Buppy

Like a boss.

More advantageous distribution of quantum effects. Prove me wrong.

Whenever I hear Mantha's name, I think of Danny DiVito yelling at Tony Danza. If that doesn't scream captain, I don't know what does. RIP Andy Kaufman.

E-Money tried to sit once. Turned the chair over and got beat 5-hole. Not pretty.

Super sorry if I harsh your buzz with my mean ol' fact checkins, but 12-13 was the lockout year, and B.Smitty was on the rost from day uno. Afraid you can't use that as an examps o' misuse. Using him as a 5th/6th PK'zer, I agree was totes inappropes, but in the Wings defense the only dude what regularly did less pkzing were Kindl. And no doubt bringing him into the environ of a declining team didn't help, least as oppo to an awesomesaucey team what as would make anyone better. Not super-duper positive that's a valid criticizz though, but yeah. Lack of PP time defs straightup poundin nail on head, yo. At times in them crucial formative years, both Dekewad and KtotheFQ-uincy got sweet PP mins ahead of Brendo. Mic drop. Can you say that the environment he was brought up in was the best conceivable situation for BSmoover? I think you can't.

That may be true, but that means your standards should change to reflect that reality. Only 9 different centers have hit 80 points in the last 4 seasons. Only Crosby has done it more than once. By your standard, Crosby is the only consistent 1C in the league over the last 4 years. In today's game, high 60's makes you a pretty good 1C. Point-per-game/80+ puts you among the most elite.

Reality has a different standard, lol. In the last 4 full seasons, a listed center has hit 80 points only 12 times, and 4 of those were Crosby. An average of 21.5 per year hit 60, 64 hit 40. (And many of those may be centers playing on the wing on a higher line.) Your standard is something only the elite players at those levels will hit. That said, Nielsen maybe is more of a 3rd center at this point. But he's not really playing great. Slightly worse, point-wise, than he was last year (though he started pretty slow last year too). Better only relative to what you might expect, given the role.

As I very clearly explained earlier, that statement was made within the context of saying we would have to pay someone to take him. What I was arguing against was you very clearly taking that statement out of that context. "I can't see it happening without paying a team to take him..." is from the very same paragraph you quoted to start the argument. No backpedaling at all. But yeah, whatever. I see no point in going further.

But I do NOT believe "little to no teams would be interested in Ericsson". That is the entire point that I am trying to convey. That statement is only part of what I was saying: which is that we would have to pay someone to take him. Something you agree with. I wasn't saying that to say you were wrong, or contradict the idea that we could theoretically trade Ericsson, or suggest it was something you didn't already know. I mentioned it only as the reason why I think a buyout could be a better option, if it came down needing to get rid of E.

Wow. You genuinely do not understand context. The problem with taking just that part, is that it is only a part of the idea being expressed. Looking at just that sentence, independent of the rest of the post, changes the meaning. That sentence, and the two that followed, are the reasons why I say we would have to pay someone to take E. Not, as you are trying to imply, an assertion that we could not trade him. Teams aren't interested enough to take him without additional incentive, is the whole idea. Understand?

Logically, you have a point (though maybe overstating a bit the average rates) and I can understand why you might believe this; in practice you just hardly ever see trades like that. For whatever reason teams seem very reluctant to add players with term. Older players at least. The closer we get to the end of the deal, the more likely a deal would become, provided that injuries and further decline don't negate that value. But at the same time, the longer we wait, the more likely that 2nd part becomes true and also the benefit to is lessened as well. Waiting until the deadline next year doesn't help with signing/resigning anyone this summer. Considering the hypothetical need for cap space this summer is the sole impetus behind trading him or buying him out, it goes without saying that if we don't need the space (and most likely we wont) then we don't buy him out.

Holy s***. Do you not understand the concept of taking something out of context? Acknowledging that you're doing it doesn't make it ok. You have now said three times, just on this page, that you believe we would have to pay someone to take Ericsson. That is exactly what I was saying, if you look at the entire post rather than cherry-picking a single sentence. You actually agree with me on that. Don't apologize for insulting me, apologize for being completely wrong in your interpretation of what I was saying. Twisting my words, some might say. Apologize for that. The only thing we disagree on is whether giving up a mid-round pick/prospect is worse than a buyout. I think it could be, depending on the specific deal.

Oh, the irony. Accuse me of twisting your words while you ignore the rest of the very paragraph you're quoting. It would be an epic troll if you weren't serious. Made it big and bold for you. So there you go, I wasn't twisting your words at all, you just maybe didn't realize what you were saying. In the future, you should read more carefully and make an effort to understand someone before responding. Certainly before insulting someone's character.

Are you seriously trying to disagree with me saying we couldn't trade him without paying someone to take him by suggesting that we could pay someone to take him? Maybe paying a mid-round pick wouldn't "set us back". ~80% chance that player wouldn't be anything of note. But at the same time, a $1.4M cap hit three and four years down the road isn't likely to handicap us in any significant way either (not to mention that there probably isn't going to be any good reason to clear the cap short-term either). What's your plan in 20-21 that makes a little cap space worth more than a chance at drafting another Franzen/Nyquist/AA/etc.? If, and that's a big if, we have some pressing need for a couple extra million in cap space, paying someone to take E is probably not the best way to get it. Depending on the exact price, buying him out could be a better option.

