Buppy

I'm pretty sure NHL trade regulations prohibit 'other considerations' from being a factor in trades. So what you're talking about would be technically against the rules. It's not so much a loophole as it is collusion. If someone were to try this, the league would most likely reject the trade, then investigate and punish the teams involved.

"It's pretty cool honor to have," Kane told Chris Kuc of the Chicago Tribune. "A lot of pressure comes with it with the players to pick. [Teammates Patrick] Sharp and [Jonathan] Toews have already been talking to me a little bit, I haven't heard much from Duncan [Keith] -- I don't think he has much to worry about. Sharp and Toews have been saying if I pick one before the other the other is going to be ticked. It's a tough situation." So he thinks he gets to pick the team now?

I've always liked the Finnish names, especially first names; Jarkko, Teemu, Mikko, Jussi...they sound like Disney animals. Soft and fluffy, but also heroic and funny. Plus, I've always thought U was an underused vowel, and the Fins really seem to appreciate it.

Temporarily die during the Vernon era?

I think Ovechkin and Kovalchuk got together at the WCs and decided that both of them having sub-30 goal seasons would be a hilarious practical joke.

Like the rest of the guardians...stupid. I like the GP concept, but for something supposedly several months in development with allegedly professional comic writers involved, it's been disappointing. The whole thing seems like some college art student spent the whole semester partying, and had to cram the whole project into one weekend.

I'm pretty sure he meant top 3 forwards, overall...

I feel pretty bad for JMac. Played in 3 games witout starting any, coming in down 2 or 3 goals. Makes 43 out of 45 saves plus 3 out of 4 in the shootout, and still gets stuck with an 0-1-1 record. Now he has to start a back to back game when we have 4 key skaters injured. At least it's Columbus again and not a really good team.

Does he explain somewhere how he's weighting everything to come up with the rankings? I tried, but couldn't figure out his formula.

Yet in both seasons where he scored 70+ points, he finished a second to Borque, who was one of few defensemen to outscore Stevens those seasons...

Capgeek. We had just under $625k before bonuses and callups. $50k bonus carryover from last year. About $260k spent so far on callups (as of yesterday). Estimate of around $215k for Mursak/MacDonald remaining. Leaves around $100k before bonuses. Again, not a big deal provided the estimated re-signing costs we're thinking of are in the ballpark. $700K-1.3M isn't too much to hope for in a cap raise, and that's assuming Salei and Modano make most of their bonuses. Really only gets sticky if the cap stagnates, and/or some of our FAs perform well enough to demand a big raise. Even then, we have options with trades.

Check my post again. Provided no more call-ups, and injured players come back around when expected, we'd be left with about $100k in cap space before factoring in any bonuses. If Salei and Modano are able to earn any significant portion of their potential bonuses, we're going to have some carryover.

I'd say Quick is the biggest goalie snub. But I'd take a lot of guys over Ward (and Fluery, but that's the fan's fault). Ward is a homer pick I'm guessing. I'd put Quick, Pavelec, and Rinne in place of Ward, Lundqvist, and Price. Then lock those three plus Luongo in a cage with Fluery. Whoever does the most damage gets his spot.

Hmm...when I think of the #22 Wings sweater, I still think of Dino. When I think of #22 in general I hear a train whistle and want to strangle a puppy.

I don't think LTIR can be used to cover bonuses. Assuming Mursak stays around for another 20 days or so, and McDonald another 50, and no other call-ups, it would leave us about $100k under the cap before counting any bonuses. With a potential $850k between Modano and Salei, it's not outside the realm of possibility that we could have ~$500k in carryover. Bringing back everyone but Draper and Modano, replacing them with Mursak and Emmerton (or maybe keep Draper over Miller, at a similar price) we'd likely need around ~$1.3M cap raise to fit, or ~$700k with a 22-man roster. I don't think we're in serious trouble or anything, but if any or all of Eaves, Ericsson, or Howard gets any better than they have been, we might need to make a trade to keep them. Something like this isn't out of the question: FORWARDS Pavel Datsyuk ($6.700m) / Henrik Zetterberg ($6.083m) / Johan Franzen ($3.954m) Valtteri Filppula ($3.000m) / Jiri Hudler ($2.875m) / Daniel Cleary ($2.800m) Todd Bertuzzi ($1.937m) / Tomas Holmstrom ($1.875m) / Darren Helm ($0.912m) Justin Abdelkader ($0.787m) / Patrick Eaves ($1.500m) / Jan Mursak ($0.650m) Cory Emmerton ($0.650m) / Drew Miller ($0.650m) DEFENSEMEN Brian Rafalski ($6.000m) / Brad Stuart ($3.750m) Niklas Kronwall ($3.000m) / Jakub Kindl ($0.883m) Nicklas Lidstrom ($6.200m) / Jonathan Ericsson ($1.500m) Ruslan Salei ($1.200m) GOALTENDERS Chris Osgood ($0.750m) /Jimmy Howard ($2.500m) Bonus Carryover ($0.500m) CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS SALARY CAP: ??; CAP PAYROLL: $60,658,711

And yet almost everyone refers to those top 3 as nominees and/or finalists. Both terms may be misnomers, but we all know that they refer to the top 3 for a particular award. Sorry, nitpicking is a pet peeve of mine... Now on to my real point... Two years ago Green had 31g, 73p in just 68 games, +24, and played just under 2.5 minutes/game on the PK. He didn't win, Buffy won't either.

