Randall Flagg

Don't teams only play division opponents a maximum of 5 times? You know we're going 1-4 against Ottawa this year But sweeping Boston

I was right - that perfectly flips our outcome. We get one pick, they get the other.

It makes more sense if EK said "i'm hitting the market no matter what" One year of him if you're at the age SJ is is worth that deal still.

Who is reportedly "intrigued" by John Tavares's experience in the UFA market, and is a UFA at the end of the year, lollll

One of the funny things is how mad other fanbases are. Stars/Knights/Lightning fans can't believe their teams didn't beat that offer

That makes sense. I was going to guess that whichever 1st buffalo got, Ottawa would get the other.

That return for Kane at the deadline would have made half this fanbase mad. And that's only a slight exaggeration. WTF?

That is unreal, considering some of the speculated offers from Tampa a couple months back

Braun and Hertl is my guess

That's good, I'd rather make it in the 2019 draft than 2020

The trade has happened.

I'm guessing one of Hertl/Meier, two other prospects, a few seconds/firsts 3 years from now

Some poor Sharks player is going to be told that, instead of a team that has cup aspirations, he gets to play for Eugene Melnyk without Erik Karlsson

As an example of other GM's being obtuse - an NHL GM actually "bet his house" that Lou was going to offer sheet Nylander this summer. The Matthews quote was merely a bet of a steak dinner. I predict he gets 11 million and signs sometime before training camp of the season that his contract actually doesn't cover. It is completely fair, considering Jack got 10 million for a 56 point season and a 76 pace season with no awards. Matthews has an award, has the 2nd best goal scoring rate of all NHL players over his first two seasons, one of which was a teenage season, and has experienced far more team success. He had a 69 point season and then paced for like 84. He's won them a playoff game before. 11 million would be completely fair if it were to be inked right this second, and he has an opportunity to increase that value. It would be reasonable, if he played a key role in a playoff run and won a Hart, Richard, or Rocket, to maybe even match McDavid's number. It depends on what happens and when he signs.

I guarantee you every single NHL GM and front office member has shared texts and phone calls with players on other teams who they know and have previously employed. If they were talking about getting Lehner to tank the games against the Sabres or something, or about signing him again next offseason, that's a problem.

You're aware that "anonymous Western conference GM" have been reported to say things like that all of the time, and have been flagrantly wrong all of the time, right? That does not constitute an actual report. Nobody with a shred of credibility has yet said Auston is demanding that money. And if you were so inclined, with the evidence available, you'd have a much easier time construing Jack's contract as detrimental to the team and selfish, and you'd describe Peter Fish's words (it's his f*cking AGENT for christ's sake, of course he's going to say that) as cover, and point out that 10 million per year for a player who hadn't hit 60 points ever as outrageous, while AM is humming along quietly scoring more goals than anyone else in the NHL per game on his elc. But pi's got pi's picture and pi is sticking with it

NS is right, I have no idea what you're going with here:

Nope

Yup. Damn that Jack Eichel

That is outstanding stuff from Dallas Twitter.

