travel_dude

Thanks Deeds for this. Merry Christmas to all.

Zary shows what young payers can do. Ruzicka shows what happens when a proven player gets shunted down the lineup. He has one of the better shots in the lineup, somewhere in the Sharky range of skills. But he's being used to feed Greer and Dube. Bennett suffered from having a top 6 better without him. No room to play him there, so he got the 3rd line. Pospisil is a player I would not be as concerned about as Ruzicka. He can thrive in a gritty line or a skilled line. Right now, we don't have a top 6 RW to replace him, so it makes sense to stay. Ruzicka, on the other hand, really thrives with top 9 play but gets pushed down. The reason is obvious, since we have 3 LW ahead and same for C. He's playing better than Huberdeau and had shown better than Mangiapane. But anyway, I think the only solution with Huberdeau healthy is to swap him with Mange. Only Lindholm and Sharky play well as a duo. Huberdeau is killing the 3rd line. I think he couldn't be any worse for the top line. This is not to say that Huberdeau or Mange sucks. They just seemed mismatched where they are. Mange is playing like Coleman does but it's not his strength. Huberdeau does not thrive on transition. He's slowing things down instead of the quick decisions.

Peeps, thanks for the trade offer, but I have too many C's. Heiskanen is keeping me in the mushy middle instead of dropping like a stone. I can't believe they list Huberdeau as a C/LW. If it was that simple, play him as a C. Couldn't be any worse.

Zary had a bit of a wakeup call, but it wasn't so much punishment. I thought the negative treatment of Ruzicka a bit harsh, and he hasn't fully recovered the trust. He's playing well on the 4th line, so I hope they at least give him Pelletier. It's a tough call. Pospisil would also give him a decent linemate. Zary looks like he's 100% NHL. No need to drop him down again. Pospisil also looks like Hathaway did when he made the jump. Need depth guys that can play up and down the lineup. Solo was given the harsh treatment and it was not for anything worse than the rest. First to go down. Not much they can do about Wolf other than actually play him more than once or twice. Markstrom back so tough call. I think Connie has to be realistic and look for longer term replacements on D. Doesn't matter if Kylington is coming back, we have holes that may need filling. Tanev is more likely than not to miss time. Hanifin should be considered to be gone by TDL. And it's almost like we should do it even if he wants to stay. I get the sense sometimes he's part of the culture problem.

Here's hoping that we could do a little better return than 20th and 27th. It's nothing to sneer at, but the result of that would be we buy at TDL to be a little more competetive. I know you can't really compare trades from other years, but Bennett got a 2nd and a Heinemen (sp). We pist it away to get Toffoli, which may have been a good trade, but shows what we tend to do. Getting cap for Zadorov is fine, but it has amounted to nothing.

In Draisaitl's case, all it took was a very slow month for him and McD for him to drop back. He doesn't score points like McD, but he is almost guaranteed points in games when they score goals. Drai may look bad now, but at the end of the year he will help your pool a lot more than JT. I myself may have been better off just leaving the NHL rankings alone. Instead I bumped up several players that I seemed to get. If the Flames were rocking, I would be knocking. But they be suckin' so I say a lot of phrases with the word f-in' in them.

What did we do last year, when the chips were on the line. Won a bunch. Very few players scoring near their averages. Overall, even if we were monumentally bad, we would be hard pressed to be in the sub-basement.

Not to be a pooper, but we are almost incapable of hitting top 10 for drafting. We sucked to start the year and called up a bunch of players. Started winning. If we sold off the UFA's we still have the kids performing at a high level. Would need to trade Markstrom, Vladar and Wolf to hit top 6.

Anyone that has an Oiler that plays on the PP gets the extra points due to the points for a PP goal. In other words, 50% of their scoring. The usual suspects play most of the PP minutes, maybe taking a 30 second break. I ain't whining. You get the players by rating certain players high. What is truly remarkable is that the top 3F and 2D almost never miss a game.

