travel_dude

Don't get me wrong, the seating itself is not the problem. It's the approach. I was at the Glendale Arena and IIRC you had an escaltor to get to the upper sections. I'm not a fan of unaccessable seating.

Everyone is tradeable, but at some point you need to ice a team that can be competetive at some point. In 5 years, Ras is 33 and Weegar is 35. They could be the best 1-2 punch in the NHL by then. It's possible that Parekh and Brzust could be top pairing capable by then, but maybe just on the way. Not everyone is at that level by age 21/22. I would be inclined to trade one of the older guys once they get passed by the kids. There is no absolutely right or wrong in how you develop and build the roster. It's organic.

I am all for a subdued outside in favour of an awesome entertainment experience. Just having seats is not enough. Has to take into account the Bow, since we are told 100 year storms happen every couple of years, so it can't be in a deep hole. Maybe it's like a generational player. 5 of them in one season. Huh? Seriously, I just don't care for nosebleed sections like PL, since it was a gross way to get tou a seat.

I never understood the drop of mercury for a design of the arena. What does that have to do with Oil Country? Also, be careful of leaky roofs.

Maybe a heartthrob pic of Markstrom. Or a Teen Beat pic of Beeber or Timberlake.

I think you need Lombo to be the 4th line energy guy. Play him extra minutes to kick a line in the pants, but don't overuse him in a top 9 role. It's a bit early to project lines, but I think we have enough top 9 guys to fill those lines out. As it is, Coronato and Pelletier have a tall task pushing down someone already at the top 9 level. Maybe Mantha doesn't impress, but Pelletier or Coronato would be no higher than Backlund line as it stands now taking Mantha down to the 4th line. That is such a waste. I prefer to have energy guys with Lombo. It may be a small line, but Lombo with Coroanto or Pelletier might be just fine.

Gaudreau was wirery. Say it with me...Wirery....It's fun. Not often do you sell off a franchise player when they are set to be the franchise leader in almost all categories. Could have got a tone for Iggy or Kipper at the right time. Or Doug Gilmore....Ooops messed that one up...Thanks Riseborough. COL should trade Makar now while he is worth a ton. After all, he is signing with CGY as a FA. There are some exceptions to the Gaudreau rule. Phillips was too small for the style he played. Had he followed Gaudreau style, he might have lasted. Maybe not a NHL bust but he's got to do something different. Stanky is small in height, but built for the game. He did get plastered in the playoffs, but he was an acceptable risk for a late first. Better choice, given his stats, than say Bougault. A bust. I still chuckle when I hear EDM analysts talk about that pick. Traded down to avoid a goalie that they needed. Picked up a defenseman that can barely score in college. Hello Boltman.

Speaking for myself, I would do the Debbies bet. If Conumdrumed does the same bet, you would need to do a week with his hoice and a week with mine. Let me see, what could I do.....A pic of Francis in a Flames jersey at the draft (too rare)? Dunno. It will come to me.

And we have to give up a pick on top of the unprotected 1st in 2026. Yikes. Losing a 2-10 pick would be really bad too, but that only happens if FLA is also top 10. I am banking on FLA being 11-32. Then it doesn't matter what ours is. If we get to TDL and the Flames are close to worst in the league with FLA similar, then I am thinking we need to trade some good players to FLA. Get them out of top 10. LOL

The popular narrative was that the goalies sucked. However, if you look at so called HD chances, Marky was tops. I never got the Vladar hate, and maybe it's well founded, but I saw struggles from him more on the quote easy shots. Markstrom struggled sometimes with the low, far post from the winf shot. Vladar was similar. A lot of that was from blown assignments and odd man rushes. The D struggled somewhat last year adjusting to zone defense. Teams that know how to expose the holes can exploit that. Adding to that, we had a new #1C and a 4C that was not consistent (honestly, can't remember who was there prior to Rooney). For sure we lack a true #1D, but teams rareky have one that plays the position well in all circumstances. Douche-bomb is an example of what they call a 1D that only knows one side of the game. Ekholm is the only reason he is able to play like a forward. TO doesn't have one. VAN has Hughes but he struggles a bit after losing Tanev. Makar is solid but is pretty rare. I think there may be like 5 actual 1D out there. But they are in a pairing that is tops, so it's really hard to tell.

