conundrumed

Dark days ahead.lol

Nope. Some have changed usernames even. The cratering is painful at times.

Pretty sure the Kraken got beat by Dallas just in time for them to get reinforcements to the farm. We just didn't knock them off fast enough.lol But I definitely raised my eyebrows wondering, at what point do you take the back end? I thought that would have been the series to do it. But it seems rare the choosing team ever takes the backend. Where of course I, with no skin in the game, would.haha

That would make sense. It's just a question of does he want to replay his, "most recognizable person in Calgary" lifestyle? I understand that it got pretty hard on his personal life in the end. Impossible to do the most menial of tasks without being recognized.

Welcome back!

TSN 2 showing the Centennial Cup at 2pm MST. Are the Brooks Bandits ever not in the finals?lol

Phillips was also waived with no takers, so it's hard to define him as an asset.

We seriously have enough smallish forwards. I'm fine with him going elsewhere. The Pelletier comparison makes zero sense. The team practices, so it's not just in-game looks. The fact remains, Pelletier made an immediate effective impact on the 4th line, as did Duehr. Phillips didn't. The "real chance" thing is meh. He's your classic "boom or bust" 6th rder that was worth the risk. So he is in no way, shape or form a bottom 6 player. So now you're trading Dube/Mangiapane to create a spot for him. 2 clearly better players so they better fetch you a great upgrade on D. There. I said it. Somebody had to. Enough of the pissing and moaning over a guy lighting up a glorified men's league. Sign him for a year and loan him to the SHL. There. There's your real chance. Watch what happens. It's his skating and center of gravity holding him back, not us. We have enough diminutive falldown forwards. Enough of that already. Petterson deserves the next shot if I'm reading @tmac70 correctly. He's follows the Wranglers way heavier than myself, so I'm more than happy to hear what he thinks. But dragging Pelts into this, who clearly grabbed his chance and showed how he can enhance the team, is unfair. I think it's clear Sutter sets young guys up to fail so they really have to grab it. Then he kicked Pelts straight up the roster, really, to find some failures so he could staple him to the pressbox. But that's mho and another matter. But if the hordes of fans want Phillips that badly, you're going to have to decide who you'll trade in the top 6. Not a chance in hell he can be a season-long bottom 6. Size is still a thing in the NHL, whether or not you want it to be.

Seems like he can be a fireball bottom 6 winger to me. Off to the Memorial Cup!! What more could you ask of a 6th rder in the Covid draft? If Beck kept his trajectory without injury, that 6th rd would be looking spectacular rn. Seattle's on a tear, if only my Sting had the goaltending to get past London.🤮 We all knew it. Even with Gaudreau literally playing for his Dallas ELC he wasn't even average. Many took us to take the O. Overlooking our "star" goalie. I wish we played the backup, he couldn't have been worse and he doesn't have Smith-level tantrums for being Satoshi Nakamototy. Now they're talking he could be back as an over-ager. So if you hear the Sting mgr/coach got punched out, you'll know who I am.lol Anyways, you have to admire the Flames scouting.🙂

Ouch. Of the 2 players on expiring contracts that you may not be able to re-sign, I think I prefer the better one that is currently cheaper and plays C. If I'm TO I'd do that trade ally day.

I wouldn't be interested personally. He started in with a lot of "genius" pomp and ceremony. Left with pomp and ceremony. "Smartest guy in the room" hockey people always only turn out to be the most annoying guy in the room. What was with the overbearing SSM connection? It's not like SSM is fire in the CHL or ever has been. That Matt Murray trade is amongst the dumbest and most non-sensical I've ever seen. Ottawa must have been pinching themselves only retaining 25% for a 3rd and 7th pick on a horrible contract. That's an ARI-level deal, but they'd have gotten more. A 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th for O'Reilly and Acciari? That's 2 4th liners as O'Reilly's effectiveness for St. Loo was truly over. Some of the things Leafs fans celebrate as answers really leave you wondering what the question was.