Detroit Red Wings Record last season: 30-39-13, 73 points, 5th in Atlantic Playoffs: None Coach: Jeff Blashill GM: Steve Yzerman Ken Holland Captain: Zetterberg, but he's probably not playing GF: 212 (28th) GA: 254 (23rd) PP: 17.5% (24th) PK: 77.5% (23rd) Top 5G: 1.) Anthony Mantha (24) 2.) Gustav Nyquist (21) 3.) Dylan Larkin (16) 4.) Andreas Athanasiou (16) 5.) Frans Nielsen (16) Top 5A: 1.) Dylan Larkin (47) 2.) Henrik Zetterberg (45) 3.) Mike Green (25) 4.) Anthony Mantha (24) 5.) Nicklas Kronwall (23) Top 5 PTS: 1.) Dylan Larkin (63) 2.) Henrik Zetterberg (56) 3.) Anthony Mantha (48) 4.) Gustav Nyquist (40) 5.) Justin Abdelkader (35) Key Additions: Filip Zadina (RW), Thomas Vanek again (LW), Jonathan Bernier (G) Key Losses: probably Zetterberg (C), Xavier Ouellet (D), David Booth (LW) Projected Lineup: Abdelkader - Larkin - Mantha Rasmussen - Nielsen - Nyquist Vanek - Athanasiou - Bertuzzi Helm - Glendening - Svechnikov Frk DeKeyser - Green Daley - Ericsson Jensen - Kronwall Howard Bernier Top Prospects we might/might not see 1.) Filip Zadina, LW, 1st round 2018 2.) Michael Rasmussen, C, 1st round 2017 3.) Joe Veleno, C, 1st round 2018 4.) Dennis Cholowski, D, 1st round 2016 5.)Evgeny Svechnikov, RW, 1st round 2015 My thoughts This team is bad if Zetterberg plays, and worse if he likely won't. They aren't as bad as Montreal with Price of last year, or as Ottawa, but they're competing. Their D is old and not much is coming, but DeKeyser is pretty good. Larkin and Mantha are good pieces but you'd want a couple of offensive players better than them, and they are the best Detroit has. I don't expect much of them and think this represents the early parts of a several year stretch of badness for that franchise.

If R2 ever sticks I'm leaving the forum

I don't have the time to put video clips together, but the trait I'm talking about is the thing that basically only Brady and Rodgers have ever had at a young age from what I've ever seen. Knowing you have blindside pressure and feeling it out while not looking at it. Most good NFL quarterbacks BECOME better at this over time. Check out Big Ben's pocket presence in his rookie year and compare it to now. The same goes for really any QB that is good outside of two of the best QBs to ever play the game. What is a separate trait, that Allen has shown promising signs of, is overall presence in the pocket and the willingness to climb it to make a throw when he DOES know he has pressure, while keeping his eyes downfield. EJ couldn't do this, Tyrod didn't do this, his eyes dropped and he looked to scramble the second something didn't go right. Allen's preseason TD pass in Cleveland was the best case of this I've seen from a Bills quarterback since, I dunno when. The 3rd and 10 and 3rd and 18 plays from this past weekend showed more of it. That's what I like. Youtube has videos of every throw he made in college last year, and watching those was enlightening in this regard too, because the reason he didn't "have a pocket presence" in college is that he simply didn't have a pocket. There were plays where, before the ball finishes being snapped into his hands in the shotgun, two defenders were behind the guards. Our line hasn't been THAT bad and so that particular worry has been largely erased for me by what he's shown in his limited time. There are, of course, plenty of things he needs to work on. His 3rd and 7 conversion showed a full progression before firing it for a conversion, but he missed open receivers on other plays. He held on too long a couple times. Two or three of the throws were just bad throws. The "RPO" where he didn't give to shady (I think it was a RPO?) was a mistake. But he was 4 drops away from 10-15 for ~120 yards and a TD, even if just in garbage time, and I look forward to seeing his development as we go forward because he's shown me enough to be cautiously optimistic. I'm focusing right now on the positives, just because somebody needs to during this dreary time

The last young QB I've seen have it was Aaron Rodgers. You need to face a lot of pressure from NFL players before you understand it. IMO that's one of the few traits that can actually be developed at this point. The important thing at this point is that he's far better at keeping his eyes down field than I thought. That's a start, that hasn't been said about any QB we've had in a while.

I mean, my eye is untrained, but Peterman absolutely had at least 9 plays (that's how many were in the one I saw) where legitimate options were NFL open, usually more than one. It's not to say that KB was running down the seam with no one within 20 yards. There were at least two plays shown where the deep man WAS wiiiiiiide open for six though. And occasionally the line didn't hold up long enough to blame it on Peterman. But Peterman's historically bad performance is the main reason why that game was so bad, is what I'm getting at. He's out.