ChristopherReevesLegs

I see the core their as Tavares/Marner/Matthews/Rielly. That's their elite talent and none of them should be moved. Yes they'll all get older and wiser with time. I think they rushed things with Tavares and that led to them spending $11 mil+ that they didn't need to, but it is what it is. I think a wiser organization would have looked back on the Phanuef/Kessel days and said hey maybe we don't need Tavares RIGHT NOW. Lets let this younger roster develop themselves, keep cap costs lean, and not rush things. Lucky for them they still have a glut of young secondary talent that can be used or traded for what they will need in the future. Like the players you mentioned. I like to bring up Kadri because, to me, his example is a microcosm of the flaw in how they are building that roster. Here is a player who bought in to Babs system and who Babs molded into a fantastic shutdown 2C. Despite all the psycho mindgame stuff that came out Kadri still had nothing but good things to say about Babs. This guy should be your shiny beacon on a hill. You have your young players rooming with this guy on road trips and stuff. But no, Dubas overloaded a young team with salary and Kadri eventually got forced out. He could have been a great character player on that team for years while young players come up the right way. Now they have their nice guy butt wiping coach who wont hurt their egos. They're gonna get older and better, but I foresee problems with that team in the future.

Tag Bertuzzi

We HAVE to believe victims. Gritty is guilty until proven innocent.

I just look down the roster and it's mostly all guys who wanna play offensively and get PP time. I think it would serve them a lot to move some of these for a role player. A shutdown C like Kadri. Some checking line PKers. A capable backup goalie. But yeah they're also super young. I do think the Johnny T contract unnecessarily sped up their rebuild and screwed them on their young players contracts. Now they have overpaid young superstars who don't play a mature game, live in a market that treats them like gods, and they successfully got their coach fired cause he's a meanie. IMO I just see so many bad precedent being set their.

I was saying b4 the Babs firing, I hate the way their team plays. They play like individuals, they don't always hustle. It's a team of scorers. I think it's good to have a lot of scorers, but building a roster is a lil more nuanced than literally only having scorers. Trading Kadri seriously hurt the team, even though IMO it looked like a good move on paper. I think Babs and O'keefe are probably both decent coaches. The real flaw is in the roster in Toronto. But yeah Babs lost the room. Not sure I would have caved to those lazy players though.

If only making the playoffs was accomplished in November.

More of a Hugh Jackman fan myself

Don't they have cameras all over the stadium? How did they not capture the assault?

He started off by complaining that the Flyers camerman took blurry pictures of his son, and then just through in the assault thing after? And he NEEDS a formal apology so he can experience that W when they admit guilt... Or he wants the admission of guilt as the foundation for a lawsuit? Either way this guy has one of these haircuts and he needs to speak to Gritty's manager RIGHT NOW

Did you know Kyle Dubas believes in science? He's so smart, he even does math. Look at this arbitrary stat, it PROVES Marner is the best player in the league. Babcock is doing fine, probably the best coach in the league, it's our crappy schedule, no backup goalie, and injuries that are holding us back. Actually no, it was Babcock's fault the whole time, he's really not even that good. O'Keefe won the freaking CALDER CUP dude AND he reads the wall street journal. Guy's probably the smartest brain in hockey. It's just that league gave us this crappy schedule, no back up goalie, and injuries are killing us.

They offered to let his kid sit on the bench during warmups in a future game and the Dad turned it down. Wants a formal apology and special treatment whatever that means. I get the feeling he's the kind of Dad that if they gave his son an autographed jersey or something it would be on ebay the next morning.

I sexually Identify as Zach Kassian's mutton chops. Ever since I was a boy I dreamed of being on the face of an NHL player who wishes he was a Napoleonic-era British sea captain. People say to me that a person being Zach Kassian's mutton chops is Impossible and I'm ******* retarded but I don't care, I'm beautiful. I'm having a plastic surgeon reconstruct my body into 800 strands of gin soaked Kassian facial hair. From now on I want you guys to call me "Chops" and respect my right to cushion Zach's ugly mug against needless Tkachuk elbows. If you can't accept me you're a beardaphobe and need to check your clean-shaven privilege. Thank you for being so understanding. It's not till next Wednesday, we're just bored of the Red Wings...

