MuddyInTheMiddle
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Posts posted by MuddyInTheMiddle
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On 4/23/2024 at 8:26 AM, Dunny said:
This is U9. There are some bigger clubs at this thing. I'll report back after we play them, or whoever it is.
I know their 14U crew as we played against them several times last season. Coaches and manager were great. Legitimate Tier 1 youth hockey.
Actually if it's their 9U AAA team it's the same coach as their 14U.
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33 minutes ago, Puck Head said:
Pretty much about the right fit.
- schedule
- location
- and coach is a biggie
I have found the coach to be the biggest factor. Your kid plays for the right coach, they get so much more out of it than just hockey.
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3 minutes ago, Pete said:
We're 1st year squirts, so I have no expectations. I wanted my kid to land on a team with a good coach, where he'll have fun. That's it. We got that, so I'm happy.
These people who jump program to program looking for "opportunity" make me laugh, TBH.
1000%! If you are on your 3rd program in 3 years you are either choosing where to play exceptionally badly or you/your kid are the issue.
We just left the program that we were in for the last 8 years as my son had an opportunity to play Tier 1, and he jumped at it.
About 3 years ago, I did find it helpful to start going to ID skates and other evaluations on nights/times that didn't conflict with our organization. Was always great to get that perspective.
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Now that the crazy season(evaluations time) is over, everyone land on the team that they wanted to?
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16 hours ago, Puck Head said:
When I think of AAA, i think of Shattucks, Little Ceasers, Compuware, Victory Honda, Pittsburgh, LA Jr Kings, etc.
There is so much “AAA” now it’s watered down
Yup those are the Elite ones that I mentioned; at least their top teams at each age group.
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On 3/18/2024 at 6:50 PM, Dunny said:
eople over look, or don't care to acknowledge, are the lessons playing sport at a high-ish youth lev
On 3/18/2024 at 6:03 PM, Pete said:Here's been my experience so far, coupled with what I learned from parents with kids older than mine.
Generally, the kids that get most attention from the program are the better kids. So if your kid is on a B team, he's not getting anywhere near the skills attention that the higher ranked kids are.
The difference between the A tiers and B at u-10 normally boils down to who are the biggest kids and who got on skates earliest. Then it will become who can afford the privates.
As the kids get older, yes, the kids who have the most skill earlier will likely have the more skill later but then life gets in the way. Who wants to play other sports, who wants to chase tail, who's drinking, etc. The introduction of checking also adds an additional dynamic.
I kind of laugh at some of our parents who stress over "tryouts" and all these parents who switch programs every season because they think other ones are better. They're generally all the same for one reason or another. You try to move to a "better program" and there's more politics involved. It's a trade off.
All these kids are headed to beer league. USA hockey really doesn't promote or care about what's happening in New Jersey. They know where their bread is buttered, the Midwest and New England.
@Dunny has seen way more of it than I have.
Pretty good sum up there.
The only thing that I would add is that puberty is the great equalizer. When the checking starts, you will get some kids who are late puberty develop deep seeded fears of going into the corners, traffic, and along the boards that some of them never seem to recover from.
When you start looking at the differences between Tier 1 & 2 levels(AAA & AA) vs. Tier 3(A, A1, B, etc....), you run into the interesting breed of parent called the "letter chaser". It's comical because Tier 1 has become so watered down there are almost 2 levels of Tier 1 which are the truly elite programs like Avalanche, Gulls, etc.....and then the organizations that will use their charter to stamp out as many AAA teams as there sucker parents will to pay 10K to say that their kids play AAA.
My kids plays on one of the better AA teams in the local area and that has served him much better than playing on some of those so called AAA teams. Following good coaching and lots of ice time has served us well so far.
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Firstly, Tiers 1-4 are largely redundant, and should probably be only 2 Tiers(Generational and Elite or All Star). It's also a little early to be calling someone in their draft year "generational"; who knows if Bedard is going to be a generational talent in the Crosby/McDavid mold or simply just a year in-year out All Star like Jack Hughes projects to be?
