Curt

And Botterill doesn’t even own a watch, which is why it’s taking him so long to get a C.

Ok, I was just telling you what the conversation was. The “driving a line” conversation is a related and a relevant conversation for sure. I’ll ask this, What does “driving a line” mean to you? What’s the definition? How can I tell if Reinhart is a “driver” or not? I can’t look at a roster a separate it out into “drivers” and “passengers”. Is that really how hockey works? Lines with “drivers” carrying “passengers” to production? Or is it generally players, none of who are perfect, with different skills, working together to get things done?

The statement that sparked off the conversation was “I dont like him much, mostly because he cant do ***** without Jack.“ So really, that’s what Liger was saying he could disprove. Not anything about Reinhart being able to drive a line while playing C and being saddled with 4th line quality line mates. To me, the question shouldn’t be, “can we put Reinhart with Sheary and Larsson level players and get top 6 level production?” I think everyone would assume the answer is no. Only the very Elite players in the game can raise up the level of line mates like that. The question should be “can we put Skinner-Johansson-Reinhart out there and create a capable 2nd scoring line to go with Olofsson-Eichel-Sheary/Vesey/whoever?” I think that’s a very relevant and unanswered question that we don’t have enough information on.

Ok, but then you are really just looking at how Reinhart did when trying to play 3C with horrible wingers. I think that’s the only time he has been away from both Eichel and O’Reilly. I think I already know what those numbers are going to look like, but why not. Understand what you are looking at though.

I mean sure, Sam didn’t do anything, but it honestly probably was someone else’s area. If Sam is over on that side, that leaves zero Sabres on the right side of the ice. Plus the pass to Getzlaf went right through Ike’s legs and also Risto was standing there watching as well (closer to the play than Reino) as Getzlaf came down the wing, received the nice pass and buried it. It was actually a really quick play and a really nice pass. Eichel or Risto is the guy who should have been backchecking faster so the guy down low wasn’t totally free to make that pass.

I didn’t watch. Was Johansson that bad? I didn’t expect much from him but was hoping I would be surprised. Seems like the same old story. Need a couple better forwards and better goaltending. Am I right?

I think it pure loyalty to the CHL system’s finances. Even if the AHL age limit was abolished, NHL teams would still have the option of returning players to the CHL if they thought that was best. So, at the heart of it, opposition to lifting the age restrictions is not about doing what’s best for the players. NHL teams would still be able to put players in whatever situation they thought was best.

Galchenyuk isn’t really a C though. He has been tried there time and time again, but hasn’t really every succeeded there. Might as well try Reinhart there.

I totally understand this concern, but there are D his size who are able to play top-4 and be successful in the playoffs. Sami Vatanen, Jared Spurgeon, Ryan Ellis, Torey Krug, Kris Russell. I honestly think it’s more likely that Pilot is a guy you want playing 17:00-19:00 than someone you want playing 20:00+, but I think he can be a useful NHL player.

Kane, Bogo, Kasdorf for Myers, Stafford, Armia, Lemieux, 1st (Roslovic) -So we could have Roslovic 3C/W and Armia big depth scoring W, maybe have Myers or traded him in a different deal. Lemieux and Stafford were on the way out but we could have gotten something else for them. We wouldn’t have Bogo or Ryan Johnson. Lehner for a mid 1st was a bad idea I thought. -It ended up being Connor White for Ottawa (meh) but there were several good players taken in that area of that deep draft. Ilya Samsonov, Boeser, Konecny, Chabot, Kyle Connor, Barzal were all taken just before and after. The ROR trade I actually liked to give Eichel some cover. ROR and Jamie McGinn for Zadorov, Grigorenko, JT Compher, a 2nd. Braden McNabb and two 2nds for Deslauriers and Fasching was terrible terrible. -McNabb could have been a pretty good player for Buffalo plus two speculative 2nds. It was just a lot of “win now” moves that didn’t work out for a team that wasn’t actually ready to win now.

This is great. See right here. Marchand’s laziness cost his team the Stanley Cup! What? He couldn’t play for another 15 seconds? Inexcusable! That bull would never fly on a real team. What a joke. In all seriousness. Sometimes players just do dumb things. Marchand has done many strange or boneheaded things that hurt his team over the years. Some of which I think he has learned from. He is still a great player though.

