Thorner

You know me very well

There are receipts. The offseason is full of posts from some of the boards’ stand-out members that this season wasn’t even about making the playoffs, that we are actually ready to *contend* this season for a championship (which I cautioned against at the time). That would be the only reason you piss away 3 years in the name of development where the results don’t matter. (I mean, if you just want to make the playoffs, plenty of teams turn over on that goal in one offseason. We are aiming for something BiGgEr.) I’ll happily settle for playoffs and have ardently clung to this position and remained consistent in this - but let’s not pretend that wouldn’t be the *bare minimum* don’t make me pull up all the posts

Right. People can willfully ignore the context and evaluate every season as if it’s in a vacuum, and if we miss the playoffs this year, next season when we start 7-7-1 we can hear all about how, in a vacuum, it’s early again. But the reality is that removing all of the context doesn’t make any natural sense: it’s not 7-7-1, it’s in actuality 7-7-1 at the tail end of 3 previous years missing the playoffs under this regime, and 12 missed playoffs under the franchise: the salient truth is that “making the playoffs” this season, after missing for so long was an incredibly low, incredibly generous expectation to begin with - that’s where the angst justifiably comes in from fans - it’s a mark they absolutely need to and should be expected to hit. It’s already a gracious expectation. If they are looking 50/50 so far on what’s a NECESSARY, gracious expectation, there is going to be angst. Justifiably. If they make the playoffs, the reaction by all rights should be, “it’s about time”.

I certainly agree with this. Half the board takes a victory lap when we lose - but the other half takes a victory lap when we win, too. “Oh, I was told Steph Curry couldn’t shoot, and that the sky was falling, and that we couldn’t win? Hmmm?” they feed eachother

I think it does help. Venting helps. The fans can’t really do anything else. Imagine begrudging the fan who shows up with their lunch pail every day to this site in the midst of, not bad hockey, but a stretch of some of the worst hockey any team has had in any professional sport, over a decade long, who wants to vent their frustrations. Objectively, should the website not be an accurate reflection of the team’s achievements? These fans that are frustrated that still show up are the lifeblood of the team. make the f*ckin playoffs

So the argument is that there’s a group of fans who are so exhausted by always being bad that they’ve turned to the smaller satisfaction of at least being “right” about their predictions? Not exactly surprising. Why would we begrudge the fans clinging to something? The team could just…ya know…win… and then people wouldn’t be able to rail on their endless failure anymore and everyone could be happy nothing is the fan’s fault. This is all definitively the fault of the franchise

As a follower of the team for over 30 years, I can perhaps see how my perspective would differ from yours in the sense that it’s “only” been now…half of my time period as a fan that has been marred by putrid league-relative hockey. Though, I would wager to say that a fan of 50 years could/should possess the deductive ability to understand why a team that’s been bad for a decade and a half might be populated by followers predicting more of the same. I don’t think 13 years is a short period relative to human years. Vulcans, maybe. It’s objectively a long one, though, for us. You know, just compared to the amount of years we get on this planet. Frankly it would be sort of weird to, after such a long time, for people to NOT be fed up with it and prone to expecting more failure. Almost as if those preaching otherwise are being disingenuous. Or, at best, undervalue the most important asset in the world: time.

You are surprised the site is full of people calling for rain when it’s rained for going on 13 years straight that’s interesting

If the playoffs truly are the line, and we have to make it this year, which I believe we do, we should definitely have some level of concern that that result looks, at best, “up in the air”. I’d argue a lack of concern could possibly represent unwillingness to demand a reasonable expectation.

10 thousand now, 15 by when we reach the final

I wish I didn’t dislike Dunleavy so much great W first time above .500

Minnesota determined to not play the odds and instead shoot as little as possible

Great posting kid that was 1 in..10 000

His moves are certainly not like jagr

He needs to be marooned at the nearest unemployment office

Maroon could have been called already for about 5

that’s when the fun begins

That’s cool, and ya exactly. It didn’t feel long at all to me

You *will* suffer me

Killers of the Flower Moon is the film of the year. Exceptional. Exceptionally powerful

I think we have better D depth than at F I understand we have a few injuries but the bottom 6 in general is a hounds breakfast You could literally get rid of all 6 and none of the losses would be painful to take provided a replacement-level player was iced instead

It’s funny cause the “upper” “lower” vagueness used to purely be a playoffs thing

By average paragraph length

No sir it’s you who had it wrong Pressure