Randall Flagg

Sure, but we've already tread that ground

I'm actually more inclined to believe we're the worst team in the NHL than I am to believe that we're going to be a wild card team

While technically true, he did have 4 seasons of pacing for, like, 65-70 points before that one, including 69 points, and 41 in 48 games during the lockout year (71 point pace). All with as many goals as he's scored the last 3. Like I mentioned the other day, I think he's a ~70 point winger that when paired with a young stud C who won't be going anywhere for the rest of Blake's contract, gets a many as 25 points better.

I guarantee you would have put more money on that being the case last year than you are willing to this year. Don't lie ?

How good is P/60, especially in a sample size like that? Evan Rodrigues' is better than Blake's and than Eichel's Not to be the guy that points to outliers. But I rarely see it talked about in analyses

I still think we're a bottom 5 team.

Boston Bruins Record last season: 50-20-12, 112 PTS, 2nd in Atlantic Playoffs: Beat Toronto in round 1, lost in 5 games to Tampa in round 2 Coach: Bruce Cassidy GM: Don Sweeney Captain: Zdeno Chara GF: 267 (6th) GA: 211 (4th) PP: 23.5% (4th) PK: 83.7% (3rd) Top 5G: 1.) David Pastrnak (35) 2.) Brad Marchand (34 in 68 games) 3.) Patrice Bergeron (30) 4.) David Krejci (17) 5.) Danton Heinen, Jake DeBrusk (16) Top 5A: 1.) Brad Marchand (51) 2.) David Pastrnak (45) 3.) Torey Krug (45) 4.) Patrice Bergeron (33) 5.) Danton Heinen (31) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Brad Marchand (85...in 68 games.... a 103 point pace ? ) 2.) David Pastrnak (80) 3.) Patrice Bergeron (63, in 64 games) 4.) Torey Krug (59) 5.) Danton Heinan (47) Key Additions: Jaroslav Halak (G), John Moore (D), Joakim Nordstrom (LW), Chris Wagner (C) Key Losses: Rick Nash (LW), Riley Nash (C), Nick Holden (D), Anton Khudobin (G), Tim Schaller (C), Brian Gionta (RW), Tommy Wingels (C) Projected Lineup: Marchand - Bergeron - Bjork DeBrusk - Krejci - Pastrnak Donato - Backes - Heinen Nordstrom - Kurlay - Wagner Cehlarik Chara - Carlo Moore - McAvoy Krug - Miller Rask Halak Top Prospects we might/might not see 1.) Jakob Forsbacka-Karlsson, C, taken 2nd round 2015 2.) Urho Vaakanainen, D, 1st round 2017 3.) Ryan Donato, C, 2nd round 2014 4.) Anders Bjork, LW, taken 146th in 2014 5.) Trent Frederic, C, 1st round 2016 My thoughts In the throes of the tank, we laughed at these guys. They were on the way down. They missed the playoffs at the last possible second and were getting old. Then Pastrnak and McAvoy blossomed, and Marchand is suddenly a top 3 scoring forward in the league? Imagine fans of a franchise that lost on purpose, finishing last 3 years later again, making fun of a franchise that "declined" in the form of : 117 points, 96 points, to rock bottom at 93 points, then 95, and then 112. If only we could fall apart like that, eh? They lost some old depth forwards this summer, but with the emergence of Heinen and DeBrusk, this might actually be a net good thing. I've read good things about the readiness of Kurlay and Bjork and Donato too. I doubt these guys miss a beat. Cassidy appears to be a good coach, and the swing-and-a-miss in the 2015 draft is already a distant memory and won't harm them, even if they could be set up better now. Marchand and Bergeron are still only 29/30 and have plenty of miles left. Hopefully Bergeron can stay healthy. At absolute worst, injuries could make this team a bubble team. At best, they could win the division and the cup with a fair bit of ease. They're likely a top 5-6 team in the NHL. Also, McAvoy is a goddamn stud. I'm jealous of this franchise. Luckily we get 'em on the second night of a back-to-back with travel, opening day.

I can't believe Terrell Suggs is still playing, let alone playing at the level he is.

Makes sense, it seems like you can walk yourself into contradictions if you only focus on one thing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But yeah, it's impossible to quantify, but if there was a bell curve of NHL skaters, Sam being at the center/average would roughly mean that as many NHL regulars are slower than him as are faster. I think it's a safe assumption that NHL skating-ability/speed distributions behave as a bell curve. All I have are my own eyes, but when I watch other teams and try to think about this as objectively as possible, quite frankly the only way I could come close to being convinced that this was true for Sam is if somebody actually produced the data for every NHL player somehow.

Nah, mine are on the slow side of average. The average NHL skater would be Sam's speed if bottom sixes were mostly composed of cement-legged guys like 20 years ago balancing out the speedsters. Now, everyone is varying degrees of fast, except for the guys who aren't fast, and Sam isn't fast I still can't figure out if slower-but-high-IQ players are supposed to hit a wall when they hit 30 because of the skating weakness or if they can play longer because they never needed their speed anyway. It often gets said that a guy who skates well can play into his thirties - but I disagree, because as soon as he slows down he loses the key element to his game, whereas a slow guy getting slightly slower just makes slightly worse something that didn't matter in the first place towards making him good.

Definitely, I would certainly try him out at C to see what we have, I just wouldn't be surprised or disappointed in him if he had to stick at wing for now. His wings were Rodrigues and Okposo and they could certainly be upgraded, though I'm not sure they will be and I kinda liked him with those two last season. It'll be fun to watch it all play out.

