pi2000

As a little kid I remember wanting to go play in the snow in the yard, but every door I opened to get outside was just a wall of white snow up to the top of the door frame. I thought it was awesome!

karmic payback would be Scheifle suffering a concussion.

Schultz is an RFA I think he stays put. PIT has about $16mil to split up between Kunitz, Bonino, and Shultz. Fluery's $7mil will probably be off the books by then too, so that gives them more flexibility. 33 and older I'd cross off the list, doesn't jive with the direction this team is going... btw Seidenberg is 35, not 25. Shattenkirk is having a nice year offensively, especially on the PP. St. Louis will have about $12mil to split up between Berglund, Upshall, Shattenkirk and Parayko (RFA). Upshall/Berglund should be relatively cheap, probably around $5mil between the two. Maybe they let Upshall walk, so could be maybe $3-3.5 for Berglund.... leaving $9mil for Parayko and Shattenkirk. On the open market Shattenkirk should get about $5.5-6mil, Parayko probably gets a bridge similar to Ristolainen, so they could probably keep both if they wanted. That said, he's a -14 on a team with a -13 team goal differential... so I'll pass.

He played 9 minutes, was a 0 +/-, and registered 2 shots on goal. Personally I didn't notice him, which means he did his job. He hasn't played well in the second game of back to backs. Which is typical of young players. It takes years to build that endurance without sacrificing strength and speed.

Good post, I agree on most of these. When you measure a hockey trade, whoever gets the best player typically wins the trade. I think Kane is the best player in that deal. Without him and Bogo I don't think we win those last two games. I also think they're better than last year, just some nights they look like last years team, consistency is a major issue. Protect Ennis and Carrier, which means they expose Foligno and/or Girgensons. As long as they're in the playoff hunt I think Nylander and Guhle stay put. If they slip out of contention then they should get a look.

Groundhog Day

Gibson left with an upper body injury. Bernier dumpster fur.

i liked watching the game. it was nice. a win is a good. the players played good. the goalie did good stuff. it made me feel good. thanks for listening.

Flat start again. They look annoyed that somebody is making them play hockey today.

30 minutes to puck drop and still a single solitary GDT page. Kind of sums up the state of things... pathetic.

i like the white at home idea. that said, if we really care about change we should go full turdburger for the remainder of the season.

what?

no.

without Jack they gave up 2.76 goals against/gm with Jack 3.08 goals against/gm ...so that's a net positive of 0.18 goals per game.... not great... so yeah, maybe not much would be different if he wasn't hurt.

shocking

I'm not adding Jack's goals. The team as whole is averaging 0.5 more goals per game with Jack in the lineup. Doesn't matter who's scoring, that's 0.5 more goals per game. That's not right. You simply can't extrapolate out their record over those 23 games because they played different teams the first 21 games. If you add the Jack effect to the first 21 games, that get's them 0.5 more goals per game over that stretch, which means roughly 7-8 more points in the standings.

Give Moulson more ice ti... j/k I'll go with "What is replace Dan Bylsma?"

I think we'll see a nice game from the Girgensons line, they have a good matchup.

If you look at their goals per game average with and without Eichel, it's about a 0.5 goal per game difference (2.7 with vs 2.2 without). So you look at how many games they lost by 1 goal over the first 21 games... which is 9 games. Figure with an extra 0.5 goals per game, that's 1 goal every two games, meaning they would've gotten points in roughly half of the 9 games they lost by 1 goal... so that.s 4.5 games. Figure half of those 4.5 games they would've gotten 2 points (let's say +5 points), and the other half 1 point (+2-3 points)... That gives them roughly an extra 7-8 more points (50-51 points) in the standings if they had Jack the entire season, putting them right in the mix for the final wildcard spot (TOR w/ 50 points).

Zadorov with an egregious turnover late in the third gives ANA the game winner with 2min left on the clock. Other than that, Zadorov looked solid. Delivered a few big hits, held his own in a fight, and moved the puck well.

We're going to play a 30min 3rd period here in ANA. It's a school night!

And he's currently on a one-year deal (his previous 3 year deal was bought out by MIN), so at 33 he's playing for what is likely his final NHL contract. I expect him to get moved to a contender (ANA? LAK? WAS?) at the deadline as he's only making $2.6mil.

I agree that we're not looking at the finished product, however, I don't want him to panic in this situation. They are what they are, and trading away aging, slow vets for picks at this point in time won't help anything. Trading away goal scoring, ie Kane and extra for a top 4 defenseman probably isn't the right move either... I'd consider that pushing the panic button when we have guys like Guhle and Borgen in the system who might fill that role as soon as next season... so why trade away a 25 y/o 30 goal scorer for a stop gap on the back-end? Doesn't make sense. That said, I'm fully on board the fire Bylsma train now. If Julien becomes available you need to pounce. This team has accepted losing and that to me starts with the coach, if Bylsma can't snap them out of this losing culture, then try somebody else.

We use white pucks for goalie practice. http://howieshockeytape.com/store/white-hockey-pucks-6oz-training

You don't have to tank to draft good players. With this loss to the Leafs they can kiss their playoff hopes goodbye IMO. At least GMTM will have a plan at the deadline... unloading guys like Kulikov, Gionta, Franson and anybody else he doesn't see as a long term fit. He can acquire more picks and continue to build through the draft which sounds boring, but it's how you build a team that can contend year in and year out.