Br4d

Aho is the one that went knee to knee on Fox. Not 100% sure who stretched out Igor. Both of them were out for weeks. Fox even longer. We really should have Rempe run their goalie at least once. He's going to get penalized/suspended for basically anything at this point because the refs are hunting him. He should take out the goalie and earn the punishment.

Caps are going to have all the flashy lights and sirens going at some point before the game. Then Rempe is going to score off of the opening face-off and the sobbing will begin.

We don't want Chytil on the ice this round. He's definitely fragile in a very chippy environment. The interesting thing is that the Rangers owe the 'Canes at this point. Fox and Igor both got hurt in the same game after very chippy plays. I think the next series could be almost as bad as this one.

Lou is 81 years old. Who in their right mind trusts an 81 year old to run their franchise?

Rangers are going to have to be *very* good to get by Carolina and then they earn the right to face Florida. Tonight would be a good night to score a bunch of goals and put the game away early on.

The only evidence that taking a QB in the 1st round after pick 1 is successful are Roethlisberger, Flacco and Mahomes. All 3 went to rock solid franchises with great head coaches. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if you are going to cherry-pick a QB in round 1 after pick 1 and throw him on the field you'd better have everything else all set or you are going to fail.

Having a top QB and nothing else is worse than having an average QB and real talent. Look at Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow. Look at the Lions with Matthew Stafford. Look at the Chargers with Drew Brees. The reality is that about 75% of the teams have a good, competent or better QB (Kirk Cousins with the Vikings, Josh Allen with the Bills, etc.) and still can't get out of their own way. Draft the *best* player available. Don't make bets on guys who weren't close to the best at their position in college. This was a very effective golden rule that allowed teams picking lower in the round to dominate teams picking higher on a consistent basis for 40-odd years before everybody got impatient and started wasting their 1st round picks on pipe dreams about a decade ago.

That's 7 out of 10 wrapped up in a 6th round pick and a guy who went to the perfect destination. The 10 years before that featured a lot of guys picked in 2 or 3 QB draft pods in the 1st or later rounds. Aaron Rodgers was one of two guys picked in 2006. Roethlisberger went to the perfect destination for a rookie bubble. Drew Brees was the 2nd QB off the board in 2001 at pick 32. Peyton Manning was the 1st QB picked in 1998. Eli Manning was the 1st QB picked in 2004.

Mahomes is unique for two reasons. One he has tremendous talent that most 1st round QB's do not and two he went to Andy Reid and a well-stocked roster with a good OL, WR, TE and RB. Anybody trying to win on the Mahomes formula is playing with themselves unless they have Andy Reid or a Mahomes-clone.

The 1st round of the draft is for getting great talent. You win by accumulating more talent than the rest of the teams you are competing with. Taking the 6th QB, or the 5th, 4th or 3rd, is really likely to see you giving up a talent differential vs what you would have gotten there instead. The NFL right now takes that extra QB early in the 1st round. That's why so many teams are generationally hopeless at this point. It is important to get a QB but it is more important not to bust on your early 1st round pick.

6 QB's in the first 12 picks. Aside from Caleb Williams they are probably 65% likely to bust based on past draft results. The NFL has a really bad paradigm going on about drafting QB's in the 1st round. The days when only 2 or 3 QB's went in the 1st round, sometimes only 1, were correct. This recent QB Fever (from about 2014 onwards) is a case of about 16 teams out of 32 who do not understand what the odds are and are pretty bad at developing QB's anyway. 2021's failures (because the NFL is on this really bad trip) led directly to 2024's likely failures. Odds are 2024's failures will lead to the next totally overdrafted QB class in 2027 or so.

You had to have a lot of cred with management to make the necessary move to get Tro and Laf on the same line. GG wanted Panarin and Tro together. He stuck with that pairing through a few real dry spells last season. To get Laf on that line you have to move him to RW. I'd love to know what the two spats GG and Drury had last year were about. One regular season and then again in the playoffs. One of the two went at the other hard twice and it would be very interesting to find out what the topic(s) were.

I can definitely live with it. Just don't let Sam announce the transition. There have been a lot of Albert's in the mic-monkey role.

SJ probably has their eye on somebody. They better have their eye on somebody because that roster smells like a beached shark on the third day.

This one needs to go 6 or 7. The 'Canes are probably dragging at this point as Brind'Amour tries to skate their legs off for the 4th season in a row.

Lets go get that dreaded two game lead! Rumor has it that game 3 will bring on the Apocalypse when the Rangers get a dreaded 3 goal lead with a dreaded 2 game lead!

This is the best picture. Rempe is like "look what I can do!" Tom Wilson in background with an "oh fuck!" look on his face. Vesey and Goodrow with huge smiles for the rook.

Rempe plays keep away with the Cup when he hoists it and they have to take him down to get it back.

Laviolette had to be watching Rempe at Hartford and thinking he'd be a call-up before the playoffs. Maybe Drury also.

Fotiu was an enforcer in an age of enforcers. He was there because the Flyers set a meta where if you didn't have a Fotiu you lost before you hit the ice. The reason that the NHL is looking cross-eyed at Rempe right now is because this isn't an age of enforcers. They don't want every team to go out and find a Rempe and bring those days back. What Rempe needs to do now is to be a physical presence on the ice, just like he is, without fighting unless heavily provoked. What he wants to do is draw instigator penalties from the opposition. Then he can pound without fear of undue discipline.

The guy Wilson is going to be gunning for is Laf. Because Laf is hitting pretty freely out there and that kind of action always draws attention.

So who is going to be Tom Wilson's first fight of the series?

He was definitely going to see the ice against the Washington Wilsons at some point.

Jack Dempsey? Probably fought in the second Madison Square Garden. He owned a restaurant opposite the third one.

Line 4, Laf, Cuylle. These are not our dad's Rangers.