conundrumed

Queue the Vladar trade talk...

Rookie scoring race. We have rookies? Nice change! Based on ppg, DeSimone & Zary are 1 & 2!!!

For anyone interested, the U18 5 Nations Cup started today in Finland. Swiss, Finns, Swedes, US, Czech Republic. Not general NHL stuff, but loaded with NHL futures. Unfortunately only available via stream. Great morning hockey!

I wouldn't, but I'm not a fan regardless. Stat-darlings that don't pass the eye test don't work for me. Nothing against him, I just don't like how he plays. Same goes for DeBrincat, so it's not like I have a vendetta. I just don't particularly like players that can't protect the puck, regardless of other successes. Losing every puck battle is no way to win at hockey.

It's always the issue of, "try to get x going", so you break up the good to fix the bad. If I'm the D coach vs the Flames, I'm telling my wingers to play high on the D, Andersson will ALWAYS look to pinch, Huberdeau will ALWAYS look to pass. Force them to try to play the mid-zone, they don't do that well. Put the puck over the D and have a race because half of them will be leaning the wrong way. I have a big problem with our vets not named Hanifin or Coleman being far too predictable for the opposition. Hanifin can score on pinches because you never know when he might. Coleman is a motor that will go anywhere and do anything for disruption with decent mitts. Everyone else, they already know what you're going to try to do. If you don't mix it up, scoring is going to be a huge problem. Huberdeau, their entire team is leaning towards your pass. It's why your passes aren't getting there. STILL, you absolutely refuse to shoot. Watch endless reels of you with the puck. LOOK AT THE DEFENDERS, even the goalie. You have EVERYBODY leaning in anticipation. You couldn't ask for a better time to shoot the f@$#ing thing.

Uncertain, they were bad all year by my mem. Not SJS-bad this year. Hope SJ gets their first W vs Edmonton. THAT would be a riot.

After watching the TBay @ TML game last night I feel much better about the Wings. Tbay will get Vasilevsky back soon to help, but damn that's some fugly hockey going on. Not unlike the Oilers, these 2 look like outscoring their structural issues are going to be key. The Wings can play flat (FLA game) and I worry about their D play. But after watching this gong show, I feel like the Wings should be beating both of these teams. The tough sked continues tonight as they visit the Rangers, who are playing really well. Should be another huge test and entertaining game. Ran 11F, 7D against the Bruins, hope they don't do that again. Petry barely played, and Larkin left the game for a while knocking it down to 10F. Copp, Compher, Veleno and Rasmussen are providing great depth and PK. DeBrincat looks meh but Raymond looks great. Larkin has been unreal. He does absolutely everything from battles to finesse to PP and PK. Just an all around threat most shifts. Absolute General out there, so awesome to see for a guy whose whole career has languished on a bottom team. Zero question who the captain is. Even I didn't think he was this good! Any Lindholm comparisons are dead. Larkin puts the team on his back most nights.

Only @taz89 has Anaheim away from 7-8 finish. Good start!!

I hope Sharangovich can start staying in the moment. For me, it looks like he's trying to anticipate the next play, but fumbling the current one. Not taking passes cleanly reminds me a lot of Raymond last year. Frustrating for him and us.lol Hopefully he can just focus on right now and work towards anticipating. Raymond's a lot better this year, put on 15-20lbs of muscle they say, but the similarities are striking. A player trying to do too much, and when it falls apart, the frustration mounts and trying to force it gets even worse. I like the player personally, though I do think that there is quite a bit of maturing remaining. Hopefully he can settle in and be a cog, as opposed to trying too hard to prove it like a lot of young players do. Just settle in and find your spots. The 4th line was pretty good with him at C, but he has to figure out how his game can fit with the other cogs. The struggle is real.lol Want a younger team, you've gotta transition along with the growing pains. The big question, for me, is what happened to Dube? He's had some downright awful games, like, most of them.

I agree that he scraped by very lightly, but it can come back to haunt him if he decides to do something really dumb again. He got the 1st offense treatment, but I'm guessing it's likely that he got a very clear warning about what the next one will look like should he decide to lose his brain. Just a god awful play by him though and I expected more than a game. I don't buy the, "well it happened early so that's already a game" stuff. That's neither here nor there for me, that's the in-game punishment, which should be completely separate from the league punishment.

Some of the fan takes that I've read elsewhere are horrendous. Amazing how some people justify their player's actions, but if it's a different team's player, they should be expelled from the league and have their entire existence shamed.lol If it were McCann doing it to Mangiapane and getting 1 game, the depths of injustice from the same people would be unbearable.

Is anyone....watching Ducks games? I've now watched 4. Holy jesus on a bicycle are they ever fast and fun to watch with great goaltending. Handed Boston their 1st loss (OT), just handed Vegas their first regulation loss. They are looking for real rather than good start. Not an easy win anymore, at all. Mason McTavish looking like a stud. High-flying offence and comeback kids looking similar to Detroit. No leads are safe, my fave kind of hockey, down and desperate.

