Randall Flagg

Where's @Thorny at

FTR, I didn't mean that to be a reply to you, or else I would have quoted you. I was just triggered into imagining my worst-case-scenario that dudacek has referenced, and I gathered you were just speculating on what might happen and good justification for it. Terrence M Pegula Also if y'all read that whole thing, I am relaxed and am quite confident that won't happen, just saying that if it does I think they're a bunch of knuckleheads.

You should watch tape of Doughty and EK's early NHL seasons. Defensemen like this need to be in the NHL making their mistakes and figuring things out by trying. It's how you get careers like Doughty's and EK's. Benching and sending to Rochester shaking your finger back and forth stunts growth, it doesn't promote it, with these kinds of players. Your boy Beaulieu on the other hand...is a Rochester player if I've ever seen one

Tage Thompson has been one of the 7 or 8 best forwards in the preseason and training camp, much less 12. If he and all of the young guys get sent down because of a numbers game, I am absolutely canceling center ice and demanding Jason and Phil to be fired. For full context of why I feel this way...I've moved on from the ROR trade. But we have a center depth problem at the moment and were willing to deal him to fix a culture that was gashed by yet another slow start, never recovering. Points were made about ROR's ES play, despite his underlying metrics suggesting that not breaking records in d-zone usage with plugs for a top six player and having everything else be the same would increase his ES point total by ~10. Even though he wasn't getting the points, the team scored more, allowed fewer goals, while he was out there, and was one of two Sabres to have net-improvements added to whichever players played with him. Even with his low ES scoring in this role, his defensive performance was so good that models that account for both of these things were calling him a top 20 player in the entire league. So we had that, but the culture was bad, and we needed to trade him. Fine. We get a good young player who played 41 games for a much deeper Blues team last year, who is playing like a top 6 player and maybe even falling in the top 6 forwards of camp performances. We babble about a culture of competition and pushing guys, and needing to get on a good start or else we'll have to trade our other good players becuz culturrrr. Making the decision to send all of Tage&Co. down because poor Scott Wilson or Johan Larsson has to go through waivers? Because we aren't quite ready to win a cup? This would be a joke. We've established that a good start is so critical that we were willing to blow up our whole organization to fix the culture to make it happen, so making decisions like that would be a disgusting slap to the face to fans paying to watch the team, guys on the team trying their hardest to fix this thing, and the players they lied to about having a shot, players that earned a spot they aren't getting. I would be sick. Fortunately, that's not going to happen.

Who's on the bubble you're thinking? I basically need to see Tage and one of Casey/Rasmus on the team, and I'd like to see Nylander but wouldn't die if he were sent down. The other of Casey/Rasmus can go down and I'd be fine. I wouldn't mind seeing Smith make it but understand he's almost certain for Rochester. And I'd like to see one more game of Pilut, but I won't be able to. I'm not convinced he's not a top 4 defenseman on this team so I'm going to be pretty sad when he goes down. Sounds like McCabe has been pretty good which is nice to hear

Glad I coouldn't watch then!! Though I think I want Guhle in Roch. I am just ready for the real games to start. And I think the players are too.

Pittsburgh Penguins Record last season: 47-29-6, 100 points, 2nd in Metro Playoffs: Lost in second round to Washington Coach: Mike Sullivan GM: Jim Rutherford Captain: Sidney Crosby GF: 270 (3rd) GA: 248 (20th) PP: 26.2% (1st) PK: 80.0% (17th) Top 5G: 1.) Evgeni Malkin (42) 2.) Phil Kessel (34) 3.) Sidney Crosby (29) 4.) Patric Hornqvist (29) 5.) Jake Guentzel (22) Top 5A: 1.) Sidney Crosby (60) 2.) Phil Kessel (58) 3.) Evgeni Malkin (56) 4.) Kris Letang (42) 5.) Jake Guentzel (26) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Evgeni Malkin (98) 2.) Phil Kessel (92) 3.) Sidney Crosby (89) 4.) Kris Letang (51) 5.) Patric Hornqvist (48) Key Additions: Matt Cullen (C), Jimmy Hayes (RW), Jack Johnson (D) Key Losses: Conor Sheary (LW), Matt Hunwick (D), Tom Kuhnhackl (RW), Carter Rowney (C) Projected Lineup: Guentzel - Crosby - Hornqvist Hagelin - Malkin - Sprong Rust - Brassard - Kessel Cullen - Sheahan - Simon Dumoulin - Letang Johnson - Schultz Maatta - Oleksiak Murray Jarry Top Prospects we might/might not see 1.) Daniel Sprong, RW, 2nd round 2015 2.) Tristan Jarry, G, 2nd round 2013 3.) Calen Addison, D, 2nd round 2018 4.) Filip Hallander, C, 2nd round 2018 5.) Lukas Bengtsson, D, UDFA My thoughts They should contend for a cup once again. Ridiculous offense and forwards, almost impossible to replicate. Letang is fading fast but it they've won cups with defenses just like this one. Murray needs to have a bounce-back season. I remember when we were trying to build center depth

