Thorny

How apropos

Change can be excruciatingly slow, but if you pull back the perspective far enough, you can see its progress. I don’t believe things haven’t changed at all. Too many I know anecdotally, even if that’s only two people, who watch much less than before. Some fans indeed are hitting breaking points and it’s reached a level I personally haven’t seen. More speak of apathy than before. I drew a line at 5 years of Adams and I’m interested to see how that unfolds

When the obstacle is the mere changing of a human mind it’s never an unthinkable pursuit. I mean 12 angry men is one of the best films ever. We won a hockey game against Vegas because of the united choice of several thousand booing Hertl - this actually happened. Of course getting Adams fired could lead to the team being fixed. If you randomly shuffle the deck it won’t likely come up ace but you have to be pretty unlucky to get the Joker Speaking nothing of accountability. And the message it may send. Adams should be accountable we have gone down the wrong road if we are willingly calling accountability pointless just because it may not get us what we feel is personally owed how sad that would be

Game changer gap between 2 and 3 Doesn’t matter where we finish, will need some luck to grab a top 2 spot just win the games you can and make a good pick if you can’t trade it. You are going to get someone “good”, and so are a whole bunch of other teams, too. A top 2 could represent a little bit of quicker gained ground if we are lucky, both to get the pick and after

Could make him shift his thinking on firing Adams

The two better players? No

Utter defeatist bs in this thread shout it from the roof tops. Don’t give in. Show your spirit. Don’t keel over and die because some will call you silly for trying. it’s not about convincing anyone and never has been. It’s about demonstrating that it’s not good enough. That in YOUR heart it’s not good enough. the battle is only truly lost when they’ve convinced you you can’t win it

“The eye-brow was the sign!”

I think they mean something. This discussion always inevitably regrettably seems to devolve into extremities, like most things nowadays it’s not that they don’t matter: it’s just that they don’t take precedent over the others. They don’t matter *more*. We don’t cherry pick the last 2 games and say, “2 for 2, is that the real us?” we are our record the roster should be addressed reflective of the total we finish with, and reflective of what we want to achieve going forward, and how much of a priority it is for us to achieve it The context of the discussion was the removal of Cozens being the “most important part”. That is what i was disagreeing with

He’s responding specifically to the suggestion the team has made meaningful progress with the wins. That has little to do with inability to “accept” a positive outcome. The discussion turned to what it may or may not mean for the future

This is their 5th such stretch this season No, just the nature of an 82 game season

No. We are 5-4 since the deal, getting outplayed in our last two wins, against winnipeg drastically so. I’ll never understand the fascination with “addition by subtraction.” We didn’t have a 5-4 stretch (and much better) WITH cozens this year? Nevermind the “good” cozens we thought we had two years ago. We still need that. Simply removing Cozens isn’t the team building we need, it’s just the start No it was the lack of Cozens that made our goalie stand on his head in tribute

Bernard docker is a god

Great assist by Quinn wiped

Zach Bogosian

Right, your immediate move is of course to pin me on another rigid, black and white stance because those are seemingly the only parameters by which your stance is capable of seeing this: Full-stop declarations based on faux certainty. “You just always go BPA”. Which, logically, implies you always can identify who is “best.” Not just now, but for in the future. As if you can be so sure all other factors can be ignored without question: BPA simply is. No context required. No, I wouldn’t have drafted Kotkaniemi. Of course I wouldn’t have drafted Kotkaniemi. Because I wouldn’t be clinging to positional need to a rigid failt, refusing to take into account all context. Up to and including the fact the perceptional gap at the time between Dahlin and Kotkaniemi was larger than the Grand Canyon