From today, 24 games. 15 on the road. 4 back to back sets. February/early March is pretty rough. Stretch of 7 games in 12 days, then 3 days off followed by 10 games in 17 days. I don't know who's available or at what price, but with Stuart and Ozzie out, we really risk overworking some key players. Hopefully, McDonald does better than I fear and we don't have to worry.

I like Kovy, and think he would have done very well in LA. So I actually give them an extra negative for inadvertently ruining his career by failing to sign him.

I'd argue that Stuart and Ericsson also belong on the capable list. We could make 3 pretty solid units. Mule - Hank - Cleary Nick - Stuie Homer - Pav - Eaves Ericsson - Rafi Hudler - Flip - Bert Kronwall - Mo

Datsyuk - A (Was having maybe his best season yet before the injury) Zetterberg - A (Had some slow spots, but has stepped up big since Pav went down) Franzen - B (Too much casual play to get an A, but production is solid) Holmstrom - B- (Age is catching up to him, but still on a 20g pace) Filppula - C+ (Was improving before the injury, still needs to use his speed more, and of course shoot) Bertuzzi - C+ (Fading some after a great start) Cleary - A+ (Hopefully he won't lose anything when he comes back) Hudler - D+ (Improving lately, still needs a lot more improvement, also needs to shoot a lot more) Abdelkader - B- (Like Bert, fading after a great start, but expectations are lower for him) Helm - B+ (Hot lately, seems finally to be trying to round out his game and not just rely on speed. Needs to hit more) Eaves - A (Great lately, almost a 30g pace. Almost hope he slows down so we can re-sign him cheaper) Miller - C- (Mostly invisible as expected, but gets a minus since our PK hasn't been good) Modano - C- (Can only wonder what might have been without the injury, was starting to improve) Draper - B (Looking good for an old man. Fits well with Helm) Mursak - C (About what I expected in his limited time) Tatar - B (Some impressive flashes in his brief time, and no glaring mistakes) Lidstrom - B+ (Still the best in the game, despite a weak +/-) Rafalski - B- (Stellar offense, turnovers haven't been too bad) Stuart - C+ (Maybe not good enough to do everything he's being asked, but has been solid. Just too many mistakes) Kronwall - B- (Seems almost too focused on goal scoring. Turnovers and poor passes keep him from an A) Ericsson - B (Huge improvement over last season) Salei - C (Hoped he'd play a little more physical, but he's been good) Kindl - C (Not too many mistakes, can't expect much more) Janik - C (Not bad in his limited call-up role) Osgood - C+ (Better than last year, some great games, but still too many mediocre ones) Howard - C (Poor lately after a very good start. Hopefully, the Canucks game marks a turnaround) Babs - C+ (Could have handled the goalies better, and do a better job getting 60 minute efforts, but he's getting guys to step up with the injuries) Piet Van Zant - Z----- (Scapegoat for the injuries. One more and we'll need to invent a new letter)

NJ has to be the worst. Kovy didn't help them last year, so I don't know why they'd think he would this year, especially given the loss of flexibility from paying him that much. And on top of that, there's the loss of a 1st and 3rd rounder from the penalty for the first Kovy offer that will hurt them in the future. Chicago gets a bit of a break, I think, since they really didn't have any options this summer. They were just paying for mistakes made the previous two years. My honorable mention for worst would be LA. They had like $10+ million in cap space, and all they did was side-grade (maybe even downgrade) Frolov to Poni, minor upgrade at best from O'Donnell to Mitchell, and trade for an injured, injury-prone 30+ year old mid-tier Sturm. Those 3 have a combined 49 games, 6 goals, 18 points. For $10.2 million in cap hit.

Kostopoulos has his hearing, he'll get suspended I'm sure. I'm guessing 5. A bigger joke I think is that Lucic got only a small fine for what I think was a much worse sucker punch on Meyer.

Buffy will probably get nominated, but he'll need a lot more than a 2 point edge to beat out Nick. But yeah, pretty much since Orr, the Norris tends to go to great two-way defensemen. Kind of like the Selke goes to great two-way forwards. I really doubt Nick would have 6 if he wasn't so good offensively. Coffey probably wouldn't have any. But remember it is 'best defenseman', not 'best defender'. Looking at the overall efficacy of the player, it's hard to argue that Buffy hasn't been one of the most effective defensemen this year. Same with Green the last two years.

East vs West so far this year: West perspective: 90-50-24 East Perspective: 74-67-23

Not that I want to "Piss in everyone's Chelios"™ after a nice win like this, but it was just a January game, where we were outplayed most of the game, doesn't mean anything really. I want to see more than one before I start thinking our defensive deficiencies are done with. But still, great game under adverse conditions. We've now handed Vancouver their last two losses. I guess we've earned the right to act like it means something, even if it doesn't.