triumph_communes

I’m mostly looking forward to white gloves. I love white gloves. Vegas’ look is awesome I wish the sword blades were white and the Buffalo had the red eye. But nitpicking

Can’t wait to see Eichel skate circles around other teams who are worn down by a playoff series. Eichel is the best athlete in the league. Hes been held held back because we had a middle 6 last year that did absolutely nothing, letting their defenders rest up. All these skaters Botterill is acquiring will change that equation. Its one one thing to be tough. It’s another to have endless motors. We’re trending towards the latter.

I am so sick of seeing the phrase "winning brings culture". It's such BS. Winning just covers up flaws and makes finding root causes harder to find. The culture at so many top-competing companies are pure trash, and is why they turnover so quickly. Only the ones that managed to get there with culture ever sustain.

Best GM we’ve ever had. Building not only a roster of talent, but culture that will sustain success. This takes more time than meek fans will have patience for, but all that really matters is the owner here. And I believe Terry has learned after striking out with the hotshots in two different sports and has gravitated to culture guys for both Struck out on Housley, but I believe Krueger in two years was his plan B from the get go. And good GMs always have a plan B and C ready. That is what former GMs like Murray never had, and ultimately is what Terry said got him fired. His roster turnover over year to year has been staggering, fixing our cap structure with a bunch of short contracts. Hasn’t signed a bad contract yet. Trade returns are mixed, but his “losses” have all been on guys with locker room problems that our last idiot GM wasted the piggy bank on. Compare our defensive depth from his date of hire to now and you won’t find a comparable turnaround anywhere else, it was really that epic of a job. Only thing he could’ve done better is find a coach who wasn’t the most sought after coach in the league the year they hired him.

Last season was a test on Housley. He couldn't outcoach the aura of ROR, so they got rid of ROR. The following season if Housley failed, we had plenty of ammo for the next coach to build a different team for him. We all saw how it played out. Tage being in the NHL not AHL was a Housley decision ultimately, as Botterill has stated many times. Montour was added to help Housley. Time value of assets needs to be taken into the context of the season played and the (real) goal of that season. The deadline moves would've been entirely different last season if Housley was a good coach. He wasn't. Remember, Botterill originally wanted to hire Krueger in the first place, not Housley, but Krueger wouldn't breach his contract. The two year Housley experiment was to see if an untested, but 'hot' coach had what it takes.

Doesn't it depend upon who initiated? Didn't the players elect for arbitration in each of these cases?

The Chicago/Ottawa trade was just Ottawa selling cap space for actual salary remaining to be paid, since the Chicago contract was half in bonuses that paid out prior to the trade.

Telling your roommate they need to do their share of the chores doesn’t mean you don’t appreciate them. Lol, if you have to turn a hockey forum post into an orange man bad soapbox he’s in your head rent free.

Germans didn’t yet and I’m voicing mine since you seem to be blinded by orange man’s hairdo. If Europe actually paid their fair share of military spending they couldn’t afford all their nice socialist things. Instead they’ve been abusing American military dominance for decades. They earn every inch of ire.

If they brought nukes to Europe they would’ve won still

He's been fine as long as he isn't your minute eater.

Skinner-Eichel-Rodrigues Johansson-Mittelstadt-Reinhart Perrault-Roslovic-Vesey Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo lol what do we do with Sheary, Sobotka, Wilson, Elie, Smith, Oloffson, Thompson?

I would be happy with Roslovic and Perrault as a Ristolainen return. Perrault has two years left and would hold down 3C. Roslovic is a potential 2C that can switch to 2/3RW if Mittelstadt beats him out. Allows the coach to rotate Mittelstadt out of center if he’s struggling and not miss a beat. Allows Rodrigues to play wing and would have our forward depth be pretty darn solid, with the only weakness of 2C having Mittelstadt, Roslovic, and Cozens all ready for it. Added bonus if we can sign Gardiner as well, pushing McCabe to 7D when Pilut returns.

