darksabre

I dunno, I don't think you're getting any better at it ?

Let me put something to you. Let's say your brain is a tool box. Do you, personally, have a certain type of thing you're really good at? And do you feel like no matter what you do you can just keep adding new tools to the tool box? For most NHL players, they spent their teenage years just adding and adding. They make it to the NHL because they have elite capacity to just keep adding. But once they're there things begin to separate out. The best players have nearly infinite capacity to add things to their toolbox, the 4th liners max out early. The only thing they can do is hope their work ethic and bodies are enough to let them hang around. Work ethic only gets you so far. I think Risto's tool box is nearly full. I don't think there's much more he can add that will make him an appreciably different player than he is now.

So that kinda gets us to the crux of the discussion on Risto's ceiling and potential for any additional growth. I think you can expect a talented defenseman to find the mental part of his NHL game before the physical part, and not vice versa. These guys who improved later on did so because they improved their strength, conditioning, etc. They didn't gain hockey IQ or anything, their bodies simply allowed them to do what their brains wanted them to do. Their bodies grew to meet their hockey IQ. Risto is physically gifted and pretty much always has been, but I don't think he's going to suddenly get smarter about the game at 26. So when we look for his room for improvement, the only thing I think he can really improve is physical. And I don't think there's much left to do there...

To the bolded: I think that's a real wish sandwich.

Both of those things are what we're spitballing about here. I also offered that it's possible an illegal search occurred because he is a pro athlete. I don't think anyone has explicitly voiced a strong opinion on the situation one way or another, we're just discussing the circumstances around "one of our guys" getting pulled over for speeding, maybe having an open container, and the police finding a firearm in the car.

Sure it is. Gil's possession metrics were just okay even though he didn't contribute much to his team's offense. Risto's possession metrics are just okay despite the fact that he does contribute offensively. Obviously given the choice between the two you take Risto, because some production is better than no production. But neither guy is particularly useful at helping his team control play. How much leeway can we afford to give Risto if his offensive numbers are accompanied by Hal Gill possession?

You're talking points production though, not defensive acumen. Risto's problem has never been points, his problem is playing sound defense. Through every season of his Sabres career he has never had a year where the team controlled the puck more with him on the ice than without. He's only had a positive CF% rel ONCE. All these other players we're comparing him with were hitting those marks earlier and often. Risto compares more closely with Hal Gill than any of these other guys. I just don't know if I'm confident that he can develop a defensive game the same way that a lot of other defensemen have developed their scoring.

John Carlson is an interesting comparison. It's hard to argue he hasn't been benefited by playing on a much better team his whole career. He's had much better fancy stats, but not consistently. It's possible that if Risto was on a better team he might have cracked that 50% CF mark in 17-18. But Carlson did it at 21...

Right, we don't know if it was found during an illegal search or not. But if you'll allow for something a little more interesting, if the search was illegal, it's possible this was done on purpose: to find things they could confiscate but prevent the individual, a young pro athlete, from being charged for possessing those things. It's sort of a slap on the wrist. Police do have the option of exercising some discretion in their line of work, and one of those forms of discretion is conducting illegal searches as a way of "crime fighting" without causing someone additional harm. If they find, say, an illegal firearm in the vehicle, it's good that they found it. But they also found it without ruining someone's life, because that person can't be charged for that possession because the search was illegal. This is one of the arguments that has been used in favor of things like stop and frisk. The search is inherently illegal, but if they find something in the search, then in a way they've done their job. It's harassment, a violation of civil rights, and makes law enforcement look TERRIBLE, but it's technically good for public safety.........

Right, open container isn't cause for arrest. But if you have one and they believe you're consuming it while operating a motor vehicle, that will certainly get you arrested. Then they can search your person and maybe find some weed or something that would give them probable cause to search the car (beyond what is viewable in plain sight). But they can't look in your locked trunk, or your glove box, because you were drunk driving. They have to come up with probable cause for a new crime on top of the open container and intoxication. Like I said, that's why they like saying they "smelled weed". It gives them just enough probable cause to look for said weed, since possession is a crime.

It's been a while since I studied the case law on this, but I have seen distinctions made between a home being a private space, versus your person or vehicle being in public space. They don't need a warrant to search your person, they just need probable cause that you have committed, or are planning to commit, a crime. They can't search your person unless you are being placed under arrest (and even then it's supposed to be for the safety of the officer, not for evidence, since they should already have evidence that initiates the probable cause). So this extends to your car as well. If they see things in plain sight in the car that indicate probable cause of a crime, then they can arrest you and search your car. BUT...they can't use being intoxicated as probable cause to search your car, because they already have the evidence they need to arrest you for being intoxicated without searching the vehicle. They need additional probable cause to search the car, which is why they like using "smelled weed", because possession is a crime and now they have a reason to look for it in the car. This doesn't work for alcohol because possession of alcohol is not a crime.

Those things do not give probable cause for a search.

But it makes sense. Players are only as good as their potential allows them to be. I don't see any reason to believe there is anything left in the tank for Risto. He was a better player earlier in his career than Chara was, but he hasn't really improved much since his second full season. I don't see why I should give him any benefit of the doubt given the way his development has trended to this point. He hit his ceiling at 21 and he's been there ever since.

Chara continued to develop because he's a better hockey player. Risto not being Chara is exactly why there's no reason to assume he's got any more development potential left in him.

The Islanders certainly had no idea. But he was good by the time he left Ottawa and he knew it. Risto, on the other hand, seems to be a bigger question mark at the moment. We know he produces a reasonable amount of points, but his defensive game is more Hal Gill than Chara. I'm not sure where that leaves him developmentally. He needs to do the opposite of Chara: become a better contributor to the defense relative to his teammates.

+1 for the monopod. If you're shooting digital you don't need quite as much stability as you would shooting slow film.

Consider this a positive: the more wildlife they eat, the less you have to spend on food.

Is anyone here saying it is?

I don't remember much about Chara during that time, but the consensus seems to be that he was the opposite of Risto: good defensively, but late in developing his offensive game. I mean, he was really good by the time he left Ottawa in free agency.

Chara comparisons make me cringe. We don't even have fancy stats that go back far enough to really look at what Chara was at 25. His Corsi numbers are really darn good at 30+, but we don't have any idea what he looked like before that since the league didn't track that kinda stuff. Risto has never had numbers like Chara. If he suddenly turns a corner on that then fine, but the comparison always irks me.

Ah, see maybe that's what the confusion is. I can picture the fork at Ted's, so maybe that's what they're using to accomplish some kind of scoring?

He was definitely better this year. I don't know what it means though. Let's talk again when we have a forward corps that belongs in the NHL.

I'll have to watch more closely the next time I'm at Ted's, I don't remember them cutting the dogs. But you gotta let the Sahlen's crisp up more. The Zweigle's red hots weren't cooked enough either. Not sure who this reviewer is but I question their qualifications as a cased meats connoisseur.

Man they didn't even cook those Sahlen's right. You gotta grill em until they start popping open on their own, none of this cutting business like the package says.

Hell yeah I want it. It's funny, back in college I played around with an ME Super but I really never learned how to shoot it well. Ended up selling it to a U of R student. So I decided back in the fall that I was going to mess with film again and bought another ME Super on eBay. I mentioned it on twitter and one of my followers said they had an old K1000 laying around they'd send me for free, so that's how I ended up with this one. And I haven't shot the ME Super at all because I like the K1000 so much more lol I've also have a vintage Soviet era LOMO LC-A but I have my doubts about the film advance on it so I only put one roll through it so far. If it comes back a mess then I'll have to do some work on that little plastic box.