Drunkard

Yep. We've turned the corner too dawn quickly. Our defense is solid now and is only going to get better when Gorges gets healthy and can replace Meszaros. We may play our way out of the CHL all together if they keep this up.

I always got both feeds in SD and HD with Center Ice for Directv unless we were playing the Hurricanes because I live in NC.

Good point. Should also mean further improvement when Gorges is healthy and he can replace Meszaros. Then we'd actually have a solid top 6 from top to bottom.

The team definitely seems to be turning the corner back to respectability. Is the hard work mantra finally being followed or is team chemistry finally starting to develop? Maybe a bit of both?

Nice goal Moulson on the rebound.

Fair enough I guess. Seems intuitive that fewer and more strictly controlled guns would lead to fewer gun crimes but I don't know any stats on it and honestly I'm neither pro or anti gun myself so I'm OK with conceding the point. At least half the Democrats in office seem to fall on the pro gun side though, or at least it seems that way from the political ads I've seen. The percentage of anti gun Democrats is still certainly lower than the percentage of Republicans who deny evolution or that pollution is negatively impacting the climate though. Just seems disingenuous to equate both sides as equal with regards to fact denying when one side clearly does the vast majority of it.

Care to elaborate? The gun control issue seems like Republicans ignore the facts too because any sort of gun control legislation that gets brought up by Democrats such as increasing background checks, limiting the capacity of magazine clips, or banning assault weapons gets turned into the boogeyman of Obama taking everyone's guns including hand guns, hunting rifles, and shotguns which to my knowledge has never been supported by the majority of Democrats in Washington or in the media. So I'd ask what the facts are that the majority of Democrats are choosing to ignore regarding gun control.

Not anywhere near close. The majority of Republicans in office and in the media completely ignore facts about climate change, supply side economics not working for the vast majority of Americans, and the reasons for birth control and reproductive rights. Whether it's because they are afraid of losing campaign contributions from energy companies, the Super wealthy, and religious organizations or because they flat out aren't worried about the climate because they think the end of the world is coming anyway I don't know. Please name an instance where the majority of Democrats in office or the media completely ignore proven facts in favor of keeping their agenda going.

They'll keep bringing it up, don't worry. Republicans don't let little things like facts get in the way of their agenda.

Republicans somehow sell trickle down economics to the masses so if anybody can sell that nonsense (giving the Cup Champion top pick every year) they would be the people to look to.

I haven't done any research but I would assume with all of the money and resources that teams now dump into scouting that it's getting more reliable over time. It will always be somewhat of a crap shoot but I would bet than it's less of a crapshoot than it use to be and it will continue to improve in the future up to a point. Travel is cheaper and easier, more games are televised than ever before, and with the internet you can probably find a live stream of ###### fights in Mexico let alone just about any organized hockey game. Throw in advanced stats, the relative ease and ability to talk to these kids coaches, and all of that leads to more and more information and less ambiguity about prospects.

I see your point. Hockey's a niche sport to begin with and in a place like DC there are always other options available so it's no surprise they wouldn't get as much attention. I have no doubt that Ovechkin is single handedly responsible for a large percentage of that fan base. I just think in general games against Buffalo are bad to use as examples. I know Canes games are another good example. I've never been to a Canes game where Buffalo isn't playing but I know a handful of other people who have. From what they've told me that have little issues with the number of opposing fans besides us, Pittsburgh, and I think one other team (either the Massholes or Capitals or somebody I can't recall). Claude could probably answer it though.

That'll be great for league parity. LA and Chicago can just challenge each other for the Cup from now until eternity with just a handful of other teams in the mix from year to year.

Buffalo is known to travel well because of all the people who have left the area over the years though and at the time the Sabres were really good making Buffalo expatriates even more likely to want to catch a game. A city like DC though I would assume would have a disproportionate amount of fans who cheer for other teams though just because of it being the nations capital and people moving there from all over for work purposes.

Sweet. I'm glad it seems like he'll stay up with the Sabres. He's already a top 4 guy on this team and he's only going to get better as he develops. I just hope they keep him and Ristolainen together.

I'd rather keep Stewart so I'm hoping Stafford ends up being worth a higher return.

