kipwinger

Way more? Didn't Gost get traded last season for a 3rd?

Cheap option to do what? The job Shayne Gostisbehere is already doing perfectly well? We need guys than can defend.

The same articles states that Dubas has made clear he wants "premium prospects" (rather than picks) in any trades. LOL I bet he does. Dubas: Hello fellow GMs, just letting you all know the Pittsburgh Penguins are open for business and ready to make the most of the trade deadline. Just a reminder, I'm only really interested in the best prospects you have in your farm systems. GMs: Okaaaay, well what do YOU have to trade. Dubas: Well I've got injured forty goal scorer Jake Guentzel on an expiring contract. GMs: ....crickets... Dubas: Oh...um...not your flavor huh? You'd prefer someone with term eh? How about 33 year old former All-star Erik Karlsson? He's got term. Three more seasons...cough...at $11.5 million dollars...cough cough. GMs:.... Dubas: Alright, no takers eh? Well surely you'd be willing to trade your premium prospects for Marcus Pettersson right? He's young, has term and a manageable cap hit, and he on pace to have a career best season with 30...uhhhh...30 points. Definitely worth one of your top guys no? GMs: Look, I could use a little scoring and I'm feeling charitable. What would you take for Rust. I mean, he's injured and under contract until he's 40, but I'd like to win a Cup this year. Dubas: He's not for sale. GMs:...

I don't see how Dubas could trade him without A) retaining significant salary, or B) sweetening the pot with picks. His contract is horrendous.

What an iconoclastic post. You're so edgy.

Sounds like a winner. The only change I'd make on defense is bringing in a physical RHD that can play (and not get scored on much) in the Top 4 to pair with Chiarot. I don't really care who it is (provided they're not on a prohibitive contract).

Not sure if other people have mentioned this, but the Athletic is reporting that the Red Wings have shown "the most interest" in Pittsburgh's Bryan Rust. Not really sure about the fit here. He's a good player, but he's a small, right shooting, 31 years old winger who's under contract for 4 more seasons at 5.1 million AAV.

What a shock!!! A white, cis gendered, conservative "man" dictating other people's sexuality to them. Color me surprised.

I'm unfamiliar with many of the depth players on West Coast teams. What's him game like? So you're saying that Ken Holland's big deadline additions of Eric Cole and Marek Zidlicky didn't do it for you? Hard to imagine why that deadline would leave a bad taste in your mouth lol

Whatever man. I have nightmares about missing out on Owen Power every single night. Just imagine how different our fortunes would be if we'd gotten some lottery luck that year and could have drafted a skilled, smooth skating, 6'6 220 lbs, left shot defenseman instead of Simon Edvinsson? The lottery destroyed our rebuild before it started.

Gross. Pass. 99% of the dudes in the country are shaped like Mr. Potato head. Fat bellies, skinny little arms and legs, male pattern baldness from low testosterone levels (no doubt linked to all the beer drinking and sugar). American men are mostly sacks of sh*t. Give me a femboy any day.

Can't win without superstars bro. We need to tank every year until we get the honor of drafting Alexis Lafreniere. Only then we be ready to compete.

For real? Hot.

And I was probably more pessimistic about Hughes than he deserved. But more broadly I just don’t like the way guys like the Hughes brothers, Matthews, Nylander, or Zegras play the game. Firstly because their unearned arrogance is unbelievable. Secondly because none of those guys have won anything in the playoffs. Just the other night Jack was chirping some dude talking about “people pay to see me play” like the point of the game is to be popular. Then a few nights later Gudas takes it easy on him when he’s skating in no-man’s land and the rest of the night Jack plays like he’s afraid to touch the puck. He wants to be a star but he doesn’t want to win. That type player drives me insane. If you’re not willing to take, or give, a beating to win the Cup I don’t want you on my team no matter what your rating is on NHL 24. This season really changed the way I view team building. We took a quantum leap forward just by targeting guys who give a sh*t.

I'm nothing if not self indulgent.

A few of you smart dudes nailed it IMO. Here's what I'm thinking. You know how Usain Bolt looks like he's blowing everyone away when he runs? But the reality is that he's only a fraction of a second faster? That's because he's faster in relative terms but not absolute terms right? The guys he's smoking to the finish line are the ten fastest dudes on earth. And in a straight up, simple, competition (like track) he's faster and that's all that matters. But if they were all sprinting to put out a fire, or grab a baby that crawled onto a roadway, the difference in their times of arrival are infinitesimal. The perceived difference is huge, the practical difference is tiny. Another way of thinking about it is this. If one guy scores goals at a rate of 1 per game, and another guy scores goals at 1.25 goals per game, the second guy is better than the first guy by a lot in relative terms. But in absolute terms that difference is negligible. They're both really really good as scoring goals. What's more, if you need one goal to win a game in overtime they're both more or less equally likely since there's no such thing as fractional goals. It would take four games for the .25 advantage to come into play mathematically. Nick Lidstrom was much better than anyone else in relative terms, but not absolute terms. The difference between him and Scott Neidermayer or Sergei Zubov wasn't REALLY that big. Everyone we played against and lost to (in the playoffs) during our dynasty years was really really good too. Maybe not Lidstrom good, but good enough to win a complex competition from time to time. That was true even though the Red Wings had a number of such players on the team. So even with five or six such talents on a team we lost more than we won (not games, championships). But what if you could only have one or two guys like that on a team. Would there be much advantage at all? Is Auston Matthews' 1.34 points per game this year is way more impressive than Elias Petterson's 1.2 points per game in relative terms but almost imperceptible in any given game? Especially when one of those guys makes 5 million dollars more than the other. Next season Petterson will make 11 million and a year after that Matthews will probably make 15 million. Is the juice worth the squeeze? Like, obviously Matthews is a much better goal scorer in relative terms. But basically it's like the difference between getting a 99% or 100% in a test in grade school. The difference in reality is nothing.

Another strong night last night from Kasper, Mazur, and Berggren. I genuinely think Berggren has taken his game to a whole new level this year in GR. He might not be happy about playing down there, but he may end up better for it. He's making plays all over the ice; offense, defense, goals, assists, you name it. To me he looks like the most complete forward in the AHL. If SY does decide to stand pat at the deadline and this guy takes Sprong or Perron's place next season I'm not too mad about it.

Do any fans actually care about original six matchups or is it just a marketing thing?

Gearing up to watch the Rangers and Toronto. Hoping for a Rempe v. Reeves tilt tonight.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Finnie is as good as Danielson. I'm saying that if the idea is that Danielson's offense is better than it looks because he's on a bad team then maybe Finnie's offense is better than it looks (even though it looks pretty decent) because he's on a worse team

The next time we play these guys I'd dress Kostin and start every guy on the team that can fight. This makes me crazy. Florida does this every single game they play and our guys are getting roughing penalties. How? If you're going to get penalized anyway just line brawl off the opening faceoff and let them play the rest of the game without a couple of their pests.

Yeah, but probably not for the reasons you're thinking. I don't think our goalie is the problem today.

Woof, what a frustrating game.

Buchnevich/Vatrano and Gudas. I don't think you target rentals unless you're ready, but why not trade for players with term? How's that different than trading for someone in the offseason like we did with Debrincat?

This game makes me crazy. You cannot miss on four prime scoring opportunities against a good team. If any one of those goes in and this is an entirely different game. It's not like we aren't hanging on to pucks and making plays, we're just not finishing.