Randall Flagg

Get well soon.

Faceoffs are cool. Fewer than one extra faceoff win per game in exchange for the game Vlad brings? That's not cool. That's exactly why Phil used him the way he did last year that everyone was on board with being a bad idea and a big reason why our team was incapable of generating scoring chances on par with even below average teams. Until Ralph not only decided to do it but put him with Skinner while doing so. Now it's completely fine, because reasons

Man. This last week has convinced me I'm not watching the same league as anyone else. At this point, that's all I have to say.

We have to stop pretending Sobotka isn't a historically bad offensive hockey player that's also below average defensively. There are 16 better forwards in the organization. He's not our second best anything.

The man can't even get a shot on goal on a two on one. The crazy thing is, that the thing the stats show he's so bad at - creating offensive shot attempts - even includes this play! Like, even if you call this a "dangerous chance" because of its location, and give him credit for it, he's still the worst in the league at impacting that stat. And when he can impact that stat, this is what he does with the puck It's one thing if we're Toronto, but this is literally the thing that we're the worst at relative to the other teams in the league, and so it's the thing that needs to improve the most for us to be good

How can you free up your linemates if you're the easiest player on the planet to separate from the puck? Ideal or not, all three players regularly touch the puck on any line took me a roughly 30 seconds to find this clip, it isn't even one I already had saved I've never seen a player easier to diagnose than Sobotka. The reason he's such a statistical extreme is evident every second he spends on the ice

It's alarming that it's a thing, and it's alarming that Sobotka was here in September, but yeah, let's see what he does for the games.

I mean, we essentially lost the 17-18 season because of a handful of games at the beginning where the same logic was given to Moulson and a couple other obviously awful players, so, yeah, he can lose

Right, and my post plainly said that my opinions will change if the current setup finds its way into the NHL regular season. It's still a WTF move given everything there is to know about Vlad Sobotka, but it won't be problematic until every shift matters, October 3rd.

The best player on the planet is on a team that finished right around where we did last year. And I've come to grips a while ago with the fact that Jack won't be a top 3-5 forward in the league on his career like we had hoped he could become. But he's already good enough to be the 1C on a team that can go deep if management is competent. It's the hardest box to check off, and it's checked off. I've moved on to sitting here wondering why the ***** we're doing what we're doing in just about every single other roster spot.

That is interesting phrasing lol And good on Risto. And Eichel will suddenly become a winner when he's on a roster that's a winning roster, and it'll be wonderful to finally stop hearing about how Jack wants to win but can't

We have a player who is essentially the biggest offensive black hole in the league over two seasons running, for reasons well documented by many statistical analyses that are completely independent of each other, and plainly evident in film, reasons which also plague the team as a collective more than any other facet of hockey relative to the other teams in the league, and not only was he allowed back to training camp, he's now practicing on our second line with the 9 million dollar goal scorer who got that money by playing with a guy whose funneling of pucks to the area where Skinner scores rivals any other player in the league I honestly don't have many words for if that happens in a regular season game. It would be unfathomable, given the context of last season, and would likely irredeemably shift my view of Botterill the rest of the way that it's been slowly heading the past two and a half years. Even if the team starts out hot, which would surely be due to other reasons, I wouldn't be able to trust a group of people that decide that's reasonable. Even if you argue he earned the look from the preseason, in a 2/3rds offensive role on the top line the guy had zero production and the same 40/60 expected goal split he always had last year. I hate using stats like that in sample sizes so small, but coming off of what last season was for Vlad, you'd think you'd need to see real evidence of tangible improvement in those areas to let it override 700 day trend. At least when we put Derek Grant in meaningful spots for half a year despite literally zero goals, he had actually PRODUCED in that preseason.

Organizations that consistently shoot themselves in the foot with roster moves that prevent them from icing the best possible teams at their disposal, making these roster moves with motivations outside of this Belichickean goal, are organizations that go long stretches of time winning fewer hockey games than most others.

I would have too, and we were moving when he got hit, weren't we?

Even within the Pats game, the drive coming out of the fourth quarter was just like the drives in the previous three games themselves. McDermott said it himself - Josh wasn't applying what he had learned, then he did coming out of the half, and then he got away from it again. The reason he got away from it was that Bill was too smart for him, and the moment was too big for him.

I think this is a little too simplistic. If stats are distributed the same way at the meta level, that doesn't mean games play out the same way. Allen has one of the top few QBRs in the 4th quarter in his last so many games, stretching back into last season, and as a result has 4-5 game winning drives/fourth quarter comebacks. That kind of stuff leaves a better impression during an 8-6 stretch of football than EJ's more uniform, unspectacular game results. Poll the fans after EJ's second career game and thrilling last second victory, or during the 2-0 start the following year that also included a fourth quarter comeback, and it's far different from what the opinions of EJ were by the time he threw the London game against the Jags in the trash when we needed it to salvage the season. I think fan bases (and large groups of humans in general) can simultaneously be overrated and underrated in intelligence/common sense For as much love as Allen got by the end of week 3, there is no Bills draft pick that had a larger, louder crowd in agony over the pick, and so Allen will always have a bigger chance to spontaneously combust in the fan's eyes after a couple of bad performances. I'd even liken some fans' general tenors to licking their chops, eagerly awaiting it.

This is what I'd do - and I'm imagining a Risto trade for a RW to replace Rodrigues, Rodrigues in for Sheary, and Sheary just gone somewhere while KO gets his spot taken by Lazar or something

Congrats to Gore, by the way. What an epic football player. Fourth ever to 15,000 rushing yards!

Man I hate this stuff haha. I guess my question is, why didn't they wave the guy that was probably the worst forward to play in any of the preseason games

Sounds like Burfict is done for the year after his hit on a Colts tight end. Years too late, this guy is complete scum

Which is weird, because I didn't even think Joki was very good in the prospect tournament, much less preseason.

He was so much better than Kyle. Everyone was, even Sobotka. So they'd actually save some small amount of cap dollars? Is the only REAL thing preventing it, then, the fact that he's a vet and a good soldier and all of the misfortune surrounding his situation?

Also, what were the logistics of waiving Okposo? Because he probably should have been waived, eh? I counted fifty Sabre forwards better than him this training camp

There's a non-negligible chance that Gilmour is actually really bad, and will be exposed in the regular season. It's something I'll be watching for.

Gilmour made it over Nelson, interesting.