shrader

Another mid-season guy. Interesting. I may have to read up on what happened there. Edit: He kind of sounds like a moron.

Keep in mind that the whole story was told at a facility where alcohol was aplenty. :D

There's been a trend in recent years of teams drafting college players and then convincing them to jump to the CHL because they think they'll develop better over there. The first one who comes to mind (mostly because a lot of people here wanted to draft him) was Jamie Oleksiak. There have been others as well but I'm too lazy to dig up the names. Charlie Coyle was at BU and then left for the Q mid-season in his sophomore year, but that was a bit of a different case where he wasn't happy.

They've already got a gimmick in place called the shoot out.

Randy Carlyle? You mean the guy who received a third place vote for the Jack Adams Trophy?

I really don't think it's all that important, but I'd put the cup winner on their every year. That's what hockey is all about.

But let's not pretend that the Oilers made a late playoff run. Relative to the rest of the league, they had a good chance at winning the lottery. Under the new system, this year's Bruins would have had a small chance of moving up to the top 3, but that chance would be miniscule. Don't mind me here, just a little nitpicking.

He can't be forced to go to major junior. He has to actually be willing to go there and sign on with whoever holds his rights at that point. It's all about the AHL. But anyway, I always find these types of things annoying because a team can't actually guarantee in a contract that the player stays up in the NHL. They're not allowed to do that. They can make that guarantee verbally, but there is nothing to hold them to it, short of getting a black eye in future negotiations. Anyway, it's really not an issue. The only way he gets any time in the AHL is if it is a rehab stint.

It was a work outing for the whole department, one of those chances to unwind and be rewarded a bit. Yeah, the misters are great. They needed them everywhere today though. And the homer was definitely a blast. I never did see the distance marker on the wall, but even if it was green monster height I think it would have cleared it.

I think it's a funny story but not all that exciting. The area I was walking through was just a concrete walkway with no seats, with a restaurant right behind it. The ball cleared all of that and hit a steal roof protecting the people there. It shot off the roof straight at me and I cleanly fielded a one hopper off of the concrete. It did have a good amount of speed still, but nothing impressive. The usher who saw it thought it was hilariously great timing. So yeah, not the most exciting story, but what makes it is that I had been in the stadium for no more than 45 seconds when it happened.

The one's suggested in the article are not guys I'd consider spending that money on. I think you can find those guys just as easily either by trade in an avenue where you actually have a say in the matter. These ideas are great and all, that you may actually be sticking it to a team, but at the end of the day, they can find a way to make it work and you're left still trying to find that player.

I'm assuming it was you. ;)

My company had a work outing at a AAA baseball game here in Durham today. I showed up a little late, during the 3rd inning. I was walking across a walkway beyond the left field wall right as a home run just happened to be coming my way. This was my first time at this stadium and I currently have my first ever home run ball sitting in my car.

Remember within the past year when people around here were worried about an expansion team poaching our shot at McEichel? That's pretty funny right around now when you see this timeframe.

They went out of their way to set up more time zone-friendly divisions. I'd imagine that they'd like to keep as close to that as possible.

I just can't picture the smaller contract being one that would bother a team much. If you're going to have to force someone's hand with a $3.6 million offer to a mid-tier player, I can't imagine that the player is going to be someone worth that money.

And more talk about slight division/conference re-allignment. That's always fun.

Why would someone be embarrassed if what was written earlier was true? Imagine yourself as an owner looking for a team owner. You're about to hire a president or other big time hockey ops role. You are deciding between two hall of famers with very similar qualifications. For the sake of this example, I'll go with LaFontaine and Brendan Shanahan. Say their backgrounds look identical, but one guy has these stories of head issues and the other doesn't. Who are you going to hire?

If you're suggesting making these offers at the same exact time, there can't be any overlap between the compensations for each player.

I will have HBO as of later today so I may check it out. I got a good laugh out of the bolded line though. With as big as he is, what else can the Rock be doing? He'll never be the nerdy guy in a romantic comedy.

I'm with you on this one. This is the kind of thing you would expect the team to have some sort of idea about ahead of time. As always, LaFontaine will have his version of the story as well and the truth will lie somewhere in between.

Can you meet someone who is lurking in the shadows?

I take this back. Two days of moving in temperatures right around 100 did me in. I couldn't drink enough water to keep up with it.

And that's exactly what Arkham Origins was. Re-playing that recently, they still never bothered to fix some of them.

This team is at the point where I don't want to reset the clock on a prospect. We are going to need guys who will be here in the very near future. Reinhart is closer than anyone we would take at #3, especially if it would be Hanifin.