kipwinger

I dunno man, I get the animosity from yesteryear, but that team is an absolute unit and those announcers might be the funniest in the NHL.

Watching the Avs vs. Canucks tonight and the Avs announcers are absolutely hilarious. They throw shade at everyone constantly. One of their rink reporters literally got in a shoving match with some fans over a stray puck and they were PISSED and the dude was just like, "I've have a go with em' haha". In between periods they did a highlights package of all the good plays from the previous period and they just fast forwarded through all the Canucks goals and they lady says "we don't care about those". I love these guys.

Speaking of guys I was right about years ago, this guy. Devon Toews is such a stud. He's got to be one of the best defenders in the league. You cannot shake that guy in the offensive zone.

I’d f*ck either of them too. But only one because he’s going places in professional hockey.

And he wasn't getting used properly, and he wasn't getting enough ice time, and he wasn't getting better linemates, and the coach didn't like him, and and and. The story with @krsmith17 was always that he fell in love with players (typically for no good reason) elevated their talent (in his mind) to absurd proportions, then blamed everything and everyone when his own unrealistic expectations failed to materialize. Hence we had "Smith the dynamic offensive defenseman" or "Mantha the elite power forward" or "Veleno the 2nd line center". I've re-posted it many time but there's one old post where he went through the Griffins lineup and projected almost every player on their roster and they're laughably bad. Jurco isn't in the NHL because as it turns out coaches and teammates hate it when you stand around doing nothing, waiting for your linemates to win puck battles, so that you can blow the zone looking for a breakaway.

You might be on to something with Jarnkrok and Smith, but I'm not so sure about Jurco. I think of "over ripe" as a guy who's obviously too good for the AHL but who is forced to spend significant time down there anyway. Kinda like Berggren was for the latter part of last season and the AHL games he played this season. Other guys like that were Howard, Jensen, Nyquist, and Tatar. Jurco was never a dominant AHL player. And he only played about a season and a half for the Griffs before his call up. Some guys spend a ton of time in the AHL because they're just genuinely not very good (Pulkkinen, Frk). I tend to put Jurco in that camp.

Which?

Great first period by every Red Wings except Ville Jusso (who let in a floater with 30 seconds left in the period).

Yeah, that's such bullsh*t. What else is there to do in Moncton on a Friday night? The only difference with tiering would be that s***ty teams would finally have something to play for instead of getting fed to perennial powerhouses every night. Fans of s***ty teams would actually buy MORE tickets if they knew their local team wasn't going to get murdered every single game. And fans of the higher end teams (who are already doing fine) would sell more tickets because they'd see an increase in the quality of the players and competition.

The CHL is suuuuuuch a racket. They basically have these kids in a stranglehold and won't let go unless they absolutely have to. They have junior teams in Europe too. The difference is that if you're good enough to play on the pro team you can. There are no pro (developmental) leagues in Canada any they won't let kids play in the AHL or the ECHL or (for most draft eligibles) the NCAA. So you end up having kids like Wright and Lafreniere who are way too good to play against 16 year olds, but who generate enough revenue that the CHL has no interest whatsoever in letting them go outside the country to play in a pro league. The only people that suffer are the kids. Hell, if they just tiered the CHL and added relegation so that half the league were full of really good teams with older players, and half the league was young players on lower level teams, you'd have a better system than they currently have.

In theory pot should help with pill addictions too. Many folks (not just athletes) get addicted to pills after they begin using them for pain management. This is likely the case with Vrana (coke jokes aside) as he played for a full year with a bum shoulder before even getting the surgery. I was recovering from a broken ankle recently and I ate edibles when the pain was bad, and it seemed to help a lot. I can't exactly compare with opiates because I didn't take any of those, but the CBD in the weed was plenty strong enough to manage that pain. At some point I imagine opiates will be phased out for all but the most debilitating pain and be replaced by CBD oils and the like. Many athletes already use CBD oils and such as part of their muscle recovery program (particularly boxers and mma fighters).

You're absolutely right, in most European leagues they're only allowed so many non-native players on the roster (because they're club teams tied to certain geographic localities). So it would be limited to the better players. Not going to have 3rd or 4th rounders playing over there, but those guys need the extra year in the CHL anyway. American college hockey is another option too, as you've pointed out. But I tend to think the reason it doesn't happen is because A) 18 year olds probably don't want to move to Europe, and B) for some reason people still think the CHL is a good league.

I'd imagine coke is SUPER common in the NHL. I recall hearing an interview with Jarrett Stoll a few years ago after he retired and he insinuated that a whole bunch of the LA Kings team that won those two cups were no strangers to coke. That said, I also think its probably generational too. Substance use rates amongst "zennials" are down compared to previous generations so maybe it's less common now than it was. I can imagine back in Bob Probert's day they were doing lines off the goalie's pads during intermission.

I HATE those helmets, and the silver ones the Kings wear as well. They're so f*cking tacky.

