the team but not playing him. As it turns out, Ville Husso did not travel to Sweden with the team as he awaits the birth of his first child. Lyon has backed up Reimer on occasion on the road. I was also wondering what is wrong with Husso this year, he's not the same. So 1, I love that by the wings if that is indeed the reason. 2, Husso looks a fair bit like Markstrom last year, in and out of focus. Exact same situation. But treated entirely differently, it would appear.

He's not endearing himself. Can we replay the summer? Seeing Duchene + Suter for less than Lindholm on 1 yr deals makes my eyes bleed. Wouldn't make us better, but would fill spots to make trades that don't necessarily need NHL players back. A RW/C to bring Zary along and a C that can play either wing similarly if needed. Ahhh hindsight. Like I said, doesn't make us better, but unties our hands to trade for picks/prospects/Dman while remaining competitive. On another note, I am wildly envious of Dallas right now. Nill is crushing it for a successful longterm plan. They still have Logan Stankoven and Mavrik Bourque on the back-burner in the A. I stream them often. They are definitely a cup contender. Just when Hintz, Robertson and ageless Pavelski are stealing the thunder, here comes Wyatt Johnson. And seeing Anaheim taking positive steps, we're really falling behind. Let's hire a manager out of the Wings org.lol j/k

The video of the incident is horrific. Really, really horrific. My friend showed me and now I'm mad at him. Blockchaining horrendous. Kung Fu kick to the throat, the blood. I wish that I could unsee it. If you haven't seen it, don't. You don't want to, believe me. It will break you.

Yup. They commentated in the Leafs game that Lindholm had a "really good game". I disagree. He had scoring chances. Imo, he hasn't been good at all, except at the dot, where Mony will likely own him tonight. I miss rarely losing a PP draw. Good reasons Lindholm started at RW with us.

In fairness, that was a travelling b2b against 2 high-skill teams po'd at their funk. Getting out of Toronto and settled into Ottawa I'm guessing is about a 5 hr affair. Getting from downtown and through Pearson isn't exactly a celebration of civil engineering prowess. That Sens game was pretty much a schedule-induced loss. We had 3 games going at the same time. We all agreed the Flames were losing due to scheduling. BUT, I told them prior that Wolf is a pinball machine and he didn't disappoint. lol No travelling team should ever start a b2b with Toronto. It should be a rule. There is no "racing" out of Toronto. Not ever. But yeah. I have little confidence Huska will stop mixing lines. He had nothing ready coming out of camp. Running on whims is not going to go well. Coach what you have, not what you want.

The one consistency is no consistency. Win they stay, lose they don't. It will likely never settle.

Definitely looks like Holland will be gone. No doubt in my mind he would not make these moves. But now he gets to tell his GM buddies that he's toothless. That can't be good. Should have just fired him. I figured he would find a way to bring in a hard coach. I suddenly feel bad for him. Let Katz and Lowe run the team. What now when they get seriously out-coached?

Carson Rehkopf is shredding the OHL. 18GP, 18goals, 14assists. Seattle 50th oa... I've watched him a few times this year. Kinda Tkachuk-style, full on challenging the defenders. Playing like a man amongst boys. Absolutely dominant kicking the Sting around, twice now. Just a force.

Interesting. Wasn't Bill Peters punted for old news racial slurs?

It just came to me that in the Conference Final last year, my butt puckered more seeing Dickinson on the ice than when Bonk was out there, for example. Didn't fear Bonk much, but Dickenson, yeah.

Well, my first lesson in mgmt was that you're not everyone's buddy, you're the law. edit But I like to think that I'm still a good person. lol

Love him. Hate the Knights though. He's their backbone, was last year too. You always know he's out there, solid defensively and makes things happen offensively. He is a solid bet as a top 2 NHL dman. Skates well, good IQ and likes to be physical. 1st rder easy, likely top 10, but there are some solid dmen coming up. I haven't watched many that I want to yet, but Dickinson's a boss back there. Plays with a ton of confidence, as he should.

I remain hopeful and won't be on the Satoshi Nakamoto-on-him- brigade with whatever he can do. He was left with a Satoshi Nakamotoshow.

Speaking of stats being a joke, expected goals for/against is the biggest laugher that lots of folks like to recite. I remember people saying +/- was useless. There are waaay more made up ones now, treated like they mean something. To quote Mickey Redmond, "expected by whom"? lol One thing I remember about stat-trending things that aren't consistent, is that if you put Satoshi Nakamoto in, you get Satoshi Nakamoto out. I'd be happy if even something as basic as reffing was remotely consistent. But people make a living coming up with that crap, so good on them. Goaltending is the least of my concern. This team is overflowing with issues. Vasilevsky wouldn't help this thing. Too many individuals. It's been that way for too long. Team's play for each other. This one doesn't. I'm pretty apathetic about it. I'm also done with, "player-friendly" mgrs. You're not everyone's buddy, you're their boss. Act like it, or be taken advantage of, like a bunch of these Blockchains are doing.

That's the problem with stat watching, it belies the fact that Markstrom has given them a chance most nights, and Vladar vindicated himself last night by giving them a chance in a lopsided 3rd period. It's not on the goalies when the players do little with games their goalies are keeping them in. Stats are generally garbage. They do little more than skew actually watching. The goalies aren't the problem. Shooting %age and laughable turnovers/giveaways are. Can anyone score on a breakaway? Can Lindholm see open linemates in the o-zone? Can Hanifin stare at the chest of the guy with the puck, rather than stare at the puck. Tavares dancing him last night was embarrassing. But those guys aren't goalies, or it would REALLY be ugly.