travel_dude

I think the best equivalent I could come up with would have been Dube-Bennett-Lindholm. The impact to the rest of the lineup would have been significant. Here's a best guess at the lines resulting: Gaudreau-Monahan-scrub Mangiapane-Backlund-Tkachuk Dube-Bennett-Lindholm Lucic-Ryan-Nordstrom Overall, I think it leaves us worse off. Leaves one of the top 2 lines playing less to maximize our most consistent player (Lindholm). I'm not losing sleep over the trade. It was going to happen, so it's good he ended up in the East. I don't think he would have been as successful in Anaheim. TG he didn't end up in EDM, where he could have ended up as a winger for McDavid. Fire Hydrants applying for that job.

I'm not sure that what he is doing in FLA he would ever be able to do here. For that reason, the trade was probably necessary. Had we left him where he finished the playoffs, he would have still been playing with Lucic, which is a far cry from Huberdeau or Duclair. That's just the beginning of the problems. No real speed lines. In all the years we had him, he never had a run like he is having now. Be happy for him, but recognize he probably would be no different than he was if he stayed.

Thanks for that. It sounded like a Francis story. Shannon likes to rub it into Calgary's face a lot. He came out with the paralax view about the non-goal in the Tampa series. "Proved" it was the right call with his demo. One camera angle that you could argue either side. Strange how some sports networks were looking at it after the non call. Anyway, my point was how these after the fact stories are always dumb.

I wouldn't say the Nucks have mailed it in. If it wasn't for a 5-3 PP for the Oilers last night, and 2 PP goals, the result was in question. VAN has two games that are must win for them. They can eliminate both the Flames and Habs by winning all their games and MTL losing all. But the chances of wither VAN or CGY moving on are slim. All they need is a single point or a loss by either team. Unfortunately, if they start Zag, he's likely to go on a heater. The rest of the team will have checked out if we lose one game. Do we have the equivalent of a Seilof to mess up our draft odds?

As it sits today, we are sitting 5th, meaning a 6th draft position, better or worse than that. Possibly 8th, 7th, 2nd or 1st. We could place as low as 3rd worst or jump up to last playoff spot. A loss today seals the fate, but a win drives us up two spots. Crazy. If we end up 6th, I think we end up with Geunther.

Let me see if I can trace the source of the story of the museum? Would it be Eric Francis? The stories always sound like sour grapes, not a reason behind the moves. Taylor Hall a locker room cancer, so they traded him for a D-man. Yeah, that sounds accurate. Tradng for Hamonic after two years of Hamilton on the roster was preplexing. Hamilton put up almost equal or better numbers than Gio, but we traded away the player with the most value. And the hardest to recreate. Harder to play against? Dougie was soft and we all complained about it, but I don't think the replacement made sense. We needed a puck mover. The fault belongs for targeting Hamonic in the first place, not trading Hamilton to improve two areas we lacked. Hanifin and Lindholm have been two of the best players on our team, though Haifin took a bit longer. Then again, he was paired with Hamonic. Not being easy to play against is not a bad strategy, but you need skill. This year's team lacked skill and we actually watered down the lineup. We are not a big bruising team, so let's not fool ourselves into thinking we can trade Gaudreau and Monahan to get there. That's about 5 expensive free agent signings plus Gaudreau and Dube and Backlund for Rantanen and Landeskog. Poor example, but you need dirty to get there.

Habs have 2 games remaining against the Oilers. While they have owned the Oilers this season, things have trended in the opposite direction. Regardless, the Flames have no way of making the playoffs unless they win 5 games in a row. They haven't played like a team capable of winning more than two in a row, and really Ottawa is playing ther best hockey. Let's get this over with so we can put away that last desperate chance at the playoffs.

Lucic was a trade for a mistake. Make a good thing of a bad thing. I can't believe it was the best we could get, but then again his value here was nil. The trades I have the biggest problem with were the ones where we gave up picks. Russel, Glenx, Hudler, Baertschi, even Bennett were fine. Hamonic was a poor scouting effort and a dumb trade. Lazar, Gustafsson, Smith, Elliott just so wrong. As far as the LW's, we have drafted every single one of them. Isn't Dube a C? The interesting part is that only Tkachuk was drafted in the 1st round. The rest were guys you take a flyer on because they put up points and dropped due to being small. That's not a problem, but bunching them all on wing crowds the top 9. As such we are using Tkachuk on RW, Dube on RW. Meanwhile Lucic is playing 3rd line minutes, supposed to be on our shutdown line. The funny thing is had we given up Valimaki for Stone and Bennett for Rakell, we would be in a different boat. We could look at trading Backlund a lot easier. Had we not gone after Hamonic, we might have looked at younger more effective RD. I think the problem is that the GM believes that Gio is the player that exemplifies the qualities you want from your team. As a community person, yes. As a hockey player? He's just okay. He has a battle level, which is what you want. But I think he thinks he can lead the team on the ice. Other back down to him and defer. He's a good soldier, but I'm tired of a team of good soldiers. I want those guys as depth, not on the ice every game. Enough of the preaching. Decisions will be made by whomever actually decides. Pro scouting will continue to identify the wrong players. I don't mind reclamation projects, but only guys that actually had skill to begin with. We will continue to pass over guys that supposedly have attitude problems (Hoffman, Duclair, Wennberg) in favour of the good guys. It's Gio's team, so if players don't get along with him or dislike him, they won't be here.

