Dabura

I'm always nervous with this team lol But nah, I'm not too concerned. Lyon could probably use the rest.

Can we take a moment to laugh at the Sens? I mean, yeah, they're probably gonna kick our asses on Wednesday. But holy s*** what a tire fire.

I've always really liked Lindholm, but I guess I just wonder if he really is That Guy. 29, not having a particularly great season...I fear he's on the decline. And we have a bad track record with guys we sign to be That Guy.

Yeah, this is pretty much where I'm at. And I feel like the trade target pool is incredibly underwhelming. I look at our forward group. When Kane draws back in and Kostin sits, who is it we're supposed to upgrade? Where's the weak link? I like Elias Lindholm and Sean Monahan, but I'm not sure either of them is better than Fabbri. How much do we want to pay (in the way of assets) for "Could be better than Fabbri, I guess...?" Our defense is...suboptimal. But we have an internal upgrade option in Edvinsson. (SPOILERS: The ask for Hanifin and Chychrun is gonna be too steep.) So I dunno. We've got a good thing going. If Lyon stays stellar, we make the playoffs.

At least we didn't trade for Dubois lol

No - definitely not what we envisioned. Or at least not what we were hoping for. In that sense, we're eating an L on this. Personally, I'm ok with it. I'm big on the matchup game-within-a-game - so I'm happy to have three solid two-way guys down the middle in Larkin, Compher, Copp. But yeah, I really don't know why this organization can't find a legit point-producing 2C. Weiss. Nielsen. Stopgap Filapoola. And then Copp was gonna be that guy. And then Compher was gonna be that guy. It's really kind of hilarious what a low-key curse this has become. Hopefully Kasper or Danielson is That Guy.

I suppose. But if he's giving more breathing room to your top-six scorers and shutting down other teams' scorers and putting up some points himself, and all of this is helping the team win close games...then I'm perfectly ok with it. Who's that? Does he play defense?

And they can be hard-matched against top talent (as they were tonight, I believe) - so they're a legit a shutdown line. Having a legit shutdown line *in addition to* two dedicated scoring lines is massive.

"Back off, that's OUR job!" - The Hockey Hall of Fame Selection Committee

Yeah, it's almost certainly gonna come down to term. And you're right about the RFA situation. We shall see.

AND YOU WILL KNOW OUR NAME IS "NO LOTTO LUCK" WHEN WE LAY OUR VENGEANCE UPON THEE

I hear ya. The good news is Larkin is one of our two best players. The bad news is Larkin is one of our two best players.

Well, when I say "pretty decent deal," I don't mean it's necessarily gonna be prohibitively pricey/lengthy for us. Just that it's gonna be, well, a raise. We've seen Yzermanager throw bags of money at veteran UFAs the past two summers, so I wouldn't rule out Sprong returning.

This season, through 42 games played: Dylan "Not a 1C" Larkin: 20 goals McJesus: 19 goals

To be fair, last season was the first time he'd topped 20 points, so repeatability was probably the big limiting factor on his contract for this season. He had to prove that last season wasn't just a one-off. Now that he's done so, I wouldn't be surprised to see him get a pretty decent deal.

I'd say he's been a net positive. I think our biggest problem's been goaltending. If Lyon's a .923ish goalie from here on out, we're a playoff-caliber team.

WE WANT STANLEY CLAP CLAP CLAPCLAPCLAP

Srsly tho, feels so f***ing good to beat that f***ing team. They've had our number for too long. Things are clicking. Love it.

We want the Cup.

The Sens have owned us lately and I don't like it. Simple as that. But I don't really care about the Sens tbh. I just want this team to take no prisoners.

Outlier.

HUGE win!

Fair. But I'd add that we got down 0-1 less than two minutes into the game because of a penalty, and I'd argue that set the tone. Show up ready to play, and play. The next time we play the Sens, our guys will talk a big game about the importance of divisional games and how we need to start strong and play a full 60. And then the Sens will hang 15 shots and three goals on us through the first 20 mins. Two of those goals will be power play goals and the other will be a shorty. (Yes, I'm venting.)