LindG1000

The overwhelming likelihood is that it will work out for us. It absolutely could have worked out better if we could have traded him prior to his self-immolation, but it's much more likely that he either heads to KHL or gets another chance and Jimmy Vesey's this thing.

I still think Buffalo's just fucked six ways to Sunday on this whole situation and that the return is going to feel paltry for what we (or the Kings, I guess) get in Eichel.

Last year, ADA was a slightly below average defender - and it's plausible that losing Staal as a partner caused him to fall off a cliff defensively. I just don't see the Staal replacement among the bottom pair carousel we've had. I'm sure we'll find out either way. A team will roll the dice on him and hopefully it works out for them.

I'd rather have our players win Stanley Cups instead of Art Ross trophies, but hey, do you.

The problem is that this isn't borne out as an apples-to-apples thing. Yes, he'd help our offense, but he'd also hurt our defense. If putting ADA in improves our offense over Hajek by even half a goal a game, he's giving more than that back because having him out there seems like it means almost exactly that in goals against too. I don't care to lose 5-4 versus losing 4-3. It's just stat-padding at that point.

Then go watch the Oilers and count the trophies in their trophy case since 1990. Run and gun hockey is crazy fun. It never wins championships, and I'd much rather have all of those players looking to Patrice Bergeron or Anze Kopitar as role models than playing like the Harlem Globetrotters. If that means they look like third liners for a few months in their first season or two, so be it.

He's been almost unnaturally unlucky. Same with Lafreniere, actually. He seems a bit slower than last year, but the real issue is that his shot isn't going in. A player like Mika is due to regress to at least the mean - he's not going to shoot 3.5% all season, and he's not going to be some 5% under flat PDO with a 93% on-ice save percentage. I think he's got to start creeping closer to center with his shots, and maybe do a little less corner-picking and a little more "shoot for the rebound", but it really just looks like horrendous luck from the fancy-stats perspective.

I'll be the first to say that's a small sample size, but I'll also note that even for a small sample, those are some cataclysmically bad numbers. The worst regular players in the NHL are quite literally multiples better than that. I'll also be quick to say that based on what we've seen of ADA versus what we've seen of Fox, it wasn't a question of if he'd be booted off PP1. It was a question of when. Fox is undeniably the better PPQB. So, if you're sitting on a defender who you're not able to give PP1 time, and you're not able to trust him to defend, when he pushes play he falls so out of position that it costs you, he's not converting chances, and he's a headache off the ice on top of it? If I have the option to put a defender on the ice who will give up one goal every four shots against and contribute one every twelve shots for, or give up one goal every 20 shots against, and contribute one every 10 shots for, I know which one gets the ice time. The first is ADA. The second is Libor Hajek. Contrast that with Johnson or Smith or Hajek or Bitetto, who can each at least do some of those things.

Kravtsov needs to play defense. What good is scoring if you're giving it back every time?

This whole season can be described as "expectations and reality often don't align". In sports and politics, folks often incorrectly place blame on either leadership or hindsight. Leadership is Quinn - who, bluntly, I think is doing quite a bit with what he's given even if he's not getting the offense from some key places. Hindsight is DeAngelo.

Is it honestly fair to expect a young team like ours to be consistent? Even with our relative youth nonwithstanding - we're missing three of our top six forwards, one of our top defenders, and Mika's colder than a witch's tit at Lake Vostok. That we're even treading water missing this many key players is borderline miraculous. What team survives losing half their top 6? The saving grace here has been that our defenders have really stepped up. Nobody out there looks out of place. Miller looks like a grown ass man already. Fox and Lindgren look great. Dare I say it - Johnson and Smith look competent (and yes, Pete, when Johnson keeps this up, you may serve my crow). Hajek looks absolutely fine. Bitetto has been more than acceptable. We're not exactly struggling back there right now.

If you'd like to point out which part of that isn't a fact, be my guest. There's a clear difference between being snarky and presenting facts that you just flat out don't like. I'll look forward to your pointing out the non-factual elements.

Sounds to me like you all want Coach Bombay and you've got Coach Orion. The expectation that an offensively anemic team would be fixed with one or two players because of their draft position - doubly so with both coming off exceptionally odd circumstances prior to their selection - is utterly bizarre. Expecting an 18 or 19 year old to step onto a team that hasn't got a top 6 spot for them, hasn't got a special teams spot for them, and light it up is just...weird. The last player who landed in that kind of spot right out of the draft was Steven Stamkos (center, with Lecavalier and Richards clearly ahead of him on the depth chart). The pattern emerging that offensively gifted youngsters seem to be struggling is worth noting, even though Kakko and Chytil have been significantly better, and Lafreniere does appear to be showing the flashes more consistently. Quinn does not seem to accept "cheating" the offense unless you generate a high quality chance (and/or are named Artemi Panarin) - he wants these kids to play strong defense. There's nothing wrong with that so long as the offense starts to come soon. And enough with the ADA relitigation. Quinn didn't kick him off the team. Gorton did, and if he was really the player you all think he was, perhaps he would have been traded for or grabbed off waivers instead of being the 25 year old house pro at a rink in Sewell, NJ, showing up a bunch of Bantam players.

Georgiev gonna make the Bruins take it on the chin.

Holy shit, what an unreal episode. It's early, so I'll hold the discussion for a bit, but I'm beyond psyched for the finale

In a full contact jersey.

Was going to go with Frankie Gabagool, but either or really. Julien feels like the wrong guy for this period of development, though. Might be wrong, but I feel like he's struggled with younger teams in the past.

Yep. Same dude. Was apparently 6'5 245 in his heyday.

I..uh... Sure, man. Whatever. Sabres are going to have fuckin 28 million tied up in Hall, Skinner, and Eichel until 2026. One of those players actively wants out. Another actively cannot make the lineup. Bird in hand, I guess, for Hall.

Don't forget Evgeny Grachev and Dmitri Kalinin! And Buchnevich, I guess. The Rangers luck with Russians has actually been very good in the past 10 years or so.

Yeah. Putin's ruthless. I'm guessing that his leave has a lot to do with working out how to protect his family, and maybe working out asylum protections for him and for them.

I'm on the go, but Mollie Walker captured a bunch of the Strome quotes, and the love this team has for Bread is just incredible. Strome's like Kreider in that he's real good with a mic in front of him, and a genuinely good dude.

If this creates a rift between the Rangers and the KHL, that's not the end of the world so long as we can get Kravtsov over. Might have to ring up some of those 80s Red Wings scouts that smuggled Petr Klima across the Iron Curtain in the back of a Yugo. And bluntly - yeah, this is 100% the right thing to do. The evidence is rapidly mounting - a lot of KHL reporters doing the due diligence here - that Panarin's being retaliated against for speaking up on behalf of the opposition. It's ten kinds of fucked up, and I feel awful for him to have to deal with being set up like this.

https://twitter.com/aiviskalnins/status/1363909164834127872 Since I know he's not a frequent tweet source here - Aivis is a Latvian KHL reporter