Byram is still popping off the page, here

Everyone’s mileage will vary on this but for the life of me I’ll never be able to understand how things like this can be uttered, and then in a matter of moments you can cross reference it with posts about how “trades are impossible” for Buffalo, and “everyone has a NMC” and “no one wants to come here” and be witness to the struggles we’ve seen with Adams trying to swings deals and then just be like “figure it out later.” huh? BPA is a *guideline*. It’s not an unadjustable, immovable creed. The fact it’s treated as such is such an extreme, outlier opinion. It has a logical end. Let’s say, just hypothetically, we take Schaefer this year. And let’s say, not unreasonably, we finish with a top 5 pick next year, and, also reasonably, “BPA” in that spot is a LHD. You go LHD again? At a certain point you are willingly watering down the value of your assets by not only contributing to a surplus at the expense of a dearth elsewhere (remember, the goal is *team building*, now, not asset accumulation), there is literally zero guarantee it can be rectified on the trade front. You are *so certain* of the gap when projecting out 18 year olds that systemic need *cant* be a consideration? “Best” *can’t* factor in position played, because you’ve, without a doubt, dialed in on the *objective* future talent gap? nonsense. There are fine arguments for BPA, but “you just always go BPA” isn’t a good one. Tasking a general manager with likely needing to make a trade, or a severely INCREASED liklihood they’ll have to make a trade, needs to be at least a consideration. It can’t just be tossed aside to the tune of “worry about that later”, because BPA is just The Way the Truth and the Life The modus operandi of this franchise is kicking the can down the road. The sooner that ends the sooner we can return to relevance

I wouldn’t necessarily make any of those assumptions, but: Moving Peterka just creates another hole. I still could easily see Greenway on L4, or you can easily bump Kulich down. Or, sure, you can trade him, too. Or you can just play him as an injury fill in because someone is *going* to be hurt. There’s always an erroneous element of rigidity when we do these things because we need more than 12 guys for 12 spots. There will be room for a good player. We NEED to make room for a good player

Ya we are definitely just all shifting around the same 8 guys Thompson Norris McLeod Peterka Benson Tuch Kulich Zucker …whoever the 9th man is it isn’t someone people have confidence in, and the top 8 doesn’t look good enough as a top 8, anyways. Screams one big outside F addition And Kulich is already a question mark / bet placed there, to boot.

Ya the difference there is just switching out Krebs for Greenway, wouldn’t have issue with that

We need to add in the top 6 somewhere. If Thompson is going to be at wing then it should be at C. Failing that, LW, I guess. We can take a couple chances but you can’t be taking chances everywhere. If Thompson is at C, I’m comfortable with a Norris/McLeod 2C platoon (taking a chance there) with Thompson holding down C and the unit’s overall talent supplemented by that addition Non additions at all in top 6 looks like Peterka - Norris - Thompson Benson - McLeod - Tuch Zucker - Krebs - Kulich or Peterka - Thompson - Tuch Benson - Norris - Zucker Krebs - McLeod - Kulich ..to my eye both are severely lacking a talent, be it at C, or W. Pick your poison

The 60th ranked C last year had 47 points The 45th ranked C had 60 points. You are going to want your guy to be consistently above 50. McLeod has a great narrative when we were expecting 3C production and “hey look he might get 50!”. If we sign him long term and pencil him in for 2C, the narrative can flip pretty quickly to, “and look, he might not even hit 50!”

I go with right wing being an area of need because the chances of us finding a legitimate top 6 C this summer would be near zero. Wingers are more attainable / more likely we can get a difference maker there. It’s not that Thompson and Tuch can’t be the wingers, but a top 6 with Kulich and Norris as 1/2C is in need of help regardless of the wings. I think Thompson ends up back at C both because of necessity, and because he’s great at it. Norris can have a shot at 2C knowing McLeod is an ok fall back. IF we are upgrading in the top 6: and with Thompson at C that can come at RW. I’m also not opposed to Benson in the top 6 only because he’s defensively responsible: again contingent on a true impact addition at RW Peterka - Thompson - XXX Benson - Norris - Tuch Kulich - McLeod - Zucker ..4th line will be fine. Greenway LW (if he’s not up on L3 for Kulich). I’d be trying for a vet 4C add in place of Krebs. Not giving up on Quinn unless it’s a good now hockey trade…Malenstyn an option… ..they need the big top line/top 6 add to rejuvenate things. An actual impact player that buoys the whole unit. That’s far more needed when you are a low 70s point team. Especially on the verge of 15 years missed, next year. That would be much more apt than tweaking and plugging holes as if we haven’t taken on a ton of water, as if we were some sort of playoff mainstay and not a team that should be scratching and clawing for any point it can get + a partner for Power. Probably stuck with goalies we have. Those are the 2 key additions. I sort of expect a big swing. If we are merely granted an axing of the assistant coaches and a few tweaks, there’s no hope *bridge Byram unless we need his cap space for the winger add

It depends on the players. If they added just Marner and ran back the rest, I’d probably be excited. If they added more guys like this: 4 times over, i’d roll my eyes