I also get that this is an Under 23 list so there has to be a level of speculation here, but until Michkov & Will Smith play a game in the NHL, they should not even be on the list. Putting Carlson, Fantilli, and L. Hughes on as Elite/All Stars with a couple of dozen games under their belt is a stretch too.
Absolutely hate when I agree with Pete, but I think that he is 100% spot on. The two drafts that the Rangers whiffed on during the rebuild were the Andersson(2017) and Kravtsov(2018) drafts, and in the case of the latter while Bouchard, Dobson, Wahlstrom, or Farabee would all have been very serviceable parts, none are true difference makers in those early draft spots. That has been covered to death here, so no real new insights there.
Finally something that I also noticed while typing, is that nobody from either of those drafts(2017 or 2018) that they selected, would have been eligible for this list as they are over 23years old.
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23 hours ago, Pete said:
Trying to reduce the argument to a quibble over labels just really shows how weak your argument is. You're moving the goal post because you don't have a leg to stand on.
I would like to propose a drinking game where every time Pete says "moving the goal posts", everyone reading the thread is required to take a shot.
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Incredibly poor cap management.
As someone else implied in this thread; the Leafs would have been so much better off turning that 11.5 million per year into a Kreider and Trochek or Fox and Shesterkin. The correct play would have been to flip him for major assets before the season started, and banked that money for a Marner who is a better scorer.
Not sure where they go from here, but keep trying to win with the same top heavy team.
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6 hours ago, siddious said:
one day we will all find out you actually are larry brooks and im here for it
I personally love the Keyser Soze-esque myth that he has created here!
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On 1/1/2024 at 12:26 AM, The Dude said:
I'd think Wahlstrom is available.
Could be a volume shooter. Cheap. Needs a fresh start. Should have been drafted by the Rangers anyway.
Zac Jones is rotting away. Isles are dying for a D man.
If the Islanders would give up Wahlstrom straight up for Zac Jones(or something close to aproximating straight-up), I would do that in a NY minute.
I believe the last time they made a trade was almost 14 years ago however, so it probably won't happen.
Anyone that wants a laugh, please read the blog article below for the trade proposal that is so absurd it could have come straight from the old Hockey's Future boards.
https://eyesonisles.com/2020/02/17/new-york-islanders-rangers-end-trade-embargo-chris-kreider/
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Has anyone caught this on Hulu?
Stumbled across it with my 13 year old youth hockey playing son last night and it is fricking hilarious. Should almost be required viewing here considering the semi-pro hockey backdrop.
Anyone who has ever played even beer league hockey will appreciate the chirping.
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19 hours ago, jsm7302 said:
Gretz was traded, Mess was traded, Jagr was traded, Roy was traded.....
One or more of those pieces are going to be on the move. Just imagine it being Sid!?!
In all reality, time to call it a day for Sullivan. Message is stale. Best they could do is hire Gallant and let the vets run the show.
With that said, GM's will be tripping over themselves to try and woo him if he gets canned.
No they are not. Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and Karlson all have NMC's. None of those four are getting traded unless they say so. They all re-upped under the premise of "let's keep the band together" as well so I doubt it. BTW, Letang is under contract until he is 41 years old; talk about a diminishing asset, as that contract is not going to age well.
Complicating the situation is that they traded a 1st round pick for that Karlson contract and only were able to get 1.5 million retained despite San Jose desperately wanting to get out from underneath it. As is, there is no draft help coming to start the rebuild until the 2025 draft.
The only thing that they have that would be considered a tradeable asset are Geuntzel and Petersen's expiring contracts. What is that really getting you?
Finally, they are not even going to really have much cap space to sign more than replacement parts until 25-26.
It sounds crazy, but Dubas has actually only managed to make a bad situation even worse having been on the job for 6 months.
