kipwinger

Obviously Lucic would be him in a fight, but I don't think Subban would be afraid to go with him at all. Subban is a really strong dude.

Did he really back down from Subban? That would be soooo ******* sweet.

Knock over some cars and drag a pretty blonde girl to the top of the Empire State Building?

I'd take Van Riemsdyk just for the connection to his brother. Then maybe Detroit will get in on all those "went to City X to play with so and so" trades and free agent signings.

Nobody is going to get another team's top prospect for a cast away player on an expiring contract. But they'd be dumb not to ask. Mantha is fine. I've always hated when Khan or St. James says "the asking price was Mantha" and that's why nothing got done. Bulls***. That's what negotiating is. Starting at the extreme and working in from there.

I'm pretty sure he was saying he would take Bogo as long as it was without 1st, Mantha, or Larkin.

Be careful giving Bogo "30ish" point status. He's only done it once, and has only really come close one other time. Every other season he's been injury prone and abysmal at putting up points. We have this tendency to assume that other players will produce more after they come here, which doesn't hold water. They might, or their production might stay as it was. But there's always the Quincey example. You might get quite a lot less out of him than you'd think. Maybe. Or maybe they'd be like Quincey. I agree, that's a big gamble to take when a team is asking for those kinds of prices.

Agreed. He's consistently come up short given all the hype. I'd place him squarely in the Tyler Myers camp. Big, plays lots of minutes, but doesn't really do anything great with them.

Saying teams don't have scoring g depth like they did in the past is not evidence that putting grinders in the top six works. Especially considering our scorers aren't that good compared to the other quality teams in the league. We already don't have top flight scorers and now we are taking g up top six spots on guys who have no offense. The result? Our team struggles to score and you guys come on lgw and say its working. It isn't. That's why we lose against good teams. The defense and jimmy keep it close and the offense can't finish. But it works right?

Did he say that or did you?

Because he made that exact comparison originally. I was responding to his comparison.

How's it valid? Back then you could get away with a grinder in the top six because the other four or five guys produced more than enough offense. That's not a case on today's team. We need all of our top six players to contribute because we are offensively anemic. By the way, if its such a good idea why isn't it working? Neither helm or Abby have ever replicated the numbers that "grinders" like McCarty, lapointe, or brown did.

Lol. I'm acting like its the same league huh? Aren't you the one justifying something Babs is doing by saying "Bowman did it" too? Lets find out. You originally said, "For those lamenting Helm and Abdelkader on scoring lines, was Bowman an idiot for playing McCarty, Brown, and Lapointe on scoring lines?", And now you're saying it's a different league. I agree. Which is why having offensively talentless grinders on your scoring lines is a bad idea. The very point I was making originally. Bowman could do it because he didn't just have scorers, he had hall of fame scorers. Babs can't do it, because his best scorer is Franzen (or Nyquist). It's not the same league, so justifying Babs' lines because "Bowman did it", is a worthless, intellectually flimsy argument. As you yourself seem to agree with when you say things like "stop acting like this is the same league".

He had a couple of hall of famers on each scoring line too. You didn't need offense out of the grinder. We need the offense now. You could afford to use a spot on a grinder when your other top sixers where going to grab 30-50 goals a piece. We haven't had a thirty goal scorer in years. I'm not sure why you think it will work now, just because it worked then?

Yeah, that's the thing I don't get. I mean, the coaching staff must have a strategy for the shootout, but if they do I simple can't figure out what it is. Tatar didn't shoot in the first two shootouts despite leading the team in shootout goals a year ago, but he was back in last night. Nestrasil shot early in the season (presumably based on some reason), and last night Helm shot (again, hopefully for a specific reason). The only consistency has been Nyquist. I haven't seen any of these guys doing their thing in practice, so I don't really know. But I think I'd identify the two or three guys with the best dekes (probably Dats, Nyquist, and Tatar but who knows, maybe it's Jurco, Nestrasil, or Helm) and those would be my three guys. But I'd probably also have one or two "situational" type guys who can do something different. For instance, last night it was obvious that Bishop was vulnerable glove side high. While I normally wouldn't let Franzen shoot in the shootout (because he can't deke) he might have been a good choice as a "situational" guy because he's got a sneaky fast wrister that he can place glove side high with accuracy.

A couple of them did at lower levels. Both Tatar and Jurco were pretty awesome in shootouts. I don't know if NHL goalies are just that much better (which is at least partially true) or they don't emphasize it enough as a team (which seems to be the case as well). But even our good shooters have gone cold, which makes me think they just never spend time on it. Prior to last year Datsyuk and Bert were lights out in the shootout, and each fell off a cliff last season.

I wonder if there wouldn't be extra incentive for guys to work on shootout moves if you had three or four dedicated shooters and those guys knew that if the game went to a shootout that part of their "role" was to score. No different than a PKer, grinder, etc. I know this is an overly simple example, but look at Oshie in St. Louis. That guy knows that no matter what, if his team goes to a shootout, he's going to shoot every single time. As a result, I'd be really surprised to learn that he doesn't work on that just like he works on other parts of his game.

Dude, the comment about Granato running practice and therefore focusing on the shootout was a joke. I'm actually not "bashing" Babs on this one. I feel like it's pretty straight forward. His team is losing valuable points. He needs to fix it. It's his responsibility. I find it troubling that the guy can say "Obviously, that's something I don't spend a whole lot of time on" about a part of the game that's costing him points. I'm not really sure how I'm bashing him by expecting him to address something that was a HUGE problem a year ago before it was Brewer's job.

Well it would certainly help if the GM got some skilled players rather than stocking his entire team with two way forwards without much offensive talent. But it's not his job to coach the team. Anything happens in the 60 minutes between the opening faceoff and the final horn is on Babcock. If our penalty kill was struggling and Babs said "obviously, that's something I don't spend a whole lot of time on. That's why I got this great video guy named Andrew Brewer. He does all that work and comes out and tells me who to use", people would justifiably lose their minds. This is no different. If he's going to use a system meant to grind out low scoring games, as he's often stated, then he should probably take more of an interest in the shootout, considering his system increases the likelihood that he'll end up in one. Holland's responsible for the roster. Babcock for what happens on the ice.

Babs is taking a personal day today according to Malik. Granato is leading practice. Perhaps that explains it lol.

Who's fault was it when we were equally bad at shootouts a year ago? Babs is the head coach. Final responsibility falls on him, regardless of whether shootouts aren't "something he spends a whole lot of time on". Also, after leaving about 2,000 points on the table as a result of lost shootouts over the last two years, it might behoove Uncle Mike to be a little less cavalier about his disinterest in that part of the game. Seven points separated us from playing Tampa instead of Boston last year in the playoffs. We lost 9 shootouts (and a bunch of overtimes). I'd have been thrilled to play a Bishop-less Tampa while Montreal and Boston beat the hell out of each other for 7 games. Whether the purists like it or not, shootouts matter. I knew I wasn't crazy. But I cannot remember where the hell I read that.

I recall hearing at one point that Brendan Smith actually has pretty decent shootout moves. Maybe I'm just spacing, but I seem to remember that.

Valid point. Worst case scenario I see the Jarnkrok trade ending up like Tomas Fleischmann trade. He was a good prospect, is a good NHLer, and is someone who could have probably contributed over the years. Nevertheless, the trade didn't cripple us long term.

Is that what I said? I thought I was making a point about Ken Holland's overly heavy reliance on homegrown talent, and his stated preference for doing so. Maybe I wasn't clear about that. Or, you've yet again misrepresented something I've said in order to make a point of your own. Based on my original post, which do you think is more likely?

But how do you really feel?