TrueBlueGED

Try "proving" the null, and you will know true publication hell.

Meh, disagree, agree. Lundqvist did not have a good season, but given his track record of excellence, I have a hard time throwing him overboard for it. He may have finally gotten old--he is 35, after all. But he still posted a .930 in the playoffs, which is above his career average in both the playoffs and regular season. The Rangers probably don't even get to the second round without him. Declaring him finished is premature.

And violently assaulting a "star" rookie.

Might be able to pull a Friday, but a Saturday game would definitely be ideal.

The bold is decidedly untrue. That aside, I wholeheartedly agree that deviations from the norm are fun! A placebo effect is a placebo effect is a placebo effect :nana:

Have you ever seen Real Steel? Robot sports are the best! :lol: Myself and others who believe in statistical analysis of sports don't want to watch robots play, we simply want to quantify what matters and how much. Is X really important, or do we just think it's important because we were taught it was? If it's important, how important relative to other things? And so on. Is that really so bad?

I was thinking video work and skills work. Eichel spending last summer on his shot. Stuff like that.

Did you...did you just call me a robot in a roundabout way? :p

Ullmark maybe, but do you really think Zemgus or Larsson will even be exposed? Who do you think gets protected in their stead?

In at least one universe, you did not :p

Exactly this. And where I think people get into trouble is knowing we need Dmen in the pipeline, they start subconsciously over-valuing the available D. I think this happened in the lead up to the 2016 draft.

I agree with this. And that's still good enough to be a top pair player on a Cup team. If he only gets to the tier below this, however, then Houston we have a problem.

Absolutely. And it's just the way the teams want it. Franky, I think part of the next lockout is going to be the owners wanting to prevent the 6-8 year deals we've been seeing right off the ELC.

Staying away from the stats (which is a slam dunk argument that Neil is useless): If a dude who plays 3 minutes is that important, there's something very wrong with the mental/emotional makeup of the rest of the roster.

I think the issues with Bogosian's work ethic are off-ice related. Frankly, I think that's the sort of thing Eichel was talking about to close the year: guys who don't dedicate themselves to improvement away from games and mandatory practices. I think there's a good chance Bogo falls into this group, and wouldn't be surprised a-tall if Kane did as well. Of course, Kane is also much more effective on the ice than Bogosian.

I think the Gaudreau and Tarasenko contracts are going to be the ballpark here. Gaudreau had 79 points in 81 games following a rookie season of 64 in 80. His contract was 6 years, $40.5M, for an AAV of $6.75M. Tarasenko had 43 in 64 as a rookie, and 73 in 77 as a sophomore. Following his sophomore season, he signed for 8 years and $60M, for an AAV of $7.5M. So I'm looking at 6-8 years around $6.75-$7.5M AAV.

And yet, I still want Washington to win.

Man, Pat Kane isn't any of these things. People desperately want all of this cliché stuff to be true, and I just don't think it is. At least not in the general sense you put forth here. Some guys need it because they don't have the raw talent otherwise, but offensive stars just have to do what they do.

Yea, Reinhart centering Taylor Hall would be incredible. Errrrr, wait, right....

If Reinhart is at center with a competent coach, he'll surprise a lot of people next year. I rally don't ever think he'll be near a point per game player like Draisaitl was this year, but if he ends up as good all-around as O'Reilly, he was still a dynamite pick.

The 2014 draft was about the Sams. Draisaitl, at best, was mentioned as a guy who could go higher than expected. But he was never neck and neck with the Sams. Anything else is revisionist history. And yes, I'd rather have Draisaitl right now.

"I know we're here to talk about the Bills and Sabres, but allow me, for a moment, to ask about the Bandits." --Adam Benigni, probably.

I'm gonna laugh when people freak out about the Bills hiring a GM before the Sabres.

Well of course it wasn't designed that way, but that was the consequence of his breakout strategy. But he was too much of a doofus to understand that.

Look, I'm on a narrative-killing snark-trip in light of the Preds advancing, and I will not allow you to ruin it for me!