I looked up the stats for that year; 2022-23. No Kylington, but we had Weegar, Hanifin, Andersson, Tanev, and Zadorov. The wild card was Stone or Mackay or DeSimone or or. Your individual ratings are a bit harsh for what they were at the time. We never had a true #1, but Tanev was easily a top 2 in the league. Not the high scoring "studs" like Douche-bomb was. Kylington was a 4 on a ton of teams, and his defensive gaffs were the reason he never got higher.

You mean 22/23? He's had up and down years. 20/21 was a tale of two Markstroms. Marky-1 was the team MVP and was headed to a gerat year. Marky-1a raced out to play a puck and got a knee in the head for his troubles. Marky-2 was nowhere the same goalie. 21/22 was the year of the 9 shutouts. 22/23 was a down year but we still had Lucic and it was the first year of Weegar and Huberdeau. And we were 2 points out of 8th in the West.

I was talking about a couple of things. Do you mean Dougie not being top 5 in the league in scoring? Or that the Debbies won't be 23-32rd in standings? What kind of profile pic wager are you talking about?

The size can be an issue. Gaudreau was not like Marti STL. Not thick. Not tree trunks for legs. Gaudreau was quick to get in and out of zones and tight spaces, so his size was not as much an issue. When it was playoffs and the game slowed down and was hit and hurt, he was not quite as effective. Never been past 2nd round so no way to tell what he would be in a final. Point is beefy. Kuch is quick but not shy. No matter if you are 6'1 or less, you will get hit hard. If you are not thick you will get hurt as much or more being taller.

Challenge accepted. I will draft him in the regular season NHL draft, LOL. Even though the goaltenders are both older and have rocky season behind them, they are way better than what they had last year. Goals against was their biggest problem. That tends to be a team stat, but starts from the net.

So they had a season missing their top scoring D-man. Dougie played 20 games. McLeod was lost to the case, played 45. And they had terrible goaltending for over half the season. They were a mere 20 goals for back of the Rangers, but let in close to 60 more. That was then. At worst they are a bubble team.

Going by memory. Cross did a good job of the conditions but it's so far back I can't find it. If our pick is top 10 and FLA is top 10 it gets ugly.

Lotto protection amounts to the same thing as top 10, since a lotto win moves you up by 10 spots. Okay, so the FLA pick is protected against being a top 10 pick. If they don't make the playoffs and their pick is inside the top 10, we get the 2026 pick unprotected. If FLA is outside the top 10, then that pick is likely headed to Montreal, unless we are also outside the top 10. MTL gets the better of the two. I haven't found a site that does as well with picks and trade conditions. Capfriendly was pretty good, even if the Monahan trade was beyond the normal set of conditions. Seems like all our trades have them attached and it makes it a waiting game on what we actually get or send. With Conroy at least it's just waiting on what we get. We are still waiting to pay for a BT trade.

I'm 1/3 of the way there. High IQ - um ah RHS - yup, I'm a weird RH that shoots right RD - well if I was good at the hockey and liked skating backwards, maybe I wonder sometimes how many RHS are actually southpaws. If I didn't know better, I would swear that the split between LHS and RHS is the same as righties vs southpaws (the ones the nuns couldn't beat out the devil). That last comments is coutesy of my RC spouce.

