haroldsnepsts

I said contender, not win the Cup. The Kings were a great defensive team the season before last but had problems scoring consistently (sound familiar?) the addition of Richards was a huge step in giving them another offensive threat so they wouldn't just key on Kopitar and Brown. So you add scoring to a team that's got a great defensive system, good young goaltending, and maturing star players (doughty and Kopitar). It's not like I was alone in that prediction. Again, not really as a Cup winner because they're such a young team, but I expected them to take a big step forward in the playoffs. The Hockey News had them picked 4th in the west, above the Wings. Several "experts" on ESPN had them picked to win their division. My main point is that people keep using the Kings as if they came out of nowhere at the end of the season, which isn't true. They were a very good team that underachieved all season and got their act together just in time. Before the season started they were expected to be a good team and contend for their division. It's just when they struggled to score and were on the verge of missing the playoffs that their change in play was so surprising.

Exactly. That's the point I've been trying to make. Yes Bettman has to answer to the owners, but that's not the limits of his job. He is responsible for the long term health and success of the NHL, which surprising as it may seem, some of these idiot owners down always have that same interest. He ignored clutch and grab hockey that was ruining the game and hindering the most talented players in the world, saying fans love the game and there wasn't a problem. Then during the lost year of the lockout, suddenly there's all these adjustments being made to fix a problem Bettman wouldn't even acknowledge existed for ten years. And I've reached the point in my life where I'm busy enough and there's enough other ways I could spend my time that refusing to watch or spend money on the NHL isn't just an idle threat, it's a definite option. As much as I love the sport, why follow a league that could give a crap about its fans?

I would've called them to contend for the conference finals.It wasn't until the season started and they couldn't manage to score that them being a contender looked less and less likely. But on paper at the beginning of the season, absolutely.

It's funny but I just had to check and see who we drafted that year. Simmonds was drafted the same year as Smith though, so I can't complain. and the Wings second pick was after Simmonds was already picked up by LA.

Yeah, Fehr is apparently meeting with his constituents, but I'm not sure about what exactly. The most important thing that should be happening is him and Bettman and their crews in a room working on the deal. Instead it seems like a stall tactic on both their parts. I am definitely impressed with how Fehr conducts himself in front of the media though. He's very articulate and clear about where he disagrees with the league, but I haven't heard do any of the passive aggressive crap Bettman likes to pull. For the money they're paid and the millions of dollars at stake, they should be negotiating a lot longer than 8 hours a day if necessary. But it's the game of chicken.

Agreed. Fehr is apparently traveling to several cities to meet with players and suggested that the union and league could meet without the two heads being there, but the reality is there's no way they'd be able to hammer out a deal without the him and Bettman in the room. It's another game of chicken and it's the fans who lose.

Simmonds is a great young player. Can score, hit, fight, tons of heart. and he's only 23 years old.

Wow, there is a ton of info on that link. Sad to see that the NHL is in the lead for most days locked out and most regular season games lost to lockout in the history of the 4 major pro sports. And it looks like that lead will be growing.

A subcommittee is meeting today, but Fehr and Bettman won't be at a meeting together until next Wednesday. http://www.tsn.ca/winnipeg/story/?id=403156 Has any other pro sport had three lockouts in a row every time the CBA expired?

Bettman is just pulling more political bs to try and make the union look bad. It doesn't sound like the players left out the meat and potatoes, they just didn't include everything Bettman would want in there. Which isn't really a surprise considering it's a negotiation. I don't know that the players didn't cover all aspects. I don't agree with it but it sounds like they don't want contract length limited. So there's not going to be a provision offering that. And what good is a "full proposal" from the NHL when most of what they proposed is insane? Just listen to the tone that Fehr takes in his public comments about the CBA negotiations, then listen to Bettman. Bettman takes every opportunity to take shots at the union and threaten lockout. When the NHL took until mid July to give their first proposal to the players union, was he disappointed in the timeline then? Seems like Bettman's got a case of short man syndrome and loves to wield his power whenever he's given the opportunity. That or he really wants to get the lockout hat trick.

He's such a prick. The NHLPA's response might have been more timely had they known the league's offer would be insane and not worth waiting to see before responding.

I know with GMR it's sort of a fun game, but there really are a lot of people that seem to remember Lilja a lot better than he was. It was such a strange transformation from the most hated players on the Wings to one of the most beloved.

