JoeSchmoe

The standings are on a spreadsheet. They use it to decide who goes to the playoffs.

Skinner is a 46.2% expected goal player 5 on 5 this year... Not great, but not terrible either. On the other hand, here's our entire team 5 on 4. In what world do we buy this out.

If you think the guy they put in to replace him isn't going to "hurt" us more than Skinner, I think you've got another thing coming. He's flawed, he's not great defensively, but he's still better than any free agent JAG Adams has brought in since he's been here.

It has... But nowhere close to fully. Starters are still starters.

At risk of taking this off topic, my biggest thing is why do we still have starting pitchers in baseball? Pitchers should still pitch the same number of innings in a year, but spread them over less innings per game in more games. There are so many benefits: -You can maximize lefty/lefty righty/righty matchups. -Your weaker pitchers can pitch against the bottom of their order. -The batters only see a pitcher once per game and never will time them up the 2nd or 3rd time around or recognize their tips. -Your never leave a guy in too long. -You should be able to manage and prevent injuries. I know some teams like TB do dabble with this sort of thing sometimes, but try telling a Verlander that he's not a true starting pitcher anymore. I believe a team could win 10-20 extra games a year if they adopted this full-time. Won't happen though.

Does anyone think that Savoie could have a better season next year at age 20 than Benson did at 18? Seems reasonable that he would, and could be a cause for optimism. Could he put up 35pts?

I figured I'd leave him off since he's effectively not part of the team anymore as hasn't been for a while. It's like a throwaway vote.

This is where I'm at too. Last year when he was dialed in, he was one of my most liked players. Everytime he had the puck in the offensive zone, he had me on edge of my seat. This year... Nothing. Who said anything about hate?

As someone who really likes seeing old school bunk get disproven, it'd be cool if someone could do the research on this.

Oh man... So much healthy competition, but I think I can get some votes. Winner gets voted off the island!

The beauty of this multiple choice question is there are so many right answers and just two or three wrong answers.

The drought continues, the anger is real. Most of the legit regulars are on here. Who do you like least?

Chicken and rice is the big thing. My son is 16 now. He didn't gain any weight into his minor midget year eating the "healthy" way. This was despite following a steady lifting regimen. He was hoping to get at least a late round OHL draft selection but didn't put on enough weight/strength to set himself apart, despite being a very good AAA defenseman. Fast forward a year and went he went all in on the old school eating as much as he can of whatever he can, even when he's not remotely hungry. He's since put on close to 20lbs of muscle without growing an inch- all while following pretty much the same weight regimen. He's at his target weight now, so he's dialed it back somewhat, returning to more healthy choices and seems to be keeping it on. It's all about the calories, and the discipline to eat even when you're not hungry. It's not easy, but if you want it bad enough, it can be done. I just can't understand why these guys who have so much at stake can't do it, when someone like my son can. I also can't seem to understand why I can't seem to stop eating to try to lose weight, no matter how much I seem to want to stop. 🥴

It'd be good if the NHL FA market went the way of the MLB FA market.

I hope you're right. This season beat the optimism out of me... Especially since we finally got good goaltending. Good on you for keeping the torch lit!

I agree. Do you have confidence that we'll get someone via UFA or trade? The only guys Adams seems to be able to get are guys that hurt us more than they help us. Byram for Mitts is a net negative. Byram was a sub-50% expected goal % guy on one of the best teams in the league- which is pretty hard to do. Sure he looks flashy at times, but he makes up for it with poor defensive play. He can still get better... But at the moment he is who he is. Mittelstadt on the other hand is a legit high end 2nd liner right now. I'm not surprised CO wanted him. We were just too cheap to pay him.

Hopefully it's the former, because we don't need any more castoffs.

Without question, not all 4 of these guys aren't legit NHL players, and even if they were there's not spots for all of them. Trade them along with picks for legit NHL players.

Savoie is leading the WHL in ppg. That's pretty hard to do even at his age. If Ostland was bigger, I'd probably think about him some more, but from the cheap seats I'm sitting in, he's also just another Benson... possibly without as high of an offensive upside.

Did you read the initial post? Compare what those two have done to Quinn and Peterka at similar points in their careers. Realistically JJP and JQ would peak out as high 2nd liners or lower end 1st liners on a high end team. Rosen and Ostland are way back of what they did at similar points in their careers (Rosen is actually way worse given he's a year older than Ostland). To boot both of them are smurfs... Too small to be effective checkers in the NHL if the whole scoring thing doesn't pan out. Trade them.

What can we get for him and a 1st?

if we're being completely honest with ourselves, will Rosen or Ostland ever be good enough to be contributors towards a successful Cup winning team? If they ever get a sniff in the NHL, I don't see them being any more than weak 3rd liners. Hopefully they can be dealt for something of value this offseason.

Earlier in this thread I optimistically said 25% and as of March 22, I stand by that. I'm curious to see the shell games and red herrings that will play out to inevitably get me to my usual 75% by September. Everytime I buy into the false hope. Remember Taylor Hall?! That guy was going to get us to cup contention. Boy was I wrong about that... Me and Terry.

If you use Peterka and Quinn as benchmarks to how prospects from the AHL graduate into the NHL, it can tell us something. JJP was basically a ppg in his Draft+1 AHL season. Quinn was 1.35ppg. Both struggled with their 200ft game in their rookie NHL seasons. Kulich is 0.78ppg at the same age, Rosen is 0.64 and he's a year older. Neither one are close to JJP or JQ trajectory. How do we expect they are going to be much help next year. Is there something else in their games that doesn't show up on the scoresheet? As of right now (not going into the 23-24 season) do either one of the project out to be 1st or 2nd line players? If not, we need to move them. Noah Ostland is 0.6ppg in the SHL. It's a low scoring league, but that still sounds too low to be able to make the jump to the NHL, especially with him being small. Is that right? The only hope I have is Savoie. He's pretty much at the top of the WHL for ppg. My concern though is he's too small to be very impactful next year. I'm thinking he's probably a Benson 2.0 level player. Thoughts? I think it might take a while, but he could still have top 1 or 2 line potential. Long story short though is we need to start trading some of these guys for NHL ready players in the offseason. Otherwise, I don't have much hope in breaking the non-playoff streak next year.

25% chance