And what the heck is with Matty Tkachuk? Talk about a slump. The Cats could score 8 goals and he doesn't get a single point.

He would be out LTIR is I made that trade. The Heiskanen part of the trade was the one that I couldn't get over. I don't exactly remember the full value. Was I getting one for two? As it stands today, even with a sucky Huberdeau those two players combine for 34 points to Eichel's 33.

I ended up with Couture who hasn't even sniffed the ice. Now my number 2 goalie (after sucking all season) is on IR. I ended up with Huberdeau and Mangiapane who are best described as "underperforming". I would almost do better to scratch Huberdeau every game, as he is a Minus Muncher. He costs points more often than adds them.

I don't really understand zone defense. Perhaps Cross can shed some light. It works if you play it right and the players get it. I've also noticed that we will give the forward space to walk in off the boards. The defender actually turns away to give up that gap. Last year we struggled to score, this year we struggle to stop goals.

About the only time it gets exciting is in the last 10 minutes of a game, usually because they are trailing. It's like we are playing safe but not executing safe. Like there is a delay in the brain telling them the safe play.

New coach bump or otherwise, 7 wins is 7 wins. Skinner did this last season, though this is likely the first time he claimed the starter role. He will have stretches of good and stretches of bad. Went through one now going through the other. This is by no means any excuse for them playing well, but so far they have had one of the easiest schedules in the league. Zero B2B games themselves and often play a team on the 2nd night of a visitor B2B. I don't think the team is playing much different overall, just that McD is back to dominating play. 23 minutes a game and every possible minute of PP time. Even will Pk to try for shorties.

It's a curious thing. Pretty much it's excitement to finally see our prospects play. Wolf is special. With the D settled down, he could pitch shutouts. Funny how Pospisil was sat, although it may be illness. Almost like the regulars will never sit no matter how poorly they play. Honestly, I haven't seen poor games by any of the kids. They make mistakes and learn. An off game for them is as good as a normal game for some. Lindholm has off games and does nothing. Huberdeau may just sit some games for the good he does. Mangiapane is 50/50 for good bad. Others have more bad than good, but I won't go there. As much as Vladar shows up good, we might as well trade him for a decent offer. I don't think he has starter in him. And that's the only reason why he's playing 20+ per season. For when we need a starter or Markstrom retires, whichever comes first.

Same goalie coach as last year. What do you really expect to be different?

The next 3 games will see Wolf at least once. I think we saw what Wolf is. I think he's good enough to face 2 of the next 3 teams. You are correct that we know what Vladar is. He's a backup, at time great, at times not so much. Wolf has always been a starter and should be replacing the starter. That's how teams get awesome goalie pairs. We saw it one year only with Marky/Vladar but it's never been close to that in the other years. That's all just related to using him during this injury relief situation. The other thing is figuring out whether you even need to keep Vladar. You use Vladar more now and all you do is have another question mark. What do I do with 3 goalies. Wolf is going to require waivers at some point and unles we know what he can do, we are just left wondering again.

SJ was looking to win one the entire season, now they look like they want to win.

Each team trading 4 goals. You score 4 in a row, then we do,

I can't believe I am 1 point back of Cross. Hard to believe you can be so wrong about your team and be that close to being right> LOL

I thought you were being funny so I ignored it.

Nice to have something to look forward to. With the Flames it seems like we are hoping for a trade to change the Blands (I mean Flames). Wait for Wolf to get a win? Wait for Huberdeau to look more than zero dimensional. Wait for Mangiapane to play like a top 9 player. Wait for Ras to play like a top 4 D. Wait for Pelletier to come back and change the look. Talk about which D to trade first (Hanifin) and what we should get for Lindholm.

Expect him to move to IR at the least. EDIT Never mind. No point right now to do that. If we make moves or activate a bunch, we may need to.

Arg, Markstom is week to week with a broken finger.