Curt

I do recall hearing/reading that this incident(s) involved black aces, player(s) who are called up to NHL playoff teams after their junior/AHL seasons are finished in order to practice with the NHL team. Honestly, it’s a good target for an abuser. Young player just trying to impress, not established, wouldn’t want to rock the boat and come off as a troublemaker.

Considering the roster, this has to be the mindset. It’s almost impossible that they will be one of the top teams in the league, but if they be competitive throughout and play entertaining hockey, that has to be more than almost everyone expected. Even if in the end they are still a bottom 10 team.

I liked him at draft time, I still like him. Not as an elite prospect or even as a potential 1C, but as a potential top-9 C who you can play in all situations.

It is, especially in Fall. That drive north always makes me feel good. The beauty of it combined with the feeling of “going home” always puts me in a good mood. I’ve driven that stretch of highway from Albany to Plattsburgh, and vice versa, hundreds of times.

No. Friedman put the words “stepping aside” inside of quotation marks, because he was quoting those words. That’s what quotation marks are generally used for, to indicate words that are quoted. If you are seeing anything deeper than that, I think you are just way way off base. I don’t think anyone else here will agree with your interpretation of what Friedman wrote.

Quotation marks indicate that he is quoting the team. Quotation marks are not indicating sarcasm/irony or whatever else you are trying to place on them. This is a ridiculous conversation.

I believe that he was directly quoting the wording that the team used. If Friedman bluntly tweets out that “Bowman got fired” and offends someone, he looses a potential source. Better for him to just say exactly what the team says, then no one can accuse him of spinning a narrative, except you I guess.

What is it about this that makes you think it’s smug? I didn’t get that at all.

In your scenario Eichel doesn’t need surgery?

Agree completely, misleading headlines really irk me too.

I could quibble with you over details of specific incidents, but that’s not really the point. I actually agree with you that race is at times a factor in how Evander Kane is perceived and written about by some. My point is that to say Evander Kane is a ***** person because of X, Y, and Z is not racist. He has a lot of very real ***** things swirling around him. I don’t know the guy, but I think it’s pretty clear that he has done a pretty poor job of managing his life. You can’t just dismiss all of these legal troubles and drama.

Evander Kane is the only player suspended for trying to present a fake vaccine card to the NHL, the only one with such gambling debt that voiding his contract to declare bankruptcy was a viable path forward, the only one whose ex public accused them of gambling on their own games, one of the few players who have been publicly accused of assault. If you think this is just a normal guy or just an average NHL player, then I think you are either not paying attention or are just making excuses. Controversial situations are constantly happening with this guy. It’s not normal. Racism is real, but noting that Evander Kane is involved in a whole lot of negative stuff is not racist. This isn’t happening with other black players. This is only happening with Evander.

This is correct. Writers/reporters almost never are the ones writing their own headlines for their stories. The headlines are generally written by someone else with marketing/attention grabbing/visibility as the primary concern. No sympathy required, just information so you know the correct direction to aim your ire. The person who wrote the story probably isn’t responsible for the headline.

Meh, he has broken Sabres news before. I don’t think he ever markets himself as an “insider”. Haven’t seen that, have you? He is a writer, he knows some people and he sometimes gets information that he can share. Not everything that he writes on Twitter has to be some juicy piece of inside information. Sometimes he is just a human using Twitter, that doesn’t make him some sort of sham.

No need to bash him here. He didn’t really say anything.

Yup, and upstate NY is everything north of Westchester. As someone born and raised less than 20 miles from both Canada and Vermont, I always laugh about what I sometimes hear referred to as Upstate NY. I feel like a lot of people think the state ends at Albany, when in reality you can get on I87 in Albany and drive straight north for 3hrs before reaching the border. Under no circumstances can anything south of Adirondack Park be considered Upstate NY.

I also have not watched any AHL games, but Quinn is generally regarded by scouts as a notably well above average defensive forward with a mature 200 ft game. He was used on a shutdown type line by Canada at the most recent world juniors.

I think this is mostly a misdiagnosis based on Dahlin’s calm personality. I believe you are off base. Dahlin competes. How would you describe Lidstrom (just for example)? Did he not have many of the same characteristics that you are laying on Dahlin?

No, he is 21, and will be for the entirety of this season.

First line center. Is that a top 32 NHL C, or a top 10-15 NHL C? When people say 1C, they generally mean the latter.

Very hard question to answer so early on. By default the answer is probably no. A player who actually projects to 1C as their most likely outcome is almost definitely gone by ~10 OA. In this draft it’s really probably only Wright who is a likely 1C. I’m going to try to lay out the C prospects who are likely 1st rounders. I’ll work on putting it together when I have some time and post it in here.

@Pimlach Yeah, this video actually showed Dahlin abusing a Bruins player (check/cross check into boards, cross check into the net from behind) so much that a 2nd Bruin jumped him from behind. They tussled, dropping the gloves, but referees were in there before a fight happened. This is absolutely not an example of another team taking liberties with Dahlin. It truly was the other way around. Dahlin was taking liberties and the Bruins stood up to him.

Albany NY area. Originally from Clinton County, way up in the north east corner of NYS, nestled between Lake Champlain and the Canadian border.

Agree completely. What we have here is one employee and one employing organization both looking out for their own best interests. Those interests do not align in this case.

I think he has/had hopes that he would be able to be traded to a team that would approve his preferred surgery. He would like to have his preferred surgery without putting his $50M contract at risk. I think that is a completely reasonable desire. In his position, I would want the same.