ska-T Palmtown

ESPN in their "bold predictions" article ... so at least someone thinks it might happen, lol

The good teams have one, right? Barkov, MacKinnon, Crosby (although Pitt is not so good anymore), Bergeron/Marchand, McDavid ... from the article about Dahlin getting people together and running a mini camp over the summer, I am hoping we have ours!

I'll always have a soft spot in my cold dead heart for Rayzor. I really admire the hockey life he carved out for himself by getting punched in the face and hanging around. Dunleavy? He has the unfair curse of following the GOAT ... poor guy.

Topical and relevant - Going to see The War on Drugs open for The National at the United Center in Chicago tonight. Mostly to see TWoD, but will probably stick around for half of the National show, then beat traffic on outta there!

To put it another way, my theory is that if they only had Bo-Power or Pow-lin, the two high draft picks on the roster end up with more points than they do when you add in a third super high-end Dman. Does it affect Ras as much as the others? Probably not, the puck will be on his stick plenty. But obviously Bo-Power each have more points if Ras is not there. I guess maybe my point is that Power (and probably Byram) would have more points if they were THE guy on a different "up and coming" team, so judging them purely on points might be a touch unfair?

The AP has weighed in on the debate: https://apnews.com/article/nhl-buffalo-sabres-dahlin-captain-fab1f4a3f00a53610a11790860a0026d Great read. 😍 for Ras!

Agreed. To be clear - he should have high expectations this year. It is interesting to me that the Sabres have two #1 and a #4 pick on defense, all of approximately the same age. It is probably better for their overall games, but also probably shaves a little off the top end of the statistics of each, since if they were the only "top pick" D-man on a team, all the stats are belong to them.

Isn't this season, the one that has not started, the first of his new contract? He was probably a bargain on his rookie deal last year, no?

Please also accept these for lending a helping hand! ❤️❤️❤️

So, if there are 32 team, and thus 32 "1st line center"s ... 16/17 is "the middle" and some sort of band near that would have to be "average" for that group. Assume 4 to each side. With that logic, "above average" is, at worst, 12th best in the league, but you say he is not top 15? 😜 Of course Edm skews the data by having 2 of the top 5 - but since I am playing fast and loose with facts, I rest my case. 👩‍⚖️

I fixed my "answer" ... imagine playing in the NHL at 18, then being sent back to the WHL at 19??? Talk about a shot to the ego! Not that I think he will. At all. Just sorted popped into my head.

Oh man, I was afraid you would ask for details .. 🙂 I just remember last year it was discussed that he would be Buffalo or WHL this year, too. Hopefully someone with a few active brain cells will swoop in and save me from myself. Source: The google AI text at the top of a search: "To play in the AHL, players must be at least 18 years old by September 15 of the season. Canadian and American-born players must be 20 years old by January 15 of the season." Benners (Benny? Benns?) will not be 20 until MAY, dear god, what a wee baby he is!

Obligatory mention of Benson being Buffalo or WHL this year - not ROC eligible ... unless my brain has completely shat the bed over the summer?

Sweet! Yeah, I have gone on a Benson/Quinn/Peterka kick lately. I only have a handful of graded cards. I tend to stick to HOF types for the premium you pay for graded. That said, I got a Dahlin and Power Young Guns, both graded 9, for pretty reasonable prices. I'll post some pics of the young Sabres once I get the rest delivered and cased up. I have a card for pretty much every player in the HHOF - anyone that played before 1950, they are not cards from their playing days, too expensive, but maybe some day? (Also, at least 30 of the players in the HHOF played before there were even hockey cards out there, so tribute sets are the only way to go - oh well) I started collecting in 1990, so Griffey Jr was my white whale. I never had the big deal Upper Deck Griffeys, but I had some others. Obviously, anything from like 1988 - 1998 is so cheap now unless you find a perfect one graded 10, so I have a few pages of Griffey in my baseball book.

