French Collection

Most of the draft boards are getting finalized soon. There are only a handful of players still active, Memorial Cup or World Championships. I like the chatter about no consensus top ten, meaning a variety of highly rated guys could end up being available at 11. I know BPA is usually the way to go but I can’t stop thinking of current needs, even though the pick could be 3 years away from putting on a Sabres jersey. Lindstrom, Yakemchuk, Iginla and maybe reaching with Jiricek are the guys I like.

One guy who I never wanted was Matt Cooke. That guy tried to injure people.

Canucks have 5 shots after 28 minutes. Trail in the game 2-1 but are up in the series 3-2. They have done well with few shots all series long. Broadcast said that Joshua leads the playoffs in hits.

Score?

Yeah, if there is that much difference of opinion, there is a good chance that “your guy” drops to where you didn’t expect him to. The other side of the coin is true as well. A couple of guys you thought would be there get taken early. This may be my favourite draft to watch in a while, not just from the Sabres perspective but how it all plays out in the first round.

Keith played with some edge for a smallish Dman. That would be a great ceiling for him to hit.

Hardass coach will go well with gritty guys like Marner, Matthews and Nylander.

Sounds like a great day, exercise too. I’m not much of a fisherman. Got spoiled growing up near lakes where you could only go in by snowmobile in the winter or ATV in the summer. Almost no work on the water to get a shore lunch and then fill your limit for the ride out. We had tons of fly in outfitters around to access the even better lakes. My uncle was good friends with one of them and once in a while he had to go pick up a group but no one to backfill the cabin. He would call my uncle and say if he could round up 4-5 guys we could go in for 2-3 days (next booking) and all we had to do was pay his fuel. Worked out to like $100 each for awesome fishing and being the only humans within 100 miles. Anyway, just a long winded story to say that I cannot spend more than 15 minutes fishing nowadays if there is no action. Spoiled. That and the fact that I was addicted to golf for 20 years limited the fishing.

More of a hard stick to the groin than a slash. Showing some Pronger tendencies right there.

Sweden just scored 3 goals in 26 seconds and now get a 4th to pull away from Latvia.

My father in law used to have an interesting take on playoff performance. He said that guys who have a mercenary mindset fade away at that time of year. The players don’t get paid as their salary has been paid out during the regular season. The financial reward from the league for winning a Cup is small change compared to their salaries. Those kind of guys do well in the 80% part of the season but may not want to give 100% for two more months.

Cozens has found his goal scoring touch again at the Worlds, 3 goals in 4 games.

Their D core is Hedman, Dahlin and Karlsson. I haven’t watched any of their games but they are a definite contender for gold.

Lindstrom at 13 and Levshunov at 14 is the lowest I’ve seen those guys. I would take either at 11. The concerns with Lindstrom are playmaking and durability. Levshunov didn’t impress these guys with an elite skill to separate himself from the pack.

Print that and use it as toilet paper.

Another take of mine on face off percentages is that a guy like ROR is 55% vs all centres, including all of the other top guys. Our guys are 40 something percent vs the entire league. The odds are even worse when going up against a top guy, he would probably win 60%+ vs our below average guys.

Sorry I messed up my earlier response. Yeah the Finnish fans were devastated . They got so hammered in the beer gardens after that one. That was a crazy game. Austri’s best showing so far.

Epic collapse. Binnington only had 20 shots. The D was porous as well. The Austria fans partied outside afterwards, beating drums and singing songs. Some of them followed me on the subway, drums and all. They kept on singing. Wearing a Canada jersey got me some funny looks from locals too. Their eyes were saying ‘so much for this hockey power’. The most fun was in the fan zone, outside, between games. Huge beer garden and every country was represented. Poles, Ukrainians, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians and Czechs wanted to pose with us. I was approached by a Finnish fan who wanted to trade jerseys. He had a nice white one but I declined because my Iginla is signed by Jarome. Next time I will bring one I am willing to trade and get a cool international keepsake. Pretty sure I walked by a bunch of wives and girlfriends at the airport today. There were some Hockey Canada officials there with about 8 beautiful girls. On my way home now. I would love to do this again, maybe Scandinavia.

He was good at his job and he seemed to love it. RIP Darren.

When our best guy is not even 50% the odds are even worse.

Heading to the rink. Finland vs Austria then Canada vs Norway. The beer in Czechia was really hyped up and it is excellent.

Vancouver has moved him around the line up, some stints into the top 6 and PP. I think he could definitely help. He hasn’t played much C at the NHL level but he has won more than 50% of his draws. He’s a winger but could take some draws if he was used properly.

It was shocking to all of the fans, including the Austrians. They were celebrating outside with drums and songs. They kept it going on the subway. I was bummed that Canada played that poorly and that Binnington couldn’t stop a beach ball but it was a cool atmosphere.

KO is not to blame but he didn’t help. All of his career has been spent on losing teams. He doesn’t know what a winning organization feels like until now. Nice guy but not a winner. If he wins a Cup it is by the luck of parachuting onto a championship roster. This is KA’s last chance, I hope.

I like Novikov and Johnson but Komarov is a RHD and may have a higher offensive ceiling than those two.