shrader

And he was.

And that trade is another reason why we need to pump the brakes a bit on the idea that seems to be prevalent around here that we absolutely cannot trade away any of our picks/prospect right now. There can be deals out there that make sense both short and long term.

It goes a little further back than that though. His walking away from the money was whatever the original suspendable offense was.

Sure, whatever they need to add, it's always going to take some work and luck to find the right piece for the team. It gets a little easier to do that without Berglund's money hitting the cap. Options are available that didn't previously exist.

That is instead replaced with a significant amount of long term cap relief. After next year, it comes down to the difference between O'Reilly and Thompson's contracts, so we'll probably be talking close to $6 million. I'd count that as a significant return. Maybe it's not one they wanted/were counting on, but that's what it is now.

It's kind of interesting that it has to go through waiver in order to terminate the contract. Obviously no one is going to claim him, but it's interesting that they allow for the possibility that one team is cool with violation of contract while another is not. Yeah, I know rules are rules, but it kind of makes me laugh a bit.

I probably left out some words as I typically go for short posts. I was never calling that play a dive. Skinner is a guy who will sell something for the purpose of drawing a penalty. Selling, diving, embellishing, turtling... it all falls under the same umbrella ultimately, things done to draw a penalty. That's a big part of Skinner's game. This particular instance yesterday? I have absolutely no problem with it.

I wouldn't be surprised by that actually. I haven't been in that building in ages, but it was something that would always drive me crazy at BU games. They would never show an anti-BU replay in that building. Goals scored by the opposing team? No replay. It always seemed incredibly stupid to me. Depending on your seats, there were plenty of times where you weren't sure how a goal was cored. Then there's all those times where you'll see the players watching the replay as kind of an instant scouting report. By cutting out those replays, you're actually holding back the team itself sometimes.

I've heard that comment now. I don't buy it completely though. There's no way they didn't know about it right there on the ice immediately. We always see them looking up at the scoreboard to catch replays during stoppages. Now unless they didn't show it again in the arena, there's no way that entire Florida team isn't on the bench staring up at the scoreboard after what they thought was a dirty hit.

The penalty? If his leg/foot made contact with Barkov at any point, it was already after the trip with the stick. I can see how Florida might have viewed it that way initially, but even one single view of the replay, which I'm sure they saw several times at that point, would clear that up.

My thoughts exactly. He didn't offer up an ounce of resistance, knowing that it would gain them a powerplay. I have absolutely no problem with it, but not every player would do that exact same thing (Bogosian is the first to come to mind). Skinner was a willing participant in exactly what went on there, he made the choice to not respond. Miller did not choose to have his head caved in.

Skinner is a diver, so everything he did there with Yandle fits his game perfectly. There really was nothing to see there. It was a guy who draws penalties drawing a penalty, just as you're suggesting.

I say that almost every day.

We saw pretty much the same exact thing a week or two ago against Philly. We may have one of those teams that doesn't get up for matchups against last place teams. They wound up winning it, but they didn't exactly look too great for a while against the Kings either.

I know we don't like to make light of an injury, but that one really should have been the Caruba collision of the game (if it wasn't). Dude ran into a brick wall.

I'd avoid weed for a little while. It may be one of those Minority Report future crimes you're being charged with.

That and it’s pretty tough to fight when someone is beat hugging your head from behind while pinning you against the boards. It was a very awkward/lazy attempt from Yandle in the wind.

Are we officially at the point in this league where players retaliate for textbook tripping penalties?

Does he have any history because they do more frequently test players in the system. If I'm reading the policy correctly, having other players in the system on his team would also impact this. They draw their random testings from the pool of all players who aren't already subject to "ongoing reasonable cause testing". So the more players you have on the team in the system, the higher chance you have to be randomly selected.

The playoffs are a sprint and the regular season is a marathon. What it takes to win one is very different than what it takes to win the other. We tend to focus on the Cup itself for obvious reasons, but personally, winning the President's Trophy is one hell of an accomplishment too. I have a hard time labeling one as the best vs. the other since the rules are so drastically different, but I can say for sure that I definitely enjoyed the ride that was the regular season in 06-07.

The NHL is much more of a niche sport than any of the others. I'm definitely not going to compare them (or any other sport for that matter) to the NFL. Their setup is so insanely easy to market and they exist on a completely different plane. Sadly bounceyball is the most comparable since their team numbers and games played are pretty much the same. I really don't have a clue what they do for their playoffs though and hopefully I can keep it that way.?

The can of worms is calling one team better than another even though they played completely different schedules. Like I said in what you quoted, a one point difference between Tampa and Winnipeg really doesn't mean all that much because of that. I'm not willing to say Nashville and the Jets were the two best teams in the league, making that the idea final matchup due to that. Allowing the crossover makes for artificial 1-4, 2-3 matchups where we don't really have any idea if those are actually the 1st and 4th best teams. If I really wanted to create an ideal situation, I'd completely break off the the east and the west pre-interleague play MLB-style. But that completely violates the money motivation, so it will never happen.

I'd put the thing on my desk at work if I ever got one. Ugly trophies are far better than the typical office stuff. The leagues are ruled by the almighty tv dollar. Time zones are a bitch. They're going to do everything they can to avoid that cross country audience fracturing matchup and cater to the east coast as much as possible. Any realignment done by this league, the primary motivation will never be about leveling the playing field. It will always be about $$$.

I don't think we're at the days anymore where a team is going to build around a 27 year old center, especially one that isn't a first liner. That's a complementary piece, not a building block.

Has there been anything out there suggesting that he was helping with the young swedes? He's not a guy I've paid much attention to and I don't read anywhere near as many of the stories as others around here do, so I have no idea how much truth there might be to that. The whole thing right now is at a place where so much gets thrown out there now that the last 6 months or so of his life become a blurred mess.