travel_dude

A dismal Saturday with almost every player counting and I get 11 points, and I see my 5th place drop to 9th. While I picked up a few points on Sunday, some players feasted on cookies. Amazing that Rocket Man was able to stay that close to first with the Oiler drafters.

Does the 30 days thing expire or is it frozen in time until he comes back? In other words, if they call him back uup next month, does he get another 30 days and 10 games?

Read that a few minutes ago. It makes sense. Not sure why they love Gilbert so much. He hasn't gone through waivers at all, but I think DeSimone is better. Not that it matters much, they only play 12 minutes.

DeSimone assigned to Wranglers, which is odd. Only 6 active D. 13 active F. 2 active goalies. No waiver moves today that I have seen, so something is brewing. Maybe Kylington is due back, but they would need to send down Gilbert. That leaves them very close. Maybe Pelletier is ready, but not sure why you send down a D for that.

I'm happy they gave him the chance. He's playing NHL calibre hockey so no reason to send him down. Technically we have roster space for Pelletier, and unless he's still months away I would leave Coronato in the AHL. No shame in that. He's learning the thing that the NCAA and USHL don't have time to teach. I would like to see a bit more of Solo, because he was here when we sucked. Wasn't on him. Zary is not going back. Not unless it's a temporary paper move to make something else happen. The Flames season turned around with him and Pospisil rejuvinating the old guys. He missed a game and you saw the impact. Looking at the 4 lines right now, I don't see any real weakness. Guys are still going to have a bad game here and there, but it's one-offs. A couple guys have struggled and been moved around, but the latest lines look balanced.

Flames lines in Dallas this morning: Mangiapane - Lindholm - Sharangovich Huberdeau - Backlund - Coleman Zary - Kadri - Pospisil Greer - Ruzicka - Dube Weegar - Andersson Hanifin - Tanev Zadorov - Gilbert/DeSimone Markstrom in starter’s net

No other place to post this, but Coleman hosting the team for Thanksgiving Dinner in Texas is awesome....

What I find funny is people jump on a player making 10, but a goalie in the AHL making 5 is fine? Nurse and Jones at 9+ is okay? We signed a contract after a player had got 100+ points on another team and got him in trade. If we re-signed Gaudreau for this and he had a similar 22/23 season and another poor start, would we trash him? Maybe if we had others that could score it wouldn't look so bad. Every one of those guys on the list have other players that fill the net.

Awesome. I found myself reading it to the tune. The fickle media has turned and burned. Now the brillian insiders are calling for heads and flushing the season (in their minds). Why did we fire that coach again?

I would put maybe one or two on the goalie, but their coverage is bad.

Oilers down 3 goals in less than 3 minutes of the first period.

Weird. Sure, now that I am top 5 I can't even gloat about it.

A little banged up doesn't sound like watching a game as much as being cautious. If there was some concern about his game, then sure. Sit him down, let him see. But if anything, this happened in one game, so I don't think he should sit for that reason.

It also looks like Gilbert is in for DeSimone.

Well, he dropped below a p/gp. LOL. The message to the team should be you all get the same treatment. We went from the best line to a fill-in line. Now we put Dube in there, where he failed before. I can never tell who played well because we see the lines shifted after a bad period or a win. Duehr didn't do enough to stay in the lineup. Zary didn't do enough wrong other than a loss on possession on a shift. He wasn't great, but they gave him one period. I don't like Dube on LW. He's fine on RW. Put Zary back with Kadri and move Dube to Duehr's spot. Nothing wrong with Greer-Ruzicka-Dube. Use them more if they are going, less if they are not. Ruzicka is better on the PP than about half the guys they use. He sees the ice.

I never said I agreed with possession alone. That works when you have a multi goal lead and you want to defensively chew up the clock. You always want another goal, but odd man rushes the other way should be avoided. We use about half the players on a PP. We have go-to moves and everyone knows them. I was surprised the SEA even fell for them.

Flames lines at morning skate Mangiapane - Lindholm - Sharangovich Huberdeau - Backlund - Coleman Dube - Kadri - Pospisil Greer - Ruzicka - Duehr Looks like Zary, who played very little in the third period Monday, may be the odd man out.

If we lose the initial draw, we have less than a 50/50 chance of getting back in after 30 seconds. We do good controlling the puck once we get set up. But we don't really do anything with it.

They keyed in on Bouch. He's a symptom of the entire team. They use their top player on the PK so that he can cheat to offense. I can't imagine how they beat us. I guess we were really struggling then, but it was a pond hockey game so doesn't mean a lot. The latest commentary is that they move Bouch to 3rd pairing and only give him PP, while giving him preferred starts otherwise. That's fine, but it means the other guys that can't execute will be given that responsibility. Nurse? Brobourg? I like Ekholm, but he's a fish out of water there. The new coach is going to find it tough to break the culture of spoiled players there. Perhaps the C just needs to shut up and let the coach run the room. Agree with everything he says and do what he says. Goaltending is the least of the worries right now.

Tough schedule before Christmas....

I would take the power forward version of Ferland over the fighting Ferland. Ferkland Freightrain. Tkachuk was a bit too douchie. Too much after whistle stuff, not worth anything. Even would accept a Joe Pavelsky who lives in the slot. But then again, we would need Ras to actually get a point shot in. Pospisil is living there, but rarely gets to see the puck from the point.

I'm seeing that skill now that he wasn't really showing in pre-season. To be fair, the guys in pre-season were just trying to get noticed and would have accepted any role to make the team. Pospisil is staying more to a gritty skill guy than a piss you off kind of guy. Miller didn't like the check. Also he went hard after a loose puck. That's hardly over the edge. Zaddy can manage that style. Kadri can if he likes. We don't have a lot like that now. Maybe Gilbert.

I wonder if he would have gotten anything more than 7 minutes a game or 4th line with Lucic. To be fair, I think they gave Phillips about 18 minutes over 2 games, so I think Pospisil would have shown something. I am glad that Pospisil is playing more like Mangiapane does. Not fighting, just being hard on the player. The one game where he nearly got to blows, he tied up the player so he couldn't get his punches in. Don't need him to fight.

There are times where is gets worked out and is balanced. But it's close to impossible to run a team some weeks. They have Huberdeau listed as a C/LW. When has he ever played C? Just one example. Really the luck of the draw was the initial teams. If your draft list was right, you would probably have a good season. But if you ended up with too many C's and LW, then you have a harder time. If you typically have all teams playing on a night, January will see that balance out. Once you get Christmas and the mandated week offs done, it's basically play, day off, play. Wonder if we get an easy sched to end the year? Or are we playing the teams that we are fighting for a WC spot. Too far ahead to look.

I jumped to 5th, which is huge for me. But still almost 400 behind. Can't close that gap. My team gets into a sequence where they all play together. My top D and one of my original picks on LTIR.