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6 minutes ago, Pete said:
Sorry you can't handle a discussion and a difference of opinion, what else do you think should happen on an internet forum?
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2 minutes ago, Long live the King said:
Vasi only made $3.5 during the 1st cup.
Anyone else want to set any other parameters to the very basic concept that you can build a team with offense, defense, and goaltending by managing your team's cap correctly?
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2 minutes ago, Pete said:
Right. That means not spending 10M on a goalie. The only team to do that in recent history (post COVID) and win is Tampa Bay, who used LTIR.
Twice apparently; if it makes you feel better, I'll let you win your narrow argument, and then you can go back to sniping with Brooks Burner about whatever it is that you were arguing about.
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6 minutes ago, Pete said:
So the closest you have is before the flat cap impacted anything? And then 10+ years ago?
But let's back up a second. I don't understand the point you're trying to make. We're not talking about if what's possible. We're talking about what's needed. You don't need to pay top dollar for a goalie. You just need a competent one. Aiden Hill. Darcy Kuemper.
Of course you can have all of those things, but you don't need all of those things. And you certainly can't pay for all of those things in this world.
We are talking past each other.
Nobody said you need to have all of those things to win a Stanley Cup; however, not sure how you can debate though that it's not better to have all 3 things in place(goalie that plays out of his mind, great defense and forwards that put up a ton of offense).
My larger point across the 4-5 posts that I made in this thread is that you can have all of it, if you manage your cap correctly.
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30 minutes ago, Pete said:
You mean those Tampa Bay Lightning teams that had players on LTIR all season and took them off for the playoffs?
Can you provide a different example?
2018 Washington Capitals? 2014 LA Kings? 2011 Bruins? 2009 Penguins?
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4 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:
Yeah, and that passing comment had nothing to do with the driving force behind your suggestion, which was to see what Lafreniere is made of, and stop "coddling him".
I don't blame you for trying to walk it back though.
Would you two get a bedroom please? You two bicker more than my wife and I do.
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10 minutes ago, Pete said:
Or put it this way, the top four teams in the league right now are paying their goalie 4-5mil.
What was Vegas paying Aiden Hill to win the cup last season? What was Florida paying Lyon to keep them in it last season?
By the time Igor is due, that 4 to 5 million will probably be 6 to 7 million, 8 tops.
You simply are not required to pay a goalie top dollar to be competitive, so there's no reason the Rangers should do it. It's now been an over a season since we needed to rely on him to win every single night. The Rangers are winning right now with him performing just above replacement level. They are winning with Quick for Christ sakes.
He is a goalie that makes a lot of saves that have no business being saved. What the Rangers should spend their money on is a guy who stops everything he should stop. That's really all you need. If you're relying on a goalie to make superhuman saves then you're doing it wrong.
Going to have to agree to disagree here.
You can have a team with a goalie that plays out of his mind, has great defense and puts up a ton of offense all at the same time. I basically just described the 2019-20 & 2020-21 Tampa Bay Lightning with that sentence.
The reality is that goaltending is always going to be streaky, and Lundquist's consistency is what made him so great. He did not win the Vezina every single year(I believe that he only won it once). It was that you could count on .915+ goaltending for something scary like 13 seasons in a row.
To me, we would not be paying Shesterkin for that pair of super human .932 & .935 seasons that he had in 2019-20 & 2021-22 respectively. Rather you are paying him to keep the same .915+ save percentage sprinkled in with a couple of superhuman efforts and the hopefully you time one of them right during a Cup run.
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7 minutes ago, Br4d said:
$11M I'd pass on even with a relatively short term of 5 years or so.
$9M for 6 years? Sign me up.
I think that you are splitting hairs at that point.
Right now the top 5 cap hits on the Rangers are eating up something like 53% of the cap. Adding 9 million or 11 million Cap f*cks you either way.