Safe is high floor. It only means if he can't quite cut it for top 6, should be a shoo-in for bottom 6. As opposed to high ceiling-low floor, which is top 6 or bust. My interpretation. So Cristall would be high ceiling-low floor, Musty high ceiling-high floor. Maybe Phillips vs Coleman in a worst case scenario. Not a perfect comparison, but something like that. Loaded on LW is a matter of opinion. We don't seem to have an effective 2LW. Coleman and Dube are both better at RW so why force that issue? Hopefully Pelletier can be a 2LW, but we're still lacking size with skill at wings which I think is why we have zero net presence. Barlow would be ideal for us honestly, and amongst the after Carlsson picks is the closest to NHL ready. The problem with him is what's next? Hard to send back to jr, he threw up 30g in 59 games as a 16yo. 46 in 59 last year. I don't normally subscribe to not sending back to jr, but that's ridiculous. He'll be gone, so I think I'm hanging my hat on Musty. Skilled size still matters a lot in this league and we just don't really have any. While D cores are getting bigger and better on many teams. Unfortunately, we need that too. Which is why I'd also champion Simashev. Just no more small wingers, we have too many.

JFC, if that isn't just going through the motions I don't know what is. That's a pathetic list of candidates.

I'd say that's totally up to Shanahan regardless of who the GM is. It shouldn't be an issue. I highly doubt Dubas had free reign on the initial contracts with their 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Treliving now has permission to talk to teams, funny enough. He'd be a great fit in Toronto where you build from forwards down.

And is Keefe the next to go in Toronto? I have to wonder if Love is somewhat attached to Treliving.

I'm all for the Neko Sparks-Snoop Dogg Sens bid. Particularly the part about making the game accessible to inner-city youth. Donovan Bailey has joined their bid. But tbh I haven't looked into the bids in detail.

Fact again, Leafs fans, Matthew Knies is a product of the Coyotes minor hockey program.

This is a pretty good write-up that I like. Some things are just zany to me but he's offering his opinion and overall there's a ton of info. He has us landing at Moore and Bonk: https://www.recruitscouting.com/2023-nhl-draft-rankings-gabriel-foleys-top-100/

Taking a nap @ 7pm est only to wake up at 2:30am and think they're replaying Game 1 of FLA vs CAR only to realize it's period 7:

At the end of the day, there really aren't "safe" picks, just higher floors. It still doesn't matter until they progress. A "safe" pick is prolly better defined as a better all-around game which is a big plus. Lots of high end guys seem to have peaked at 17 and never made it. So playing the high risk game isn't all that it's cracked up to be. The DeBrincat's are outliers. Gambling in the top 50 is not a great idea unless you already have prospects that allow you to take a flier. We seriously can't afford to take a gamble this time around. I'd call both Yager and Cristall gambles. That's just my opinion though not seeing their games translate well. I felt the same about DeBrincat for reference. But he's an exception, not the rule. Galchenyuk and Yakupov taught me well.lol

Holy crap that's a lot of tailgate parties.lol I frequented the Centrium doing a pretty big job there in the Getzlaf-Phaneuf era. Always superfun. If you ever heard anyone yelling at Getzlaf to play angry, that was me. Getlaf-the-floater sucked. Getzlaf-the-pissed was a whole other world.lol

One major problem is that they've built a solid minor hockey foundation there, which it is all about. They've grown the game. Tempe effectively voted to keep that location remaining a dumpster. It would be sad if Calgary chose the same. I don't think Bettman will let ARI die. Gather up the rich people and see what can be done. They're about to become a really fun team to watch. But this thing has been on life support since inception. In all seriousness, gotta reign in the TMLs org's monopoly and put another team in the region. So what? Buffalo and T.O. are within 3 hours, look at the NY region +300km. That's 5 or 6 teams. Allowing TML to monopolize a population base that size is a complete fail of business model for the league. Here's how sideways it is: If you flew return TO to Columbus for a game and hotel for a night, it would be cheaper than just going to a game at home. People complain more teams water down the talent level, but I'm not one of them. I have a friend that went to game 4 in Florida. Flew from Detroit, good seats. Stayed overnight. All in for him and his wife was about $1,000. 1 ticket in Toronto 15 rows off the ice (similar seats) would have be an easy $2,000. TML hockey in no way, shape or form is accessible for middle class families. Why would anyone in their right mind cheer for that to be successful, and not allow a competing franchise?