So they were in a line with other fans, Gritty got up from a chair, took a running start, and punched his 13 year old son as hard as he could, but no one saw, and the kid is fine. Sure man, no one noticed the giant orange mascot running and hitting ppl besides u and ur boy. Also I would completely destroy a 13 year old if I ran and punched one as hard as I could "Gimme free stuff" is all this is

The problem is it's a blog. SB Nation doesn't even care about the content. They let any college student who's willing to write for free just post their thoughts. Then their platform makes it look like some expert take. If they post an article like "Top 10 Coolest Red Wings Keeper Masks Of All Time" I might read it, otherwise just go to a fan forum.

Yeah I just wouldn't even consider it an article It's basically like if we took a NyqvistIsTheFuture post and slapped a WIIM label on it. At least NITF proofreads b4 posting.

I just think Kas needs to be smarter. His job is to be a tough guy fighter and keep the flies off. Everyone seems to falsely think that's Tkachuk's job too. It's not. His job is to get under your skin and get you to take a dumb penalty. Kas freaked out and took a dumb penalty. Flames capitalized on the ensuing PP. Won the game. And passed the Oilers in the standings with the win. Tkachuk: 1 Kassian: 0 On the 29th I don't think Tkachuk is gonna back down. He has a history of turning things up to 11 when the heat is already on 10. I think he's gonna run Kassian or whomever else he can, and then he's not gonna fight back again. Oilers have to decide if they wanna get back at Tkachuk or win the game. That would be my message to the lockerroom if I was Tippett. Ignore him. Win this game. Chirp him after.

I've seen a lot of people use the excuse: Wingers shouldn't be skating down to hit people behind the net. Their job is to defend up high. Torres used to make that play and he was a head hunter. I totally disagree with this notion. I agree that wingers probably used to be taught not to make that play, but this isn't 2005 NHL anymore. It's all about attacking the puck carrier and layering your defense, so that there's constant pressure on the puck carrier. If the primary defender gets beat, someone else swarms in to support and pick that guy up. Essentially trading who you are defending. If you re-watch the play, Giordano is getting beat behind the net. Normally Lindholm should be there to help him out, but he has swung up high to cover McDavid on the Oilers cycle. Tkachuk is in the best position to make a defensive play for his team at that moment, and so he does. If he doesn't the much stronger Kassian is going to clear past Giordano, and when he looks up he's going to see the much faster McDavid streaking down the middle with Lindholm on his heels. By coming down to support with an aggressive hit Tkachuk made an astute defensive play, and may have saved Calgary a goal against. Honestly Tkachuk's anticipation and timing on the play were pretty impressive. I don't think there's a lot of wingers who would have recognized just how much of a dangerous situation Calgary was in before that hit was laid. If Ovechkin had made the same play people would be praising him for his defensive instincts. But it's Tkachuk.

I have no problem with what Kassian did. I personally agree with DoPS and thought the hit was clean, but guys getting heated and starting scrums over a big hit is to be expected and completely fine by me. It just should have ended at that. All the hair pulling and complaining to the media after the game just makes Kassian and the Oilers look like a buncha children. He caught you with a big hit, you wailed on him, get over it. Move on. Tkachuk is a known agitator, so you're playing right into his hands by getting this agitated about it lol. And it's even more ironic because Kassian is a guy who hits a ton, and has a lot of hits that were high. Can't take your own medicine bud?

Grown man who hits everything can't fathom that a 22 year old would do the same to him

I don't really care either way. As long as it's a blood bath. I'm hoping Tkachuk lays someone out in like the first 30 seconds of the game.

Everyone's gonna be watching that game. We should have a GDT for it. Stupid oilers talked so much they have to do something now.

The face of boredom