Whether I like the overall games they played under Ward (regular season), the team had a winning record. 24-15-3 is nothing to sneer at. In fact that is a top team pace of 99 points in a 82 game season. I don't count the Jets series because it was meaningless. They lost a series to the Stars. When I say coaching mistakes I'm talking about playing top vs top. Leaving out Backlund for 2 minutes to finish a game we had taken the lead on. Not using time outs when we needed to slow the game down. Rookie coach stuff if you ask me. Back to the players. Had we been able to complete some trades, we would have a different team. Trocheck, Kadri, Stone.... We have some good players that need good payers, much like every team in the league. No McDavid or Matthews, but we have next tier players that don't have complements. If we are tradng Tkachuk, it better be for the type of return we hoped to get for Gaudreau. Otherwise, why trade him? To me, the players keeping this team from moving forward are - Gio, Backlund, Lucic, 3rd and 4th lines. I've got no real problem with Lucic, but his salary is causing a problem. Backlund - salary not so much, just never gets to a next level. Gio - too many minutes, not much impact, "Gio's team" issues. To a lesser extent, we have too many LW's, some of them too small. Gaudreau, Mangiapane, Dube are all good players, but we don't have enugh LW spots to keep them all.

I don't know much about Clarke. Was just talking about the three I saw listed near the top. As far as where we place, it's tough to call. The worst we can do is place 3rd last, so we pick 4th unless lotto winners bump us down to 5th or 6th. We could actually win the lotto for sure. We could go on a 3 year winning streak in the lotto pool. Realistically, we win one or more games and the ones below us don't catch up. And then we pass the ones above us. Worse case scenario.

What Gaudreau's body language says to me is he hates to lose. Doesn't like being on a losing team. He wants to be a 100 point player and suffers when he can't get there. Every year he gets excited to hear we are bringing in players to complement the top 6, but never actually do. Neal - top 6 that wasn't capable of being one. Brouwer - top 6 never capable of it. Was insulting to suggest that every player gets hacked and he would hack Johnny if he was on another team. Leivo - possibly a top 6 option but almost never used that way. Bennett - was here all along, but only fit as a C, so that wasn't going to happen. Simon - not really close to being a full time top 6. Ritchie - if you want chip and chase fine. How does that match his skills. Lindholm - that was the best he's ever had, but hey we need him to play C. Just because we can't surround him with the right players doesn't mean we should trade him. Bring in Eichel and he would be thrilled.

I think if either is available when we draft, it has to be Beniers or Guenther. I like the latter, but sometimes those US players can really surprise you.

They are helping us decide if we want to be in the playoffs. Entirely possible they lose the last 3 in regulation. Doesn't take away from the fact we still need to win 5 games, 2 of which in regulation. We should know by Sunday if we are done or have a life.

Whether he didn't understand or wasn't able to get the right return is anyone's guess. I'm not sure why you suggest the team was in a tailspin last year. If anything, we finished the season strong after Ward started as coach. The playoffs were an iffy results, but we lost a top player in the Dallas series. Coaching had a lot to do with the results as well. This season is not really a reflection on last year. Pretty unique season. Players not coming close to career numbers. Is that a tailspin, correction or deviation?

Oh right, complete teardown. Being realistic, I don't see it happening. Could see Gio or Tanev waived. Whatever the plan is, I hope they get it right. Maloney isn't doing much to help BT. Pleau is a tool by his evaluation of players we have gone after. Bean might be the problem more than the owners.

Both of those could backfire. 3M was the best 5v5 line we had. Going back to just Gio means we focus on scoring again. 2018/19 wasn't due to Mike Smith, it was having Tkachuk play a defensive role and stirring up crap.

IIRC, Lucic got two games for punching a player with his glove on. It was against CBJ. Was Lucic any more violent than TW? Can't link the video: https://www.nhl.com/news/milan-lucic-suspended-two-games/c-310842732

Okay, wasn't sure on Wright. As I said, keeping Gio playing top pairing minutes should keep us down. Playing a style of game where your goalie needs to be almost perfect should help. Markstrom would have been a better goalie for a team that can score. He keeps teams in it, as long as they can score. If we actually want to improve the team, ship Gio and Backlund. Pick the small forwards you actually want to keep and build around them. Gaudreau, Mangiapane, Dube, Phillips, Pelletier.... That adds up to 3 regular NHL players in size.

As much as that makes sense, it's not really fair to other teams. You would need to calculate at a certain point for all teams. I get what you are saying; it's meaningless (so it appears) if both teams are eliminated. More likely they play and the playoffs start at the same time.

Bad in 2 years you mean? I think Tanev should be the C on this team. If you want to do badly, keep Gio and Backlund playing top inutes. Let the keep their letters. Nobody is taking him in the expansion draft.

All we hear is the public comments. What is he going to say? Oh, we are going to tank to get a draft pick. The failures in getting certain players in trade speaks to how difficult it is sometimes. Not giving him a free pass, but players like Stone and Kadri would have moved the needle. I blame the pro scouting for telling him who else to target. Nordstrom's metrics screamed a guy to avoid, but we went after him. Minor signing. Asking your best RW to become a C because you don't have another good one was a mistake. We were in on PLD to address it, but we didn't have the right assets.

If there are plans to change, it sounds to me like Gio is seen as not being the problem. Yet, we hear the same thing after every game. We didn't do this, we didn't generate that, we shot ourselves in the foot. Whatever. Even though Gio seems to be invested every game, he's not leading the team. He does his part, but I think he grates on some players. Between him and Backlund, leadership has not shown up in the playoffs. This season is a weird one, but the only year we won a playoff round Gio wasn't even playing.

Unfortunately, you reminded me of dark days in Calgary. Feaster days and Keegan Kanzig, Bolig nights. Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! But I agree we need something to block the owners from pulling the wrong pin. Here's a guy I still can't figure out: Senior VP, Hockey Operations: Don Maloney

I was thinking the same thing about JD. Maybe somebody with some actual hockey sense could help turn the ship around.

Only 2 more years till this guy is drafted. Leave it to the Oilers to find a way to tank.