pi2000

:wub:

Let me put it this way... if there was a redraft of the 2014 draft, who would you take 1 thru 5? With the first pick I'd take Pastrnak, he's blossomed this season, second in the league in goals with 19. Second pick I'd probably take Ekblad, followed by Draisaitl and Ehlers... Bennett, Fabbri, Larkin and Reinhart would be in the discussion for 5th overall.

I agree, those guys are struggling a bit this season. However, they've showed much more thus far in their young careers than Reinhart has and that's somewhat disappointing IMO.

So, $6m for a 60pt forward? seems a bit excessive. I think you pay for upside as well, guys like Gionta are on the downside... Larsson and Foligno are probably at their peak, I don't see how you pay them that much... maybe $1.5-2m tops. You can call up a guy from Roch who will get you 30pts playing on a 3rd line, doesn't mean you need to pay him $3mil.

I'm not willing to demote him just yet, he's still young and developing but has a ways to go. He's a fine young player, but as a #2 overall you want to see more from him, considering the guys that went after him.... Draisaitl, Bennett, Nylander, Larkin.

It's time to let them go. Only then, can the healing begin.

That's bthe kind of money you spend on a third line when you're a cup contender.

Had frost on my lawn this morning.. in southern California!

Very loud boos for Jimmy boy when he stepped on the Nashville ice, followed by a "Vesey sucks!" chant each of his shifts. It was glorious.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict a goal from Foligno, Girgensons, Gionta, Larsson, Moulson, Kulikov, Franson, Deslauriers, Bogosian, or McCabe tonight.

Well put. He's progressing nicely, his offensive skills are evident. Still want to see better decisions with the puck in his own end. Sure all dmen turn the puck over now and then, but that one last night was egregious. His next step is to clean up his own end and become a plus player while maintaining his offensive output. I think he can get there, maybe even this season.

He still needs to get much better defensively. That turnover last night could have cost them dearly.

He has, the points are nice, but still lots of room for growth in his own end. He had the worst turnover I've seen this season last game, luckily Lehner bailed him out. It's those negative plays that need go away before we can mention him in any All-Star conversation.

????????

doubt it

I don't believe Eakin did anything wrong, but I don't agree with this. Eakin wasn't attempting to check Lundgvist.. he tries to squeeze between him and the boards, because Lundqvist acted like he was going to pass the puck on his backhand to the Ranger player 3 feet away from him in the corner (which he should have done). Instead Lundqvist bobble the puck, doesn't move and Eakin has no choice but to run into him. Collisions happen in hockey, it's a fast game, it's about anticipation, there's no time to think and dissect a situation. In Eakins defense the entire play (from when Lundqvist touched the puck to when he was hit) took less than 1 second (0.80s on my watch). As a former player, when you're in on the forecheck and you see the goalie playing the puck, you anticipate two things.... 1 - he'll pass it to the closest outlet 2 - he'll immediately skate to the crease after moving the puck ....Eakin anticipated the easy pass on the backhand and that Henrik would dodge straight back to the net... so he took the only logical route to the puck which was along the boards.

Can't you just delete specific posts? There was good stuff in that thread. Anyway, JF Berube is starting in the cage or the Isle. http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=116737 This will be only his 9th career start in the league. He's played a grand total of 6 minutes of professional hockey this season and 12 games total last year due to a LBI. Not sure if Greiss or Halak will be backing him up tonight.

I, for one, certainly hope the Sabres trump the Islanders tonight.

Moulson's not a goalie, if he was foolish enough to put himself in that position, then he deserves the hit. Look, Lundqvist is getting up there in age... I know from personal experience that as you get older your reaction time slows down, it's a big reason King Henrik was a healthy backup for 4 straight. He needs to shoulder some of the blame for putting himself in a vulnerable position... holding onto the puck too long, faking a pass, not giving the player any room to get by. You see that play all the time in the NHL, except normally the goalie gets out of the way quickly. Unfortunately the NHL puts the onus on the player to try and avoid touching the goalie... which isn't always possible when you have an overaged goalie roaming around behind his net holding onto the puck faking passes.

I thought Eakin tried to squeeze between Lundqvist and the boards. Lundqvist originally had the puck on his backhand with a Ranger player a few feet away. At high speed you can see that Eakin anticipates that Lundqvist is going to make that pass and is trying to get to that Ranger player. At the last second Lundqvist decides to keep the puck and tries to go forhand, but by then Eakin is already on top of him. I don't blame Eakin for this one bit, sure in slow motion it looks much much worse, but at game speed that's just a hockey play where Lundqvist is at fault IMO.

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Moulson/Okposo And his uncle John Tavares played 23 years for the Buffalo Bandits.

When you have a kid as talented as Jack Eichel, you let him do what he does, you don't try to change the way he plays. He's an artist, let him express himself through his craft. Patrick Kane is also a perimeter scorer, I don't think anybody has a problem with his game.

It happens all the time... the linesemen or ref apologizes to the bench saying something to the effect of "I owe you one" or "we'll even it up"... it's certainly not uncommon, at least not when I played at a high level.

If they can win 6 of the next 8 that puts them at 17-13-6, 40 points with 46 games remaining. To get 55 points over the remaining 46 games they would need to go somewhere around 25-16-5 in the new year, which is a slightly better pace than they finished last season.... certainly attainable IMO, but they need to go on a streak here against weaker opponents to give themselves any shot at it. To give some perspective, last years on Dec 31st, PIT had a record of 18-15-4 for a total of 40 points through their first 37 games.