toby91_ca

I think if Canada had a goalie that played more recently than Nov 2015, it would have been no contest. Shots are definitely not everything, but the game I watched was dominated by Canada, don't have to look at shot totals for that, the majority of the game appeared to be in the US end.

I'm not sure what game you were watching, but other than the last 10 minutes of the 1st period, Canada dominated. Price was clearly rusty, in my opinion, all 3 goals were terrible...some could argue 1, but the other 2 were simply bad....he was rusty. Other than those 10 minutes in the 1st, Canada outshot them 41-7 I think. Edit - I think was for sure though....that game was far more intense than the NA vs Europe game.

I don't think so as I've seen others have something similar, including Datsyuk. I'm not even convinced it is a 13. The reason I don't think it's Kozlov is because there is clearly a letter of some sort missing from what you see in every other autograph of his I've seen. Edit...can't find the Datysuk one I was thinking of, so maybe I'm off there....but Datysuk has some crazy different autographs. Edit again....so Kozlov is the closest match so far, but I still don't think that's it...it's killing me and I'm not sure why. I'd love to get some sort of confirmation

That's my point about Avery though, it looks nothing like the one you posted, but his varies so much. Good Sean Avery autograph and go to images.....quite a few variations and ones that get closer to the one in question.

While there are similarities with the Kozlov autograph, it's too different. His autograph is pretty specific...meaning, you wouldn't think to see it done much differently. The autograph in question is probably closer to Fedorov's than Kozlov's, but still too different. I through out Sean Avery as a random guess because it looks like an S and an A and saw some close to that from Avery and his seem to vary quite a bit.

Sean Avery?

Not sure, but definitely not Bertuzzi. Any idea when this was signed and was it by a current player? Edit: Not Legwand either.

Vanek was one of the scratches for Team Europe.

I don't know about that, probably based on how the coaches felt about him during their camp as well as his performance earlier this year at the World Championships....which was pretty good...I think he led Team USA in scoring.

The other reason no SLK team is likely due to very little NHL players from SLK. This isn't the World Championships or Olympics, it's an NHL sponsored event. It doesn't mean non-NHLers can be part of it, but it's pretty clear, the rosters are almost entirely NHL players. Of the 8 teams, I count only 6 or 7 non-NHLers. There are only 10-11 SLK NHLers, so tough to form an entire team for this.

I think if they thought Slovakia would be competitive enough, they wouldn't have a "Rest of Europe" team. Slovakia hasn't been competitive the last 2 tournaments (0-6 and outscored 32-13). They've actually been worse than Germany.

I know, but I was looking for Team Canada games....which I see has some cheaper tickets on stubhub (still expensive though). I didn't even look at the CAN vs. CZK game because ticketmaster only showed a few single seats, but stubhub has seats together. Edit: I never even thought to check stubhub as the last time I was looking there, tickets were priced way above face value, so I figured it couldn't have anything cheaper than ticketmaster. Funny, I checked Leaf tickets a few years ago when they were in the playoffs...there were a pair of tickets going for $88,000....not sure if that was USD or CAD or per ticket or for the pair....but didn't really thought that mattered too much.

I don't think the idea was that they wanted to showcase kids under 23 on a team. I think the main reason is that they needed 8 teams. They didn't want to have weak teams involved last prior tournaments (i.e. Germany). 6 teams isn't enough, so this is the way they came up with another 2 teams (a rest of Europe team + under 23 NA team). I think everyone felt NA could easily ice a 3rd competitive team, so this is the way they decided to differentiate. I'm not a fan of this at all, but I see why they did it. There were probably other ways they could have done it (Canada 1 and Canada 2 for example...but I think that would have been worse as Canada 2 would clearly be getting leftovers).

I just looked into potentially taking my son to a game (I went to Canada vs Russia that last time they had this....'04 I think). But after seeing the prices on ticketmaster, I decided I'll just watch on TV. I'm sure there are much cheaper tickets, but I was looking at Team Canada games....close to $400 for the last few rows in the building.

