kipwinger

That's the problem, skill alone isn't enough to be effective in the NHL. Ville Leino has skill, so does Linus Omark, Fabian Brunnstrom, etc. The reason why these guys don't do well in the NHL is because they rely on skill only, and don't go to the right areas, aren't strong enough to protect the puck, have zero tenacity, etc. It's easy as hell to keep these guys to the outside and limit their chances to nothing. The difference between Tatar and Nyquist is evidence enough of this. One of them attacks the net aggressively and creates chances for himself in prime scoring areas, while the other dipsy doodles around pretending to be Datsyuk. Problem is, Datsyuk attacks (usually) and Nyquist seems to think he can just stickhandle around everybody. He can't.

Damn, I really liked the idea of landing this guy. He's a work horse who would look real good paired with our offensive d-men. Bummer.

I hear you, but given that we've been solidly in a playoff position for about two months I'm banking on us making it, and as such not getting the shot at the first pick. But you're right, there's no guarantee.

That's why I think we should trade our first rounder this year too. We got Dekeyser, and he's better than anyone we'd likely get with our pick, so put that bad boy in play and land a scoring winger.

We gave away a first, and we signed Brunner for nothing. We got a better player than we would have with that first rounder. It's really no big loss, unless you lament not having Brunner AND the pick, which is understandable but not that big of a deal in the scheme of things.

I just saw that Mikael Samuelsson got hurt again, so that's good.

Good use of "synergy". That is all.

I don't exactly know why Holland is so opposed to trading his first rounder. We signed Dekeyser, he's essentially a top ten pick. So if you moved our first rounder it's not like you didn't get a high caliber young guy this year. I wouldn't throw it away for nothing, but if I could use it to get Gaborik I'd do so in a second knowing that in spite of having no first rounder this year, we did acquire Gabby and Dekeyser instead. f*** that pick.

I disagree, I think Abby, Miller, Eaves, Emmy, and even Cleary all bust their asses. Unfortunately, they're all expected to fulfill roles on this team that their skill sets don't allow for. Cleary should be a third line winger, Abby a fourth line center, Miller and Eaves fourth line wingers, and Emmy as the 13 forward. Relying on anything more than that is going to get exposed pretty badly against teams with actual depth. We don't suck, but it's clear we don't have the personnel to compete against high end teams. I hope that gets remedied, but who knows.

Sure thing, but remember that Kenny said today that he didn't want to move his first round pick, so whoever he brings in is going to be a Samuelsson-esque "goal scorer" who can be had for peanuts. Which is sort of Kenny's MO these days.

Dear Ken Holland, Please do...anything? It should be pretty clear by this time that mediocre players with "heart" do not trump high end players with skill. Please understand that these guys don't grow on trees, so you're actually going to have to pay for them. I know that's a hard pill to swallow. I saw today that you don't want to trade for depth pieces, and apparently you're against moving your first rounder as well, so I'm not really sure how you plan to get the top four defenseman and top six forward you're pining for. Anyway, I've been told you're a genius so I'm sure you'll figure something out. Sincerely and Respectfully, Kip p.s. Pav, Hank, Kronwall, and Franzen aren't getting any younger, just in case you forgot.

I'm not sure he was better in the past as much as he played with someone who covered for him. Stuart didn't ever show up on the score sheet, but it should be glaringly obvious now what he brought to the table. Ladislav Smid would help if paired with Kronwall. Here's hoping he wants out of Edmonton.

I've seen the words "driving", "the", and "net" individually but I don't recall ever hearing them said in a row like that. What does it mean this "driving the net"?

Double Yikes!

Neither is Gaborik, here's hoping.

Yikes!

It was part of the new CBA. Here's a link. It's the second bullet point down. http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/id/21176/breaking-down-the-nhls-new-cba

Interesting... http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/376073-john-tortorella-marian-gaborik-shrug-off-heated-discussion

For the hundredth time. The cap goes down to 64 million next season, and we're currently sitting at 61 and change. If you add Bouwmeester's 6.8, plus raises for Filppula, Kindl, Brunner, Howard, Andersson, Smith and Tatar, you've essentially guaranteed that you can't go out and sign a quality top sixer to play with Datsyuk in what appears to be his final season. So you'd be going into next year with the same top six as the one that currently isn't deep enough to compete with good teams, plus Nyquist and/or Tatar which ensures that the majority of that inadequate top six is filled with guys weighing less than 200 pounds, who typically have a pass first mentality and are easily kept on the perimeter by opposing teams. No thanks.

Yeah Smith would have to start playing defense, or scoring, or something in order for me to get excited about that. As of right now I'm MUCH more excited about Kindl than I am about Smith. As such, Kindl and Dekeyser might be something to get pumped about.

I agree with the article, and it's exactly what I said above. Cover Ovechkin to the exclusion of anyone else. If they can beat you, fine, but that team doesn't have enough talent to do it. If there were any other game changers on that team, you couldn't afford to short change everyone else, Ovechkin would get freed up, and his production would increase. “We really took [Capitals star forward Alex] Ovechkin away the whole power play," said Muller back in the 2010 playoffs. "We played man on man with him and forced the other four guys to beat us four-on-three.” That's fine if the four other guys are Backstrom and a few other bozos, but if the other four guys are Pavel, Hank, Kronwall, and Franzen you'd get buried. Good coaching on Mueller's part, but if Washington had a deeper team he couldn't have used that strategy successfully.

A line of Gaborik-Pavel-Franzen would be hard to stop, and would require the tough defensive matchups, clearing the ice a little for Flip-Hank-Brunner (or whoever). I'd love it.

Streaky? Right. They guy hasn't put up fewer than 20 goals since his rookie year (18) except in 08-09 when he had 13 goals and 10 assists in 17 games played. You can say a lot of things about Marian Gaborik, but any way you look at it the guy's an elite goal scorer.

I'm not sure this is completely true. Granted there is some degree of "figuring out" with pretty much any player, but the fact that he's essentially the only real scoring threat on his team makes a difference too. It's not too hard to figure out that if you want to beat Washington you just need to key on Ovi. If Backstrom, Laich, Brouwer, or Semin (in years past) can beat you without him then good luck to them, but it never happened. If declining point production were directly attributable to getting "figured out" then Datsyuk and Zetterberg would be subject to the same kinds of criticisms given that their production has dropped sharply as well. But I do agree that he's expensive and doesn't play defense, can't argue there.

Which is why I said, "for what it's worth".