conundrumed

Dude. It's been 3 months. On the patience scale of 1-10, we're trying to pull you in to conform to that scale's boundaries.lol

There's a looong ways to go with all of the players. All could be gems or just missed. ARI took the heat for taking Simashev 6th, but I don't blame them. "He would have been there at their next pick" was the consensus. Not sure I agree. Reinbacher was just selected, Simashev was going to be next one way or the other. Their next pick of But at 12 is the serious headscratcher for me. I just don't really see a top 35 there, let alone 12th. I'm really interested to see how the dmen shake out though. My guess is always wrong, but it's: Simashev Reinbacher Willander/Pellika - tied. Then there are a bunch of dmen that could shine from rds 2-4. It's all dev now, and lord knows Detroit loves to have Kronwall be foster-dad to dmen in Sweden. Pairings of Wallinder-Seider and Edvinsson-SandinPellika would likely be superfun in a few years. But 3 out of those 4 need work on the defensive side. Skating and puck-moving isn't a problem. Seider will need a letter soon. Just needed his physical game to improve and he's noticeably doing that. Chiarot, on the other hand, that contract is a problem. We hope he's better this year, but that's unlikely. Edvinsson or Johansson can literally have that spot right now. We can accept new NHLers making those kind of mistakes. As for ASP, nothing says grain of salt like the Detroit Red Wings and the SHL's "Top 10 players <21yo". They should just buy a team there.lol I'm a little surprised Detroit took him. I expected Moore or Barlow. USNTDP is about a 1/2 an hr from Detroit. Then they took more giant Dmen. Augustine was a solid G pick. Especially that Bednar currently looks a lot better than Cossa, who desperately needs a psychiatrist with him to start camps on time.

I hope this becomes a popular thread for the right reasons. My hope: move the puck faster and outright trade a couple of forwards for a couple of players that enjoy the sandbox in front of the other team's net. Even Corey Perry would look like an upgrade atm. Too much thinking, not enough doing. Need to get goalies moving and mess with their sightlines. 42 shots they can see are 42 they will stop. Tic-tac-toe goals have become a rarity for us, and we don't really have the prick standing in front of the goalie ala Holmstrom. Then we can cringe over this type of thing:

I know right? Like a fat girl in a thong bikini.

Everyone will be ecstatic to know that Markstrom's actual salary this year is $8mil.

Pellika plays in the SHL so was unavailable. But the Wings did lose Carter Mazur to IR in game 1 of the prospect tourney:(

This is my biggest issue. What should Markstrom have had? The first goal with Boeser having all day to take away his sight line? The 2nd with the breakaway straight down the pipe on a pass from their dman going from his net to center untouched? Or the 3rd one where where Kadri and Huberdeau didn't give a Satoshi Nakamoto about safely getting the puck out of their zone/Andersson and Kadri leaving a guy wide open behind them while they frothed to go north? The blame Markstrom thing has gotten downright pathetic. Look at your Blockchaining players. They look way worse than the goalie. And are we just going to gift perennial 3rd liner Mangiapane a spot? Where even is he? Lavishing in being guaranteed a spot? JFC this team...but worse, the fans that blame the goalie for that thing called your players. What did they muster, 18 shots? I get preseason, but we're at the end of it. You'd think, just effing maybe, you don't look exactly like last year. Score 1 lousy goal and your goalie is the problem.

Sorry I couldn't get past "Schmidt Array" and "basement studio". lol That is freaking awesome. Completely removed me from caring about hockey and my right foot immediately started pressing imaginary switches and pedals. What would each of our players sound like if they were a guitar pedal?

All 5 defenders were at the puck carrier. Let's blame Markstrom. I agree with tmac about the constant turnover machine. Hopefully this gets really cleaned up defensively, because that was fugly. I don't think a goalie can save you from those complete breakdowns/low effort in your own end. edit anyone know how to post a screenshot at 26 seconds of the extended highlights? That's just when the pass is going to the dman at the point on goal #1 that apparently is Markstrom's fault. How many Flames skaters do you see? Nice coverage boys...

So. All 5 Flames collapsing on the puck carrier. Wide open dman at the middle of the point, wide open forward in front of the net...I have no idea wtf they were doing, but it sounds like that pathetic little display gets 5 passes. Does why they scored just not matter at all? I don't have a problem when a goalie let's in a weak shot. Freeze the play just before the puck goes to the point for the shot. What in the dying F kind of defence is that? All 5 Flames players. WTF are at least 3 of them doing there? And top players to boot. Look at those guys just wiiiiide open in front of Markstrom and at the point. Now that is scary. The forwards, the best ones, were awful defensively for goals 1 and 3. The 2nd goal, Oesterle is stuck in no man's land because Hughes just waltzes through the forwards, If you can't score, can you at least pick your defensive games up?

