Buppy

Well, no, hence why I said, "I doubt Nill would". But I wouldn't give up any more than that for him. Nichushkin is a promising player, but he's barely scored more than Jurco. Dallas is in "win now" mode, and they already have a glut of young guys and prospects, especially on defense. I don't think they'd be interested in anything we have, unless it's a guy Nill was really high on. Players like Q and Helm are exactly what they're looking for. Players to help them defensively this year, but no commitment. Something I think a lot of people overlook is that contending teams often want rental players. But they don't need to move a player like Nichushkin to get them. I doubt Nichushkin is really available. He might become available for a really good player, like Yandle. But what Dallas is reportedly looking for they can get for just picks and lesser prospects.

Actually, I think Dallas would have a lot of interest in Quincey. Not enough by himself to get Nichushkin, of course. They have a lot of good players and prospects now, so I don't think they'd be looking for more, and I don't know if they'd be interested in anything else we could offer. Maybe Helm. That said, I think it would take quite a lot to get him, and I don't know that it'd be worth it. He hasn't exactly set the league on fire. Yeah, he might break out one of these days, or he might not. If we could get him for Q, Helm, and a 4th I'd go for it, but I doubt Nill would. They can fill their needs without trading him, so I think they only do it for something really good.

Team Pos Games G A P G/G P/G WSH Top 3 169 74 97 171 0.438 1.012 CHI Top 3 183 78 106 184 0.426 1.005 DAL Top 3 183 80 99 179 0.437 0.978 LAK Top 3 171 56 79 135 0.327 0.789 STL Top 3 183 61 73 134 0.333 0.732 TBL Top 3 177 60 66 126 0.339 0.712 NYR Top 3 179 59 66 125 0.330 0.698 FLA Top 3 174 42 81 123 0.241 0.707 DET Top 3 166 43 72 115 0.259 0.693 Average 176.11 61.44 82.11 143.56 0.348 0.814 FLA Next 3 161 52 55 107 0.323 0.665 WSH Next 3 166 50 61 111 0.301 0.669 DAL Next 3 177 43 50 93 0.243 0.525 DET Next 3 182 44 53 97 0.242 0.533 NYR Next 3 153 36 55 91 0.235 0.595 CHI Next 3 177 39 53 92 0.220 0.520 LAK Next 3 174 30 53 83 0.172 0.477 STL Next 3 162 27 55 82 0.167 0.506 TBL Next 3 165 26 52 78 0.158 0.473 Average 168.56 38.56 54.11 92.67 0.229 0.551 TBL Depth 336 47 63 110 0.140 0.327 WSH Depth 336 44 64 108 0.131 0.321 FLA Depth 305 41 49 90 0.134 0.295 DAL Depth 367 46 65 111 0.125 0.302 NYR Depth 368 46 63 109 0.125 0.296 DET Depth 336 38 50 88 0.113 0.262 LAK Depth 335 36 40 76 0.107 0.227 CHI Depth 265 28 30 58 0.106 0.219 STL Depth 346 31 37 68 0.090 0.197 Average 332.67 39.67 51.22 90.89 0.119 0.272 FLA 4-14 466 93 104 197 0.200 0.423 WSH 4-14 502 94 125 219 0.187 0.436 DAL 4-14 544 89 115 204 0.164 0.375 NYR 4-14 521 82 118 200 0.157 0.384 DET 4-14 518 82 103 185 0.158 0.357 TBL 4-14 501 73 115 188 0.146 0.375 CHI 4-14 442 67 83 150 0.152 0.339 LAK 4-14 509 66 93 159 0.130 0.312 STL 4-14 508 58 92 150 0.114 0.295 Average 501.22 78.22 105.33 183.56 0.156 0.366 DAL Defense 350 28 108 136 0.080 0.389 CHI Defense 318 27 94 121 0.085 0.381 LAK Defense 334 33 91 124 0.099 0.371 NYR Defense 354 28 92 120 0.079 0.339 STL Defense 358 26 84 110 0.073 0.307 WSH Defense 336 21 100 121 0.063 0.360 DET Defense 337 23 71 94 0.068 0.279 TBL Defense 370 26 77 103 0.070 0.278 FLA Defense 338 21 62 83 0.062 0.246 Average 343.89 25.89 86.56 112.44 0.075 0.328 Comparison between us and the 8 teams with more points than us (as of last night). Limited to players with 15 or more games, so it's possible I missed someone, but I didn't want to skew the per game numbers. Top 3, Next 3, and Depth are forwards (1-3, 4-6, and 7-14 in points, respectively). 4-14 is Next 3 and Depth combined.

So aside from the top three scorers (I assume you forgot Datsyuk) on any team, who can consistently produce points?

That package wouldn't get you an autographed picture of Subban. Unless you're talking Malcolm.

With Clarkson they took back Horton. LTIR is better than nothing, but it's not really the same as shedding a contract. Kessel wasn't really that bad a contract. Yeah, it's a lot and long term, but he's only 28 and he's pretty consistently been one of the top scorers in the league. And they retained $1.2M. The Phanuef deal was decent, but they still took back like $9.5M in bad contracts through next year. So yeah, I hope he is paying close attention to Toronto. Close enough to realize we probably will have to retain some, so we don't miss an opportunity looking for a better one.

I don't know that you can really say 40 games is cherry picking, especially not when it comprised most of his season from last year and you're comparing it to 56 games this year. Sure, if it was something from a few years ago, and then he settled back down to normal, it might be different. Or if he finishes this year with ~110+ pts I'd say it's another step up even from last year. But right now, I'd have to say his offensive elevation started mid-November last year.

