poel

Sorry, what? He used to be like that but in this tournament and also lately for Davos, he was very good. If there's one thing you can criticize it would be his rebound control. He gave away some dangerous ones. But that would be complaining on quite a high level. I didn't notice one mistake. He was very calm and sharp despite being asked to play all 5 games including two back to backs, one OT and one shootout. His numbers don't look good against Denmark and the US but there's little he could have done about it. He had no support in the 1st against the Danes...was left all alone. Against the US he also had no chance. If I'm right, they score only with rebounds and deflections...two of them on the PP. The 1st shouldn't have been possible anyway as the refs missed a clear call and another one shortly after. Van Pottelberghe was named one of Switzerland's Top3 of the tournament and rightfully so. He deserves it. Played exceptionally well behind a defense that didn't exist apart from Siegenthaler, Karrer and sometimes Gross. I fully expect him to come over in 1,5 or 2,5 years to be starter for Grand Rapids.

Saarijarvi played 24:03 and got one PP assist. The crap goalie saved 49 of 51 shots as his teammates didn't seem to be overly motivated for the game

Another solid one for the "crap goalie" who has been under siege all game long. Terrible performance by the Swiss. Van Pottelberghe showed well though and made 42 Saves. 91,30%.

Looks like Pottelberghe in again vs Sweden. Might not be clever to play a goalie, who's biggest problem appears to be consistency, back to back with only about 24h between the games. Matteo Ritz is a fantastic option...after the win vs the Czechs he would have been the obvious choice. But we'll see...

The three Redwings prospects did well...all three of them. If you want a mixture, then why would you complain about three Europeans doing well? Wings just recently added Mantha. I'd rather have 3 good Europeans than nobody. Wings scouting department is very strong in Europe so some of the key players for the Wings will most likely continue to be Europeans. If you like it or not.

Yeah. Why did we rely on those Europeans like Zetterberg, Datsyuk, Lidstrom, Holmstrom and so on? They're crap anyway. They're small Europeans. Useless. I'd rather play 12x Riley Sheahan. He's crap and there's just about nothing he's good at except wearing teletubby outfits...but hey. He's tall, heavy and he's Canadian and that's what counts.

Solid game by Hronek and van Pottelberghe. Hronek played 22:29 and had 1 assist on the PP. Looked solid but took two ill advised penalties. van Pottelberghe looked calm and solid, backing up the upward trend. Saved 92,31%, 36 in total.

I've been sceptical, too. He's been lacking consistency for a long time. But I guess this is nothing special for a young goalie. What's encouraging is that he's usually very good when busy. A year ago, he was mighty strong vs. Canada. The Czech have been all over the Swiss for the 1st period but he didn't seem to care much. Very solid. He's also improved a lot in Davos. Don't forget that he's playing pro hockey in what's one of europe's best leagues. After some early struggles, he actually seemed to do well there. It's showing now. As skillset and size were always there, "crap" is quite a statement. He might make you look dumb. We'll see. I say for a 19yo goalie, it's not bad to be the starter of one of europe's best teams outside the KHL.

Just in case somebody cares...Joren van Pottelberghe will play in the under 20 world championships and not the Spengler Cup for Davos. He'll likely split starts with Matteo Ritz.

Not sure if anyone cares...but that's Van Pottelberghe struggling against his former club. https://www.hcd.ch/de/player/national-league/van-pottelberghe-joren Numbers don't look great so far. He'll continue to play though. The other Goalie, Gilles Senn, is also a youngster. Just one year older.

Down to earth? Andersen got 5 millions longterm. Mrazek > Andersen. And it's not even close. Mrazek was better last season despite Andersen playing behind the better team and a far better defense. Mrazek also proved to be a clutch player. Always was at his best in the playoffs. Andersen hardly stops anything in the postseason. We're talking about pure goodwill from a player probably wanting to help the organization and keeping a good relationship with the management. He might even saved Holland's job by accepting 4. Would have been tough to fit Mrazek in at 5 millions. Inconsistency is no reason to lowball Mrazek at all. He clearly wasn't himself after that Schenn attack. Was reportedly ill right after and hardly stopped a puck the following four games he played. Call me whatever you want but I immediately felt that something was wrong with him after the incident. Either him or the club probably just didn't want to reveal the reason behind it all. What's for sure is that he got misused at that time. Should have given a rest. He definitely lost his way there. https://twitter.com/StefanKubus/status/709925727366307840 In the future Holland better stops wasting money for useless or average players. We got several terrible contracts we'll probably never get out of (Nielsen, Helm, Green, Nyquist, Ericsson, Howard). I also think that Glendening and Ericsson earn too much for what they bring to the table. How things go at the moment maybe even the Zetterberg contract will come back to hurt us. It's 1 to 12 for Holland.

