triumph_communes

Back-up goalie situation is largely dependent upon whether Botterill is comfortable putting Hutton and his salary in the minors. He's done this with multiple other players before though. Plenty of good-enough quality back-ups available in the market I think. If overpaying Granlund in FA isn't your idea of a 'good 2c', then the only option is via trades. Trading Ristolainen for a 2c is likely Botterill's biggest goal, but hockey trades can be hard. At least Risto's value has gone up dramatically with his improved play this season. Physical defensive defenseman? We have Borgen in the system, does he fit? We have Samuellsson in the system, does he fit? I don't see us acquiring anyone else.

Statisticians showed a long-time back strong correlations that players who are a few months from whatever the age-cutoff is for a sports league/school system (Jan 1 or mid-summer) perform better overall than players slightly younger. It was always thought due to their slight advantage of physical maturity led to them getting more coach attention than the others. It's not surprising to think that 0.6 years of age can make a difference. That leads one to consider: does the NHL, OHL, NCAA, and the kids local youth organization use the same cut-off dates or not? If the coaching attention difference is the root-cause, then varying start-dates will add noise to the metric. I have a hard time believing the OHL is 'harder' than the NCAA. Kids in the OHL are sheltered from men.

cause the entire country is old

The trades you mentioned, plus Montour, are all the trades Botterill has done to improve the team. The other trades for cap dumps is what he did just to fill the void in the roster with marginal NHL players as opposed to non-NHL players that were available via FA. There simply weren't any players in FA over the last few seasons that didn't take hometown discounts or didn't sign absurd contracts that would have us in a bad cap situation starting next season. Find me replacement UFA players who signed elsewhere over the last three seasons and construct me a better roster than we had. All of his 'bad cap' moves end this season. Blame Murray for emptying the cupboards, not Botterill for not working voodoo magic via trades. I get it, ya'll hate the ROR trade, but the rest of Botterill's work is a smart, long-term plan I think ya'll just don't have the patience for. Building from the back-end out and filling up the prospect pools first. Oh, and we have our firsts for every year going forward.

Botterill fleeced the Penguins on this one. Kid has the motor that too many of the players on our team lacks, and has the hockey IQ too many of our players also lack. Reminds me of Briere. I'm with the above poster-- only reason I see this trade happening is because of the money owed or some sort of contract demands we haven't heard about yet. Might as well be, nobody is going to re-sign him at is QO rate of over 2 million per annum

Kahun is such a stellar player. Unreal what we gave up for him. I know the season is in a bad place but that deal is going to be great for next year.

Ditching Larry and Girgensons is worth nothing less than a first. Last thing the team needs is to give either player a taste of another organization. May be able to trick them to stay

Fair assessment, agrees with eye tests too

Yes, it’s a better team with awful special teams. Something an assistant coach change could fix. Hard to do that mid season though.

Good on him. Y’all are rabid

Swap Kahun and Reinhart

Hahaha Risto

Team is scared of the front of the net.

Whole team won’t finish glorious chances tonight

Burn bad statisticians burn. Botterill light that fire. xG is not predictive of anything.

Montour is not good on his off side

Yes

That’s what I believe. But I also think Chad has sources and he tweeted on the subject.

If they fire him I just hope it’s earlier not later. Botterill has no chance to do anything before his first draft.

Well Chads got connections. Whoever steps in will have a much better situation than Botterill did when he started. Team is only a couple players, assistant coaches, and a healthy season away

How is the PP for the amerks

Kids great. Best, most entertaining vision I’ve ever seen in a player. Our forwards are still in shock when they get passes from him and fail to finish by no fault of Dahlin. Kid gets some muscle and the defensive grind will improve. Right partner as well (Not Colin Miller, but a defensive type)

He doesn’t live rent free. He gets slammed down our throats anytime he gets criticized.

Uh oh I’m back to passing out mid game. Can’t lie to myself anymore. If the person responsible for special teams is not replaced or canned, I will riot. I don’t think they played particularly bad, but their lack of finishers on offense was apparent. Also, screw Reinhart kid is so overhyped.

Does Rob Ray have a ginger beard?