I spared everyone full quote 🙂 The Bad around here is league parity. B-Leagues and above in and around Chicago are dominated by ex-Div 1 college players or higher. Fine, you can have your B-Leagues and your Elite A's (usually featuring several ECHL alum and sprinkling of former-AHL guys). The bad comes in when the "older" (like, late 20's) guys from that league don't want to have to skate as hard as they need to in order to keep up with the fresh crop of 23 yr olds and they drop down to C. We are not talking 4-yr starters at a major program, but 28 year old NCAA D1 guys who played a year or two at decent programs are now out there skating around with true beer leaguers and potting 6 goals in the first period before they have to leave because everyone wants to fight. 6'-3" D-men taking 80+ mph clappers from the blue line and laughing as they skate up to you to see if your leg is still attached after you accidentally blocked it. Total D-bags. Other than that - holy crap do I love playing!!

I know you were probably talking about peeps in WNY - but I finally got on the ice at the age of 35 and have been stinking up Chicago-area beer league hockey going on 10 years now! Thanks to the Kane/Toews Cup runs, beer league hockey in Chicago is amazing. I am on 5 teams at 4 different rinks and could probably play more if I clone myself. The thing that took me way too long to realize is that you don't really get that much better playing in games. I found a good partner to go to stick-n-pucks pretty regularly about 18 months ago and have definitely improved more in that time than the 8 1/2 year before that. The Blackhawks' practice facility is required by the city to be available for public use when the 'Hawks are not using it - lots of drop-in chances and two sheets of REALLY nice ice. Playing hockey is just so much effing fun!!

They are all too afraid of getting heat from 'Spacers about how they chose to spend their CBA mandated free time ... wise move, this place is brutal to those who have fun 😜

Was going to mention the same for the UC. 3 years older - but maybe a tad unfair since the two primary teams that call it home have either 6 or 7 championships during that time (can't remember when all the Bulls chips were) - so MAD playoff revenue from TWO sports (possibly enough to pay for the $130M cost entirely?) And I guess 2x the ticket revenue (I think NBA and NHL tickets are about the same in Chicago right now?) and the owner gets that sweet Sweet SWEET NBA TV money split. Wondering out loud how many other similar age arenas have a 2 (major) sport revenue stream? Definitely gives them a financial advantage. Solution: TPegs gets an NBA team 😉

I was thinking that #1 and #2 on the list are in totally different places with regards to recent success and "exciting hockey" - as are Vegas and Chicago. To me, Chicago being last pokes a hole in the "easy to beat" being higher on the list theory - although I am sure there is nuance to how many people reached saturation with the 'Hawks in the 2010's? Personally, "least hated" seems like a more apt theory. I'd choose the Sharks over any other Eastern Conference team, etc ... I suspect outside of Buffalo fandom, most NHL fans don't have much of a reason to hate the Sabres.

But the Avs being #1 and the hawks being near the bottom really shoots that theory down?

He did not seem to show any ill-effects from the achilles injury after his return last year. We have been told that the second injury was unrelated. I don't share the view of some on SS that JQ is injury prone. He had two unlucky injuries that were likely unrelated. I am hoping he will be at 0.75 ppg or above this year 🙂

From so very shallow digging, there appear to be plenty of teams that are close to the cap and several of them still have some RFAs to sign ... we might still shake one loose!

FWIW - I hockey guy I know that is fairly well plugged in with the coaching and training community had mentioned to me that Eichel was not working with the big trainer that most superstars were using at the time and i think he implied that the guy Eichel was using was kinda viewed as "out there" and in his opinion (please message me and I will send you a grain of salt in the mail 🙂) it was not unreasonable to think the less orthodox methods of the trainer potentially led to an off-season injury. (double checking, i think i have enough wiggle words in there to cover any defamation lawsuits brought) If there is sufficient curiosity from The Board At Large, I could reach back out to see if he would refresh me on the deets.

Bringing by my own thread ... is that uncool on the interwebs? lol Just wondering if anyone with a semi-current collecting hobby know much about these like ultra thick "exquisite" cards? They don't have any embedded pieces of jerseys or jock straps - but hella thick card board ...