Yeah I agree. I met them when he was on the U17 & U18 teams and feel horrible for him. I think he's gone over and above on professionalism even before this. The straw that broke the camel's back. He's the best player that no one gets to see. Cooley, Guenther and lots of kids firing up for them. What a disaster. The NHL has to take over this time, once and for all.

Anyone want to touch on Keller's dad's tweet that Clayton won't be showing up, and many players feeling the same? Later deleted of course. Put it down to being irate and ranting I think. KC would be awesome. I'd go for sure. KC Jazz baby, mess with the Blues. How did Utah get Jazz? Pretty sure they'd have lynched jazz musicians for skin colour. Maybe that's what they mean. The Utah Murder. A buncha crows chilling at the gallows pole was maybe an emblem that they couldn't quite get wight. Houston can buy a new franchise. I love QC, love it. But MTL is still held back with the whole french thing already. Hard to have a 2nd market that cares about that stuff where no one else does. The culture is hardly at risk, yet it's always the top of the agenda in hockey for some stupid reason. Just for a fun rant, I did a 6 month work stint in St. Eustache just north of Montreal and have done various stints around Hudson's Bay as far as the Gaspe peninsula and have also been a tourist on 3 occasions. I'm very disarming. St. Eustache was the lead up to their 2nd referendum. So, so many aggressively cared about my opinion being from Alberta. I just said I don't care, I don't live here. I wanted to live in Tahiti painting pictures of beautiful women was my separation from Canada. Whatever. Life's a struggle for everyone. It's your choice, not mine. I love Quebec and Quebecers. Sorry, the Quebecois. I left out the spare me parts. Which are, you monopolized hydro-electricity and tear down your forests for the NY Times. You're zero different from the Satoshi Nakamoto we do. The only one's thinking that your culture is in danger are your rebellious young led by political leaders that have a whole other agenda to whip up a frenzy. Politicians don't give a Satoshi Nakamoto about your personal well-being, stop letting them lead you. Same as the rest of us. So I'm a no on QC.lol Not when MTL can't operate without language spoken being a big deal and employment barrier.

25 & 29 for 16th you'd be dumb not to. Which is also why St. Louis wouldn't make that trade. If drafting were a perfect world, I'd agree with you, but it is very far from that. Hence re-drafts are often hilarious. The pick number in no way defines the pick. Would you love Nolan Patrick when we tank and get 2oa? It happens a lot throughout the first 60-odd picks. Nobody but nobody thought Philly made a bad pick at the time. But everyone is a hindsight draft specialist. Everyone loved the Bennett at 4 pick. They would have laughed at us if we took Larkin. Consensus/stats picks are a joke. One of the best all-around players in this draft is Calum Ritchie. He doesn't have 1 thing that he's spectacular at so he falls. Yet at the pro level, that one thing that you're spectacular at will be mitigated. Leaving the top 4 out of this draft, there's about 35 players that could pop. My hard money is on Honzek, Musty, Simashev, Barlow and Dvorsky. Translatable games. Definite NHLers Reinbacher, Danielson, Willander, Smith, Stenberg, Strbak and Ritchie. Good at most or everything they'll need to be good at. The USNTDP trio scare me a bit. A few years together as a line makes me leery that they are driving one another's value up. There is no way the US team shouldn't be winning U18 tourneys. They are the only consistent roster there. Massive advantage. But the long and short of it is if I have a choice between Danielson, Cristall, Yager, Simashev, Stone, Perrault at 16, or 2 of Honzek, Musty, Stenberg, Willander, Ritchie at 25 & 29, I'm doing the latter all day, everyday. The ceilings are similar but the floor is higher. There is still going to be pretty good D prospect at 48 no matter how it shakes out. For the record if it isn't obvious, I prefer dmen that play defence. O stats are waaay overrated and stay-at-home effectively are waaay underrated. Stats just can't account for defenceman that prevent goals is the problem imo. Yet the Toronto and Edmonton teams of the world are mired with that problem. It really negates what you have up front and is massively undervalued. There will never be enough Hedman's. So it turns into one or the other. Dmen aren't supposed to be your O drivers. If they are, you have D issues. Every time.