So that would equal 3 unprotected 1st rounders including our own in 2026. This year, at best we get 2 picks, assuming FLA is outside the top 10. Scenario 1 Calgary drafts 1-10 FLA is later than 10 NJ is later than 10 Result - FLA pick goes to MTL Scenario 2 Calgary drafts 1-10 FLA is later than 10 NJ is top 10 Result - FLA pick goes to MTL, NJ goes to 2026 Scenario 3 Calgary drafts 1 FLA is top 10 NJ is later than 10 Result - No pick goes to MTL, defaults to 2026 unprotected, they get an extra picks from us. FLA is unprotected 2026. Scenario 4 Calgary drafts 2-32 FLA is top 10 NJ is top 10 Result - CGY goes to MTL. 2026 becomes a big year for us: - CGY 1st - FLA 1st unproteced - Vegas 1st unprotected - NJ 1st unprotected I will admit that these scenarios are based on my last viewing of Capfriendly (an old friend). How crazy would 4 picks in 2026 be? The only way that happens is that we have zero picks in 2025. That would suck. Again, I wouldn't bet $1000 on that understanding, just whay I think I remember.

I think I remember you discussing this awhile back. Didn't respect BM or TSN prior to that, but that certainly lowered my opinion of him. I am so happy that TSN has no rights to anything NHL related, not that SN is much better. TSN was and still is a joke of a station. They covered the FA like a couple of kids with trading cards. Well kids have more class. From Doris the chimp to Plinko the NHL signing game, they look to be joke of TV land. MY only regret is that TSN has sole rights it seems to the WJC. It's their opportunity to act like talent scouts and see who can have the most stories about a kid playing for Canada or the USA. Sometimes get ones about Euro players. "He was so poor that his cup was half a coconut worn inside his underwear and his skates were winter boots with hand forged steel for blades, sharpened with a couple of rocks." In with the new. Not sure exactly what we are building yet, but the signs are good so far. I don't know the master plan, and am interested in where we go from here. Mantha and Lombergini are here for different reasons, perhaps Lombo can get Mantha going with his attitude. Bean is currently injured, a fact I didn't realize at the time he signed. Out till September/October, but not 100% sure if he will be available for camp. The D will only be as good as they are balanced out. Not exactly sure how Bahl fits in, but suspect he is top 4. I am interested to see how they deal with Kuzmenko. He sure fits with the quasi direction we seem to be going in with Russian players. He's talented but does little away from the puck, except get open. His edge work reminds me a bit of Johnny Hockey, when he first arrived; a bit stunned away from the puck. Whatever. We either work on him to get his game more complete or we get him scoring 40 to up his value by TDL.

The knee jerk was obvious and why it wasn't safe to have BT try to recoup the losses. They were losses plain and simple. The Tkachuk deal was probably par value, but it was a loss of a young player. The knee jerk was him feeling the need to add a big name and ship out the former Boring SM. He was more worried about losing Huberdeau for nothing that he re-signed him in a turnover year. Hey, I was giving J.Hockey 10.5 anyway or Tkachuk gets that much to stay, so new winger gets that deal. BT was trading SM when he was not yet recouped. The prognosis was great but need to trade? Funny, we weren't in dire shape even with the Kadri signing, not great but not dire. We were all set prior to re-sign JH and Matty. Would have required some cap slight of hand, but that's why the big boys wear pants. Anyway, it's the trade tree that keeps growing. Should have been at most a shrub.

What's the story on the team re-name? Formerly Misses Sauga, now Brampton?

Yes, that is exactly what I was saying in a round about way. The VAN series was weird. One game the Nucks tie it up with less than 2 minutes, then proceed to give up the GWG with less than 40 seconds. Another game the Oilers give up the GWG with less than 40 seconds left. No Demko. Still pushed the OIlers to brink of elimination. The Kings series was a joke; they shouldn't have made 3rd in the Pacific. Any way, the Oilers can claim victory in UFA day. Connor Brown and Perry. Skinner and Arvidsson. And the solution to their defense is the worse Brown, the other Carrick, Stecher. More offense, less effective D and they have to trade Ceci to make it work.

I am not Vegas, so I am not buying into EDM having the highest odds of winning the cup. They got 12 wins leading up to the SCF. Flip a couple of teams in other series and perhaps you have different results. EDM is no closer to winning it all than when they beat us in the 2nd round.