Buppy

Legwand got demoted when the team got healthy. Weiss lately is almost the exact opposite. Most likely Babs just wants some size out there with Gus and Pulkkinen, but who knows.

I wonder if something may have gone down recently with Weiss. It's one thing to give Andy preference while Helm was out, but with Datsyuk out it's just odd, even for how little Babs has used Weiss.

The team situation is different. Flip and Huds basically both left for a better opportunity, but by the time Gus and Tatar are UFA eligible, they will likely be the offensive leaders. Doesn't guarantee they'll stay of course, or that we'll even want them to, but we should be in a position to offer as much money and time as any other team.

He might be qualified to get a job at Hockeytown Authentics someday. As close as he'll ever get.

At the time of the trade, I thought there was next to no chance of Zidlicky coming back, but not so sure now. He provides an element that Ouellet and Marchenko do not. I think if he maintains close to current level of play for the rest of the year we will try to bring him back, even if it means keeping both kids in GR. We could also go after Green or Franson, and hope Zid would still be available if we miss out, but I do think he would get preference over the kids. I don't think keeping one of the the kids as the #7 is totally out of the question. Not a 7 in the sense of Lashoff/Kindl this year, but a 7 we actually like in the lineup. Someone to push Smith, provide rest for Zid if he comes back, even maybe challenge E or Q. Plus we could always send him down during the season if he wasn't getting in enough.

I don't think Babs has any "plan" for Weiss, nor do I think he is concerned with our ability to trade him. That's Holland's problem. But I don't think it would be that hard to trade him if we really want. Worst case we'd have to retain some salary. But he is scoring at close to a 40p pace despite his limited role, so we may not even need that. We wouldn't get much for him of course, but I think all we'd really want is the roster spot and some cap relief.

In the off-the-wall notion category, I've been pondering the idea of switching Smith to forward. I think he has the right skillset to be a very good 4th-line grinder. Skates well, good size for a forward, can be physical, should have solid defensive acumen, plus some offensive ability. Plus having someone who could play both forward and defense is great for depth. Of course, I have no idea how he would adapt to the position, nor do I think there's any real possibility of it happening, but fun to think about regardless.

The home team should get to pick the skill competition they want: Shootout, Fastest skater, Puck handling, Hardest shot, or Shot accuracy. If tied after 3 rounds, game decided by sudden-death fight.

Pulkkinen is out of waiver exemptions after this year, so the chances of him starting in GR is whatever the chance is of all 30 NHL GMs going insane by next October.

It's only a few shifts per game. 1:40/game of PK time if you spread it out over the full 68 games. And that doesn't necessarily have to come out of Helm's ES time. Jurco's only getting about 10.5 at ES now, and he's already lost the PP time he had been getting. Hasn't even hit 8 minutes in his last 3 games. With both Helm and Cole in the lineup, one of them has to get less time anyway (at least once Datsyuk is back). If it's Helm, he should have plenty of energy to pick up Andy's PK time. If Andy stays in, he probably takes Sheahan/Abby off the PK, but I don't think it would necessarily translate to extra ES time for them. Having Jurco's speed, physical play, and offensive potential I think outweighs the defense from Andy. Plus I think Jurco still has the potential to be a real part of our future, whereas I don't see Andy ever being more than 12/13th forward. And I want to see Sheahan continue to develop his defense/PK skills. So there's some future dividends to be had as well.

Could be, though I think Cole is experienced enough to handle it. But I see Cole, Abby, and Helm as being pretty interchangeable. My thought was to have Helm on the 3rd line to save energy for a larger PK role, but if Cole were to struggle with Datsyuk, they could be swapped. Hank and Abby have been good together so I wouldn't want to split them atm. With Datsyuk out: Nyquist-Zetterberg-Abby Tatar-Sheahan-Cole Helm-Weiss-Pulkkinen Miller-Glendening-Jurco Wow. That seems so much worse, and I still kinda like Weiss...

I think Jurco fits just fine on the 4th line. He's faster and more physical than Andersson, and I don't think the drop-off defensively is that drastic. With Helm in the lineup, we don't need Andy to kill penalties. Tatar-Datsyuk-Cole Nyquist-Zetterberg-Abby Helm-Sheahan-Pulkkinen Miller-Glendening-Jurco

Exactly. Would be unfair to the rest of the league. Probably lead to a worldwide shortage of goal netting, he'd wear them out so fast. Then you'd have spoiled Canadian kids stealing mosquito nets from Unicef, and frankly those kids in the Congo have enough problems. #thinkofthechildren

But people don't hate Datsyuk or Babcock, so that kind of debunks the "people just speculating about Franzen out of disdain" theory. If your whole point was just that people on an internet message board are prone to unsubstantiated conjecture, well...water is wet too. Fact is, none of that speculation is entirely baseless, nor did anyone say Franzen was done for certain. His career is in jeopardy. How much is open to debate. Maybe not enough to be worth discussing, but then again "worth discussing" is also open to debate. None of us have enough information to accurately calculate the risk. For that matter, not even noted concussion experts have enough information to say when, or even for sure if, he'll get better. I read one report that said as many as 32% of PCS sufferers still had symptoms a year or more after the injury. If he had to sit out a year, at his age, would he still be able to, or even want to, come back? Who can say. What we can say is that there is some risk. For me, some is enough to be worth talking about.

