Darryl Shannon's +/-

As long as the player in question is able to produce in the future, people forget about the primadonna act fairly quickly. In the NFL, Elway and Eli Manning come to mind for engineering selfish moves when they were 2 years older than Grigs. Lindros is the NHL equivalent in my head.....I'm sure there are more. While this certainly raises flags, I'm not close to saying that this will make me boo the kid if he ever makes it back to the bigs. Imagine that you were at a job making 1M per year and then demoted where that well dries up, when you feel like you didn't get the chance you deserve. I think he'll wake up tomorrow, realize his mistake and skate for 3 months in the Q, before reporting to Rochester. And finally, he's 19. Which means he's stupid.

I want to hit on every single pick as well, but there have been far bigger busts at 12 or whatever he was selected at. Our pure volume of picks for the past 2 years and probably the next 2 allow for us to completely miss the mark and still be okay. Don't discount the huge number of 2nd rounders either. I'd be more worried if our top 3 pick in either of the next 2 years turns out like this.

This probably would have been a non-issue 15 years ago. It's a young, stupid kid who is angry at his demotion who will probably wake up tomorrow morning knowing that if he doesn't do 3-4 months in junior that he forfeits the possibility of a huge future. Nothing to see here in my opinion. This is just social media stupidity and will probably be resolved in a day or two. And let's also put this on the organeyezation. In hindsight, it would have made far more sense to keep him in junior all along and not show him the bright lights (or huge $$$$) when he wasn't close to ready. And if he doesn't work out.....honestly, not a huge deal. First round picks are not slam dunks, and Terry said from day 1 that he didn't want to have his staff being afraid of making mistakes. Grigs is a boom or bust type of pick. If he busts, we have a many more spins at the wheel. And even more to come come this trade deadline.

I'm not sure if NFL logic translates to the NHL, but a one year deferral usually means you lose a round's worth of value. So a 2014 2nd = 2015 1st. I like the idea, but given the way Murray has been talking I don't think that will be the way he operates. If McDavid really is a generational talent, I'd like all the ping pong balls we can get to have a shot at him.

A binding agreement if you trade someone at the deadline makes no sense for both sides. A player could outperform and make themselves more marketable, or they could get hurt or perform horribly. There is risk on both sides. I don't know if informal discussions about the possibility of returning after being traded to a team of their choosing is technically wrong?

I was (and still am) a Briere fan. It's a shame his swan song in all likelihood won't happen on the team he grew up rooting for.

Trading for Briere doesn't make a ton of sense to me unless we are either emptying the cupboards of veteran leadership and want him to be that guy, or if we are giving Montreal salary relief and making them pay us with draft picks?

It's difficult to draw the line, but if a player doesn't bring anything but goal scoring, the ages of 30+ are difficult to justify that type of cap hit. I'm betting that he will be a buyout candidate before that deal has run its course, sort of like Briere. And this isn't easy....the way deals and UFA are structured kind of make this a necessity. Toronto fans would be furious if Phil walked for no compensation and put up video game numbers for 3-5 years. So they tack on an additional 2-3 years to get him to sign on the dotted line.

Being in our division, it's nice that Toronto is spending really, really big money on guys who are not elite. They are borderline, but borderline isn't good enough to tie up your cap room to Dion or Kessel.

Agree on most of this....though if you get a player to turtle in my mind you've already won. Not many players are okay with doing that (especially Lucic I think), as the firestorm in the media would be hilarious. Let's pretend that player X on an opposing team runs Miller again. If he gets 2 or 5, the next shift Scott is challenging. If that player turtles can you imagine the outrage from the dinosaurs who preach "the code"? And I don't agree with this....but the next page in the goon handbook would be that if said player isn't willing to fight, smaller skilled players are fair game, or a surprise attack is. If it goes that far, we have the biggest, baddest weapon on our side. Sad thing is that thinking like this has also resulted in a lot of the really ugly plays in hockey in the past 10 years or so. And I don't believe that the relations between the two teams are great, I just think that Scott gives us room that Shanahan and company have been unable to legislate.

If Lucic were to step out of line as badly as he has in the past (the attempted fight with Lydman or running Miller), he certainly would have to answer to 32. The only thing stopping it is an instigator, which I think the Sabres would be more than happy to take to send a message if it needed to be sent. I don't believe it's a coincidence that he's toned down his act against us since 32 signed with us. Don't take this as a "We need John Scott" post. The league and the team will be better without people like him around. But to say that he has zero impact on the relations between these two teams isn't fair either. It's definitely more tame, but to achieve that we need to dress a guy who drags down our overall skill level.

I think that's where the disconnect is. As long as Scott is on the team and/or dressed, Lucic and others of his ilk would not consider doing something that stupid or reckless. Lucic would not have run Miller as he would have known that a sound beating was coming his way. And the contention that a top 6 forward needs to take on Lucic is not practical. There may be 3-4 top 6 types in the league who could take him on. But history has shown that he shrinks from the true heavyweight division. To further this though....if Shanahan would have dealt with the situation properly, there would be no need to load up on muscle to counter stupidity. A great game is being bogged down by the idiots in charge.