The waivers are only getting heavier.lol https://www.capfriendly.com/waivers

The Young Wings nearly devastated the Leafs starting roster in Toronto last night, but alas, fell 4-3 in OT. A major, near life-altering event narrowly avoided.lol

I have one. The A team loss vs the Oilers B team. Last night, Toronto pretty much ran their starting roster, including goalie, at home vs the Wings. The Leafs won 4-3 in OT in a very good game. Here is the Wings roster for said game, zero top 9 forwards, zero Top 3, maybe 4 dmen, zero Top 2 goalies:

Quoted for truth. Unfortunately, CNRL hardly needs this much taxpayer funding, nor did Rexall, nor did Little Caesar's Pizza. But they do have high end advisors and lawyers to twist reality into the unrecognizable. Add in all govts are complete folly and the taxpayers are left holding the unlubricated dildo of consequences. Same old story. Taxpayers never get their money's worth. This is off-track, but be thankful you're not Detroit. Go bankrupt and the rest of your country doesn't gaf. So now trying to be progressive in rebuilding, billionaire's have bought up integral properties (yes Illitch's, you too) on the cheap in the crisis and are derelict landlords. They are squats for the homeless is the only positive. They just let them rot and wait for an inflated roi. So Gov. Whitmer is trying to tackle that. So far, someone attempted to kidnap her and her name was on a captured hitman's list who had already taken out a retired judge. That's only what I know of. Good old American underworld. If $$$ doesn't buy you, serious threats to your life may. So look at the bright side!! Their city-proper population is tanking hard. Peeps are moving to the 'burbs. Half of the city core is either parking lots or owned by derelict owner billionaires. Most of those properties are desperately needed to build housing infrastructure at all income levels. Why taxpayers argue about which political party is the best is way beyond me. F$%# Trudeau will turn into F^%$ whoever is next. They are all the same. Such is Capitalism by it's very nature.

I worry a lot about Veleno-vibes for Zary. Veleno was up too early by at least a year. Now it's like an unending struggle to rise above the 4C. I am definitely okay with continuing to develop Zary. Didn't really see Schwindt being a possible answer, but here we are. Solovyov is getting his deserved notice. I have some faith in the hockey ops. My lack of understanding doesn't = they're failing.lol

No reason to get upset. I watch my fair share of US born kids. They do not have a problem with Canada and are generally really upstanding kids. The odd one that dictates gets waaaay to much airtime as it is not close to normal. My opinion, Phillips isn't going to kill it. I mean, Bedard might be able to, but that is far from a guarantee. The NHL is hard as nails. I hope Phillips can find away but he definitely won't be lighting it up.

I do believe that it is at C where Ruzicka starts fading into being overly-conservative a lot. It's just options that scare me. I like Dube at RW, don't wanna play ready or not with Zary and Rooney doesn't look good imo. So when presented with those options, Ruzicka starts looking more favourable. Unfortunately, for me, none of those options look ideal. Pius Suter would have been close to ideal I think, or at least safe. I believe rumours had us in on him so if true it's not as if Conroy isn't wary of 4C being a potential need.

I agree completely. Phillips is a guy that I'll hope and cheer does well. But I definitely won't turn around on the Flames and say they screwed up. Great to see him have a nice camp and earn some praise. But it ends there, he's not a top 6 here, move along. Besides, a Calgary kid that grew up a Wings fan. So in the '04 playoffs when he was 3, he would have been cheering for the Wings when we devastated them. Who needs that kind of cancer in the locker room? And do I really need to add the /s, or should I hold out for the /swoosh?

It's really the Pelletier injury for me. "Next up" they say. I just hope that option will look decent. I'm not really serious about Czarnik, but we do have things to ponder. Rosie being a big one. Is he an effective top 6 LW or do we need him to be a center to have any form of depth? I still see depth as a weakness.

He's was a useful call-up from GR. But that's likely disappearing too:) But to your point. You might be in trouble if a craftier version of Dryden Hunt is your finger-crossing for top 6. If we want him back to spot duty on the 4th line he'll be on waivers in a hot minute. lol

Don't forget Sergeev. The NCAA fires up this wkend and UConn goes b2b vs Colgate. They're in tough in the Hockey East division with BU ranked #1 with the Celebrini's and 14 NHL drafted prospects. BC is ranked #6 with half of last year's USNTDP u18 team, including Leonard-Smith-Perrault STILL together. I'm positive Sergeev will have a really good year to follow up last season: 19GP; 11-6-1; 2.61gaa; .912sv%. So our top 2 G prospects are 7th rders. That's kinda fun. Not 1, but 2 Pekka Rinne's. lol We added 2 more NCAA grads last year to test out. It's not like we aren't looking. 31 other teams are too. You can't cycle through them all, and hits are extremely rare. Did you hear the commentators re Adin Hill coming in last year? Not even they knew he goalies very well. They were calling him 4th-5th string, ECHL goalie. It was absurd. Due to them obviously never having actually watched him before. I was insulted for him. lol Goalies are waaay harder than coulda woulda shoulda. Nearly impossible to project to the NHL as has been proven over and over again. Still waiting for Spencer Knight to be Carey Price...

Now envision a Flames player doing what Pastrnak did there. It would be pure fire and brimstone from fans.lol That's a close to full team roster from Washington. Would Phillips still clear waivers with his solid camp?

The Bedard show with a 4-2 win. 1g,2a. The line is Hall-Bedard-T.Johnson. Lots of PPs included such luminaries as Perry and Foligno. The Hawks look like a world of pain this season. Outshot the D 34-17. Still not sure why Michael Hutchinson's Travelling Yard Sale is with Detroit. NHL preseason NHLer guidelines I guess. Berggren-Veleno-Kostin looked great together, particulary on the cycle. 4th line? Rasmussen-Ladd-Perron looked not even close to Compher centering. Ladd needs a bounce back after starting later last season due to injury. Outside of those 2 lines it was all prospects and Doucet and Albert Johanson were the best. It's hard to watch feeds that aren't Mickey and Ken.lol

Well you didn't have to say it in a mad way. lol

izeerman is a legend! lol