Sod16

Glad the Saudis have money to waste.

What is really needed is one consolidated European league.  That would create more revenue and pay higher salaries than the current leagues and actually draw some European talent from the NHL.

After he hurt his shoulder fairly early in his career, his shot was not that hard, but he knew when to take it and how to get it on net.  Like other great defensemen of his era, he was such a good skater that he could join the rush and still get back.  The PP, first with James Patrick as his partner and then that guy Neil saw fit to trade to Pittsburgh, always sizzled.

On 4/28/2024 at 12:48 PM, Pete said:

Connor McDavid turned Hyman into a 50G player. 

The most miraculous feat since Panarin turned Ryan Strome into a 21 goal player.

It creates strain on the team and the lines when there is a guy you don't feel comfortable putting on the ice in the third period or OT.

If any of you were wondering why Trouba is now on the third unit and will be entirely dispatched if his contract can be moved, now you know after watching the second period.

7 hours ago, LindG1000 said:

 

That player was Rejean Houle. 

 

The Canadiens also flexed their star power quickly in the expansion era. They'd routinely ask future first-round picks from newer franchises in exchange for stability/gate draw. That's how they ended up with Guy Lafleur and multiple first-overall picks while they were winning Cups. Every single year they had an extra first from an expansion team and just did not miss - Lafleur, Shutt, Gainey in consecutive drafts. Heck, even when they missed, they didn't miss hard - Doug Risebrough and Mario Tremblay - were good to great NHLers.

 

 It was only when the league grew to 18 or so and years of developmental advantage - both as the 70s Habs aged out and as the QMJHL became far less about the Canadiens - that they finally normalized.

Actually, what the Habs did was repeatedly swap their first round picks with expansion teams years in advance (trades no one would make today).  That's how they got LaFleur.  After the 1970 season, Montreal traded its top pick for the following year, 1971, for Oakland's top pick in 1971.  It wasn't as dumb from Oakland's standpoint as you might think.  Oakland had made the playoffs in 1970 and Montreal had not, resulting in Montreal having a higher pick in 1970.  Montreal was thought to be in decline.  From the standpoint of the date of the trade, the chances of Montreal missing the playoffs in 1971 in the East were possibly higher than the chances of Oakland missing the playoffs in the West.

Yes, we've won with him, but I don't see a reason to wait for the inevitability of a goal against on one of these power plays.  He is basically not permitted to check.  It's the most outrageous officiating I've seen, because it's calculated as opposed to honest bad calls.

The authority on clean hits, Suban, is pontificating between periods on how D'Angelo's hit was clean and should not have been penalized.  Is he testing my gag response?

18 minutes ago, RodrigueGabriel said:

Anybody seen Bread?

I've been looking, but no, not at least at even strength.

We haven't seen a PP like that in a while.  Can we really keep Rempe in the lineup when he's going to be called for things that not a single player in the  rest of the league would be called for?

Trivia: UNC v. Duke (What would Canes fans prefer to watch?)

2 hours ago, RichieNextel305 said:

No. They’re googling as much about hockey as they possibly could so it could seem like they’re not hopping on the bandwagon just for the playoffs.

 

Either that, or crying about having to have PNC overrun with Ranger fans.

Oh they make a lot of noise when the Canes are in contention.  When they are out of the playoffs, they will be drawing 8,000 again, just as they did three years after they won the cup.  The honest truth is that it is a lame market and the team should be moved.  Nashville is a similarly sized mid-South city, and it has better fans.

Financial resources and high payrolls were directly behind all of the cups won by Toronto and Philly over the past 49 years.

20 minutes ago, Br4d said:

 

Detroit had access to a lot of good Canadian players also via proximity to Ontario.

It was really all a matter of sponsoring junior teams, and MSG ownership was too cheap to do that.  One problem was that during the 40s and 50s, the Norris family owned both the Red Wings and a major stake in MSG Corp., and they put all of their junior team apples in one basket (the Red Wings).  The Rangers were viewed as a filler of dates in an arena that was focused on boxing and the circus.  The Rangers did sponsor one great junior team in the 50s, the Guelph Biltmores, who produced Gilbert, Ratelle, Howell, Prentice and others.

The league as still skewed that even when the universal draft was begun in 1969, they let gave the CANADIENS the first pick so that they could take the top French Canadien player.  Give me a break!

Stupid franchises.  TB and Carolina should have these two locked up long term.

Let's get some NJ Gerard Gallant rumors started.  

