shrader

I hate when he added paint jobs. At that point, the helmet lost what made it unique.

They already had that exact fear long before this virus showed up.

Hands/stick up into the face and then immediately backing off. That really is classic Chara. If he was human sized people would call it cowardly, but with him they call it restraint.

I want to see how bouncyball stats change if you put a tiny leprechaun up there on the rim who attempts to block shots.

Good luck explaining all of that to the average non-hardcore follower of football though. Me personally, I've never really paid much attention to it so I have no clue how they do it, just that they can. People starting from scratch, they're going to figure out the NHL system far quicker and with less effort than they will the NFL.

Thanks, that now all I can think of is "K-UGER!"

Brawndo's quote mentioned "hockey trade", so that implies to me that they'd be packaging the pick with a player.

I misread the post, so I didn't realize that they stopped it. I can't fault anyone for that decision. It's lose/lose, there is no right call there.

Unexpected bumper sticker of the day: Hall/Oates 2020

To be fair, these types of games are not allowed in the NHL. That's one thing I'll always credit the NHL for, at least the average person can understand how their cap works.

Certain people around here would probably love Zegras' attitude after what he did monday night. Caught on tv screaming "**** you" at the referee after an absolutely atrocious penalty call in OT? Yeah, that will win some over, especially when paired with the timely goal scoring.

I realize we're getting into a semantics game here, but different contracts (transfer agreements) negotiated with separate entities, I'm not willing to call each of them special treatment.

Too many syllables.

If they can play after Malarchuk/Zednik I'm pretty sure they can play after anything. I'd bet that playing is actually the easiest escape from it. I hope everything's ok there. That's some truly scary stuff.

I can't just automatically label that as not wanting to go to Buffalo because they suck. Buffalo still has that "Buffalo" reputation and no matter how much we say to counter that, we still see that same "worst destinations" player poll result pop up every single year. That reputation is always going to exist. Sure, some will be impacted by the long streak of horrible results, but it's tough to know each individual's true reasons. When it comes to Zucker, he's a California kid. I wouldn't be surprised if that's the exact person who has that negative view of Buffalo.

The CHL doesn't get special treatment though. If anything, they get to keep their players for the shortest amount of time between the three main sources (CHL, NCAA, europe). But there really is no way around that. It's next to impossible to treat all three the same due to the different rules within each organization.

I haven't paid much attention to Drury's track, but Yzerman was thrown into an ideal situation. He got to sit back for multiple years behind a proven management mind in Holland. I don't know LaFontaine's path either, so I can't really say how much time he had learning from experience. What I do know is that he had a similar position with the Islanders before coming to Buffalo and also bailed on it very quickly. Maybe that's just a coincidence, but it's definitely a red flag* to me, especially since he hasn't had a job with another team since. *Maybe it's a case where he recognized two inept ownerships. Maybe it's an indication about LaFontaine himself... I'm willing to consider both possibilities.

The CHL is a feeder system to the NHL. It seems reasonable to me that the NHL would want to protect the quality of that feeder system. A higher quality lead should produce higher quality players. Of course the CHL wants to keep the high end guys to protect their business. So the question is whether or not what a prospect gains from being taken away one year early balances out what is lost in the quality of the league. I'm not so sure that as a whole, the players gain much of anything in the long run from it. I'd much rather stick with the current system and uniform rules across the board for all of those CHL players.

Let's not forget that Craig Patrick was also brought in as an advisor shortly after LaFontaine was hired. He certainly would qualify as the seasoned exec. I forget the exact timing of each some other hirings, but the hiring of LaFontaine was not done in a vaccuum. The real question is, after LaFontaine spurned them, why did they drastically change course after that and have never adjusted since.

It might be time to adjust the meds.

So do you mean one 19 year old per NHL team or per CHL team? In the first option, what happens if 3 or 4 of those guys happen to be from the same CHL team? That team gets purged and they're very angry about it. In the second scenario where it is only one kid per CHL team, what happens if Chicago wants to bring up a kid from London but so does St. Louis? Who wins?

Wow, the post becomes incredibly sadistic if it is in fact Plato. How exactly does drafting Pastrnak and McAvoy in the first round become a comparison for taking Olofsson in the 7th? Is it a continued rant about taking a defenseman over a forward, because, you know... McAvoy. Is it about always taking NCAA guys over CHL guys, because once again... McAvoy. Is it about taking the european forward instead of the CHL guy, because... Pastrnak. If we want take a shot and talk about competent drafting, it gets pretty intersting if you look at the Bruins recent track record. There's not a whole lot of CHL on that list either, even in the first round. The only noticeable CHL run is the much maligned trio of Zboril/DeBrusk/Senyshyn.

Which is why I threw the word potential in there. If this kid is in the AHL, you are able to call him up at any point throughout the season. They don't much care about the one year on the ELC, but it's more about the 40 games that would count as an accrued season, burning off one year towards unrestricted free agency. Teams will start to play games to avoid that number., or either number really, not calling up the kid even if his play has warranted it. I think the teams would much rather not have to pay attention to that and just let the kid play the whole year in the CHL.

I missed my chance and should have said "no one would care if his last name was Girgensons".

There's no better way to start off your first ever job in an industry by intentionally doing it poorly. If he actually did that, he's right where he belongs now, no longer working in that industry. Now some might respond and say he has a job with the NHL, but that's not the team management industry he had tried to get into.