travel_dude

I have no issue with the province kicking in infrastructure money, nor should the city have been avoiding that. Funding an arena is different. There is some logic to it, spin offs, tax base, improve an area, but looking at EDM ICE District, it's a couple of city streets with high rises and a stabbing area. Tear down an old Casino next to a homeless shelter and build an arena with an attached casino, next to a shelter. The big plans to revitalize an area fall short to a few developments. You can't expect crime to move away just because you are charging more to see something or put up a luxury apartment building, but have not addressed the problems that existed.

As much as the Flames (AHL version) looked good for a period, there was no chance they were going to win this. Pre-season games seem to be s game of bait and switch. You play at home against a rival, they send the B squad. You play on the road, you send a C squad. Don't want to expose any change in your game plan and barely want the other team to see your starter. It's juice top the home fans, so they will spend stupid money on Oilers merch. Here comes the cup.

The bigger part of the argument was cost overruns, not climate stuff. City ends up paying all instead of some. I don't know if the final numbers are better for city, but the province is in there to help some of the overall costs. Think it's more around infrastructure than building.

That's funny about understanding. If you look at the competition to win a NHL job and the difference in pay, picking a guy because he is more likely a 4th liner at best over a top 9 at best guy sends a wrong signal. I don't want top go off on a big tangent, but Pelletier was a top 9 guy that eventually was picked to come up, after Zohorna. Both played 4th line. Pelletier rose above it. How is that really any worse than picking the best available, regardless of slotting him. Solovyov is interesting. Held his own last night. Paired with Gilbert. He may get the shot over Gilbert but who knows. Gilbert is willing to fight anyone. Maybe not the best decision making for impact to the game, but we sometimes need it. What I had seen of Zary was that he is capable when played with capable players. He doesn't drive a line. He doesn't make them worse. With Duehr and Coleman, I think you have a more competent 4th line. Alas, some of this may be roster limit and money driven. Easy to send down Zary, Schwindt, Klapka any time. Connie knows something about maximizing cap, so his decisions may be somewhat due to maximizing cap space and LTIR usage. I haven't looked too closely at it yet, since we still have a final set of cuts and one pre-season game remaining. I'm more annoyed they wasted time on fringe goalies and gave Wolf one game.

Deal is signed at last. Contsruction to begin later this year.

So, the comments from Huska were odd. Zary is better suited for top 9. In other words, look to just being big. Klapka being still there is a nod to that theory. As far as Klapka goes, he can't fight well, so being big is his best tool. Fringe NHL at best. Schwindt being here is puzzling. With the 3 guys heading to IR (Kyl, Rooney and Pelts), we have 27 peeps. I get a little confused, but it appears that Solovyov and Gilbert remain, while DeSimone was being waived. Pospisil, Pettersen waived, leaving the extras of Duehr, Hunt, Klapka and Schwindt. That's close to the magic number of 23 healthy bodies. Hunt or Klapka being the likely victims.

Most teams still at the 30 player range. The lesser ones waived to date, but a few may have slipped through. Didn't pay much attention yet to rosters. Too much work to look through them all.

Looking at the rest of the available roster, using Coleman on the 4th line is a reasonable option. You can alternate him on the 3rd line to reduce someone's minutes, plus use him on the PK. I don't see Rooney as an option at all. He has shown little. Zary is probably the highest of the prospects looking to make a push for a C spot, over Schwindt. So, Coleman-Zary-Duehr is more likely than Coronato on that line. That's fine.

Depending on Coronato's readiness and how Govich shows in the top 9, we may have to sacrifice Dube as a 4C or just go with Zary. Neither is ideal usage. It would seem that Connie neglected the depth in favor of leaving open spots. So far, I haven't really seen anyone take the open spot. Like you, I think Dube is best suited to RW. From what I have seen, the top 3 option for RW in order have been Coronato, Dube and Govich. I wouldn't put Coronato on the top line, just because they will see the best defensive lines. So, that leaves us with Govich or Dube as top RW, and Coronato as 2C or 3C. Pushes down Coleman, but we still don't have a 4C. That kinda makes it a necessity to make a trade or a strategic waiver claim. With Pelletier out and Kylington in doubt, we only need waive the fringe players. We have to waiver Rooney, Desimone, Gilbert, Pettersen, Hunt and Pospisil anyway to give roster flexibility. Leaves us 11F and 6D active. The Pelletier injury and unknown status of Kylington puts us in a bind.

