Z and D for the C

Have the prospects tournaments always been just the "round robin" and no actual tournament at the end? I always thought there was the tournament portion - I guess I was always just making things up or imagining them?

DAMNIT Maybe Frans gives it to Fil?

Constantly dumping the puck into the neutral zone to the other team isn't a successful strategy. Well isn't the point that we're going to try and build skill through the draft as we rebuild? It doesn't look like I'm going to win this argument - I just don't like the way Blashill coaches our team and I hope he's not our coach after this season.

Well, what's the consequence? Losing games and being at the bottom of the standings? .... If the team was having at least some success at dump and chase that's one thing. But whether our players play with a little more patience in our zone and fail to make a play up the ice or just dump it to the neutral zone, the result is the same. I'd rather have our players that will be here years from now to attempt to play in a successful strategy and lose than play in a bad one and still also lose. If we were in a playoff spot right now, then I would agree. But we're a failing team right now, so if you're saying we'd fail if we tried to play a more puck possession game, then...? Agreed, so failing at puck possession and losing is better than failing at dump and chase and losing. But Blashill is having them constantly dumping the puck into the neutral zone. That will never be winning hockey.

^ I don't buy that we play dump and chase or our #1 defensive strategy is "clear the zone with passes to the other team" because we just "can't do anything else". If our players aren't good enough to play a more puck possession style game then okay-, what is the worst case scenario - we lose a lot of games and are near the bottom in the standings? I'd rather have our players learn to play puck possession and fail versus playing dump the puck at all opportunities and still fail. I just don't think Blashill's strategies are translating to the NHL.

Blashill's "60 minutes of hell" is more like "60 minutes of give the puck to the other team and dump it into the neutral zone or offensive zone at every opportunity." Blashill has some good qualities for sure, as you mentioned, but the way he plays this team is terrible. We used to be a puck possession team, now we're the opposite of that. We've seen that this team has the ability to win games right now and Blashill isn't bringing that out of them. Now, I'm not complaining that much for right now because it's getting us picks, bit I hope to the flying spaghetti monster that he is done at the end of this year.

Because points are the only thing that matters at the end of the season.

Filppula is about to win the Flyers a cup. More on this and other things I'll dream about tonight later

100% of the reason for the decline is the decades success and lack of any high draft picks. It's like you're blaming the pilot for eventually having to land to refuel. We simply can't trade for or get in FA the impact players we need anymore in today's NHL. No GM or front office could have kept us contending or going deep into the playoffs. People need to cool off.

I only come around when I have super important things to say.

Just don't put a badge on your Lilja jersey.

This plus Mrazek let in a 4th that was luckily offsides and they got a lucky goal. I'm not counting on that 3rd round pick.

We'll we're close in that we probably only need a few elite players. How we get those is a whole other question. If we had 2008 Lidstrom, Datsyuk, and Zetterberg we'd be contenders. I think. Maybe. Sorry to be the devil's advocate, but this doesn't explain why he s*** the bed when he was gettings all the starts last season which is why he wasn't getting starts this year.

Here I am going to pick on Mrazek. He seems to let in way more "well he just couldn't see it" goals than Howard. Maybe I'm just imagining things. Maybe he's just not reading the play well enough - he seems to get so small in net when he's looking around when the puck is behind players.

I'm usually pretty tough on Mrazek (as tough as one can be from a keyboard) but I think that was just a flukey, unfortunate goal. He's looked pretty good this game and last, we'll see how the rest of this game goes.

Starting get get concerned that the LCA is still this empty. I honestly don't get it.

Friday's game was typical Mrazek. He'll make some big saves, usually they end look looking bigger than they are because he's always so out of position, but night after night he'll over commit or get himself out of position and give up an easy goal. It may not happen literally every time he plays, but it always happens. Not saying or defense was stellar, but Mrazek isn't making saves when our defense breaks down, which a good goalie needs to do in this league. I'll give Mzarek credit the second he puts together a solid season where he doesn't give up 3/4 goals every game. I'm not for or against Mrazek or Howard - I just want the better goalie to play.

3 goals not enough to win with Mrazek in net, per usual.

Just as a discussion: I'm not sure if it's just myself, but with all the talk about doom and gloom for this team, when I actually look at our forward group I'm a little impressed and I think it might be one of the better groups overall. Obviously we don't have a lot of major star power anymore - we don't have a Crosby, Stamkos, etc or the young stars like the Leafs do but I'd put our forward group up against a lot of teams. Zetterberg, at least as of last season has shown he can still produce, especially if Nyquist and Tatar have better years and I love our second line right now. We also have a ton of depth on the 3rd line. While I've always thought Helm and Abdelkader were way overused when in the top 6 they fit great on the third line and I feel like it has to be one of the better third lines in the league. And then our fourth line are some good grinders/defensive players that we can count on to do 4th liney things. It's too bad we have such a poor defense right now. Green has gotten to be one of my favorite players on the team but I don't think he's a #1 by any means, and then rest of our defense are 3/4 and 5/6 type guys. Again this is mostly for discussion and obviously things on paper always look better than they are, but is our forward group a little underrated?

Mrazek only deserves to play on the end of back to back games. Such a huge mistake to play him tonight. It's also embarrassing how we can't control the puck at all when under the slightest amount of pressure.

Mrazek's saves only look brilliant because he gets himself so far out of position he has to constantly make flailing desperation saves that look fancy but really just highlight the enormous flaw in his game. Watching Howard and Mrazek is like night and day - Howard is calm and collected and is always where he needs to be while Mrazek is constantly flailing around and it burned him again on this past goal.

Mrazek is hopeless.

Who would you suggest they replace? AA would be nice but I'm not sure Svech or Bertuzzi should replace any of our top 9 at this point.

I wanted to comment on the Frk/Abdelkader switch but it appears people already have but I still want to complain so: why is Blashill stupid?