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It's done....

You do that in January / February, not September / October. As an NHL general manager, your goal is to assemble the best team as you possibly can, or you're not going to be employed very long. At the beginning of every season, you should give your team the best chance to win. Once you get around the trade deadline and it's clear you're a bottom 3rd team, then you start trading off pieces. So you don't re-sign Green, and hope your team is bad enough and lucky enough to win the draft lottery. I re-sign Green in hopes that we can remain somewhat competitive, and likely have about the same odds of winning the draft lottery. It also gives me the extra asset to dangle (and hopefully trade this time) around the deadline. You end up with a 5th overall pick, and I end up with an 8th overall pick, 30th, plus. Do you think you're much further ahead in your rebuild? I don't. Maybe even further behind... Also, look at what tanking has brought Edmonton, Arizona, Buffalo, etc...

Are we totally insane-y? Are we zany to the max? "Wheel of Morality, turn, turn, turn, Tell us the lesson that we should learn."

Its all luck. Even if you tank and end up being the worst team in the league, you are still banking on luck to win the lottery. It's not the NFL where the worst team gets the first pick. Of course the worse you are the higher the probability of winning the lottery, but lets not fool ourselves, its all luck. I believe its a balancing act. You need to acquire elite talent, and yes that does typically happen at the top of the draft. With that being said, you don't want to dig yourself into a hole so deep, that even with elite talent you cant get out (ie. Edmonton and Buffalo). I am open to trading players to acquire assets (ie. Tatar trade), but I dont want to let a player like Green just walk away for nothing. I would bring Green back, but I wouldn't give him a NTC (or a very limited one) because without that he becomes very valuable to us. 100% agree, I wrote what I wrote before even reading this.

According to Blashill, Svech will stay beyong Nielsen's return, which is great news. Hopefully he's able to contribute offensively and stays up for the remainder of the season...

Ha, not my area of specialty....I'm not a scout, especially not a goalie scout. That said, I'd probably say too early to tell. He just turned 26, if he was a forward, it would be different, but so many examples (I'd say probably more the norm) for goalies and defenseman to not hit their stride until later in their 20s. I think he's right around the time now though that he should be showing what he really is. He's going through a pretty tough stretch now, but who knows? It doesn't look good, but I wouldn't write him off just yet. Probably easy to say, but "let's see what he does next year". He has shown the ability to be a very good goalie, he has been inconsistent, but that doesn't bother me at all as you would expect that with a young goalie.....the trouble signs now are that he seems to be going in the wrong direction.

To be honest, it looks like a totally non-eventful type hit....perhaps a little late, but nothing out of the ordinary. You have to watch the slow motion video to see there is head contact. Certainly wasn't an aggressive/vicious hits like some of the others we've seen in the past. So, I get the suspension in this day and age.....head shots are extremely dangerous...3 games makes sense.

He is suspended three games... per the score : backes suspended was it enough of a suspension, or should it have been more games? some are saying that it should be way more than three because it was a :"headshot" what do you all think? at the bottom of this paragraph on the score it says more to come..

Yeah, I don't think either will be elite, because I consider elite to be top 3-5 of their respective positions. I do think both Larkin and Mantha could / likely will be legit top line forwards though. Put Larkin in between two legit top line wingers, and he'd likely be a point per game player. Put Mantha on the wing with any legit top center, and he'd be a perennial 30+ goal scorer. Hell, he might even reach, or come close to that plateau on this team this season. I think we give them both another year to develop, give them another legit top end winger, and they're all of a sudden a very good top line in this league. But yeah, we definitely need to start hitting on some of these picks, especially now that we're getting more in quality and quantity of picks over the next 2-3 drafts...

I agree. I don’t think it would take 5 players to start turning this team around. Just an example that currently none of our players are capable of playing a top line role on a contender. Larkin and Mantha seem like they could be effective top line players down the road. Not sure if they ever reach elite status but if enough of our draft picks over the next 2-4 years pan out then we shouldn’t have any problem filling out the roster with top end talent.

Because despite how much some of us mock Holland and Blashill for constantly talking about "maintaining a winning culture", it is important. You don't not re-sign your best defenseman just because you want to be bad and improve your draft odds. As has been proven over the past few years, the worst of the worst can drop down in the draft, and the best of the worst can move way up in the draft. One thing that I actually really like about Holland is that he's not the type to completely tank. He'd rather remain somewhat competitive and hope that we either get lucky in the draft lottery like Philadelphia last year, or get lucky in the draft like countless teams do every year, drafting the best player (or top three) in the draft in the 7-15 range.

Mrazek gave up 5 goals in a loss against Penguins last night.

wheel of suspension turn turn tun, tell us the punishment he will earn bonus cool points for anyone who gets that reference

https://www.nhl.com/video/backes-suspended-three-games/t-277440360/c-58518803 Explains the suspension really well. I think they got this one right.

What? It was literally his shoulder to the side of Nielsen’s face. Unless by “I don’t think it was a dirty hit” you meant that you don’t think it was intentional? I guess I could see that argument.. not that it really makes it that much less suspension worthy. Anyway, I’m also excited to see Svech up with the big club though. He’s progressed a little slower than I had hoped when we drafted him but I’m excited to see his progress anyway. Just gotta get him back to Grand Rapids in time for me to see him play next month

Last question “how high is the general IQ of the current hockey players” 20. Bobby Orr my ass, like they actually watched him.

The return of the demon king!

"Hold my beer..." - Ken Holland

I blame Mrazek.

You do only work 3 days a year, that's a lot of time for posting!

One day me you and others will meet and I'll buy you that Appletini

When's your birthday?