dudacek

I think he has a better case of “I’ve been jerked around” than most. This is a guy who hadn’t played hockey for more than a year. And their plan for him was to throw him into the fire on the first line against Caps best players, with an ailing Eichel, demote him partway through the second game, bench him after three games and basically let him rot away in the press box ever since? Every thing leading up to the first game said “we believe in you and you are part of this team moving forward.” Everything since has said “you are Dustin Tokarski.” He has gotten his body to the net better than most on a team that really needs that. He doesn’t “deserve” to be playing, but he’s not alone in that. He hasn’t been used as a prod to keep the other slackers honest and he hasn’t been allowed to work his way back from his layoff or develop as hockey player. He’s been put on a shelf.

Yep. Not just for development, but because the current structure of 2 scoring (Staal and Eichel) lines and 2 checking lines (Eakin and Lazar) isn’t cutting it. Definition of stupid and all that. Time to start playing Casey, Tage and Henri too. The latter two haven’t exactly distinguished themselves, but if they are part of the future, let’s see what they can do. And it’s not like they have been significantly worse than the guys they will be replacing have been.

I didn’t watch much of Hall last year, but it’s interesting reading some of the commentary in hindsight, and juxtaposing it with what we’ve seen this year and the kind of offers he’s got in free agency. It seems there was a strong streak of “he’s not the same player since the knee injury” running through the scouting community. When I watch Hall and Staal and Eakin, I wonder how heavily each was scouted prior to their acquisition. Were we going off data accumulated by Botterill’s mostly fired crew? Was it largely about Nightingale and the new skeleton crew running some tape and crunching some numbers? Was it Ralph (Hall) and Kevyn (Staal) leaning hard into their past associations? I’d imagine it was pieces of each, but the common thread here is we acquired players who aren’t as good as they used to be. I posted in fall that the Eakin signing in particular would tell me a lot about player evaluation under the new regime. None of our three biggest acquisitions have done anything to demonstrate that our lean staff knows what it is doing.

I think Victor has made notably fewer negative 5-on-5 plays than Jack this year. Jack's production has largely come from 2ndry assists on plays predominantly driven by Victor's snipes, Dahlin's passing and/or both from Sam.

It really feels the Hall camp miscalculated and is trying to get what they can before he's forced to find out how bad the market is for a 6-goal, 27-point scorer this summer.

Why doesn't the bolded bother you? Don't you think he should have more than 3 goals in his past 51 games, regardless of how he is deployed? I'll hang up and listen

I think having Adams step in to ride out the season and see the issues first-hand wouldn't be the worst path to take.

And how's that been working out? (I think @thorny might be right. It gobsmacks me how easily even good posters handwave the enormity of Jeff's lack of production. Krueger might not use him properly, but Krueger isn't the one missing all those golden opportunities game, after, game after game.)

Can’t wait to do this all again tomorrow!

Mom wasn’t much of a cook, eh?

LOL. That wasn’t hate, it was pure helpless laughter at how ridiculous it’s become. No matter who he’s playing with or against, no matter how bad or good he plays, he cannot score a goal.

You know what would be entertaining? Having the other team remove one player from the ice for each progressive Skinner shift until he finally scores. We could have a pool on how many minutes of the goalie-free 5-on-0 it would take before he finally stuffs one in on the empty net from inside the crease.

Bang on. He’s the poster child for a @PromoTheRobot post.

Yes but Jeff Skinner is getting chances so he’s playing well.

I am so tired of watching Eric Staal stop moving his feet, lean forward, reach, and watch the other team skate away with the puck.

I swear, it seems like Sam has been the only good player on the team this year.

I’d say Eichel or Dahlin gets better value. But if you include them in the “untouchable” category, you’re right. There is a part of me that wants to see Sam on a winning team where both his skill and the recognition he gets for it will fully blossom. He has been so wasted on this team.

I’m not sure what is more depressing: Thursday’s game when nobody tried and we got completely embarrassed? Or today’s when most of them are trying and we are still getting completely embarrassed?

Didn’t I see something about conditional picks got removed in the new CBA...?

The two bolds are not the same. The second is correct. What I heard is Adams saying is that you can’t blame this team’s record on the goalies. He also said Ullmark has played well. Both statements are true. He blamed our team’s record on not competing hard enough to score, or to defend.

“Thanks Mike, that’s a good question.” ”Yes, I want to fire Ralph, but Terry and Kim don’t want to spend the money. You’d think with them paying Leino, and Ehrhoff and Hodgson and Skinner and Okposo not to play they’d be used to it, by now (shrugs).” ”What’s that? Yes, I was surprised, but I’ve since discovered the Fired Executives Fund was reduced with COVID, and I kinda overdid things last June. We are still paying out the Lafontaine and Russ Brandon cover-up deals, but the Housley, Botterill, Bylsma and Murray contracts all come off the books over the next two years. I think that if we can get fans back in the building to start next year, we can probably let Ralph go in mid-November.” ”Ted Nolan? No, that ***** isn’t getting a penny. Never has, never will.”

How fast can we get a goalie with quarantine rules? Faster than Ullmark’s healing process? Are there goalies available that actually make sense beyond a stopgap? Or did we already miss our window?

Seven RFAs and 8 UFAs. Of the others, I can’t really seeing them doing anything with Skinner except cross their fingers with a new coach, but Okposo enters buyout territory this summer and Miller and Risto will be a year away from UFA. And of course there are the Jack fears. There is a ton of potential for movement, although I suspect most of it will come in the summer. As far as the deadline, would expect a sell-off of UFAs (Montour, Staal, maybe a few depth guys). We may also see an attempt to add Adams version of “grit.” What they do with Hall is the most interesting question.

Great point and something people saying "why not today?" need to consider. It speaks to the long game.