travel_dude

Oilers trade (finally) Puljujarvi for a mid round prospect playing in Europe. Finn for a Finn. No retained salary, time to get an offensive D-man.

I don't know what the actual experience is like in Nashville, but it's supposed to be an entertainment district. Ghila Arena looked to be designed that way, but drop it in the middle of nowhere and all you get is tailgaters for the dome football games. EDM media shows the arena as the centre of the Ice Zone, but more like the crack zone. A bar in spitting distance and an outdoor place for them to watch losses in the playoffs. The LRT line is about the only convenient thing, to get the F outa there. The team is in need of a strong voice, but BT is being worked by the owner group. I would like to see better pro coaches, since we either have a disconnect between coaching and GM or we have pro scouts that don't know how to fill a need. Jarnkrok was a perfect example. Good player, but didn't fit. Neal was just a fading player but also he wasn't a fit anywhere with us. One was a waste of picks while the other tied us to a terrible contract that was shed for a worse one.

Seems like the former basement teams are starting to win some. Like nobody wants to be accused of tanking. Ottawa probably drop this one tonight. Expect ARI and company to win a few games.

I would not use PITTS as an example of what can happen. TB won in two obscure seasons.

Okay, so combine the lost revenue during the getting back to relevance period with the cost to build a new arena. EDM sent a decade to get McD and be a playoff team. Firtunately for them, the cost of the arena fell to taxpayers. He also got a sweet deal on confirmed tenants for a new building he did fund. The city. While the loss of playoff revenues for about 5 years is bad enough, the loss of ticket revenue regular season adds to it. Hard sell for a GM.

SO, the three you first mentioned were all run over by the Oilers last year. Not physically, just were exploited. Do they offer some toughness that we could use in a round? Sure. Do they help get us to the playoffs? Questionable. Backlund is a 2nd half player. Lindholm lost all of his effective line, even Monahan is gone. He's still leading the team. We may need scoring, but we need guys that don't get scored on. Not just D and goalies, but players that cover one on one well. Backlund is good at that, as is Ras. Taven can be a rock, but like him, Backlund, Lewis, Lucic, Markstrom, they are aging out. Still have some productive years left, but not maybe enough to re-sign. If not re-signing, then we have to trade them. Absolutely useless to let Lucic and Lewis and Ritchie walk if they have some value at TDL.

That was a trade for the likes of Duehr if Duehr had a 41 point season last year. Don't get me wrong, I like Duehr. So, we should be able to get a 1st for Lucic with 50% retained? LOL

They are going to re-tool or rebuild. Trotz is going to be the GM I understand. Allways a bridesmaid team, they can't get back to contender status. Aging stars, stud goalie and aging D (both better than ours) Jeannot never lived up to last year. I don't worry about them passing us, since we need to look up, not down. Like STL they will win some games. They don't really have much of a chance of playoffs and they get it.

It's possible that the team has give up on the coach, but I don't think they have given up on themselves. By itself, a loss like that to COL isn't a big deal. The problem is you combine it with the way we lost to VGK and the losses to DET etc. The smart thing to do is trade some players if they have any value out there. The problem with that is it tells the players the GM has given up the season. If it's smartly done, then the guys left see it as a chance to win again. Anyway, good on you for keeping the faith. The next 2 weeks deicdes our fate.

I should have said the thing I really was getting at. If Sutter had not signed an extension, it's very possible he would be relieved of the Head Coach spot after this mixed bag of results.

Sutter signed to an extension before they played a single game. Got the credit for taking an inconsistent team that had two superstars and got them into the playoffs. So, a line of 3 x 40 goal scorers must be the coach being brilliant, right? That's like putting McD and Draisaitl together and calling it some kind of genius. The change to this year is we don't have two of the superstars. Kylington not being here hurt the skating side of the D. Has the coaching adjusted to the change? It appears the message is volume shooting and giving up the blueline. No stars, so get to the gritty areas. A team doesn't play a certain way for an entire season if it's not the design from the coaching staff. What the team was missing in the playoffs was the getting to the gritty areas. The top stars failed to do that. But we have very little speed on the rush now. Dump and chase or get pucks deep. Tkachuk wasn't fast. The rushes were.

I think the point of those two posters is that we have created the Frankenstein of a team. I disagree that the three newest contracts are the problem. At the very least we should try combos now. There is nothing in any recent wins to suggest we are set up right. He's an odd fact, when Kadri is a minus player for the night we are 4-16-6. When he's a plus player, we are 14-0-3. Doesn't take into account the even games. For context, Kadri is a minus player 9 times since January 1st and plus player 4 times. That signals to be that he should be with the top defensive players or a power foward like Nichushkin. At the very least Coleman, maybe Duehr? AT the very least we need to build around Hubey and Weegar. What we have is two different teams and neither of them is good.

Perhaps the loud noise coming from the fans wil be heard more clearly; fire the coach. Every game we lose is "missed that open net" or "hit the bar" or "we score on the PP and it's a different game". We are not simply an unlucky team. PDO says we are, but we could score more and still lose. Had we made it 2-1 last night, it's likely they score 2 more. We make it 3-1, they score to make it 4-1. Vegas gets a tying goal and we hit the crossbar on the PP. We had one shot in the period, not including that. They don't tie it up, we probably still end in OT. It's tough to watch us build momentum then see the coach throw out the 4th line, because they play every 4th shift. We let teams back in because we play to not lose when we get a lead after 1 or 2. Sutter would have been the perfect coach for Burke. Get me some truculence. Hunter Smith would be a middle 6 player. Brouwer would be top line.

Yeah, the drop down link doesn't work. I have been using the community.... URL.

Sounds like they broke the link by mistake and won't ever fix it. Used to be able to use both URL's. Now only one. I suppose it's cheaper not to have to pay for two on the DNS.

That's odd because I don't think I have changed my bookmark to the site since the Captcha thing. I don't ever have to log in.

Sutter's last order of business should be saying sorry to the fans for taking what should have been a solid roster with 3 decent C's and turning the lines into mush. Can't even decide that a goalie has been crap for an entire season, just keeps sending him out. He looked very ordinary for 3 of 4. Again. It's his call, whether Sigalet knows who is the better goalie or not. But, hey lets blame the rest of the team for their slow methodical, dump and chase style. The lines haven't changed in months, except for the addition of Pelletier and demoting Lucic back to the 4th line. Must still be Ruzicka's fault the 4th line is mostly garbage. Couple of players per game play to their strengths and rise above this mind numbing crap. But mostly they play down to it. Don't want to get yelled at for going offense when we have a 2 goal lead. Yeah, there once was a game where we had a lead. Better get back to dump and chase. Pucks in deep. Yup.

Can't wait to hear the words of wisdom from the (should go back there) Farmer. He would be good for a team like the Preds that don't need the help. The loud calls from the fans to replace him will just keep getting louder. At this point I would rather watch this team lose 6-5 than 4-2 or 3-1.

Don't be like that. We will place end up 2nd best non-playoff team. And the team behind us get the lotto pick to move up 10 spots.

4-1 or 4-3 loss doesn't matter, that 4th goal killed any chance.

Kadri doesn't know when to pass

Need a goal soon to have any chance.

Okay even up.

AVS retaliate, but we get the extra

Smart choice putting 4th line out at the end of the PP. Penalty ensues. Maybe we can get that rookie coach the Oilers had when they were last. Swarm defense.