toby91_ca

Very good odds at the 4th becoming a 3rd, I think it's unlikely that Philly will miss the playoffs....they are in a pretty good spot right now. 1 more win for Mrazek is a no brainer with this many games left. Moving up to a 2nd pick is a different story though....pretty unlikely 1) I don't see Philly making the ECF and 2) Mrazek would have to have won 6 out of the 8 games to get there.....I'm not sure what their goalie situation is now, would we be the no brainer starting goalie, or chance he becomes backup by playoff time? Anything can happen in the playoffs though.

It was the most first rounders dealt ever. In terms of the 2008 draft, there may have been a lot dealt as well, but what was the perception of the draft? There may have been star players picked, but we have the benefit of hindsight now....were they all projected to be great players? Anyway, just mentioning what I've heard. In terms of deep draft, I've heard that as well....but deep in terms of having quality players deeper in the draft, but light in terms of high end talent....which is why a 1st rounder wouldn't be that much more valuable than a 2nd rounder. It's not my opinion, just mentioning what I've heard the so called experts discussing around the trade deadline. I get that Dahlin is super hyped, but I haven't heard much about elite talent beyond that. Of course it's speculation, same as it would be speculation to say it's a very strong draft. Neither can really be proven as it's a guess either way. It's almost impossible to judge how good an 18 year will eventually become in the NHL. There have been very few sure bets over the years.

What analysts? A lot of the discussion around trade deadline was that a lot of 1st rounders were moved because GMs didn't really value them that much this year due to the quality of players available this year. I thought it was fairly common and accepted that the draft was weak.....obviously not view held by all.

I see the opposite...Dahlin is obviously good, but looks like an extremely weak draft beyond #1.

Ha, not my area of specialty....I'm not a scout, especially not a goalie scout. That said, I'd probably say too early to tell. He just turned 26, if he was a forward, it would be different, but so many examples (I'd say probably more the norm) for goalies and defenseman to not hit their stride until later in their 20s. I think he's right around the time now though that he should be showing what he really is. He's going through a pretty tough stretch now, but who knows? It doesn't look good, but I wouldn't write him off just yet. Probably easy to say, but "let's see what he does next year". He has shown the ability to be a very good goalie, he has been inconsistent, but that doesn't bother me at all as you would expect that with a young goalie.....the trouble signs now are that he seems to be going in the wrong direction.

Are you suggesting he started out playing awesome for a bit with Philly and then took a nose dive? Or saying the he played awesome to start with DET and then took a nose dive that continued with PHI? If the former, playing awesome for a bit is probably on overstatement. He's been there 7 games now, his first game was good and was against CBJ (bubble wild card team right now). 2nd game was bad and it was against OTT (makes it even worse). 3rd game was good, but was against MON, so take that with a grain of salt....the following 4 games were all bad.

Huh? His last 4 were against PIT, FLA, TBL and CAR. PIT and TBL are in top 5 in the East, but not league (only TBL is.....he let in 6 that game). FLA and CAR aren't top 5 no matter how you look at it.

Looks like we are making progress then.

Except Yzerman was Crosby's favourite player and I think Forsberg is probably up there with his most hated.

Only 4, one was an empty netter....but still pretty bad stat line, .852 sv % and 4.03 GAA. He's given up 4 or more goals in each of his last 4 games

To be honest, it looks like a totally non-eventful type hit....perhaps a little late, but nothing out of the ordinary. You have to watch the slow motion video to see there is head contact. Certainly wasn't an aggressive/vicious hits like some of the others we've seen in the past. So, I get the suspension in this day and age.....head shots are extremely dangerous...3 games makes sense.

Hard to say....if Flyers do well, Detroit gets more and for good reason....if Mrazek sucks and Flyers do poorly, they basically get him for free....but is that really taking some to the cleaners? Yeah, didn't really give up much of anything.....but you aren't getting good in return either. Perhaps the suggestion is that the maximum being given should all conditions be met (unlikely), they still think they aren't giving much.

Not much diversity in the fastest skater question. The one that stands out to me is the greatest forward of all time question. I get that Crosby (or any of others after Gretzky and Lemieux) are high on the all time list, but who would ever say that Crosby is better than Gretzky? I would expect the odd person to argue Mario, but for the others listed, I'd expect 0%. I think the issue though is the players being polled didn't grow up in an era when Gretzky was playing...but they can look at the stats at least. I suppose you'd have the typical (if he was playing in that era argument as well).....but come on!

Yeah, he's been pretty bad. In the 6 games since the trade, 2 games have been good and 4 have been awful.

I don't have answers, but I am somewhat concerned about when the Wings can turn things around. They are probably a couple years away from that (if we're being very optimistic) and if we're talking a couple years from now....who is going to be the goalie? I don't care how good the rest of the team is, if you don't have a good goalie, you go nowhere (the better the rest of the team, the less you need in goal of course). Howard isn't good enough now in my opinion and safe to say he won't be any better in a couple years when he's 36 (no guarantee he's still in the league).

I'm guessing you've never been a season seat holder of an NHL team. I haven't either, but some of my friends hold at least partial season tickets in Toronto (where I live). That isn't relevant to my discussion though, other than to say "if you can't make a game, it's very easy to sell the ticket" - here anyway....used to be the case in Detroit as well....but not sure what it's like now. But my main point is...you don't have half your evenings blocked by games....you aren't talking about 82 games a year, you are talking about 41 home games. I looked at the home games over this season and this is the breakdown in terms of home games per week: - Weeks with only 1 home game = 9 - Weeks with 2 home games = 7 - Weeks with 3 home games = 6 - Weeks with 0 home games = 5

Better offensively, yes, but overall, no. With Washington though, his last year there, he was 5th in ice time for Dmen, but only seconds per game behind Alzner. Difference in ice time between #1 and #5 wasn't that significant. Less even strength and SH time is offset with more PP time. That makes zero sense for the Wings. Why would a team that is not yet ready to compete, trade a 23 year old for a 33 year old? That's the type of move you make when you are going all in.

I doubt it would be that low. NYI are a bubble playoff team right now, just as good of a chance they'll improve next year as decline. If JT leaves, that's a different story, but I'm guessing he stays.....if that happens, I think they'll improve because some of the cloud will be lifted

If every defenseman played equal minutes, they'd all have 20 min a night (assuming no OT). So, if he's eating "almost 20 min a night", he'd be below the average. The top guys used to log 30+ min a night, but I think that's come down a bit over the years as the speed of the game has increased.

This is the only logical reason why Green wasn't traded: offers were low....which logically is fine because it's better than nothing, but they weren't going to be accepted simply for Holland to save face. There is "zero" other rationale for not moving him. Even if they let him go for nothing, it's almost a plus because it probably improves their draft standing this year. The logic above in terms of not trading unless they got something in return that can help their team now doesn't make sense....they should be looking at the future, not the now.

There were 5 first rounders moved this year...most ever I think. Apparently, from what I've heard, managers weren't valuing them as much this year because the draft is expected to be pretty weak.

Technically, couldn't he be signed to an extension on July 1, 2018? Doesn't help for a deadline deal in Feb 2018 though.

Ha....I didn't read far enough, this is basically my question.

What is the source for this? Our Swedes are all quite a bit older than him, there are several other teams in the league that have Swedes that more in his age group. I'm asking because I truly don't know. I'm guessing they all have some connection, so he would be friends with our Swedes, but not sure why he'd be closer to these guys than Swedes on other teams.

Yeah, perhaps, but would have to have been prospects as he couldn't take salary