Cali-Wing-Nut

For those thinking that my analagy may not be on track and said that any car with no wheels wont move is missing the point. Any time you get a flat you put on a spare. Some cars give you a full size that lets you motor on down the road just like before no ifs ands or buts. Other cars like my hi performance Euro car may only have a can of fix a flat. Sometimes all you did is pick up a nail and that will fix it fine, what do you do when you have a blow out? Instead of just grabbing a spare you are stuck, need a tow and have to wait for that super expensive sticky hi po tire gets in to the shop. So instead of planning for a foreseeable problem a decision was made to chance it in order to make the car lighter not having that extra weight along. Our top lines are similar to this. Lose one guy and you grab the tire goo. Lose 2 and its tow truck time for the team. I didnt mean anything regarding the economic side of it with bail outs and such. I could have made the same distinction between a Ford and a Ferrari and my point would still be made. When you have Nicky, D, Howie and Z in good working order there is precision and power that is rivaled by no one. Lose one and the team misfires lose 2 and you cant even keep moving down the road. Now I wont argue that our team has been assembled with skill and detail but when rubber hits the road you gotta be able to get from point A to point B on your own. I just feel that there is enough room for improvement that the team needs some more durable and interchangable parts. You lose a guy and he is easily replaced by someone else, cheaply and quickly. Losing a one off guy like Nicky is the lynch pin of our team. Although durable in his tenure, without him the team is completely incapable of winning games in a consistent manner. As it stands we have no way of replacing him once hes gone. If the thing wont run without it and a replacement isnt readily available you are stuck with a brick that isnt going to do much. The chemistry of the team is going to need to be completely changed in order to deal with him gone. A defensive structure that relies on multiple lesser players as opposed to a single aberration of talent like Nicky. In that way even with 2 guys missing the slack is picked up by similar type players. Why pick one guy that does 80% of the work and the other 5 do the other 20 when you can have 3 guys that do 70 percent with the other 3 taking up the balance? It seems to make more sense like that. Granted, nobody is complaining that we have Nicky now, its the withdrawals when he isnt here that is the real problem. I seriously think that surrounding Nick with warm bodies was more the goal than supporting him with above average yet not full blown superstars. The other issues I see with our team structure is that injury begets injury. One guy goes down and now other key players have to work harder to take up the slack. Its not the grunts its Pav and Howie ect. The added wear and tear doesnt leave them durable for very long. Soon enough you have them injured from too many minutes or killing them selves doing two guys jobs. Our injury situation is part bad luck and part the issue above. I believe that Jimmy and Joey are both injured for this reason. I am frustrated at the outlook right now but I dont think its going to improve with player turnover this Summer.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a website that has a list of UFAs for the summer? Kinda curious what is going to be available over the summer.

I cant believe one post from some hammered foreigner that cant type is now emblazoned on so many sigs lol. f***in classic. BTW I think Im now in the denial stage as Im not that upset about another horrific loss.

Look on the bright side, Holland Hit the Juck ******* Pott!

Guess I saw that coming

Your fav tough guy Dan Cleary lmao

Smith to Gritty !!!

Last time I checked Babs isnt trying to cheer us up or get US motivated. I dont think his motivational speeches are very PG. Hell he said that he doesnt want to be on 24/7 next year cause he doesnt want his kids to hear what he says. I believe something like, "Theres things said in the Locker room Id prefer werent repeated"/

You mean we actually got a goal? Wow now we will only lose by 2 lol

I miss winning a game

mind spell checking that? Whats the Juck ******* Pott lol

???? Mickey is the only source of optimism to be had in an otherwise horrible situation. He always says that theres light at the end of the tunnel, too bad its an oncoming freight train

Who? Mr Gritty?

game, set , match

Gritty like Binder paper Cleary equals..

This is flat out embarrassing.