The odds are heavily in favor of not dying on the first shot in russian roulette too, doubt that would stop you from speculating... There isn't going to be any report because there isn't any way to tell how long symptoms will last. It's not like a broken bone that you can look at to tell if it's healing. Nor is there currently much concrete data on the condition. Symptoms can clear up in a couple months, but sometimes last years. No one needs a report to know that PCS can be career threatening; it's common knowledge. Sure, some opinions are likely skewed by their dislike of Franzen and/or the high-profile nature of concussions. But if that's all it was, I'd think there would have been a lot more speculation last year. People hated Franzen then too.

Game and a half before Hank got hurt. And he had 6 shots. His gpg is the same as Helm and Franzen, not too far under Zetterberg, better than Weiss, Sheahan, or Glendening. G/60 better than Abdelkader. His fancy stats (however little they may be worth) are among the best in the league. His 82 game pace is 17-18g right now. Tatar had 4g in his first 14 games this year. 2g in his first 14 last year. Nyquist had 4g in his first 14 last year. Helm had 0g his first 14. Abby had 5g. Glendening had 1g. Zetterberg had 4. Cole had 4. He's probably not ready to handle top 6 competition (especially on the defense side), but he is not underperforming.

You're still glossing over a few key elements. One: Few players play at Franzen's age or older. 41 skaters his age or older, 106 who will be 33 or older by the end of this year. 6-15% of the 690 regular skater spots. Two: He's suffering from post concussion syndrome, which is different from a concussion. I couldn't find any real stats, but I've seen a range from 15-50% of concussions lead to PCS. Three: It's a repeat of the same injury from last year. Again, no good stats, but most reports say that the likelihood and severity of PCS increases with repeated injuries. So say your 1000 concussions is right, and let's say 20% hit guys in that age range, and 50% of those result in PCS, and 50% of those are repeats... Now you're down to 50 similar cases. so even just a few of those being career ending is pretty significant, and cause for concern.

There wasn't much in the way of speculation about Franzen last season either. But when you consider that he has now missed 2 months, 2 years in a row with the same serious injury and he's at an age when many players are looking at retirement anyway, and the lack of any updates we were getting on his progress... The concern and speculation are warranted. The fact that some people are likely speculating with a smile on their face doesn't change that.

How many of them in their mid-30s, with post concussion syndrome causing them to miss ~4 months in a little over a year? But you do have a point. The perceived threat to his career is probably inflated due to some high visibility cases.

Not one report suggested Savard's or Pronger's careers were in jeopardy. Not in the first couple months anyway. Concussions can be career threatening, even more so with multiple concussions in a relatively short time. Of course it's speculation, but it's very reasonable speculation.

I think if Zetterberg had been out a month with a recurrence of his back issue from last season, and there had been no news on how, or even if, he was recovering, there would have been plenty of speculation. It's not like it was just random speculation. Concussions have been a big topic in recent years, and now we have a player who's had two serious ones in the last two seasons with very little recent info about any progress. Concern over and speculation about his future is entirely justified. And I'm one of the bigger Franzen defenders around here. And while it's nice to see him skating, he's not back yet. Remember when he came back for a game last season?

Ah, multiple seasons. Makes sense now. And yeah, the zone start difference is small, but still...when the fancy stats say that Kindl is a top 4/borderline top pair while Ryan Suter is bottom pair/borderline top 4, you have to think something is off somewhere.

Where'd these graphs come from and what exactly are they showing? They don't seem to jive really with what I've seen. While Smith's fancy stats are a little better than Quincey's, it's not by a whole lot. Points/60 are worse, which is contrary to your graph. Also, the fancy stats would suggest that Kindl is our best defenseman, so I think there's still some work to do on properly adjusting them for zone starts and quality of competition...

The coach has Abby and Helm in the top 6. Like it not, it works fairly well. That 4th line doesn't have the "poor linemates" problem you mention, and while the limited minutes would lower productivity it wouldn't reduce it to zero. Whether they'd be tough enough to fight through a physical defense is another question, but they're going to have to learn to do that no matter where they're playing in the lineup. I'm not really advocating those lines, as I think it's too much defensive responsibility to put on Pav and Hank. Just pointing out that we have the skill players to do it.

Tatar - Datsyuk - Helm Cole - Zetterberg - Abdelkader Franzen - Sheahan - Nyquist Jurco - Weiss - Pulkkinen Would mean some PK responsibility for Pav and Hank, but 4 scoring lines is not entirely unrealistic.