TrueBlueGED

But it's so easy to avoid that bastardization unless you're the one putting content out.

It appears your sarcasm detector was collateral damage when my ROR snark meter exploded late last night ?

Wouldn't surprise me if this happened around the time it went public.

Barring injury, I can easily see him hitting 60. If the team is good, I think he makes the All-Star Game. It strikes me that some are still hesitant to embrace how incredible he is. By his third pro season he'll be in the conversation for best defenseman in the league.

If a trade deadline rental not being retained by the acquiring team is a measure of how good a guy is in the room, then holy smokes, half the league is bad in the room. And if ROR hoisting a Cup does one positive thing other making Marchand cry, I hope it's to make more people understand that we don't have a freaking clue what "the room" is like, and we know even less about how what goes on there translates to the ice.

Huh? He was drafted in 2017, Botterill's first offseason as GM. Maybe confusing him with Olofsson or Asplund?

It's all in how you use it. There's no rule stating it has to be used to track other people's lives. For instance, I use it to follow researchers from my previous field so I can stay (relatively) up to date without needing to dive into academic journals.

Regardless of how we feel about O'Reilly lifting the Cup, I'd like to think we can all unite with pure joy at seeing Marchand cry in sadness, right?

Meh. I don't trust Krueger any more than I trust Botterill. Besides, I have no interest in talking about moves to improve the team if I can't get beyond "well I don't trust the GM, so don't make moves." That's just pretty boring to me from a conversational perspective.

I wish he wouldn't, but that's besides the point. Nobody is giving us a sack of potatoes for Bogosian. Risto (presumably) has trade value.

What in the world?

People are 100% saying he didn't play the same here, and that what he did wouldn't have happened here.

I tried to control myself. I failed in a moment of weakness!

Apparently not.

I feel like him hoisting the Cup and the Conn Smythe is the only dunking I need to do. People will either admit how tragically wrong they were and learn from it, or craft some hilariously inept rationalizations how he's a different player there.

They're too busy scoring goals ?

I want to be as clear as humanly possible: I'm not interested in trading Risto as any kind of addition by subtraction. I don't believe in that nonsense. It might not be in defense, but if I can net more roster value than Risto provides (obviously, in my assessment), I'm doing it. I'll worry about positionality later. And seriously, nobody describes him as barely an NHLer. Pretty much what you and Taro said. From the most basic perspective possible, there are 31 #1 Dmen and 62 top pairing Dmen. But just because they skate there on bad teams doesn't mean they could do it on a good team. And that's my threshold. Not do they skate as a #1 or 1st pair, but do you think they could do it on a contending team.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting trading Risto for a 7th round pick just to be rid of him. I think there's a reasonable chance there's a GM out there who values him as you (and others) do, which means I can get more in a trade for him than he brings personally. To the second bold, here's the thing: Montour isn't a stay-at-home Dman who can match up against other top players and shut the down...but neither is Risto. So if your concern with trading Risto is it leaves that role vacant...that role is vacant even with Risto here.

Yea, but they have had better play for years and haven't had better goaltending.

There are 15 UFAs who scored 37+ (since you're so obsessed that that specific number as if it's some lock Marleau does it again in a lesser situation), and 4 of them are coming off contracts that paid $6M. Pominville had 31 by virtue of a dozen or so games with Jack, and he'll probably cost $2M or less. And there's probably a whole bunch of other cheap UFA names who could get into the 30-point range if paired with an elite center a-la Marleau with Matthews. It really doesn't have to be that hard. Every single year the Lee Stempniaks and Brandon Pirri's of the world sign cheap contracts and put up points. There is zero reason to think we should have to go the Marleau route because it's oh so hard to find cheap depth scoring. Based on what, exactly? The Islanders wanted to keep Vanek, he just didn't want to sign there. And he's such a bad example for the kids that Detroit...brought him back amidst a rebuild.

Carolina also had respectable goaltending this year. Mrazek posted a .914 in 40 starts and McElhinney had a .912 in 33. If our goaltenders had posted those numbers we'd probably have improved our goal differential by 30 (note: I didn't actually do the math).

Vanek was signed for $3M last year and scored 36 points in 64 games while playing with a considerably lesser center than Auston Matthews. Every single year bargain bin UFA wingers go to favorable situations and produce. There is zero reason to spend $6M for it.

I'll let it go once Botterill fixes the hole he blasted in the roster. Plenty of GMs make bad trades, recover, and ice a winning roster. Let's see Botterill do it.

You heard it here folks, Patrick Marleau is still a top-6 player! ??

I'm not looking for more than 37 points on my 3rd line, I'm looking to get in that ballpark for less than $6M on a player who is at least as likely to be totally shot without Matthews as he is to be able to do it again a year older.