Big Bob saying that 3 different Shattenkrik trades have collapsed due to an inability to sign him to a contract extension past this season

either teams gotta start upping their offers, or the Blues gotta lower their price to rental, or they risk losing him for nothing

(oh one was the Oilers last summer, one was last month, the other was recent)

Too bad the Habs won their last game or I could make the Fraude Julien joke.

Lol faceoffs. Of course this won't stop people from blabbering on about it endlessly.

ya but FACEOFFS is like 90% of the "analysis" on HNIC, sad!

drives me nuts

counting this season, Caps o/u 1.5 RANGZ had they kept Forsberg & not signed Orpik?

Ole'

I forgot they did that. Jeez.

Hard to say. Does Orlov still break his forearm at the WC which causes him to miss 14-15? In 14/15 Caps D pairs were Alzner-Niskanen, Orpik-Carlson, Hillen/Schmidt/Gleason-Green. If Orlov's heathy, you can kinda see your way to a good top6 without Orpik. If he isn't, Caps need to acquire somebody. If Forsberg does what he does in 14/15, then Caps don't acquire one of Oshie/Williams after that year maybe, so they still run into the depth scoring issues they did last year. Now this year Forsberg gets paid with the money that would've gone to Orpik and we don't know what will happen yet.

The actual two biggest hypotheticals about the Ovi-era Caps are one known and one unknown. What happens if GMGM ponies up for Chara instead of Brian Pothier? Finding exact Cap data that far back is really hard but the Caps were paying nobody except Kolzig those first years. Both Caps and Bruins stunk the first year of that deal (Wash 27th, Bos 23rd), and Chicago won the lottery finishing 26th. Maybe Caps win lottery instead and take Kane instead of Alzner. In any case, a Green-Chara pair during the 07-10 period probably wins the Caps a Cup or two, assuming they still hire Boudreau.

The other hypothetical is a bit more esoteric. After Boudreau gets swept by the Lightning, what if instead of trading the 2011 1st for Brouwer that they did, if they traded that pick to Nashville instead for Trotz. The timing doesn't really work because Nashville had 1 more year of Suter, but if the Caps avoid the Oates error then perhaps Forsberg never gets moved.

or what if they didn't fire boudreau when they were crushing the league at 5v5 corsi but getting .880 sv% from their goalies? squandered the next 3 years of prime from their core on terrible coaches because their gm couldn't sort by pdo.

"If people who can sort by pdo knew anything about the game, they'd be in it"

-George McPhee

Edit. Holy **** I had no idea he was the Las Vegas GM

It sounds like he's most likely going to the Rangers this summer. I'm not sure if that is necessarily a wise move by Shattenkirk given the Rangers appear to have likely peaked and missed their window. They have some decent young guys but they will require serious work to compete in 3 years with the likes of Carolina New Jersey NYI and Philly who are loaded with young talent in the minors and even on the current rosters. Washington and Pitt are peaking now so it's hard to say where they go, but they look better the next 2-3 years though than NYR do.

*sigh* or trade a hot-hot-hot Jeff Schultz in '10 and Jason Chimera in '12.

was wondering who'd be dumb enough to trade for Patrick Eaves, ofc it's the guy who swapped BRUCE for a guy who can't work a toaster, and gave Bieksa a NTC which might cost him Lindholm/Vatanen/Fowler in the expansion draft

and 5 Canucks (including 3 dmen) out with the mumps/symptoms, won't play tomorrow vs the Sharks

luckily it's no one they're trying to trade

Well, Ryan Kesler is on board with it

Hawks must know something about Tommy Jurco that no one else does
looks like a really meh player

probably could have put that 3rd to better use

having said that, he'll obv put up like 15pts in the playoffs

was gonna say something about how funny it'd be if/when Chiapet wastes the McBust era through sheer incompetence, and right on cue i see a LOiLers beat writer saying that he thinks the team has interest in Curtis Lazar for some reason (former 1st rounder, played junior in Edmonton, etc).



like, the dude is legitimately one of the worst players in the league. sometimes a guy drafted in the 1st round just isn't good, and everyone just needs to accept it. will be amazing if the Sens can manage to get anything for him (ofc they should have dumped him a couple years ago and kept Prince instead). Chiapet will probably give up like a 4th for him, and this will be his big move in their playoff push.

goddamn that Chiapet/Benning/Sweeney/Neely group was so ****ing dumb.

Jurco seems like a guy that Babcock and ****ty version of Babcock never really took too. Still pretty young

McDavid gifted a phantom assist by the NHL tonight
https://www.nhl.com/video/draisaitl-...390/c-49729703

Wait, is a Pens fan complaining about phantom assists?

That's awesome. And I'm a huge 87 fanboy.

Bear in mind that the 2017 draft sucks by most accounts so there'll probably only be 5 NHLers in the 3rd round

As for Lazar, he is still only 22 and while he is clearly nothing special at all, Sens would have a win if they got a 2nd round pick for him

This is especially the case when someone gets drafted in the first round not because they have high-ceiling talent, but because of intangibles. Like here's an article from 2013 on his draft profile:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/junio...-curtis-lazar/

When your headline selling points at age 18 is "a two-way, gritty forward with character and leadership qualities" that's a bit of a red flag. And as per usual, for the players that aren't actually that good but that coaches love, he's "the next Patrice Bergeron". People keep forgetting that Patrice Bergeron has actual hockey skills.

PSA: I believe I owe senor muresan a beer now that his boy riley barber made his NHL debut.

You know who else came in with almost the exact same selling points (intangibles) and stats (not particularly good) in Jr and was drafted ahead of Lazar in the same year? ...and he's pretty damn good right now.

JQuick makes his return this afternoon