LindG1000

Salt Lake City is the frontrunner for the 2030 Winter Olympics, which would come with a significant renovation to the arena they built for the 2002 Olympics or a brand new arena as the single highest priority. The host city decision will be made in late July.

Because they've never been properly supported by Phoenix and a market with 5 million people - largely northern transplants - with a GDP of nearly half a trillion dollars and one of the top 10 tv markets in the USA is wildly attractive. It's too big an opportunity to be worried about a few million dollars here and there for the NHL. In the scenario above, the Muerelo group would sell the team to Ryan Smith for more than twice the value of the franchise, and then Muerelo would pay a nearly billion dollar expansion fee to REJOIN the league. Follow the cash, my dude.

Yeah. This is happening. Between the Scottsdale mayor coming out fully against it, the known cash shortage of the Coyotes, the unsustainable Mullet Arena situation, and the clear love the NHL has for Ryan Smith? I'd almost be more surprised if they're in Arizona.

Should do some WWE shit at the draft with this. The Draft is June 28. The auction is June 27. If the Yotes lose the auction, have Ryan Smith casually walk to the podium to make the Coyotes pick. Wait, what's this? He's wearing an NHL jersey that's completely new? Wait, the Coyotes logo is fading out and there's a logo matching the jersey on the board? Why's Karl Malone here!?

Completely intentional on Trocheck, malicious and intentional on Zibanejad. The first is indisputable, the second is because the Islanders have mastered the art of seeing out of the backs of their heads and are threatened by the deep human connection Mika shares with his teammates.

Only if they bring Junior Mints into the OR

It's theater. Laviolette does this from time to time. He knows that he can own the narrative, and he knows he's got another game with these guys coming up, and he wants to win it. Just getting the guys fired up.

And they gave Trocheck a misconduct too.

Trocheck is so under the Islanders skin right now. He's like the COVID vaccine half of them didn't get.

He'll be back in a week. At this point, I could watch him literally lose a foot on the ice and I'd expect him back on Tuesday.

When is the NHL going to investigate the obvious talent theft Goodrow's committed?

Bad for a hockey game, fantastic for a bakery

FOXYCLEAN

The absolute fucking king of "just the tip" Ladies can't resist. Neither can nets.

Even for you, Brooksie, woof. The cherry-pickers union genuflects to you alone. On a related note, some farmers are very angry.

Oof, I'm sorry. Was it before they invented the topical cream and the remedy was still a half-pound suppository?

The good Aho is on Carolina. They have bizarro Aho

Trivia is Patrick Flatley. Islanders should, flatly, play in traffic. Tonight, we crush their dreams. On Saturday, we crush their souls.

I think the difference a coach makes is absolutely screaming at us at this point. And let me tell ya, this crow? Fantastic. I was a straight-up detractor of the Laviolette hire, and man, he deserves so much credit for the work he did this year. He helped unlock beast-mode Panarin, he figured out Lafreniere, he seamlessly integrated multiple rookies and new faces (like, we haven't even talked about Will Cuylle's extraordinary rookie year!), he's got the bottom 6 working well, he's even starting to help Kakko crack the code. And the things you're listing - the not getting frustrated by a hot goalie, the blown series leads, the structure? That's coaching, mate.

It's why this week is going to be so goddamn important for us. We have three games against potential round 1 opponents who will be fighting for their lives. Send a message. Bury them.

I think it's actually really simple. We're not news-worth right now. We've been in the playoffs since St Patricks Day, and the WC2 in the East is a war. Same for the Central. The Rangers win again is a ho-hum story that's been told 53 times and counting. We'll be briefly newsworthy later this week when we set the franchise win record, then clinch the division, conference, and Presidents Trophy, and then it's going to be a wave of stories about how we're going to be a hard out for anyone.

I expect Kreider's going to leave a trail of broken bones and classical piano riffs in the playoffs.

I mean, he and Trouba's elbow one-and-a-half handedly beat the Penguins a few years ago. No sense in Nashing him. Push to shove, I'd say this: I'm not really sure how useful our priors will be. Panarin has never played on a team like this one, and he's literally never played this well. Zibanejad has not been on a team where he wasn't shouldering the entire center load in almost 6 years. The last time Kreider played games with this level of expectation on the team was 2015. I like where all three are right now. Zib and Kreider have more to give offensively - bluntly, so does the Wennberg line - and that is a good thing when other teams will absolutely have to over-key on Panarin and Lafreniere.

I was thinking about this yesterday too. I'm wondering if Kreider's just at the point where he's like "I don't care about the 82, just the 16". His effort was noticeably better in the last few games too. Still, what a fucking animal if that's the case. Nonchalantly scoring 38 goals? Cmon man!

The Panarin line is the single most dangerous line in the NHL. It's not even hyperbole - they've scored more goals than any single unit in the league. Part of that is consistency—I don't think they've been split up—but that's just a different level of danger and scoring than Panarin has ever had in his career. Ditto Lafreniere. Ditto Trocheck. In the same way we can look at Panarin's priors and say "hmm, that's concerning", we also need to look at the current reality and go "oh, that's also pretty different". This is the best version of Panarin we have ever seen. He's working with the best version of Lafreniere we've seen so far, and the best version of Trocheck we will probably ever see. Opposing teams should fear this line the way the Mackinnon line, the Kucherov line, or the McDavid line is feared. And the cool part about that is that if they do, we have the Zibanejad line ready to strike, and that third line isn't exactly bad either. They work hard. I'm perfectly fine with Trocheck as the "1C" and Zibanejad being a Selke-level 2C who puts up his .8 points/game. Fine by me.