I’d rather the opposite.

Hoffman sucks, and I’d only be happy with Huberdeau. Anyone good in Tampa is on NTC or is cost controlled so they won’t trade

Good because they’re bs.

Mittelstadt- a summer of conditioning will do him wonders. I believe Dahlin already looked great.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been overcompensating so hard for taking responsibility for their trash performance during the Bylsma years if he took responsibility upfront for being an idiot. Nah, instead his e: older brother he got a sweetheart deal for totally trashed the Amerks locker room simultaneously instead.

Abandoning the scene of crimes after drunkenly crashing into an establishment named after a player who, died himself from drunk driving, and is in the rafters of the team he just signed a major contract to be the future captain of. The only character assassination going on here is you all pathetically trying to wipe these things away as nothingburgers. I was wrong. This was a great example he set forward for Sam and Jack. So great that they gift each other thousand dollar bottles of liquor for each other’s birthdays years later. Great influence ROR, Kane, and Bogosian had on our two budding superstars. Getting those tools out of the locker room needed to be done at any cost. Murray spent TONS of capital on all the drunks mentioned above who amounted to nothing here.

ROR was taken out of the Buffalo locker room because he was an alcoholic that was being a bad example for the kids. Just because ROR could play well despite being an alcoholic doesn’t mean others could. Key, unarguable example: Lehner. Botterill did the moves he did to transform a broken locker room with ineffective leadership. ROR went to another locker room, became just a guy instead of expected to be ‘the guy’, and he was a core component of a Stanley Cup team. That, mind you, was last place in the league in November and needed a coaching change and goalie change before they turned things around. Lehner went to freaking rehab and turned his career around. Fact is, neither of those players would’ve rebounded like that staying with Buffalo. Sometimes people need a change of scenery. They fell into their traps because of what Murray built. Botterill gave them a go, and then abandoned them when they failed miserably.

What a low bar

I'm more referring to the articles these Athletic writers keep churning out trying to do statistics with their journalism degrees from community colleges, completely missing the big picture from the weeds they have their magnifying glass set on to the point they're burning holes into it. "Find out whether analytics says your team got better or not" is a notification the Athletic just sent me. It's awful journalism.

People take fancy stats that only explain 11% of the variation between Ovechkin goal totals versus than Jimmy Vesey's totals waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far.

As much as he may have had an eye for talent, he had no idea how the whole human interaction thing works. His single word draft announcements really signal how inept he is to this. What destroyed his teams were his locker rooms (and coaches). The players he picked all went on elsewhere and contributed, or excelled, but while in Buffalo were ranging from criminal alcoholics to full on raging alcoholics, outcasts in their own locker rooms, completely aloof, more concerned about basketball events than their hockey games, and getting benched for being a few minutes late for a meeting as a top-down approach to solving these issues. A good scout doesn't necessarily make a good manager, and Murray was an extreme example of the fact that it takes more to build a team than just talent. And the absurd amount of 2nd round picks that were traded away for nothing, or turned into gems like Karabacek and Cornel, is why we have such abysmal depth today and why Botterill has taken years fixing the cap situation and reforming the roster from the outside-- since the cupboards at home were bare.

McCabe has probably lost years off his life with the concussions and hits he's given for this team, or more aptly, his teammates. Cannot thank a player enough for that. But he really is just a slightly more skilled Mike Weber. He doesn't have the smarts to move the puck properly, even if he has the body and the hands. He is always trying to catch-up with the play, not thinking ahead of it like talent's like Dahlin are. Also, I simply don't like his basal attitude. It's too lackadaisical, which again, I think points to him being a little slow to process things. Housley's system was over his head and he has struggled for two years. He can be a mid-pairing guy for a team running something simple, and a hard-hitting type of game. He does well on simple situations like PKs. He's not a fit for the mold it appears Botterill is cramming the team into though, and I expect him to be traded away more than I do Ristolainen.