I guess that they're considering the offender has zero history and this was an isolated "snap". But now we're left with a league that isn't particularly against the Flames. So many, many past and future arguments with that notion just fell down a very deep well. Where they should have been in the first place. Considering the league is wildly inconsistent with officiating and applying justice Chicago, oops, every team gets the business. The Boston v Detroit game was typical. The Bruins lost because of officiating, the Wings won in spite of it. Tons of bleh calls both ways. The joy of Daniels and Redmond, they call out every last one of them, called or uncalled, regardless of team. There was a LOT. We need to focus on winning in spite of officiating, like every team needs to. We know it'll be bad. The alternative is to review EVERYTHING regardless of on-ice call. Not a great alternative, 5 hr games.lol But at the end of the day, imho, the aggression/energy player will always get the penalty vs the skilled player for the exact same type of play. The mindset is the problem and it's likely the league's MO for the refs. In that regard, they are dictating an acceptable style of play. For better or worse. Take 1 guy out of a scrum, it's more likely to be the aggressive player. Remember that Chiarot, it's always you.lol Doesn't matter that you got punched in the face before applying a bear hug.

I chuckled when Ball said, "oh, the lines are in the blender". Millen immediately, "because Mangiapane's kicked out, they have to be". I prefer Millen over Hrudey, he's sharp and not spending much time cheerleading. But yeah, that's a 2 game minimum. Not much point making excuses for it. I notice on occasion that he plays a pretty dirty game behind the play. I'm not a fan of that stuff unless he can back it up with a fight. Even Marchand will fight his weight class when he's being ratty. Maatta smoked ratboy with a clean hit last night, but he's not fighting Maatta. Marchand looked like it hurt.lol Love to see it. Wish we had Maatta and severely underrated Walman. They were saying the other night 21 >90mph(100?) shots have been clocked this year and Walman had 7 of them. Last night I think he added 2 more, one a one timer goal. Had one on Markstrom too that I think people thought was weak. That guy RIPS it. Think Michael Stone, but really solid defensively.

Well, they weren't going to get Mangiapane out of the lineup themselves. Let's see how we look without him for a few more.

I like the moves. Solovyov>DeSimone but it's about time being on our AHL team isn't a death sentence. Hopefully Pospisil can prove that he has value. Loved his interview. Seems like a guy that settled into never expecting a call-up, which is a terrible culture to run with. Nice to see that Conroy will change that. I think that there has been little doubt that the roster gets stale and needs (likely constant) shakeups. Getting all of Pelletier, Rosie, Dube and Z back will lead to some big decisions, but at least we're willing to find out if we have much depth. I'm a firm believer that some AHLers have games better-suited for the NHL. The A is pretty muddy. Really nothing to lose, and hope this signals the end of typecasting every last prospect that we have as not being ready. Opportunity should always be a thing. It clearly hasn't been imho.

Just a dead issue for the talking heads to talk their pointless drivel. Folks in these parts where I live seem to love "Overdrive", speaking of pointless diatribe...solidifying my Wings love in this region.

So you're not feeling the love?

Is it time to give Vladar another start? Or are we going to ride 80-20 splits? Z is out for family reasons I believe that I heard last night.

The real ignominious part is that they started the preseason really trying to move the puck around. They just completely dropped it, yet it was the right path. I mean sure, it will lead to some turnovers forcing fast, but holy jesus on a bicycle, they're slow af and turnovers are all over the ice. I need to get this off of my chest.lol. To start preseason, Sharangovich was constantly doing one-touch passes. Trying to up the rhythm. He gets demoted to 4th line C. I mean realistically, it's our best line and it's literally just thrown together. Can nobody on this team play with pace? No rhythm, no tempo. Zero confidence to even try. This country music band won't even think about jazz to use an analogy. Most of the league is burning the brass section and we cling to a banjo. No offence to Bela Fleck. We're the vegans at the steakhouse. Anyways, there's more to just being a banjo player...and a balanced team.

Gilbert sucks too, but has the advantage of familiarity. Still, none of this actually matters. We can literally say the same things about a Andersson-Hanifin pairing. Defensively, they are generally hot garbage, not at league min salaries. Neither are good defensively. Regardless, here's what Treliving thinks for building a D. Sutter added Z and Guddy probably. I'm sure Toronto will love him adding Klingberg to a team starving for actual Dmen. BT's teams need to outscore his builds. Alternatively, they're us.

I'm likely the last bastion here of not bailing on Markstrom as a goalie. He's a solid NHL goalie. I'd say Vas, Shesterkin and Saros are the elites, and Markstrom is at or near the top of the next tier. I'm just not buying the negative hyperbole and never have. Most goalies are cold when his team dominates for the 1st 15mins. Outshoot the opponent 18-3 and you're down 2-0. That sounds a lot like hockey. You lose to backups throwing 7-8 useless shots at them to start a game. They get the feel, your goalie is cold. Even struggling, Markstrom's usually pulling 5 or 6 10-bellers out of his arse most games. He definitely has value in this league. There is really no help coming at D. We're drafting Dmen for offence and pretty much nothing for defence. We have zero size/aggression on the back end to stop anyone for the foreseeable future. Too busy drafting O-first guys.

We're doing that just fine without him. We're full on lousy regardless of him. If we never signed him, we'd be precisely where we are right now. Jordan Oesterle is hardly the bane of this roster's ineptitude. I'm certain there are more pressing issues than crucifying Jordan Oesterle. Maybe Backlund, Lindholm, Huberdeau, Kadri, Andersson, Hanifin and Mangiapane should distract from anything Oesterle is or isn't doing.

This exploits just how badly stats have little to do with reality. It does the same for Husso. He looks great too, then people like Ryan Pike and others invent stories from stat lines. It's annoying af. They tend to leave out the, "prolly shoulda lost 14-2" part.