toby91_ca

I don't think this is accurate, but I'm not an expert. I think the way it works is as follows: If a player is placed on LTIR, his salary still counts towards the cap, the team is simply albe to exceed the cap by that player's cap hit (assuming they were right at the cap to begin with). However, if they replace his salary with a new player, they'd need to remove players from the active roster before he is able to come back from LTIR. In terms of trade deadline, I don't think that has any impact at all. I think the cap needs to be applied until the end of the season (regular season I think). In terms of no cap until the following year, that's not true either, I think there are off season cap rules.

I do think there is trouble brewing with the team with the departures of D & Z, which is coming sooner than most hope. Regardless of when they stop playing, they are in decline now and likely subject to potential injury concerns. It's a fact of life and comes with age. There are very, very few exceptions to that. Lidstrom was one of the exceptions, his game didn't decline too much and he wasn't susceptible to injury too much either....mostly because of the style of game he played (wasn't centred around speed or physical play). You don't have that same scenario with Z & D. That said, not sure I'd start thinking there is a paralell with the Dead Wings era because of the era we are in now, it's easier to rebuild. Teams are much more competitive, the worst teams are not that much worse than the best teams. From a points perspective, some of that is artificial because of the points system, but some of it is just pure factual due to the spreading around of talent. Teams can't load up on all the superstars anymore due to the cap. Of course, you could look at it being increasingly difficult to make the playoffs as well due to the competitive nature of the league as well.

I don't think it's Bylsma's or Shero's fault that Brent Seabrook is not on Team USA (I'm sure they'd put him on if they could)......but you could blame Yzerman for leaving him off Team Canada.

If you are not being sarcastic.....his comment was in reference to the photo of Chris Benoit and Franzen needing to toughen up.

When I was a kid (80s), there were no NHL players in the Olympics. I never watched hockey in the Olympics....I watched the NHL and I watched Canada Cups, that's what I was interested in. I'm from Canada (but I'm assuming it is the same for hockey players in the US), grew up dreaming of playing in the NHL and winning the Stanley Cup...Olympics wasn't even a thought at all. Back then, you were on the Olympic team if you were good, but not good enough for the NHL, so no one wanted that. Nowadays, they get to have both, so of course they'll vote to play. It's different for Europeans, they (most) wouldn't have grown up dreaming of the NHL, they would have dreamed about World Championships and Olympics. Not sure what it is like today, but I'm pretty sure World Championships are still seen as pretty important by Europeans....not so much for Canadians. I understand the thought process, but will tell you that I'd have zero interest if it wasn't NHL players going. Same reason I have zero interest in the Spangler Cup (sp?). The way I've looked at it in the past is that I watch the Olympics to see the best athletes in the world. The difference is that for most of the areas being competed, there really is no professional organization, so technically, they are amateurs I guess (or are they....if they make money at it, aren't they professional? But the money is likely from edorsements vs. actually competing in their sport). If it isn't the best in the world, I'm not interested. For hockey - World Juniors is a good example for me as well....they aren't the best in the world overall, but they at that age level and for the most part, these will be the future stars of the game. So I have interest in that.

I normally hate grammar police...but I do have few pet peeves. It's "err" on the side of caution....as in: if you are going to make an "error"

Kind of makes you wonder how a team could lose millions in such a short period of time. I'm sure their team payroll is much less than $1M per year.

Considering he had 3 seasons finishing with 90 odd points and a 4th in a row after that with 57 in 48 games (projecting to be in the 90s again over 82 games), I think a safer bet would be him finishing in the 90s again. Not to say over 100 would be out of the question, but he has been a very consistent 90+ point player over the past 4 years, not sure why that would change. Sure, 23 over 17 games projects to 110, but its far too small a sample size to do that. For example, look at his past 4 years 2013 - 26pts in first 17 games (finish on pace for 97 over 82 vs projected 125...not even close) 2012 - 18pts in first 17 games (finished with 97 vs projected 87...hotter later in year) 2011 - 31pts in first 17 games (finished with 91 vs projected 150...not even close) 2010 - 20pts in first 17 games (finished with 95 vs projected 96...pretty good)

Pretty small sample size to start projecting whether he's be competing for points race, but based on history and start to the season, pretty reasonable to think he'd be right there in goals. However, Tavares currently is competing with Sid for points. Granted, he's been really hot lately and needed 8pts in 2 nights to creep up there and he's still trailing by a signficant amount, so he might cool off and fade away, not sure. Tavares has always been a great player, but right around a point per game. The question is: is he just on a really hot streak now and wil even out a bit down the stretch, or is he having his break out year? The latter might be more likely, since he is only 23 (same for Stamkos actually)

