travel_dude
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Everything posted by travel_dude
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You sound almost as delusional as some of the Kool-Ade drinkers. Yes, they are 3 wins out of a playoff spot. They are also only 5 points up on last place LA. 9 teams all fighting each other for 2 spots. They don't have a winning record against the West. It's possible, and the GM will try to find something that helps get them there. But, let's face it, they are looking worse over the last month than better. 5-6-0 this month. 6-8-0 last month.
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Lucic's contract is almost buyout proof for 4 years after this. Cap hits of $3.65, $5.65, $4.125, and $5.625m. That's not much of a cap savings for his cont6ract years remaining. Add $625k for 4 years after that.
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Let's just blame the water..... Honestly, they could not have let Chia negotiate the Koskinen deal, so he must have been a lame duck. Whomever they decide upon (Sutter?) will need to have 100% autonomy. You can only blame Chia for the trade results, not the targets of the trade. Somebody identified Spooner as a faster version of Strome. Or identified that Strome was a good target in the first place. Lowe or MacT calling the shots right now is just crazy. Old Boys Club, who couldn't even get it right with the first three 1st overall. Nuge is fine, but that was a no-brainer decision. They had bigger needs than just one junior player. Lack of defense. Poor goalie development. Lack of high end prospects beyond the 1st round. KG is probably the worst choice for an interim GM. Just find a temp coach and ask Hitch to manage the interim GM duties. Replace the GM before the draft. Give up on the season already. PLayoffs not happening.
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He looked good in pre-season. I think he needs a lot of time in the AHL, at least another year. Next year, he should be getting the majority of starts, regardless of Gillies' status.
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McDonald and a cap dump would be my limit. Talbot may still be a good backup, but I'm not spending $4.16m (prorated) on a backup trying to salvage his season.
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I mentioned this elsewhere, but Murray signed for 3.75 the summer before winning the SC. Yes it was a few years ago, but the comp is reasonable. He's also only had one good year, numbers wise.
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Oh, BTW, the Oiler re-signed Koskinen to a 3 year, $4.5m average deal.
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What I have read is the this closes the lop on the Messier trade. This makes the Iggy trade look like pure genious. Okay, not really.
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Consider this an end to the Eberle trade.... Spooner placed on waivers. Eberle for Strome for Spooner for nothing other than a buried salary and $2m retained cap hit. Horrible cap management, talent understanding and trades....
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Well, they don't have a choice. They will have to waive a few players and/or send some guys down.
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I'm not sure that last night's game was an indication that we are out of the woods yet. Puck handling is still an adventure for both goalies. Both games against the Wings were being down a goal and coming back. Not a bad game for Smith, but still issues with tracking the puck or players. He's still fighting the puck. We just need these guys to settle down a bit. Wild movements put them out of position.
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Oh for sure he needs to work on parts of his game. The bigger parts are fine, though. The little parts only get exposed in some games. Like with Smith last year, BP has to manage the starts a little better during the Dog Days of February and March. I hope Smith is able to get wins at a better rate than he has been. 2 wins for every 3 starts would be great. We don't habd the starter reins to him, just make sure that he gets in enough to lower the workload to about 44-38. Enough competition to keep them both engaged.
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Hard to fault him on the Eichel goals. My issue with him is he's starting to have Smith bad habits that Smith doesn't get caught so much on. Play your own game and style, like you did earlier, and you will be fine kid. He's one of the best goalies I have seen in breakaways. Not so much in penalty shots and SO. Strange, but he is better control when he's seeing the whole game, not a single player in a skills competition. Since we generally suck at it, our goalies can't practice it much.
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Nail, meet head. I am surprised they feel they are anything resembling a playoff team, or more accurately, a team capable of reaching it. 3 wins in shootouts. And quite a few wins in OT. Negative goal differential. Koskinen won quite a few games where they couldn't score many themselves. Even with the few games where blew up the other team, they still are barely outscoring Minny. Arizona looked like a last place team for so long but appears to be starting to figure it out. And that's without top talent or goalie. STL is going to make some trades like last year and fall back a bit. Depends how far they go.
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The team is behaving weirdly. Dominant on one shift, can't get out of their own ways another. Just thinking about some of the recent goals let in, regardless of goalie (since I can't remeber which for all of them). Rittich plays the puck to a small crowd and it leaves the net open. Hanifin passes it to Monahan's skate. Hanifin casually skates with the puck nder persuit. Cross seam pass at the blueline turned over. Line change in OT leaves only Gio behind the play, with the new guys up the ice. Pucks deflected off sticks toes and screened by own players. A lot of sloppy play looks bad on whomever is in nets. Rittich just is better in a couple of the types of scoring chances against.