I'm not so sure about that, especially since we don't know what kind of moves are happening at the trade deadline. Nolan seemed to turn the team around last year when he first came aboard but the team crumbled down the stretch after losing Miller, Ott, Moulson, McCormick, and having Ehrhoff basically pack it in. I know this team stinks and all but if there's another mass exodus of veterans at the deadline and we bring up a bunch of kids and there's no team chemistry it's possibly the end of the season is horrible once again no matter what Nolan tries to do to steady the ship, even if he has the team looking more competitive before the deadline.

It means we started out horrifically bad last year. So bad that even though Darcy sold Pegula on the tank that he had to fire Darcy and Rolston because it worse than they even imagined and the team was getting boo'd out of the arena every night. Edit: As JJFIVEOH's post shows we are worse than last year with Nolan but better than last year with Rolston, just not by much. Losing Miller and Ehrhoff has definitely hurt the team big time.

I don't know about all star but Ehrhoff was definitely our best defenseman. He was on the ice for around half of our goals last year so it's no surprise that our goals scored are down even below last year's putrid numbers. Losing him definitely hurt the team.

Definitely. If I remember right Mr. Ethron's eye crookedness has also been discussed as well.

Absolutely not and I really like Eichel.

Ok, so you keep Gorges and replace Myers, but with who and how can you be sure it'll be an upgrade? It's easy to say replace them all but much harder to do it and actually improve the team. We don't have enough good defensive prospects if you factor in that Ristolainen and Zadarov are already here and Psysk and McCabe are needed to replace Meszaros and Benoit because they are definitely worse than Myers. So are we banking on Ruhwedel to replace Myers? Are we going to back up a Brinks Truck to someone in free agency? Will we create another hole by trading something else of value to bring one in? Draft another guy in the first round and wait for them to develop. I'm not hell bent on keeping Myers here or anything. I think he plays soft for his size and I'm tired of his token clutch and grab instead of him rag dolling the opposition to defend his team mates, but we've got bigger roster issues than him and the 4th line to focus on for sure. And I hope Murray is thinking the same way.

You can't replace an entire team though and at this point those are the ones from the list that I'd keep and I think they'd play better when put on the appropriate line. Myers and Gorges have played well together. The main problems with this defense seem to be Meszaros, Benoit, and when Weber has been put on too high of a line and asked to do too much. The fact that most of our forwards seem to play poor defensively also hurts them. Not all of our prospects are going to reach their potential either and there are risks with free agents and making trades as well. The best way to turn this team around is to upgrade the worst pieces rather than focusing on middling ones. Replacing Meszaros and Benoit with solid d-men will help this team more than upgrading Myers if those guys are still here and it will be much easier to do. I think Psysk and McCabe are already upgrades over Meszaros and Benoit but I'm OK with them staying in Rochester and coming up after we dump those guys at the trade deadline. I'm not certain either of them is better than Myers though so you replace your weakest players and it should upgrade the team. When you find true studs and top upgrades you can slide others down the line and hopefully the demotion helps them too. Just because Ennis isn't a good top line center doesn't mean he has no place on this team. Getting Eichel not only gives us a true top line center but it keeps us from having to play Ennis there. So Ennis slides to the second line and you hope he can move back to the wing because Grigorenko or Reinhart prove to be better there. As for the 4th line I'm not really sure what you expect. I think the guys I chose from the list are good 4th liners but if there are obvious upgrades or 3rd liners who get bumped down by better incoming talent I'm not married to them just like I'm not married to any player on the roster. At this point they are the least of our worries though because those guys can make a legitimate 4th line in the NHL. I can't say that about our other lines though.

The problem is that since we don't have the top level talent to play our other guys can't play where they really belong because of our lack of centers in particular. I think Ennis would be much more effective as a winger on the 2nd line rather than top line center. Moulson will be more effective playing with a stud like Eichel rather than a guy like Ennis. Stewart would also be more effective playing either with a better center or on a lower line against easier competition. Weber would definitely be more effective playing against lesser competition or with a better guy to be paired with. Most of the rest of the guys I argue to keep are 4th liners other than Myers with Gorges but I think they make a good pairing.

Great game so far and who would've thunk Weber and Meszaros would both be +2 at this point.