On a side note, the AHL Flames are tied with the Oilers A squad after the first period.

On a side note, the AHL Flames are tied with the Oilers A squad after the first period.

Dube and Rosie are the same in that they are C's but they fit better in the top 9 as a W. I would tend to use Coleman on the 4th line over Dube. He is good on either wing but we could use some responsibilty on the 4th line. All depends on use of Coronato and Govich. Would prefer to see a sniper on Kadri's line. That line showed some checmistry IIRC. That leaves Govich on the top line. So, my adjustment would be: Huberdeau, Lindholm, Sharingovic Ruzicka, Kadri, Coronato Mangiapane, Backlund, Dube Coleman, Zary, Duehr Have to see about Dube with Mange, though. Might not be the best thing. In that case I would swap Dube with Govich or Coronato The good thing is we have maybe one extra top 9 player.

Sutter went from spot duty for Lucic etc to playing them in the top 9. Of all the possible combinations available, the most common was Lucic or Lewis up. The one that actually worked was Rosie in the top 6, but as soon as we were again healthy, he was demoted to 4th and popcorn. Not saying he didn't deserve to sit, but when you get 10 minutes or less after playing 15+ and scoring at a p/gp pace, the inevitable disengagement happens. You may have seen an ineffective 4th line playing minutes against the Oilers in the playoffs. That shows that they were never that useful. Duehr looked good at times, but you can only play with the guys you are with. Maybe it's time to create a line of prospects and let them take it from there. Equal skill levels. Speed. Then you may actually have "next man up". If you don't have that or are unwilling to even consider it, then go out and sign players that fit the bill. Here's the lines for tonight's tilt against the Oilers main F squad: Sharangovich – Ruzicka – Dube Klapka – Schwindt – Duehr Ciona – Hunt – Pospisil Honzek – Zary – Pettersen Really all you are doing is trying out one-offs on different lines. Would you not want to see how a possible threesome looks like together? Pospisil-Zary-Duehr Isn't that as close to NHL ready as we have, discounting for a minute Hunt.

When you chop down goals for and need to rely on goals against to win games, you will always have a harder time making the playoffs. It doesn't change the low SA% and relatively high GAA, but we were about a dozen goals away from the playoffs last year. Our team was probably better designed to win in the playoffs than the chippy call regular season. No 3v3 OT's in playoffs. Markstrom gave up goals in bunches last year, which is not typical for him. Last year, it seemed anyway, that goals were frequently odd-man rushes from a turnover and extended D-zone play resulting in better chances. Maybe that part is fixed and we just see the raw goaltending numbers from normal defensive play. Maybe we see more scoring from our team and we aren't always on our heels down in 2-1 games or playing prevent hockey for a 2-1 lead for 2 periods. Last year, the defense was run by Huska, but under a Sutter system. The switch always seemed to mess up our D, so teams exploited that. And we always took too many penalties trying to cover man on man. Maybe it doesn't change the penalty situation, but I can't think it could be much worse.

Could be an interesting game tonight. A mostly AHL team vs the Oilers A team (mostly). They are still trying out Lavoie, Malone plus trying to see what they have in Erne and Pederson : I don't really care about the end result. Score a bunch on Skinner. Sew the seeds of doubt in their goalies (again). Big test for Poirier and Solovyov. Zadorov should have some fun targeting Oilers.

Plucking a player out of the AHL and putting them as the defacto starter is not managing their trajectory. He was pretty darn young and underdeveloped physically. Much like Wolf is today. So, you need to be careful for smaller players or wirey guys. Goalie contact is almost a given.

I will be interested to see the impact of zone. Weegar suggested that some are struggling with it, as it's a big change. I believe Weegar came from such a system, so reverting to it won't be as difficult for him. The guys like Hanifin and Ras and even Zadorov might have a harder time, being that they played under man coverage for quite a few years here. I'm not really concerned with goaltending at this point. We have two guys that have played well in the past, so it's not like we are resurrecting careers. Wolf is an up and comer. We have to manage his trajectory. Don't want to develop another Matt Murray.