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Well, Huska is the D coach, so he hasn't gottent through to Hanifin yet. Seems less of a tough-love guy than BP. He's 21 and in year 4, which is crazy for a D-man. Not enoug experioence yet. I wish they had a better option than playing Ras with Kylington, Prout or Valimaki when Hamonic is in the game. Ras is responsible but Kylington is thinking too much offense. Ras has a better ability of playing deep. I'm not worked up about it, just like to see some growth..
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The mistakes have a lot to do with lax play as much as cheating for offense. Drop pass top of the circle when you just founght to get the puck back? Lazy pass to Monahan when you have full possession? Slow skate behind the net and the puck gets stripped? I don't mind seeing the defense in deep, as long as the rest of the team looks behind them to see who's covering the blueline. What I do hate to see is a breakout on the PP, with JH as the lone man back skating it out without support. He's mostly successful, but teams can trap against that and create a breakaway the other way. Also, line changes need to have the player dump the puck in deep. Mostly small things, but they can add up in a game of inches.
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From reports at the morning skate, it looks indeed like Rittich will start against the Sabres. Makes sense, since he started against them earlier this season. That was after the PITTS debacle. A bit of a concern starting Smith against the Wings. Shakey goaltending against them in the last win. But, Rittich needs to be the starter in the BOA. No a shot at Smith. He was fine to great against the Yotes. He looked dialed in. I just can't say whether it was a dominant win by him in a game where we controled the play for most of it.
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It's a weak division, but there are two better teams ahead of them that have had worse luck than them. EDM fans get close to the edge, then they get a 7 goal win and think the problems are fixed. After a game like that, they normally lose. It happen to a lot of teams, but with the Oilers they only play well after being shamed by a weak team. They they get a win and then fall back into the same habits. The only reason why they are even close to a playoff spot is the West only has 5 dominant teams, and the rest are looking for handouts. EDM is only 7 points out of last in the Pacific. Their records speak for themselves: Home: 12-10-1 Road: 10-11-2 Vs West: 14-15-2 Teams ahead of them have better home records and better vs the West. I don't see them making it. Won't be eliminated any time soon, but won't make it.
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I would suggest that when he was hired, it was to build towards the playoffs. Now that they got there once, the business wants more playoffs so they can get the renewals of the luxury boxes. IIRC, they are up this year. Hard to get people/companies to shell out that kind of money for a losing product.
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So, they believe the playoffs in in reach? The 1st is a lotto pick, so be it. The goalie is Talbot. They have ruined more goalie than we have. The young defensive forward is Puljujarvi. So that want to trade away from their young player group to get back some of the scoring they lost by making bad trades. Their cap situation is worse than ours, unless they convince doctors (and NHL) that Sekera is unavailable for the season. They also don't have another goalie that is anywhere near NHL ready. They walked away from Brossoit. Fans should be afraid. Very, very afraid.
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That's the thing, isn't it. Take a team with a bunch of 1st overall players. Little experienced depth on defense. Draft McDavid. Sign Sekera. Trade Schultz. Trade picks for Rienhart. Trade Hall. Sign Lucic and Russell. Trade Eberle. The inability to recognize the holes in the roster and the talent avaailable in trade is why the team is where it is. Tough hockey market with the highs and lows in a season. Thinking that a single trip to the playoffs means there is no problems, so you can just trade away one of your leading scorers is foolish. Considering that all the years of the Decade of Darkness didn't result in empty seats is a testament to desperate hockey fans. Tell them you are doing a forensic audit of the team, but fail to actually do anything. The fans deserve to be told the truth, and that is the team is not ready for the playoffs anytime soon. A re-tool is necessary. They have a couple od defensive prospects. A few forward prospects that may turn into NHL players. But, that's about it. Pretty bare. Puljujarvi and Bouchard are the only real notable players, and Pulju may have already been ruined. Yamamoto seemed like he might be able to fugure it out, but too much too soon. Needs at least a full season or two of AHL.
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Agree. I know the coaching staff probably wants to get Smith some starts to maintain his confidence, but the Sabres may be the wrong choice. He played very well in the game to give the Flames the chance to dominate in scoring. It's not like he has gone on a run, though. He won a game where the Flames dominated in scoring. You have to ease him back into playing 2 in a row. And the reason for doing that is to give Rittich some rest.
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I hope, for his sake, they spread out the minutes. Play those kind of minutes and they will lose more than they win. He's dominant for 20 minutes a game, up to about 22. After that, he's a liability because he makes mistakes or gets frustrated and takes penalties. Currently, they are out of playoff contention, albeit not by much. Two points out of a WC spot, but there are two other teams ahead of them as well. Only 6 points ahead of the Kings for last in the West. At some point, the Old Boys Club will start demanding a fire sale for draft picks. Lose for Hughes. Let them win enough to just be 1 point out of the playoffs.
