PavelValerievichDatsyuk

Cookies seldom lead me astray. We do need a substitute butt pater around here.

Just ate a fortune cookie and the paper inside says my lucky numbers 3, 35, and 39 so I'm calling goals for Jensen and Mantha.

Yeah, just for further proof: since he's been on the PP regularly, he's been among our top PP goal scorers 16-17: tied for most PP goals (5), 15-16: 4th behind Tats, Ny, and Dats (6) 14-15: tied for 3rd with Dats behind Ny and Tat (8) (hockey-reference.com) I'm sure plenty of these were dirty goals where he's getting rebounds. Maybe he gets pushed off the PP when new prospects come into the picture, but there's a reason he's on there.

Arizona has only won 1 of 12. This should be very winnable. Hope the Wings don't spoop the bed.

He had 4 goals in 5 preseason games - most of any Red wing player or prospect. That is something to be positive about. He had a strong preseason - not just in 1 game. Hopefully his production in the WHL picks up even more as the season goes on. He was still dealing with rehab-ing the broken wrist at the beginning of the season. Side note: Cholowski is outscoring him. It's great to see his production. I was really impressed by him in camp and wondered why his game didn't translate to higher production with St. Cloud last year. Good to see a high scoring D man in the system.

It's not just a Red Wing technique, though. It's pretty much conventional wisdom - take away the goalie's vision. Whether it's 1-3-1 or 1-2-2, the basic PP setups include that 1 guy at the top of the crease. Simmonds, does it for Philly, Chara does it Boston (or did it? haven't watched them in a while). Maybe when/if Rasmussen comes along we'll have a more skilled guy to play that role, but with who we have Abby is a good option for one of the PP units.

Yes, but when picking fruit in Munchkin land, you still need to use the guys that seem to be able to reach. For the PP, he's the netfront guy. And he's probably our most effective at that. Mantha can do that job as well, but we need 2 - one for each PP group. Only other real option we have of a guy that would be a good screen, tipper, and can stand his ground in netfront battles would be Ericcsson maybe? Don't think many would want to try that. Despite his height, he would probably be the smallest in Munchkin land.

Abdelkader was tied for the most PP goals on the team last year (5). This year he has 1 which is also tied for most on the team. He works as the net front presence. https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/DET/2017.html

You don't mess with Mantha!!

I know! you honestly beat me to it by a couple hours i think

Loving Helm and Nielsen as a PK duo - creating pressure and SH chances.

SWeeet!

I've been really impressed by Sergacchev in everything I've seen of him. To me, The Canadiens lost the trade for Drouin.

Larkin with Mantha and Nyquist - that could be a good line. Like seeing Mantha back with Larkin.

Not to take away from Z being a bad azz, but I think he did miss more than 8 weeks. As I remember it, he missed the entire 2nd half of the season when he had back surgery, but did come back for a couple playoff games. That would have been olympic break to playoffs which I think is 2 and a half months maybe 3 months? That's kind of why I thought a mere human like Parise will take longer. But who knows his surgery might be different.

Saw this and wondered about picking him up. He's signed for 2 years so I don't right for our situation and wouldn't give anything (except certain players we want to shed). Especially since he's unknown as to how he'll fare in the NHL. Was thinking Minny might be interested with all their injuries and Parise looking questionable for a good while. Don't know who they could trade, though. Bergevin already said they aren't interested so Montreal fans are upset (though you can replace the first half of that sentence to anything and it would pretty much be true, haha) Edit: just saw that Parise actually had back surgery and is out 6-8 weeks (that sounds like a conservative guess to me). all the more reason for them to look for some help.

But, good sir, are you going to stand there and defend the Hawaiian pizza? And the Chicago deep dish? I say enough of this reckless individualism. Now, Fries with gravy and cheese curds - that's just new world ingenuity, though. P.S. nothing beats floppy New York style slice for me, though. so I guess I'm a traitor. Also, never like the so called Canadian (bacon, mushrooms, ham)

Oops, obviously I know very little about Slovakia. I just looked it up out of curiosity about where Jurco was from. Wikipedia called it "the economic and cultural hub of Eastern Slovakia" and says it's the 2nd largest city in Slovakia... largest slovak heritage center...3 universities, international airport...etc. so made it sound like more of a modern urban center. I guess I didn't look at the population either since I thought it was bigger. The closest I've been to is Krakow. From trips to visit my brother when he was living outside Warsaw, he took me around some of Poland and some of the Czech Republic. I do know a lot of outside urban centers there was pretty ugly with all the communist era buildings and definitely rough parts. But the pictures reminded me a bit of some of the best spots on those trips. But I shouldn't have guess beyond borders or about a country I've never visited.

Saw this article a couple days ago and liked this part: "Some scouts consider 2018 to be the best collection of talent since the turn of the century. Many still feel that title belongs to 2003, but 2015 is sure to challenge over time." https://thehockeywriters.com/2018-nhl-draft-fishers-top-93-preseason-rankings/ Could be a big opportunity To pick up some important players not only with the 1st round pick, but also with our 2 2nd rounders if they're putting this draft in the same league as 2003, which had Bergeron, Shea Weber, Eriksson, Crawford, Backes, Howard all in the 2nd round. I don't really know the players enough yet to know who I'd draft. I will say that Joe Veleno gets a lot of hype around here since he's from Montreal and he's the first Quebec player to get exceptional status by the CHL to play at the age of 15. The only other forwards that have made the CHL at 15 are McDavid and Tavares.

Since leaving, he's played for Nashville and the Stars on teams that missed the playoffs 3 out of those 4 years. If he left a sinking ship, the life boat was already under water. He did end up in a good situation with the Ducks, though. This sounds scary. Hopefully he's alright. He has taken a lot of setbacks through his career and it's a credit to him that he's kept going and even improved through it so that last year was his best. Just look at the GP throughout his career: half years are more common than full years and only 5 out 12 years has he played more than 60 games.

And the goalie war has begun for the year! Career numbers: Jimmy: SV%: .916 GAA: 2.44 Mraz: SV%: .913 GAA: 2.58 Very similar To me, they've both looked good this year. Howard has had the much better "on" games, but also the bigger "off" games. If he shakes off the past 2 rough games then he's undoubtably winning the battle for #1. We'll see. Mrazek has continued with being pretty solid (improved to me) but still has one head-scratcher goal per game it seems. When the game is under-pressure he seems to revert to sprawling Petr and takes himself out of the net or just checks out for a minute for a fluke goal. Hope he figures that out.

Maybe some context on his comments about Detroit, I see his hometown is Kosice, which kind of looks like a paradise of Old Europe to me. So maybe any city would be a step down. Wonder what the next stop will be for Jurco.

Everybody sing it with me: Oh, Dahlin...

I watched that Mindhunter show. It was quite good. Another recommendation I'd give is Gunpowder. Just watched the first episode. It's Jon Snow taking on the 17th Century British Empire.

For all the flack Dekeyser gets, he's pretty important to us and I think the D looks quite a bit worse without him. Or maybe it's just that the D is so weak that any hit by injury and it pushes us over the edge