It's a small sample size, but ever since Scott has been wearing the blue and gold Lucic seems to be on better behavior. No more (bravely) trying to fight the Toni Lydman's of the world. And the end of game nonsense seems to have lessened as well. Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that Scott doesn't belong in the NHL. My gripe is that as long as the league doesn't protect the safety of others from loose cannons like Lucic, there will be a need for the John Scott's of the world. Take a look at Lucic going after Landeskog. That isn't hockey, that isn't tough play. And it's not anything I want to see. John Scott keeps things like that from happening to our players. And we need that as long as Shanny isn't willing to drop the hammer on certain players and/or teams.

I think this is oversimplifying the issue....I think people bring up names like Kaleta and Scott to challenge the sham that is the office run by Shanahan. Using other lightning rods (who can actually play the game), do you think Cooke or Torres would have received nothing for the same exact play? I'm not embarrassed for Scott or any of his actions, I'm embarrassed that the league makes it necessary to even contemplate having players like him around anymore. In 05/06, we were so, so close to eradicating this type from the league, yet clutching, grabbing and physical play have been allowed to take over again, reducing scoring. Remember right after the lockout when crosschecking in front of the net was an automatic whistle, resulting in dmen fronting forwards? That's ancient history. Remember every time Scott is mocked as a joke that Lucic was laughing in his post game presser after running Miller.

Only gripes I've got: 00: Marty Biron 4: Boughner 15: Dixon Ward 16: Chris Taylor, obviously 22: Mair

Agreed.....the bulk of our bottom 6 are AHL types. Why not plug in the leading AHL scorer to see if he gives you more. My expectations are low, but entertainment level may go up for us as his hands are elite.

Just look at Gaustad's stats, and it's impressive that he's eeked out a 10 year NHL career with his skillset. I've never understood his value to the game though, especially with the talk that faceoff wins really don't matter.

I'm sure people talk about those things all the time, this seemed worse if only for the reason that he decided to do it while the ref was pushing him away from the scrum. So not only classless and stupid, but also gutless. Unless Kassian wakes up in the very near future, the 3 year expiration date can be a very real possibility. Not many guys wake up at 25 or 26 and all of the sudden become great players. LeClair was one....but I'm racking my brain trying to think of others. And his was due to the change in scenery, lax enforcement of the rules and playing with Lindros. Looking at his numbers so far, he's reminding me of a Brad May type of offensive presence who can't fight half as well.

Shades of Andrew Peters swinging the golf club at the Leafs. Kassian just seems like a tweener who will never make it.....not enough offensive skill to be a true power forward, and a glorified middleweight in the fight game.

To pile on to this....let's pretend Orpik is hurt really, really badly. As this happened well after the whistle, I'm curious if this would be considered assault as it didn't happen during play.

Until last night, I would have said the same thing about Thornton. There are classless idiots wearing the spoked B. Past actions showed he wasn't one of them.

I missed the Chara attempt the first time around. The league allowing him to be suspension free (I think), and thus able to call him a clean player with no priors is an absolute joke. Very interested to see how Shanahan deals with Thornton though. Yes, he's more talented than John Scott. That said, he's still a plug who wouldn't have a roster spot if fighting was eradicated from the game. He's easy prey to make a statement that the NHL is serious about cleaning things up. In reality, I see a comical 5-10 game suspension for a play that occurred after a whistle and necessitated Thornton skating the length of the ice to engage Orpik. And I see Neal getting 1-2 for outright stupidity. That said....I hope he uses the Lucic defense. "I had my head down and I was skating after the puck, I didn't see him".

Solid points....although the league seems to like this type of thing. Their broadcast partner drums up interest for games by calling them "rivalries" and showing stuff just like this. How many times did we see Lucic run Miller prior to our nationally televised game? As we watch clutching and grabbing go up, offense going down (even more so here), it seems like the league itself has zero concept on what it should be marketing and enforcing.

I'm thinking 10+.....Scott got his for a hit that was made during play. This was after the whistle, a slewfoot and punches that resulted in a stretcher being hauled out. In terms of plays that could easily be avoided, scrums after the whistle are easy prey. To up the ante, does anyone know if he came off the bench to do this?

Not for nothing, but two of our best runs at the cup were built off of solid AHL squads. Dixon Ward and company won the Calder I believe just prior to the 99 run, and Vanek/Miller/Pommers had a nice year during the lockout. I'd love it if we had enough depth to season some of these guys w/ an AHL powerhouse before moving up to the show. The thing we're missing is the veteran presence to help with our current path. We really need guys at the end of their career who can set the example but also realize how lucky they are to be playing in the NHL rather than overseas. Lose all you want, but keep a culture in place that makes effort a key component.