I've said it before, but will express again, his leaving has left a very bad taste in my mouth. While I think the team will likely be better without him now, that's not the point. He could have put the team in a very bad position and be much worse off without him...on hook with cap hit. That's also not the point. I'm all for a player deciding they don't want to play anymore, or retire due to injury, etc. However, I don't think a player should decide to retire with time left on their contract (if they've signed past 35)...unless injured. The thing is, if you are over 35 and sign a 2-3 year deal, at that point in your life, you're not going to all of a sudden decide that you don't want to play anymore. This is why the cap hit stays if a player retires early (if signing past 35). There is the thought that a player might not play out the contract, so if you sign something for 3 years, you better be committed to fulfilling the contract (i.e. not signing for 10 years to keep cap hit low and retiring early). So, even if he simply retired, I'd still have a bad taste in my mouth. Magnifying that is that he hasn't retired from hockey, he simply didn't want to play in the NHL anymore and is now playing in another league. I now all the family reasons, etc., but that stuff doesn't all of a sudden pop up and you can easily commit another 6-8 months away anyway. I couldn't care less how well he plays in Russia for a couple reasons (1) I'm not pissed about missing him playing for the Wings, it's the principle and (2) regardless of the first reason, the KHL is so different than the NHL it is pointless to even look at stats and consider how that could translate. I don't want to have bad taste, because I really liked the guy as a player and a person, but I can't help it.

Roy was only in net for 9 of the 11 goals though

He had 83 PIM in 7 games in 14/15

Someone would have to convince me why Helm is worth 2X what Jarnkrok is getting. Maybe the value in the deal is term....which is very valuable to players...very few are going to have long careers in the league....getting a 6 year guaranteed contract is pretty valuable for most.

I think they are pretty much right at the cap right now with ZERO allocated to Mrazek. However, they should get close to $4M in relief for Franzen.

I'm not going to moan about it, but it is more than I was thinking he is worth, but exactly what I expected he'd get. Someone above mentioned that this is the going rate for a 2nd pairing guy, but I'm not sure that's the case....I think there is 15 or so teams in the league that have either no guys or only 1 D man making more than $5M...some have 2, less have 3. I always seem to be surprised at the length and the $ amounts of the deals that Kenny puts together, I guess it's a bit of a risk he normally takes....some work out really well and others don't. DD is still young enough that the length won't be an issue and I guess Kenny is hoping the deal will look better towards the end of the deal vs today.

Good question in terms of who would meet my criteria after having a quick look....not many. Maybe I've got too much bias with scoring from a slightly earlier era as it's really only Crosby, Ovechkin and maybe Malkin that stick out currently. Maybe Kane will get there if he keeps it up. So, perhaps Datsyuk's offensive numbers are better than I originally thought....I think he's probably been more consistent than many perhaps, which is why he's accumulated better overall totals than some who have had better numbers for shorter periods of time. So, I think there is a bit of an issue here because there are probably way too many that would fit in if I lowered my offsensive stat criteria too much, I think Datsyuk is probably within too large of a bucket there for everyone to get in. I think I've convinced myself that Datsyuk should get in no problem once you consider Selkes, but let's see if the voters reach the same conclusions at some point in the next several years....he'll need to retire first.

Agree, Datsyuk's scoring is much greater than Guy's, but to answer your question as to whether Datsyuk's scoring is low relative to the era.....it depends on context. Overall, no, it's not low, he has scored a lot points considering the era in which he played....however, when thinking HOF type scoring level, he isn't in that category. We're getting into some of my personal preferences here I think, but if someone hasn't been consistently in the top 10 point scorers over their career, they are not worthy of HOF IMO (if you are looking at scoring alone). HOF should be for the elite, otherwise, it's not as prestigious.

No, I understand that...I guess I was just wondering why we're even discussing the fact that Crosby is better, doesn't have any bearing on whether Datsyuk is worthy for the HOF or not.

The reason I think it's way too high is because there are currently 6 teams in the league that don't have a single Dman making that much, 13 more teams that only have 1. There are a total of 38 or so in the league. That type of money means you'd be the number 1 on most teams or at least 1 or 2. Not sure I'd put him in that spot on most teams.

I used Carbonneau as an example of a guy that had the Selke's but didn't score enough, I suggested Datsyuk likely did score enough...while his scoring is low on its own, combined with Selke's will likely be enough. I don't get the suggestions that he wasn't as good as Crosby that I've seen a lot of here. I don't disagree, but why does that matter? Do you need to be better than Crosby to get into the HOF? Crosby will likely be seen as the best player to have started his career within the last 20 years....so he'll be in his first year of eligibility....so will a few others that weren't considered as good as him and there will be more that still get in as well, but take more time.