By comparison you Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights has their top 5 players eating up 42%; the runner-up Florida Panthers come in around the same at 43%.
To me it's really about how the balance of the team is made up if you are going to make that kind of a 8 figure(or almost 8 figure) commitment to your goalie. To me the much bigger issue is the $2.5 million that you are overpaying Trouba and the 2 million that you are overpaying Goodrow.
Think about what the Rangers could be doing with an extra $4.5 million in Cap space.
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1 hour ago, BrooksBurner said:
Where I'm at is there's a massive amount of gray area between a Lundqvist contract and the bottom of the barrel strategy.
A Lundqvist contract equivalent on the estimated $92M cap when Shesty's new contract would start, would be over $11M a year. Avoid that at all costs.
The difference between a $5-6M goalie versus an $8M one on a $92M cap is a way less cap hamstringing. It's all pretty much moot anyway. Shesterkin is likely to land in the double digits on an extension or he'll go to the open market and get it. It was just a hypothetical if he actually did get in with that range, yeah, you probably spend the extra 2% of your cap and don't worry about it.
Kind of disagree with you guys here.
Take a look at who the highest cap goalies currently are in the NHL:
https://www.capfriendly.com/browse/active/2024/caphit/all/goalies?stats-season=2024
Two of the 3 highest paid ones, what do they have in common? They have both won recent Stanley Cups(the 3rd has been perpetually injured and doesn't count against his team's regular season cap).
The bulk of those 5-6 million dollar goalies: Gibson, Markstrom, Grubauer, Hellebuyck, Merzilkins, Ullmark have not. Not saying that there is any sort of straight line there, because a couple have(Binnington, Murray) also won; just that I stand by my other post in this thread that the real danger is paying a goalie more than that $5-6 million is when you are not getting optimal performance out of them(like we didn't the last 3 years of Lundquist's contract).
Make no mistake, paying them $5-6 million when you are not getting optimal performance is equally bad. I stand by my point that I have no issue with Shesterkin at 11 million as long as it is for his projected prime years which is probably up until he is 33-34 years old barring any serious injury. What I think that they have to avoid at all costs is giving him max salary and max term.
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35 minutes ago, BrooksBurner said:
Agreed. I’ll still push and hope for trading him if he’s in a position to command $10+, but if it’s more in the $8 range I’m ok keeping him anyway and so should the org. With the way he’s playing, he’s losing leverage.Like most guys his age; the primary issue is not salary, but rather term. It's essentially Lundquist all over again, as he is going to be looking for max term which is 8 years. He will be 29 at the end of his current deal, which will take him to 37 years old on a max term contract.
Don't have as much of an issue with the price tag, even if it's in the $8-10 million range as he is truly an elite goaltender and has proven that he can win a playoff series by himself. With an increasing cap you make that work even against the prevailing wisdom of not having your goaltender eat up too high of a % of your salary cap. He truly is an exception in that regard imo.
5 years is the max I would give him, or that contract will certainly become the same albatross that Lundquist's was when his effectiveness starts to fall off and they are ready to move on to their next goalie.
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12 minutes ago, Pete said:
Is this really true though? Perrault and McConnell-Barker are top end prospects right now, especially Perrault.
They're also probably looking at stocking first rounders when they start moving guys like Panarin and Krieder in the last year's of their deals, possibly even Trouba, depending on how bad the team is.
Didn't mean to make it sound like the system was barren, but in the context of sure fire NHL players, I think Othman is the only one that you can say that about.
Sure Perrault and McConnell-Barker as well as Berard, Sykora, Chmelar, and maybe even Edstrom & Robertson are tracking that way, but I would stop short of calling them surefire NHLers either until they have a larger sample size of work or actually becomes NHLers.
2023-24 ECSF #3: Rangers @ Carolina Hurricanes — Cry Hard With a Vengeance
in New York Rangers
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This is not the Zamboni driver. Right?