4 hours ago, LindG1000 said:

 

I think context matters so much with this, though. The Rangers will celebrate the 100th anniversary in 2026-2027 and had a stellar team to begin with, but with the rights and sponsorship situation carving up territory, the Rangers had no access to youth. Montreal and Toronto (and Detroit) had a decent monopoly on Junior team sponsorship, and would repeatedly sign players to so-called "A" forms (an annual "tryout rights renewal") - so a player brought up through a Montreal-sponsored team would sign this form every year as a rights retention mechanism for the Canadiens - or "C" forms (professional rights forms). It froze out Chicago, New York, and Boston for a while as they'd only really get the late bloomers, so from 1940 to the 1967 expansion, the Rangers, Bruins, and Blackhawks made a combined 12 finals APPEARANCES - and that gets worse when you balance out that 4 of those appearances were in the WW2 years, where Canada was involved in the war earlier (as it was British Canada at the time). A lot of the "breakthroughs" were dumb luck - Stan Mikita fleeing Slovakia with his family and just luckily landing in territory in Ontario that had a Blackhawks sponsorship team, or the Wings giving up too early on Bucyk and dealing him (though to be fair, they got Sawchuk in that trade).

 

The Rangers weren't on "even footing" until the late 1960s, when the modern draft was conceptualized. Then, these endless rights renewals and sponsorship deals started falling under intense legal scrutiny, and the monopoly broke. And pretty quickly, they competed.

 

So...yeah, I mean...Kreider's probably not yet a top 5 Ranger; for many, he may never be. But he's a few seasons away from being one of the most prevalent names in the franchise record books if he isn't already, and it's at least somewhat understandable why that is.

For the reasons stated, the league was rigged in favor of Montreal, Toronto and Detroit, which finished first every year between 1943 and 1966 and won all but one cup in that period.  Before the War, the Canadian junior system was not as well developed and was not the exclusive feeder, so the Rangers, Boston and Hawks were competitive.  As far as Kreider being in the top 5, remember that the schedule was 48, 60 and then 70 for a good chunk of the 100 years.  The game was also more low scoring during large swaths of that time.  And hey, how many of the Rangers from the 1950s could jump out of filled swimming pool?

3 hours ago, jsm7302 said:

I can't find it. Are we officially starting on Sunday?

No.  The first round may not end until Sunday, and they won't start the second until everyone is done with the first, and even then they add a few days.

2 hours ago, CanesFanRandy said:

So do we think game 1 will likely be Sunday? I’m coming up for game 1 or 2 haven’t decided yet. 
 

 

They won't start the next round until all of the first round series are over, and if one of those goes 7, that will be Sunday.  They then take off a few days needlessly, pushing the whole thing further into June.  My guess is that our series will start Tuesday or Wednesday.

Islanders take it to triple OT in Game 7 before losing, leaving Carolina spent and Lou thinking he ought to stand pat again.  I'll take that.

It will be interesting to see whether the Caps are more interested in winning the game or chasing Rempe around.  This could get ugly if we're up by more than a goal in the third period.

45 minutes ago, Br4d said:

Rempe just has to play under control. 

 

There are moments you pass up the big hit because the puck is already gone or the player is in a clearly vulnerable position where hitting him is going to turn into boarding or charging or something worse.

 

 

 

 

He's doing some good things for us, but I worry that the playoffs are not the best time for education.  Some of those lame penalties being called on him are going to result in PPGs against Carolina.

In Game 3 I came to see why the rest of the league is suffering from Rempe Derangement Syndrome and challenging him to fight on every shift.  It's because operating at one-third speed and gliding, he packs more wallop than most anyone else at full speed.  He unnerves them, probably with good reason.  I just want him to learn how to line someone up in open ice, like Trouba, because he's exponentially more likely to get called for penalties along the walls.

4 hours ago, Sharpshooter said:

Yeah, Lou really has not a very good job the last couple of years or so, and it's rearing its ugly head. Face it, this Islanders team really isn't a playoff team. Their place in the standings is because they lost a ton of overtime games. Now they're even older and a below average team, with not a ton of hope in sight. Sure, credit them for getting to that point a lot, but still, technically they lost well over 40 games and you should not be a playoff team in that case. The Islanders window was rather smaller, compared to the Rangers. Unfortunately they ran into Tampa Bay during their run. Those things happen. Winning can be about timing as well.

Lou has stood pat more than he should have.  More recently, I think he's made a couple of good moves in the Horvat and Romanov trades.  Looking at their roster, the problem is that moving on from the older players doesn't do much good if you don't have good younger ones in the pipeline, and Brock Nelson is probably the only one of their older players who would bring a good young player in a trade.

1 hour ago, Albatrosss said:

im not knocking him for his tip in goals, i'm knocking him for being the softest power forward ever born

Somehow I doubt you were talking about him being the softest power forward ever when he scored with speed in OT against Boston in 2013, or when his one man effort broke the Rangers 30 PP funk and turned Game 5 of the Pitts series in 2014 in our favor when we were down 3 games to 1, or when his 6 on 5 goal in the last minutes of Game 5 of 2015 Wash series staved off elimination setting up a great comeback, or when his game winner with less than 90 seconds left in Game 6 against Pitts in 2022 got us to Game 7 so we could come back, or even his 6 goals in 7 games against NJ last year.

Guess he's just soft, except moments like those.

Just called up again.  But as goalie or next RW to play with 93 and 20?