I've said a couple times, we aren't seeing anything close to 177 points in a Sabres player's first three post-draft seasons for a long time, in all likelihood. And without two people crumpling his ankles it would have been 210

Maybe. Casey might grab it too, but we have to remember that whatever the tweeted lineups said, all six games last year Mitts had the responsibilities of a LW, and in the brief couple of periods he was at C I'm almost positive his line did not register a shot attempt, so Phil switched him & ERod again. Of course, development is a thing that happens to most teams, even if we haven't seen it for a while, so maybe this year is different in that regard.

I could see Mitts playing wing to start like he did last season.

Only Sabres games.

They're streaming this, BTW. On the Sabres website.

I mentioned Larkin over Sam isn't a done deal. You know how I am for pretty skaters, though, and Larkin, ?. But he put together a really nice second half last year, just as Sam did. And Pasta is only #2 because Brayden Point is freaking ridiculous and plays C and is going to be Selke-caliber within 2 years IMO he could have been a top 5 Selke candidate last year

Arizona Coyotes Record last season: 29-41-12, 70 points, 7th in Pacific Playoffs: None Coach: Rick Tocchet GM: John Chayka Captain: OEL GF: 206 (30th) GA: 251 (21st) PP: 16.9% (26th) PK: 79.5% (19th) Top 5G: 1.) Clayton Keller (23) 2.) Brendan Perlini (17) 3.) Christian Dvorak (15) 4.) Christian Fischer (15) 5.) Derek Stepan (14) Top 5A: 1.) Clayton Keller (42) 2.) Derek Stepan (42) 3.) Max Domi (36) 4.) OEL (28) 5.) Alex Goligoski (23) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Clayton Keller (65) 2.) Derek Stepan (56) 3.) Max Domi (45) 4.) OEL (42) 5.) Christian Dvorak (37) Key Additions: Michael Grabner (LW), Alex Galchenyuk (C/LW), Vinnie Hinostroza (C), Jordan Oesterle (D) Key Losses: Max Domi (LW), Jordan Martinook (LW), Luke Schenn (D), Zac Rinaldo (C) Projected Lineup: Keller - Stepan - Panik Strome - Galchenyuk - Hinostroza Perlini - Dvorak - Grabner Cousins - Richardson - Fischer Crouse OEL - Demers Goligoski - Hjalmarsson Chychrun - Connauton Oesterle Raanta Kuemper Top Prospects we might/might not see 1.) Dylan Strome, C, Drafted 3OA in 2015 2.) Barrett Hayton, C, Drafted 5OA this past June 3.) Nick Merkley, RW, drafted in the first round of 2015 4.) Pierre-Olivier Joseph, D, drafted in the first round of 2017 5.) Lawson Crouse, LW, traded from Florida My thoughts I think we'd look at this team a little differently if they didn't have one of the worst start of all time last year - it took them 21 games to get their first regulation win (!!!). But they finished the season going 17-10-3 after February 6th, and were playing some fun and solid hockey. One of these years, you'd think it has to click. Raanta actually looks like a legit starter. The top 4 D is certainly not in the dregs of the league, though it isn't one of the best, and Chychrun looks as good as their fans could have hoped. The forward group is a little weak up top but Keller has PPG potential and there's a chance Strome becomes something. They have top six players and that third line scored over 50 goals last season, which is damn good. But something about the group still feels raw and undeveloped and just not good at NHL hockey yet. I don't think this is the year we see them turn the corner, and I predict another bottom 10 finish. But I don't think they are a bottom 3 team/franchise like they have been with us for so long anymore, and things are looking up. If everything goes perfectly, they could compete for a wildcard spot.

Yep, he was always seen as a C as far as I remember. But he was viewed as a wildcard - something a little too risky to take with pick 1 or 2. I was scared of them selecting him. Right this second, if I did a 2014 redraft: 1.) Brayden Point 2.) David Pastrnak 3.) Leon Draisaitl 4.) Brandon Montour 5.) Aaron Ekblad 6.) William Nylander 7.) Dylan Larkin 8.) Sam Reinhart 9.) Nikolaj Ehlers 10.) Viktor Arvidsson I would listen to arguments on taking Sam over Ekblad and Larkin. Probably not Nylander. But potential associated with the 1D position has Ekblad above Willie, creating that apparent contradiction.

And even if that's all he was, I'd sure like to buy that product and put it next to JEichel.

Reinhart isn't, like, a plodder, but I would not be using synonyms of "fast" to describe him relative to his peers - the synonyms would be those of "slow" when you boil down to it. And Leon is greatly helped with McDavid but is still a better player than Sam when not with McDavid. Not by a huge amount, but the guy is a stud in his own right.

We need some of that symbiotic stuff going on with our guys at some point. Wheeler plays as much a role in Scheifele's emergence as Scheifele does in Wheeler's uptick in scoring. He's essentially a ~70 point player that, when paired with a great center with whom he has chemistry, can put up seasons greater than that. Not many wingers have that base or the ability to score that much when things go right.

I wonder how Eichel's 18-21year old NHL seasons rank within the division. Off the top of my head, the better players in that stretch are Stamkos, Karlsson, Matthews, crickets Is there anyone else?

Wheeler might not be worth 8 mil at the end, but someone else would give him that contract instantly, and the play you get from him over the next four seasons are certainly worth paying him big money at 37 versus not doing that but not having him after this year

Lynch may or may not have a great name. He also may or may not be one of the worst Bills QBs on the roster in a while, if we sign him. I assume they're doing practice squad/warm body due diligence.