My interpretation of it (which is a best guess given what few details we know) is this is the unions way of saying they'll cut the ownership a break for a few years while they get their franchises in order and figure out how to make these smaller markets profitable. It doesn't seem very realistic that the owners will ever go back to the current CBA, but I think the NHLPA is at least talking about about the right issue, unlike the owners.

With what little info we have on the NHLPA proposal, to me the biggest sticking point is the CBA "snapping back" to the current one after three or four years. Unless Bettman allows these struggling franchises to fail, it's unrealistic to think that after a few seasons under this proposal things will be fixed enough that reverting to the current CBA makes sense.

Fehr's press conference after the meeting. Not a whole lot of concrete details, but interesting to watch.

Wow, and I was the one getting grief for jumping to conclusions. I agree with many of your points but don't see how it follows that it's the players fault. The biggest issue right now is the disparity between the rich and poor teams. Lowering the cap and adjusting contract length does not do enough to address the fundamental issue of the large gap between rich and poor franchises. If they really want to fix that problem, it's got to involve more revenue sharing between teams. But that's obviously a harder sell for Bettman. Given the choice between taking money from players and having to give up some of their own money, it's pretty easy to see what the owners will push for, even if it's ultimately not the best solution for the NHL.

I think that's Bettman's idea of a compliment. What a diplomat.

This, we already lost a season of a still prime 35 year old Lidstrom. Are we potentially about to lose a season where Dats is 34 and Z is 31? They're going to have to put an asterisk by total stats for players whose career fell under Bettman's reign because they lost a season and a half (and counting) of hockey and had to suffer through a decade of clutch and grab before the league did anything about it.

Well that's very good news that the players are willing to take reduced revenues and not trying to get rid of the hard cap. Even if it's the only change to contract rules though, they absolutely need to put some limit on length. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=403068

This by far. The Wings make finally make it to the Cup finals and it looks like this could be the season they end decades of misery. Only to be absolutely crushed by the Devils. It felt like even though they got to the finals, they were still a long ways away from being a team capable of winning the Cup.

Did he hit his face on Lilja's helmet during their hugfest? Lillypads somehow went from the most scapegoated to the most overrated player here on LGW.

As I had posted in the lockout thread. 1) reduce player revenue from 57% to 52% 2) seven year contract limits (6 seems reasonable too) 3) 28 years old, 7 years in the NHL for UFA status 4) keep entry level contracts 3 years 5) keep salary arbitration But more than any cap reduction they need to deal with revenue sharing. Funny how when it comes to players salaries it's a simple percentage but revenue sharing among franchises is more convoluted than the tax code with all sorts of exemptions, special conditions, and loopholes. Any amount they reduce players salary, they should add double that percentage to revenue sharing among teams. Players salaries are not nearly as big of an issue as the financial disparity between the franchises. And I'd love for there to be some way these idiots don't get to roll back the huge contracts they handed out this offseason while simultaneously crying about players making too much money.

As much as I'm interested in the league at least exploring the idea of a soft cap or luxury tax, there's no way a majority of owners or Bettman will go for that. But it at least tries to address what is one of the fundamental issues in the NHL today: the financial disparity between the franchises. That's my biggest problem with the NHL's proposal. Their demands are not only idiotically extreme, most don't really address the fundamental problems. Taking greater and greater percentages of the players money is not really a viable long-term solution for the league. The rich teams will still find ways to use their financial advantage to lure star players away from small market teams. My fear is that the two sides aren't even talking about the same problems, so it's not even really a negotiation. It should be a very interesting day tomorrow.

The article is a bit melodramatic but touches on what I think is the big issue and why I can't believe how insane the NHL's first proposal is. The section I bolded is the heart of it. Bettman is a patsy.

Re-read this part of your post several times. It's a perfect example of how you misrepresent what I've said. I've even bolded the relevant sections. Go slowly, maybe you'll start to see it. Let me also include this part of my last post that you chose to ignore. " I wasn't talking about where things will end up, but how the league chose to start the process." Yet you want me to provide a link to prove a point I never made? this is your opinion. I never assumed their offer would be fair. Likely, but not always true. This is absolutely false. In no way do both sides have to concede equally to get a deal done. That's not what happened in the last CBA negotiations. Of course you have my positions wrong. I've bolded your most obvious misrepresentations. But that's the point of your game. You've continued to misrepresent my argument so you can dismiss and ridicule it, then go on to state your opinions as fact. I'm not sure if you lack basic reading comprehension or are just so eager to make a condescending reply that you're only skimming what I've written. If you do actually ever want to know what I think, the posts are there for you to re-read at your leisure.