You say a lot of things about building a pipeline but not about using the guys in it. We have had multiple goalies and not enough places to play them. That backs up when they are ready to play NHL games. Wolf is a prime example. Park a couple in the NCAA if you go that route, but they back up when they graduate. Lose them if they wait and you have no future for them. 26 is too old? So you trade him in season, then have an injury to Markstrom. Wolf/Dansk is your NHL tandem. That doesn't inspire ,much confidence. Wolf could be the stud we think he is, but beyond that we have to likely make a trade for anything longer than 10 game injury. So, we just finished trading a goalie that performed well and have to trade for scraps that may not even be close. I'm starting to re-think my goalie strategy. Maybe we give Vladar the year and only use Wolf for max 15 games. See what we really have. Not ideal, but getting a 3rd isn't exactly a huge win if you have to take big risks because of it.

I don't think they actually need to waive him. If they do, there are a lot of NHL teams in the same boat so the wire will be busy as teams pare down their rosters.

That's kinda the point. If Wolf had been flawless in his NHL debut and his lone start in pre-season, then the team might be approaching the season differently. It's not like we have an all star like Hiller and a backup as good as Rittich.

One televised game so far, the rest on the web. I have a harder time tracking web games, and really the games mean Richard all. We have more or less (less) the same top 9 this year. Last year we had the dreaded 4th line that didn't even need to show up in pre-season. This year nobody on the actual 4th line is showing that much. A few standouts during a single game. Nothing to really build a 4th line from, other than the guys playing top 9 that may be best on 4th line. The most analysis has been in the game or camp threads. I think we maybe have had too many open positions with not enough NHL bodies there to make a decent competition. Poirier looked good in his one game. Nobody else really stood out in my mind that isn't in the top 6D. Kuz was good but showed a lack of discipline at times. One of those two may be suited for a 7D spot, but hard to get them games. Coronato is the one guy that has shown NHL readiness among the F prospects. Hunt had a good game then not so much. Not really a prospect. I think Rosie is a lock. Duehr showed his usual grit and speed. No idea how we run a 4th line, since none of the C's looked great there. If you were to have a 4th line of Zary, Rosie and Coronato you might have a real 4th line, but that creates a hole in the top 9. Think we need to make a trade or look at the waiver wire closely. The 4th line hasn't materialized yet.

A RHS LW......Interesting. Honestly, all I know is his stats, never seen him play. He would be a cheap add, but I'm not sure if he would fit. Looking at the locks to be on the roster: Hubey, Lindy, Govich, Kadri, Dube, Mange, Backlund, Coleman Has looked like they belong: Ruzicka, Coronato A bit up and down: Duehr, Hunt, Rooney IMHO, likely get sent down to junior or AHL: Honzek, Zary, Schwindt, Pettersen, Klapka, Ciona, Jones*, Bishop* * waived today All that said, you could claim him now and if he fits, you have a 13th F. Otherwise waive him again. Low risk, but I doubt we make the move. Also, others may be better to target.

Where I found that "perhaps" the goalie coach had a negative impact was in re-enforcing the idea that a goalie needs to start the play every time he gets it. The puck handling behind the net burned us in the Oilers series and it's quite frustrating to watch. It messes up the D play. Smith was the master of trying to be the play starter and it burned us and them when he was on these two teams. I have no issue with Markstrom as long as his starts are managed. We had the opposite last season where he was the default no matter how he was trending. Blame it on the coach and a weak goalie coach maybe. Vladar wasn't exactly a stud last season, but he sure was managed poorly.

I'm interested to see how CHI can play this year. Expectations through the roof already and the kid hasn't played a game. Which is fine, he will be good. But, no different than a rookie McDavid on a bad team. Their D is bad, except for Jones. Lining up for the next 1st overall are they?

Sounds like a plan, but teams that do this also have a short to mid term plan. Like building a contender along the way, so that IF the ELC's tuen into anything, then you have built the team ready for them. IF they turn into just lousy goalies, then you haven't wasted the years and have nothing to shorw for it.