What the heck are you talkin about? Sure enough you do this...but then you want as many teams as possible involved. You don't say give out a shortlist if you wanna sign with a particular team. You were probably just trying to make up something to defend Holland? Fact is that there were good deals done today and ours were terrible. There are enough other terrible ones, some GM's were even worse. It doesn't make us look any better though. It's a sad sad day for the Detroit Redwings. Kenny had every opportunity to rebuild on the fly after Arizona took the Datsyuk Cap. All he did was to burn the whole cap for terrible or average FA's, two of them he even signed up longterm. The goal was to replace Datsyuk as good as possible not to load up with trash. I wrote it here several times...don't overpay for Free Agents. Not in this situation. There were only few good guys available and some of the contracts they got are really mindboggling and make Holland and other GM's look like complete idiots: Staal, Radulov or Boedker should have been interesting for almost any teams. At least at those terms and compared to what they paid for mostly worse FA's. After all the buyouts and terminated contracts we've seen lately they really should have known better what to do now. Those who did nothing today will be the winners. Almost everybody who joined into the madness today will pay for it at some point. Crazy. I always liked Holland, but we might need a change. Should have kept a certain guy who turned Dallas into a winning team in no time. Holland has lost all his balls. All he will do is to overpay to resign players and sign FA's. What was his last significant trade? Quincey? We know how this one turned out. We have so many assets...maybe not to land a top shot but certainly enough to address our needs. He did exactly nothing to win another cup. With Zetterberg and Datsyuk he had a real chance to add the missing pieces. He didn't.

Then why he made public that he'd only join teams on his shortlist of about 5 teams? If you wanna sign with a specific franchise and want to get more money outta them you want to get everybody involved to raise your value. Kenny just messed up. That's how it is.

I didn't think about it. But you're right. Torchetti and Vanek will be funny. Vanek is a floater. Lazy, careless and slow. But he will help our powerplay and if they can get him to compete he might even improve a bit. I'm convinced that he still has it in him. And with his body he could do a lot of good stuff for us.

I wouldn't agree. His speciality are his deflections and puckhandling skills. He has special hands. I think they got him to help our powerplay. He's a beast in front of the net. Big body that can deflect pucks like nobody else. I'm still not really excited about the signing as he was really slow recently and didn't really compete. Lots of stupid giveaways. Even got benched in Minnesota and replaced by prospects. Just saw his interview on TSN. Said that he has no idea why it didn't work in Minnesota. This really worries me. He should know best that his compete level was the problem.

Honestly. 2,6 millions one year is okay...but Vanek is done unless he agrees to finally compete. He was terrible recently. Slow turnover machine. I think this is mainly to help our powerplay as Vanek still has his excellent hands.

So Holland signed Nielsen for 6 years instead of Radulov for 1? Good job, Kenny. It's just one year. Should have given Radulov 6 and sign Shipachev on top. Now we got Nielsen and Helm. Terrible.

We don't even need one of them at those terms. And no, nobody wanted Helm. He's terrible. Should have signed Shipachev or Staal. Or traded for an available guy like Hanzal. Now we got two terrible players with terrible contracts. Great job, Kenny.

Crap. Fletcher is a genius. Great signing...

Honestly. 6 years. Holland needs to go. Now.

I announced it long ago. My worst nightmare came true. Nobody wants Helm but Holland will still overpay. Terrible offseason.

Why did I know it? Nobody wants Helm so Holland will just resign him and out of loyality will also overpay. As always. Plus he'll rather sign a useless Center rather than to trade for one. Nielsen contract also terrible...goes without saying. Fire Holland. Seen enough of this crap. He had the chance to rebuild on the fly now with all the cap space. Should have done trades. He messed up badly...once again.

Vadim Shipachev. You never know with europeans but should normally easily be the best center available in Free Agency. Would be great to get him.

I'm not into this advanced thing and could be wrong...but isn't corsi just about the shots? Doesn't have a lot to do with possession numbers then. I hope that you don't wanna disagree with me that Datsyuk was our puck hog...nobody on our team can hold the puck like him...not even Zetterberg. Probably they all never will be able to do what he did. Not even Larkin. Backes only played 2nd or even 3rd line last season. What exactly makes you think that he could be a 1st line Center let alone be better than Zetterberg? I say get Staal short term or sign Shipachev. Otherwise trade for a true top6 Center. Still think Hanzal would be ideal.

Okposo brings so much more than just scoring. To compare him to Clarkson who has 0 skills is really crazy. Okposo primarily is powerforward who besides that is a puck hog. 7 millions might just be a bit too steep for him but I'd like to have him for 6. Backes is far away from being a number 1 center and the best FA available. Staal is the only one who might play another year or two like a nr1 Center. I'm also pretty sure that Shipachev will be far better than Backes. And yes...we need a Datsyuk-style of player. We hardly ever had the puck, were one of the worst possession teams. And we just lost our best possession player. While I think that possession is overrated you still cannot win games if you're chasing the puck all season long. Surely not with our defense.