Weave

I don’t know how you blame the team for Hodgson. How were they to know a chronic, incurable illness would manifest itself after that contract was negotiated?

I tend to agree that MoJo is pretty good at zone entries. That's one thing he does better than all on this team but Jack and Dahlin, really.

I can't find it, not even on my news feed now. Or maybe I read it wrong. And can't find an article anywhere that compares proposed defense spending to overall budget size.

It was on my Apple news feed. I have no idea how to link them here. I'll see if I can find it from my laptop.

We'll definitely agree to disagree there. The military should not be sucking up >50% of an entire countries revenues in a non-major war period of time.

Did I read correctly today that Trump’s federal budget proposal has more money allocated to military spending that the rest of the budget combined?

This seems way too conspiratorial to be likely. I find it difficult to believe that PL hired a guy to fail when he also clearly stated that he needed to learn the job. Was he going to intentionally learn the ropes from an incompetent? Doesnt make sense to me. And this as well.

Anyone watching XFL? My Godson is starting right tackle for NY Guardians. Had a good game today. I need to buy a jersey.

I mean, what does the roster look like if those trades weren't made? Are we still without a 2C and a 3C? A starting goalie? A 1D? Does Dahlin end up here? IOW, does it even matter? My contention is, until I can be shown pretty conclusively, it didn't matter. Edit- to go back to my assertion that we needed vets to allow the kids to develop, I very strongly believe that the ROR trade absolutley needed to happen. Jack needed to be on the 2nd line. Someone needed to be the guy getting all the pressure while Jack learned to be a pro. I feel strongly enough about this that I think this season is the FIRST season Jack should have been the 1C. I think we needed ROR last season to continue to develop Jack. And that assertion extends to Sam, Dahlin, and should have happened to Risto as well. I'm hoping Casey gets that treatment now. He'll benefit from being in a situation that allows success.

Common ground. At last.

Honest question, as I have not been bothered in the least to pay attention, who did we forgo to get ROR, Kane, et al? And your assertion doesn't counter my main point, that the players GMTM went after were simply not the correct ones. It woiuldn't have been Kane, Bogo, Baptiste coming back.

Woof. I guess if you are gonna support losing on purpose you may as well make it an ethos. My contention remains the concept was best for getting Jack and Sam into the proper environment. GMTM chose the players to surround them poorly. The risks of hiring inexperienced people to manage the transition. I will argue until I reach total apathy that this would have worked if we had the veterans surrounding Jack and Sam that Sidney and Gino had around them their first few years. But we destroyed any possiblity of that happening by going all in on the tank.

Interesting take against this idea from some NHL GM's. I would have thought there would be near universal support for it at the NHL level because they have developmental control earlier.

I don't see how lesser players improve the ability to develop the two biggest assets the organization has had since Turgeon and Mogilny. Frankly, I see it as putting Sam and Jack at even greater risk.

We have already seen the level of UFA willing to sign here. And we know how bare the cupboards were for minor deals. I don't see a better path forward with those limitations.

You are preaching to the choir. My take was that GMTM attempted to bring in talent more quickly that would have kept players at the level they needed to be. Whether he chose the correct players is another matter entirely. The reason we were so talent poor as to put players into positions that they weren't ready for is that the act of setting up for the tank depleted the organization to the point that there was no way to ice a team that would put players in positions to succeed. Keeping those picks or moving them for ready for the NHL talent wouldn't have mattered. The gap was too wide to overcome. Then we would have had 3-4 seasons where Jack, Sam, Zemgus, Risto, etc. all would have been even more heavily burdened by the weight of carrying a team with even less talent than they had already. (Imagine that!)

Am I reading you as advocating 2-4 more seasons of Mezaros, Benoit, old Moulson level rosters on the big club?

Maybe it is chicken and egg, but the prospects that are doing well were put into situations where they could succeed, not losing situations. Keeping those picks and feeding even more kids to the wolves to save draft picks wasn't going to help anyone's development. After his rookie season, I wonder what could have come of Girgensons, for example, if he wasn't fed to the wolves.

I remain surprised that Girgs gets no love going forward. He's had a really good season, seems to fit what RaKru wants to do, and has filled his role well.

Yup. Sam clearly responded to the criticism. And that is good. I think he needed to hear the criticism.

No posts on the Arizona Coyotes testing prospects against the rules?

You owuld think by now everyone would be on board with this. I don't get at all people who think this team can progress by losing.

Long article. Took a long way to get to the ultimate point at the end. Well stated though IMO. https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/the-cult-of-unity-is-a-poison

I'll add to this, even blue chip prospects occassionally don't pan out for whatever reason. You can't bank on them until they've proven they can handle the responsibilty. We made this mistake with Mitts. And Grig, and Girgs before him. Get a known quantity 2C on the roster. If it turns out we have more than one 2C capable then we have 1. depth and 2. a good, versatile player that can be moved to 2nd line wing. We've seen time and again how valauble center depth is. We can't have too many centers. Get one for 2C from the outside and if Cozens and whoever is ready we have the makings of what we had with Drury, Briere, Roy, Connolly, Hecht. And that turned out pretty well, really.

Anyone give a shout to North Buffalo seeing a win here? Glad we could send him to a good game.