I doubt it would be a factor either, just saying it does seem somewhat likely that Kane has just elevated his game, starting about a month into last year.

Not to discount what you're saying or marginalize Panarin's contributions, but Kane did score at a similar rate for most of last year. He had kind of a slow start to the year, and a bit of a slump just before he got hurt, so his numbers didn't look as gaudy, but for about 40 games from the middle of November to the middle of February he was scoring similar to his rate this year.

Helm being Helm makes Helm trade-able, regardless of who else is on the roster. Not so sure he'll get $4M+, or even $3M or any raise at all, if he doesn't start scoring, but that's beside the point. But I think you may be allowing the final score of the game color your enthusiasm for AA. We scored a couple of goals when he was on the ice (one of which he didn't do anything), but the line really wasn't all that good. Only 7 shot attempts, and not particularly dangerous. He was pretty good in his first stint though, and I wouldn't be against him staying for a bit. Though that's mostly because half of our top nine are poor goal scorers, rather than AAs own merits. Pulk hasn't been in a top nine spot since a few games before his injury though. It was Sheahan he bumped. Now if Blash would bump Helm or Richards for Pulks we might be on to something.

Plus, he isn't really dominating the fancy stats either. 5v5 scoring rate is a little better, but he's far worse on the PP. 2 points to 11, 1.34 p/60 to 4.60. Worse overall as well, 2.82 p/60 for Panarin to 2.47 for Larkin. A lot of the fancy stat crowd likes to ignore special teams, but obviously they're very important. 13 points in a little over half a season is a huge difference. Ignoring PP time is fine for looking at possession metrics, or if one guy isn't getting any significant time. But Larkin gets almost 2 minutes, and Panarin only gets about 45 seconds more.

Didn't miss it at all. What about the Wings do you think is going to make him look any different than he has with any other team?

I'm guessing it would look a lot like his other 140+ games.

Calgary seems like a perfect fit, as neither Ramo nor Hiller are really working and both are UFAs. Ortio seems tabbed as their goalie of the future, but he's hardly played and hasn't been great when he has. Not sure what other options they'll have though. I don't think Winnipeg would work. Hellebucyk (sp?) is playing great right now. If if they were interested, they'd probably want us to take Pavelec, which would kind of defeat the purpose of moving Jimmy.

4 goals from players uncovered in the slot. Regardless of what Woods may have said, none of them were bad goals in any sense. Watch the highlights. The worst you could say is that maybe Mrazek, who's playing like a Vezina finalist right now, might have stopped some of them. It wasn't "beat writers or bloggers" saying Jimmy played well. They were just reporting. It was Blashill and Zetterberg.

Kane would be an entertaining matchup

lol

Again, 143 games, 5 goals, 15 points. Probably better odds of winning the powerball than Tangradi does of being a productive NHL scorer.

It was two games, both perfect, and both against a pretty good PP...

Yeah, replays suck. Do you not have DVR?

Tangradi has played 140-odd games in the NHL. 5 goals and 15 points. Maybe he could be a late bloomer, but it's far more likely he just isn't any good.

That's interesting, and also seems quite different from the way LTIR is normally explained. We have 25 players on the roster, counting the guys on IR. Total cap of those guys is a little over $73M counting bonuses, or $71.5M without. Then we have $1.8 from the Weiss buyout and the bonus overage from last year. I assume that $66M figure isn't factoring bonuses, the buyout, or overage. Looking at who was on the roster opening day, that's fairly close to $66M without Datsyuk. Calculating the current roster the same way, it's about $67.6 without Franzen. So we'd need to trim $1.6. More or less exactly what we'd get demoting Kindl and Marchenko (assuming Kindl isn't claimed). Still seems weird. I wonder if we could claim LTIR for Pulkkinen to keep Marchenko up a little while longer.

I don't think that's true. There's a lot of confusing aspects to how LTIR is used, but even without sending Kindl down we're around $2 mil over the cap, which should be covered by LTIR for Franzen. Both General Fanager and Hockeyscap show us with about 5.2 mil in cap space, and Quincey's LTIR value at about 3.3, which still gives us 1.9 once Quincey is activated. We also have some bonuses beyond that, which makes it even more confusing, but I'm sure the 950k we get for sending Kindl down should easily give us enough. Technically, I don't think we'd even need to send him down until Pulkkinen is back (unless we call up someone else).

Much like Abby's deal, a theoretical Buffy deal (assuming it's reasonable in the short term) wouldn't likely turn bad until almost everything on our books now is expired. Almost every team in the league has quite a bit of wasted cap space, including us now. It's normal. Obviously, you don't want too much, but if you can spend to the cap you don't need to be super-efficient either. I'd be a lot more concerned with the cap in the next couple seasons than further down the road.

Franzen is 6 years older than Eriksson, and even back then wasn't quite as good. There is a difference between "value" and "enough value". For that matter, there's a difference between value in the general sense and value to a specific team. To speculate that Boston's GM (or any other) would value a player exactly the same as you is even more evidence of your irrationality. Kronwall was signed 3 seasons ago, at a very friendly cap hit. While he may have been starting his decline even back then, the business is what it is. Given that you are so adamant that Holland should have signed a defenseman who isn't much better for more than double the cap and for a much longer term, you should know that. But I get the feeling you only live in the moment. That's why you didn't note the difference between Nyquist now and Nyquist 3 years ago. And again, there is a world of difference between "trade value" and "the same trade value as Seth Jones". But all of this is stupid. You're not happy with the team, so Holland is your scapegoat. Clearly, nothing he could do will ever be enough for you. Even if he wins another Cup I'm sure you'll just give credit to everyone else.