Philadelphia Flyers Record last season: 42-26-14, 98 points, 3rd in the Metro Playoffs: Lost in first round to Pittsburgh Coach: Dave Hakstol GM: Ron Hextall Captain: Clode Giroux GF: 249 (12th) GA: 236 (14th) PP: 20.7% (15th) PK: 75.8% (29th) Top 5G: 1.) Claude Giroux (34) 2.) Sean Couturier (31) 3.) Travis Konecny (24) 4.) Wayne Simmonds (24) 5.) Jakub Voracek (20) Top 5A: 1.) Claude Giroux (68) 2.) Jakub Voracek (65) 3.) Shayne Gostisbehere (52) 4.) Sean Couturier (45) 5.) Ivan Provorov (24) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Claude Giroux (102) 2.) Jakub Voracek (85) 3.) Sean Couturier (76) 4.) Shayne Gostisbehere (65) 5.) Travis Konecny (47) Key Additions: James van Riemsdyk (LW), Christian Folin (D). Key Losses: Valtteri Filppula (C), Petr Mrazek (G), Brandon Manning (D), Matt Read (RW), Johnny Oduya (D) Projected Lineup: Giroux - Couturier - Konecny JVR - Patrick - Voracek Lindblom - Laughton - Simmonds Raffl - Vorobyev - Weal Gostisbehere - Provorov Folin - Sanheim Hagg - Gudas Elliott Neuvirth Top Prospects we might/might not see 1.) Carter Hart, G, 2nd round 2016 2.) Joel Farabee, LW, 1st round 2018 3.) Philippe Myers,D, UDFA 4.) Morgan Frost, C, 1st round 2017 5.) German Rubtsov, C, 1st round 2016 My thoughts After Patrick got healthy, he really came along with a strong finish to his rookie campaign. If he can stay that way, Philly's top 6 is absolutely nasty. They look for prospects to fill out depth much like we do, but are far more proven in the top 6. Their D is still weak but Sanheim being ready helps. Provorov is going to contend for the Norris his whole career. At 21 he had a season just one step below getting some 3rd place votes. Their goalie curse is still happening, and Hakstol is one of the worst coaches out there, supposedly. They should win games this year, and be a bubble playoff team.

Ottawa Senators Record last season: 28-43-11, 67 points, 7th in the Atlantic Playoffs: None Coach: Guy Boucher GM: Pierre Dorion Captain: GF: 219 (25th) GA: 284 (30th) PP: 16.6% (27th) PK: 76.2% (26th) Top 5G: 1.) Matt Duchene (23) 2.) Ryan Dzingel (23) 3.) Mike Hoffman (22) 4.) Mark Stone (20) 5.) Derick Brassard (18) Top 5A: 1.) Erik Karlsson (53) 2.) Mark Stone (42) 3.) Mike Hoffman (34) 4.) Matt Duchene (26) 5.) Bobby Ryan (22) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Mark Stone (62) 2.) Erik Karlsson (62) 3.) Mike Hoffman (56) 4.) Matt Duchene (49) 5.) Ryan Dzingel (41) Key Additions: Chris Tierney (C), Brady Tkachuk (LW), Mikkel Boedker (RW), other prospects from trade, not sure if they'll make team? Key Losses: Mike Hoffman (W), Alexandre Burrows (RW), Frederik Claesson (D), and some dude named Erik Karlsson (D) Projected Lineup: Dzingel - Duchene - Boedker Tkachuk - Tierney - Stone Paajarvi - Chlapik - Ryan McCormick - White - Pyatt Chabot - Ceci Borowiecki - Wideman Wolanen - DeMelo Anderson Condon Top Prospects we might/might not see Tkachuk. Brown, White, and Balcers/Norris. My thoughts Last place.

Can't believe there are still two more of these games. Let's get to next Thursday already dammit

I know - Berglund is and should be viewed as a depth piece, though, and not a 2C. I agree that in general it's going to be a "by committee" job.

I've already addressed/rephrased that particular comment. But your thought is equally horrifying.

Correct, though I think there was some assumption that Casey will be a productive center to some degree, and that was definitely how we project it to work out going forward. Should have phrased differently

Mittelstadt is a better hockey player right now than he was in April. He looks like a kid who had 30 in 34 in NCAA hockey one year after HS hockey, which was less than 2 years ago. People remember Pronman ranking him high and not the fact that when he played center for 1.5 periods in April the Sabres could not register a single shot attempt while his line was on the ice until he was moved back to wing. The offseason praise plus Botterill assuming he's ready to be a 2C as part of the justification for the ROR trade made everyone forget what Casey actually currently is

It took me at least 3 seconds to remember who 9 was.

I'm not, but I'm convinced he's going to get it anyway.

The contract is enough that I'm not super interested, but he'd make this team I would think.

If all you care about is the sports, The Athletic is pretty awesome and, IMO, blows away TBN. It depends how much you read the non-sports part of TBN.

That is surprising.

Sorry about how behind on this I am. I'll catch back up but it might be a couple more days.

When did the Flyers re-sign Scott Hartnell?

Attaboy Gio. Congrats!!

They played Nashville pretty hard while we were golfing, eh?

Speaking of end zone walls, wtf are they doing in that "football stadium" in Miami?

Wilson - Kerfoot - Jost Nieto - Soderberg - Comeau Bourque - Andrigetto - Compher Is what played behind the Avs' stud line on a playoff team. If our super line works, no reason not to stick with it!