1 - this is why we do see price increases from teams that always sell out (fans complain, but they continue to pay since there is so much demand) - agree on this for sure 2 - I honestly don't know the answer to the question, that's my point. Is demand simply not there, or is price the issue. The best example I can think of is my personal one. I live in Toronto, I'm a die hard hockey fan, but only a casual fan for the other sports. In Toronto, there is an NHL team, an NBA team, an MLB team a CFL team and an MLS soccer team. I have never been to a CFL game or an MLS game. Has nothing to do with pricing (prices are quite cheap relatively speaking), I just don't have the interest, lowering those prices would mean nothing to me. I have been to the occasional baseball game and basketball game, but only occasional, not because of pricing, just because of my interest level. Again, lower prices are not going to make me go more often. Leaf games is another story. I don't go very often at all, tickets are very expensive, but pricing really isn't the issue for me either, it's more availability of tickets. I suppose I could always find tickets if I really wanted to, but a lot of hassle involved. I will say this though, at $200 a seat, I might go X times a year, if prices were lowered and availability wasn't an issue, I would probably go more often. So, on point 2, I think in cases where there are not sellouts, lower prices to the general public might induce more to come, but it really depends on why they are not selling out. My gut reaction would be that it has less to do with pricing and more to do with little interest....winning helps take care of that more than pricing I think.

I would agree to an extent. 1 - the main problem with your argument is that close to 2/3 of the league's teams sells out all of their games (I guess I was looking at it from the majority and you were looking at it from the minority. 2 - looking at it from your perspective, it does make sense, but there is also a potential problem. Will lower prices actually increase attendance for those teams not selling out? Is price the problem? Or their simply not enough demand, no matter what the price.

Economics 101 does not work here. If costs go down, supply does not increase....there are still only X players per team. A decrease in costs is not going to increase the number of players on a team and is not going to change the number of games being played. The public is not going to decide that a game is not worth as much as they were paying before because of a decrease in costs. In fact, you might even consider tickets to be more valuable if costs go down as a result of avoided injuries (i.e. star players playing more often). They aren't selling widgets here.

Pretty sure what he is saying is that the paying public would not be paying less if the costs go down (i.e. if there are less injuries). Ticket prices are not determined based on expected costs to be incurred, they are determined based on the market. Also, it's probably not as simple to say that injured player X, making $5 million a year is costing the NHL $5 million if he misses the year due to injury.....that's what insurance is for. I'm sure it is way more complicated than they are presenting it (e.g. how long is a player out with an injury before insurance kicks in? how much are insurance premiums and how much would they reduce if injuries are reduced? etc.) - none of that has anything to do with $ paid by the consumer of course.

They are 3 points behind Philly and NY, but they are in the other division, picking up those 3 points wouldn't put them in 5th. They are 9 points behind 3rd in their division, which means they are fighting for wildcard if they don't make up those points.

I'm not sure if Pittsburgh would be the exception to the rule. Perhaps an exception to the extent that they have had so many injuries to so many top players and are running away with the east currently...HOWEVER, it would be the exception to not have any injuries. A lot of teams have injuries and manage to keep thing moving. Maybe not do quite as well, but keep things together (example...Tampa). Maybe the Wings have had more injuries than the norm though. My point is, they are hanging around 8-11 place, injuries are a factor for sure, but I'm not sure that would make the difference between 8-11 to 3 or 4. If the Wings were fully healthy and all other teams were fully healthy, I'm sure they'd make the playoffs, but I'm not sure they wouldn't have a battle to get there. Even with all the injuries....I do see them sqeeking in, but I'm not going to lie....getting a bit worried.

The problem with that thinking though is that no team can ever expect to be fully healthy....if you are greater, but if you are not, you have to do your best. Pittsburgh had been playing for a awhile without 5 of their top 6 Dmen, missing Malkin, missing Neal, etc., etc. They have actually been dessimated, but kept on winning. They actually had to sign a player the other day to get someone else in the line up (he only had an AHL contract).

Other than Quincey being the 2nd highest scoring Dman on the team, I think all of those are close to impossible.

Side note: when looking at the standings, Washington is 27th overall in wins in regulation, but are sitting in a playoff position (3rd in division) right now because of their 8 shootout wins....they also have 8 shootout / OT losses.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "one win and one loss" - you'd have to look at them in isolation and if you do that, one win puts them 7th (not 5th) and one loss would not move them at all....they could lose every single game for the rest of year year and stay in 9th if all the teams below them lose the rest of their games as well.

Heard this on the radio this morning. Makes perfect sense. Comment they made though was that he isn't even the captain of his NHL team....which is a silly comment since the captain of his NHL team isn't Russian. Interesting though, I wonder how many of Olympic captains will not be captains of their regular teams. Can't figure that out yet as not all captains have been named. I haven't followed it at all, but I know at least Canada hasn't named their captain yet. With Canada, though, it will be a captain as it will either be Crosby or Toews.

It's actually pretty funny, he's not even being talked about at all as having even been close. This is a guy that was on the 2010 team and is actually having the best statistical season of his career. Clearly, everyone is taking his post-season collapses very seriously and won't trust him until he proves he's past that.

I would probably go as far as to say that Nash, from that roster, has the best international reputation/past experience than anyone.

Not sure about that. Petr Nedved played in the Olympics for Canada 20 years ago and he will play this year for the Czechs. Lack of skating ability

Well, my guess on PK was off.

In my opinion, I think it's unlikely that PK makes it.