Look at Seattle, their handling of Shane Wright at the beginning of the season was idiotic. I understand that sending him back to a league he just dominated isn't ideal, but bringing him up then sitting him then scratching him then sending him down just wasted a year of his development IMO. You'd have been better off sending him to play in Sweden for a year. See my comment above too, but wouldn't it be better to send some of these Canadian kids to play in Europe for a year if they're too good for the CHL and not good enough for the NHL. Think about Rasmussen in his D+1 year. He should have been playing in the SHL (if he was willing). We saw during COVID that North American players can go over there for a year (on a limited basis obviously).

With the goalie pulled Eichel scores one off another players skate. 3-2 And that's the final. Really really good game. One of the best we've played all year long.

Aaaaaand Bertuzzi is hurt again. Isn't he supposed to be one of the gritty ones? #trade

Kubalik with a powerplay goal, 2-1 Wings Veleno! 3-1

What's everyone's thoughts on "over rippening" prospects? Under Holland that was the de facto strategy, with guys like Tatar and Nyquist staying in the AHL until they were 22-23. Fans were pretty sour about it that at the time. But if you look at the developmental paths of Zadina, Veleno, Berggren, and McIsaac (all drafted in the same year) it almost seems like the additional wait time has really been beneficial for the latter three. We've seen similar things play out around the league with high draft picks coming straight to the NHL and floundering. So my question is, unless you've got a McDavid or Crosby on your hands is it better to give them a few years elsewhere before bringing them to the NHL?

The dudes from the Winged Wheel Pod are reporting that Larkin's initial ask was 9.5-9.7 and Yzerman's initial offer was 8.4 million. There's no reason to think this thing doesn't get done at 9-9.1 million. Makes you wonder if this isn't all a big ploy to influence future negotiations. Like, if SY is willing to hardball his captain over 500K then if you're a young guy or a depth guy you're going to think twice about pushing too hard. Anyway, take it for what it's worth. That podcast is rightfully criticized around here (and it should be) but they do seem pretty plugged into the organization. Not hard to imagine that they have a source.

Who cares about Bedard? Like McDavid and Matthews before him he'll end up going to some team everyone hates and then languish there forever because putting a top prospect into a turd organization doesn't change that it's a turd organization. A few times a month we'll all watch some highlights package and think "boy that Conor Bedard sure is fancy" and then we'll go back to watching better hockey.

Solid comparison as well. Stylistically he's like Zetterberg except bigger, faster, and meaner. Poor us for having such sh*t prospects lol. I just read an article the other day suggesting that the "Yzerplan" may be off the rails because we only had 1 player at the World Junior Championships. LOL. Nevermind that three of our top prospects (Kasper, Edvinsson, Buchelnikov) were eligible but not allowed to play for various reasons. Oh, and then there's the fact that we've got another 10+ quality prospects tearing up their respective leagues at young ages. The sky is falling because we only had Red Savage at the World Juniors. Boohoo. He already ragdolls grown men in the SHL on a more or less game by game basis. I think he WILL get stronger, obviously, as he matures but he's already more than strong enough to play in the NHL. I see a lot of Ryan Kessler in him with respect to his physical attributes. He's big, fast, strong, and mean. I think the only question is whether he's a 50-60 point center or a 70-80 point center. The lower end may be more likely, but I don't think the upper end is off the table at all.

He's not flashy at all, and so he flies under the radar. You can score a point per game in the NHL as a centerman and nobody will care if you don't look like Jack Hughes while you do it. But there are a TON of really good NHL centers that look an awful lot like Marco Kasper. He reminds me a lot of Jonathan Toews. Just a big, powerful, heady, workhorse with really good passing and okay goal scoring. Probably not going to blow you away in the skill department but is someone who will be on the scoresheet every night because he does all the heavy lifting for the skill guys. Also see a lot of Ryan O'Reilly in his game. No frills but very effective. I'd say he's already got the skating, passing, and physicality of an NHL player. If he can continue to develop a wrist shot (the way Larkin did) then he's definitely got a shot at 1C.

I've been sleeping on this bit of news, but Marco Kasper tied Lucas Raymond's D+1 scoring rate with a dominant 3 point night this week. One thing I've noticed about Kasper, aside from what a hardcase he is, is that his playmaking is really really good. His passing is an under the radar part of his game that he didn't really show in his draft year. We really got a good one here.

What are you even talking about?! This team is about to go super saiyan. Guys were selling their souls tonight and their 48 year old ex-KHL goalie blew it for them. On three separate occasions I saw the hearts of Fabbri, Rasmussen, and Ben Chiarot nearly explode after working themselves to near death. I saw Berggren emerging as a genuine star. But that goddamn turd goalie let us down man. But it's always darkest right before the dawn. Like the Cleveland Indians in the classic "Major League" franchise, this ragtag group of misfits is about to turn this season around. Jakub Vrana is about to come back like Rick "Wildthing" Vaughn dude!!!! I can wait to see the looks on all your faces.