This is great. See right here. Marchand’s laziness cost his team the Stanley Cup! What? He couldn’t play for another 15 seconds? Inexcusable! That bull would never fly on a real team. What a joke. In all seriousness. Sometimes players just do dumb things. Marchand has done many strange or boneheaded things that hurt his team over the years. Some of which I think he has learned from. He is still a great player though.

You mean what was traded? Or who were possible draft selections? Yeah, I’ll admit that I’m sure there were a variety of different paths to building a good team, both tanking and not tanking. I just think if you ARE going to tank, you really need to use most of those picks to build back up organizational depth. Not that you can’t make ANY moves to bring in veterans, but you need to be more selective than GMTM was. If you couldn’t find the right guys all in a 6 month period (what he tried to do) then that’s ok. It’s a rebuild. If it takes 2 yrs to carefully find the 4-5 good young veterans you want to bring in, that’s ok. The team doesn’t have to make a playoff push immediately. To say they shouldn’t have tanked, is to say it’s ok if we didn’t get one of McEichel. I think that would have been ok. There are other, less demoralizing ways to build a team.

I could get on board with this too I suppose. I’d argue though that without going all in on the tank, they likely never would have gotten Eichel. It was a full on race to the bottom that season, and the only way to guarantee getting one of McEichel was to finish last. I am strongly in the anti tank group though. I don’t think they should have ever done that.

I think it would have been fine. Who was acquired by trade who was really that helpful, apart from ROR? Kane was good no doubt, but I never really liked the way he played with Ike. Lehner was ok, but came with a whole set of personal issues. Would the team really have been that much worse having Myers, Pysyk, McNabb, Armia, all the picks, and whatever FAs they could get instead? Maybe finishing with 60-70 points instead of 70-80 for a couple years, but then some of the picks start to come in to take spots, and by now 4 years later, the team would be a lot more full of talent than they currently are.

Not speaking for Liger, but for me, yes. I think the ROR trade is the only ”buying” trade that was a good idea. Between the 2015 and 2016 drafts, Murray traded away two 1sts, three 2nds, and two 3rds. In addition to Lemieux, Armia, Myers, Pysyk, and McNabb. Getting in return mostly Kane, Bogo, Kulikov, Lehner, Gorges, Deslauriers, Fasching.

The picks that were traded were not really high picks that would be in the NHL at 19. They were mostly 2nds/3rds and 2 late 1sts. What if we had 5 prospects of Asplund’s quality and age right now? As for Girgensons, I think the only reason he looked good his 2nd year (not his 1st) was because he was being fed to the wolves, as you say, and had a flukey high shooting %. He was used as 1C in all situations, 19 mins per night and produced at a 40ish point pace. It felt like more at the time because the team literally had nothing else.

There is not, and that’s part off the problem. They are recorded at the discretion of the scorekeepers at each NHL rink. Even the number of shots recorded is much less accurate than one would assume.

What does “mid-bot 6” mean? middle-bottom 6? What’s that? 2nd, 3rd, or 4th liner? I said I think he is a quality 3rd liner. I think that a lot more descriptive than mid-bot 6.

The hope is of course that he rebounds from the poor season that he has had so far. The previous 3 seasons he had scored 63 goals in 223 games, 57 of them at ES. I would say he was a quality 3rd liner.

For FO% and Takeaways, basically yes. However, for Hits and Blocked Shots they are basically useless as a team statistic. They tell you nothing about whether the team is good or not. For Giveaways, a team that has more is actually slightly more likely to be good.

This is unnecessarily aggressive and belittling. It’s ok to disagree and have a different point of view. Try to express it while maintaining some respect.

MIGHT

Because you don’t want to force a young, unproven player into an important role that they may not be ready for. If you do that with such an important role, and they fall flat, the whole team fails. Have we not seen that over the past 2 seasons? Let them show that they can handle 3C or start on the wing with spot duty at C. It’s ok to bring in a reliable C. If Cozens or whoever else shows they are ready, that Vet C can be shifted down to 3C or move to wing or traded. It’s ok to have depth at C.

In your view, why doesn’t Sanders have a chance of beating Trump?