kipwinger

Probably has PTSD from the beating Brandon Dubinsky gave him in Round 1.

Hmmm, this pretty much sums up exactly how I feel right now...

Point taken, but surely you'd agree that Bowman's team full of veteran Hall of Famers was FAR less likely to be distracted by anything at all than Babcock's team full of rookies, no? The fact that it didn't have a negative impact in one instance says very little about whether it will in the other.

You mean like Mike Illitch does?

Well it's certainly hard to disagree with that.

It's not a personal dig at you buddy. I'm more interested in how you come up with your opinion rather than what the conclusion is. You've said you think he's immature (which is your opinion) because he "takes stupid penalties and the like". I'm going to ignore the "...and the like" part because I don't know what that means. But he's only got 81 penalty minutes (ranked 57th in the league). Surely you don't think all 56 guys ahead of him are MORE immature, so it must be the type of penalty he's taking. But then I'm confused because he's got one fighting major (which I know you're ok with based on your previous post history) and zero misconducts, game misconducts, or match penalties (the categories typically associated with dirty stuff). So you can't really think he's immature because he takes dirty penalties either. So the only option left is that he's immature because he simply takes too many MINOR penalties. But when you compare his number of minors to other guys near him you find that he's in the same range (my idea of range is plus or minus five minor penalties/one fighting major) as guys like Backes, Landeskog, E. Staal, Chris Kunitz, Bfuglien, Doughty, Upshall, Hanzel, and Neill. Now chances are you don't love all those players, but I have a hard time believing you'd consider all of them immature based on their minor penalty totals.

Good point, and Buffalo is hardly competitive on a year to year basis as well.

Tatar currently murdering Spezza in play of the year voting.

Like what? So far as I know he's got fewer "maturity" issues than half our current team (Sheahan = Drunk, Smith = Fake ID to Sheahan, Tatar = Drunk AND Evicted). PK doesn't have maturity issues, he's just talks s*** on the ice. And really if we're going to hold "chirping" against hockey players we've got to throw an awful lot more than PK on the sacrificial alter.

Even with revenue sharing, small market teams aren't spending to the cap AND more importantly, they're not winning anything much. Last small market team to win the Cup was who? Carolina? A relocated team? Hardly an argument for some sort of equal playing field. The cap was supposed to fix all that and make smaller teams more competitive BUT it loses it's effectiveness if you raise it by 5 million every year.

Does that surprise you even a little bit?

God I hope Subban has the game winning goal as well. Between all the stupid racist crap to begin with and then Thornton "getting caught up in the moment", I feel like Subban winning game 7 for Montreal would be the ultimate insult to injury.

Just what the NHL needs, more small market teams. Everybody wants to harken back to the good old days and point to southern expansion/relocation as this huge failure, but it's totally off base. Hartford, Quebec City, Winnepeg, and Minnesota (North Stars) had exactly ZERO Cups between them. Carolina, Colorado, Dallas, and Phoenix have exactly four Cups between them. Small market teams can't spend the money it takes too be competitive, and if you don't spend you don't win, and if you don't win people stop coming to games. It's that simple. Just move struggling franchises to Seattle and/or Milwaukee and be done with it already.

Montreal skated and checked their way to a win last night. They got to every single loose puck. If they bring their legs in game 7, they're going to be hard to beat. Oh, and Max Pacioretty is awesome.

I totally agree, but when you hear KH talk about "not wanting to be a developmental team for league management" you've got to think there's more to it than just wanting to wait until after the rebuild. Then again, that's speculation, so what do I know? My whole point was just to say that if Babs getting extended was a done deal from both sides, then why isn't it a done deal?

Awesome, that's almost as bad as when Mickey tries to say T.J. Galiardi's last name. "That's a real nice hit by Googlimoogli, who's always a ball of energy playing for his hometown Calgary Flames".

At the trade deadline there was much talk of it. Supposedly he had a list of places he'd accept a trade to, and Detroit was on that list, with Pittsburgh and Anahiem purportedly offering the best packages. Here's at least one reputable source, but there were others at the time...http://www.cbc.ca/sports-content/hockey/opinion/2014/03/30-thoughts-canucks-brass-must-resist-panic.html? Edit: And another: http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=445193

Totally agree. It will be a distraction. But if he's not re-signed the culpable party is the more interesting point of information. If he's offered a contract but doesn't balks at negotiating, then you know Babs wants out. If he's not offered anything, you know Holland is hedging his bets...likely becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in itself.

For those in favor of trading for Spezza, can I ask why you'd rather have him than Kesler? I'll give you a quick rundown of why Kesler makes WAY more sense than Spezza. 1. He plays the wing as well as he plays center 2. He's faster and more physical. 3. He's demanded a trade, so chances are MUCH higher that he moves. Spezza is purely speculation. 4. He's cheaper. 5. He's already said he'd wave his NTC to come here. 6. It would take fewer assets to get him because he's demanding a trade. 7. He's under contract longer than Spezza. 8. He's better defensively. 9. He's younger. I wanted to come up with another reason to make it an even ten, but I couldn't. Still, it makes WAY more sense to go after Kesler IF you're going to trade for a forward. But if you do that you HAVE to sign your top four defenseman or promote from within. Can't trade for both a top four dman and top six forward...even with our deep talent pool that's too big of a blow. One or the other but not both. Edit: Ha ha! Reason 10.) Ottawa likely doesn't want to deal a star player to a division rival. Kesler would be moving from one conference to another.

I don't really have any interest in bashing or defending Babs as a coach. My feelings on the topic are well known. My point was to suggest that it's entirely possible that Babs doesn't return next year, not because he chooses to walk away, but rather because the organization doesn't want him back. Any professional sport is a "what have you done for me lately" sort of business. And our team isn't competing for Cups. So far its been easy enough to blame injuries and roster turnover for our fall from Cup contention. But if the team struggles to make the playoffs or loses badly before the conference finals next year, and we stay largely healthy, I don't think it's unrealistic to imagine organization going in a different direction. You've got to figure they're not hanging onto Blashill just for the hell of it.

I get it. I'd just rather spend the money/assets on a top line winger. I feel comfortable going into the season with Dats, Weiss, Sheahan, Helm, and Glendening. Bringing on another center just bumps everyone down a notch and moves one of Helm or Sheahan onto a wing...when we could/should have just acquired a wing to begin with.

No thanks, we don't need another center, we've got about 200 of them as it stands, and unlike Nyquist, Franzen, Abby, etc. etc., Spezza has never played on the wing as a professional. I'd rather not give Babs another guy to stick in an unnatural position on a line that doesn't matter.

Maybe Pittsburgh can trade Letang for Phaneuf straight up and then each team can gauge (first hand) how stupid the other's signing was. Just a thought.

Is it really so hard to believe that Babs could be gone at the end of this year? I mean, regardless of who you blame, he hasn't made it past the second round since 2009. If the Wings totally s*** the bed in the playoffs next year wouldn't you be tempted to let Babs walk and bring in your superstar AHL coach if you were Holland? Everyone keeps looking at this like it's Babs' decision and he wants to stay, but maybe it isn't. Maybe the organization isn't too thrilled with being bounced early and might want to go a different direction. Lord knows the coach always gets the axe before the GM. Maybe they're waiting to see what he can do with a (hopefully) healthy roster next year before deciding to commit to him.

You don't think Blash has the requisite level of astuteness to ride Nyquist into the playoffs, then change up all the lines and render his offense without teeth, and then lose in five games? I hope you're right.