Actually, E's "payday" was two years after we lost Lidstrom. While he is much better than fans give him credit for, I doubt it would have hurt to let him walk. Water under the bridge though; E isn't the reason we don't have better defensemen. Buyouts should be used to free up cap space for something better, and should only be used when the alternatives are worse. Buying out E could be a good option, depending on what we could do with the savings. More likely though all we could do is sign Green or Jack Johnson. and probably to a deal that hurts us even more long term. I think very few teams, if any, would be interested in E even at $2.25M with two years left. Very few, if any, recent examples of similar defensemen being traded with term. Significant injury history, plus a known chronic hip condition. I can't see it happening without paying a team to take him, or taking back something just as bad. The former could be worse than a buyout, and the latter makes it all pointless.

At this point I would have to say Nashville, but could easily turn to the Avs if they make good use of the picks. Could end up hilariously bad for Ottawa, and even at best it doesn't look like much of an improvement.

Just put that together from the game reports on NHL.com.

Fun facts, since I was bored and it's only 15 goals: Goals against w/Jensen on-ice, given in seconds from the start of his shift: 09, 12, 12, 23, 28, 41, 50, 54, 58, 64 Goals for: 19, 24, 28, 39, 54

2x top of left circle, 1x left high slot

Player TOI CF/60 FF/60 SF/60 GF/60 xGF/60 ANDREAS.ATHANASIOU 80.23 94.98 69.55 44.12 8.23 6.39 MIKE.GREEN 223.69 90.93 68.4 47.48 6.44 7.05 FRANS.NIELSEN 201.12 101.73 71.3 48.33 6.26 7.05 JUSTIN.ABDELKADER 177.7 97.92 72.93 48.96 5.74 7.5 HENRIK.ZETTERBERG 271.58 85.94 64.29 43.74 5.3 6.93 NIKLAS.KRONWALL 157.57 85.68 63.97 44.17 4.57 6.01 GUSTAV.NYQUIST 239.07 90.85 67.01 45.18 4.52 6.44 DYLAN.LARKIN 174.82 97.81 71.73 49.77 4.46 5.61 TOMAS.TATAR 222.04 85.66 62.69 40.26 4.05 5.74 ANTHONY.MANTHA 142.52 83.78 58.1 39.15 3.79 5.37 Abby belongs on the PP. All things considered he may even be our best PP asset. If anything, we need another Abby for the 2nd unit. A case can definitely be made for Nielsen, but in place of Nyquist or Tatar. (I wouldn't replace Larkin or Mantha for the sake of their development.) (Frk and Daley haven't played enough, but so far Frk's numbers are good, Daley's over the last few years are around Kronwall levels.)

Where are you pulling those numbers from? Don't seem to jive with the official shift chart from NHL.com:

Don't want to go any farther turning this Mrazek thread into a Howard .vs Osgood thread. Point was just that much of the criticism of Howard is in fact justified (albeit not for the "always gets hurt" rationale Dickie wants to stick with). Much more so than Ozzie prior to 01-02. And "need" has nothing to do with it. Hasek was a better goalie (as was Cujo), therefore it was the right move. A player doesn't necessarily have to be bad to justify replacing him. Just worse than the replacement. Yeah, your facts are a little inaccurate. First, goaltending and defense have evolved quite a bit, seems like your standards for "good" are a bit off. These days even .910 sv% is below average. Secondly, you're mixing up last year and 15/16. Last year he was injured and played only 26 games, and was great. 15/16 he played 37 games, but he wasn't injured, he just lost the starting job. The year before that (14-15) is mostly the source of the "injury=bad season" myth. That year he was mostly great, then hurt his groin and wasn't the same afterward. He also had some injuries in 13-14, which was another below average year, but his play before and after was fairly similar. 12-13 he was healthy and good, 11-12 he had some injuries and was good, 10-11 he was healthy and not so good. All in all the injury correlation isn't that strong. Considering he's averaged nearly 50 games per season (and one of those seasons being only 48 games long), to even label him injury prone is somewhat misleading.

Actually, the lines were very consistent pretty much the entire game. One ~4 minute stretch late in the second period things went wonky, but were back to normal in the third. Aside from that the only disruptions were the normal things like penalties and misaligned on-the-fly changes.

Over-simplifying a bit, and still ignoring the fact that Howard's numbers have not always been good. He's been pretty hit and miss as a starter. His overall career numbers are good, and when he's been good he's been excellent. But he's also had a lot of "down" periods. Osggod didn't have the peaks that Howard has had, nor the valleys. Pretty much the only criticism of Osgood was the playoff losses, even though he played well and probably didn't deserve all the blame he got. He just wasn't Roy. And underappreciated or not, replacing him was the right move. Howard too has received unwarranted blame for playoff losses, but that's far from the only reason he's been criticized. It was mostly the ups and downs, coupled with one of those "downs" coinciding with Mrazek coming in and playing very well. Now that Mrazek has had his own "down", while Howard is back "up", the sentiment is understandably reversing. But that doesn't mean the idea of Mrazek replacing Howard should never have existed, nor that we should ignore Howard's previous poor play, nor that Howard was or is undervalued.

While there are some similarities, and I'd agree there's been some unwarranted criticism of Howard, putting him on the same level as Osgood is going a bit far, IMO. Osgood was consistently above average from his rookie year in 93-94 up until 07-08. 02-03 was his only bad year. A few more right around average, and like 9 above average seasons. He didn't have any standout "great" seasons, just good or a bit better for most of a decade and a half. Howard in 8 years has had 4 very good years, and 4 below average years. In short, there are valid reasons to criticize Howard. Osgood was criticized mostly for not being Patrick Roy. Not really the same.