To the best of my knowledge, in Cali, Guiness is something like 3.5%. I dont remember the particulars of the Guness offerings as there were many in England where I spent the majority of my time. I do know that 10 years ago when I was there, guiness was higher alchohol content than in Cali at the same time. By the time I came back I was a Newky convert and only drink Guiness or any stout for that matter on a rare basis know. Brown Ale and Porter is a better style IN MY OPINION. The flavor and body suit my tastes better. Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout is the only stout Ive tasted that has a clean finish and actually dissolves off the tongue. It is amazing that a hockey forum has got involved in a conversation about brew. I suppose they go hand in hand and Im also happy that there are folks here that enjoy beer beyond the guzzlers that just want to get drunk. To that end we still are but we want to get there a better way.

Hey now... well....Yes I am a beer snob lol At least I dont drink wine BTW Id throw in a few others if we could get them in the States like REAL Guiness. Guiness in the States is one of the lowest alchohol content beers available. Its like O'duols but black. Guiness is actually served COLD and Room temp with the Cold version being 10 degrees colder and sports a blue label with a hurricane logo (or at least it did). It was also 6% and actually got you buzzed. Not here I drank a lot of Euro brew on a 3 month long trip to Europe when I was 22 and formed my tastes around Irish, British, Belgium brews. Of all of them I was a bit turned off from German beer as they are old world recipes by law and dont have the taste I prefer. Its funny that beers I drank there are now becoming popular or advertised in the US now, ten years later.

Well... Pabst (yes its good thats why old and young enjoy it) Newcastle Anchor Steam Porter Stella Hoegaarden (a good Belgium White) I prefer Brown Ales, Lagers or Pilsners depending on my mood and the weather but I have a wide taste of beers. I live in an area that has many microbrews that nobody outside of a 300 mile radius would know of so I left those out, many may not even know what Anchor Steam is but I think they are a national brand now. Blue Moon was and is a corporate brewer brand to gain more market share. They figure some dont want to buy Budweiser because that is too Blue Collar but want the business so they offer trendy hipster brews. Sadly PBR is pretty hipster nowdays but that doesnt make it bad. Hell they are making the same way they have for decades. Oh and I didnt happen to see what the lines for refills at the "all you can drink" event but Im pretty certain you were filling up and getting back in line right after.

I totally agree and he is an asset to the team. He plays hard, hits hard and is skilled. I dont think anyone would say he would play over 15 mins on a healthy team next year though. We need a few younger (26-28 yr old) Dmen that have at least 5 years of NHL experience that can play the point. Smith will get there in a few years but we are going to have some serious holes next year. Unless the team concedes to rebuilding which is insane we need top flight guys over the summer.

Not that hard when your the only one being fed the puck. Im not just talking about Z during the last month, Im talking all year. He has something like 18 goals right? He should have at least 30 and youd expect him to have more than Mule. Look at Z prior to his contract and after, simple numbers and youll see the difference. 39, 33, 43 then 31, 23, 24. Hes on route to match his average over the last three years. Z is like the perfect woman and then you marry her and she gains 90 pounds, farts, burps and wears sweat pants to restaurants. Well maybe not that bad but when he signed for life he let himself go and thats a fact.

Holland better be on the look out for new and CAPABLE defenseman next year. Stuart is sandbagging or something, he skated away from the puck countless times this evening. He wasnt tired he doesnt care. s*** thing is its obvious that our prospects for D arent that developed. Smith is a small minutes guy still, Kindl isnt doing that hot (well when he was playing) and we are going to lose more of our guys than gain. I was seriously mistaken regarding White last summer but we need guys like him. Cleary is jacked with his weird abscess in his knee. I will assume thats affecting his game. Z and Franzen both look like guys that got big long term contracts as in they have no real reason to play hard. They already know theyre taken care of for the next decade so why beat yourself up trying? More or less we are a beat up and/or inexperienced team right now. We are the Oilers with the top two lines full of banged up veterans. Its not where we would want to be even in Armageddon mode. At least we can only do better, I mean you cant get any worse than losing like we are and a win is better than that right? Its only sunny skys and candy cane roads from here on out...

We dont have the lead. If we did youd be hearing quite a different tune. Sources: Listening to that POS pud whacker every Sharks game as I root for them to lose.

Helms out.

GO FLIP! oh and for those blessed with listening to Dickhead Drew got to listen to the normal BS about how there shouldve been a call on Detroit when they scored.