Thorner

I’m worried we’re going to get the Hockey News kiss of death this offseason. We do look loaded for a run. But if the hockey news gets ya, take the date as a Summer solstice. It‘s when we’ll be brightest, but also when, from there on out, the daylight upon our window begins to fade.

I’m not even convinced a lottery DOES disincentivize tanking: you could easily get teams who originally wouldn’t think they have a chance at reaching the depths of their competition realizing the lottery stops that one team from locking it up (particularly b/c they draw twice) Not to mention the truly cursed “why make it and lose in round 1, I’ll take a shot in the lottery” line of thinking

Proving my point Anomalies. And guess what, the Sabres and Yotes were bad when they tried NOT tanking, too: you can’t legislate poor GMing out of the league. They were going to find their way to the bottom Tank or no Tank. That’s why they tanked in the first place! Symptom, not cause. They couldn’t COME UP WITH A BETTER PLAN

What are we concerned about? Competitive balance? The integrity of the game? Teams FREQUENTLY prioritize some un-named future before the results of today, ahead of the product they commit to the ice in front of their fans, and the ensuing competition of that day. Kevyn Adams has done this every single year under his Plan. “Tanking” is just the extreme, blatant occurrence of that: so extreme in nature obvious from the fact * we don’t see it very often*.

Nah. The lottery is an attempt to fix something that wasn’t broken. An exercise in addressing anomalies at the expense of the macro

What they should do, and hear me out, is award the highest pick to the team that finishes last

I also turned 13 on Friday the 13th. Weird. Also left handed and born on national left handers day which imo is a doozy

Always get a dead Weight in the pit of my stomach when I think of that 3rd period in general. Oddly enough when someone says “puck over glass” my mind first goes to Lydman’s: I *believe* this was game 1 vs Philly, same year. And I believe they tied it. But it’s a good memory, cause we all know how that one ended

Keep in mind it’s largely a 2 goalie league. It’s not a qb/backup qb dynamic. Forecasted plans from the GM should assume reliance on both position slots

I understand the wwe wanting to get Roman Reigns to 1000 days as champ because it’s a scripted narrative but rostering KO in an effort to get him to 1000 games should be *so* far from the top of Adams’ mindset

I’d argue a good backup is a need

Even the Bruins, rostering Vezina nominee Ullmark, with his ridiculous stats, playing behind a sick team that put up a historical regular season *heavily* relied upon their G backup, Swayman, (who played in *45 percent* of the games this season) and ran into trouble trying to start simply Ullmark in the playoffs. The Buffalo Sabres also need a very good backup, workhorse Levi or not

In a year where we need to make the playoffs I sure don’t see an issue with aiming for something a little better than someone we “can live with”, particularly when his numbers are only trending down, and his production rate was actually a good deal lower than Cirelli, Van Reimsdyk, Dvorak (who all missed a substantial amount of games), and when he’s 35 and no where close to committing the two-way game of a J. Fast (who I still really like btw, remember advocating for him). Even the husk of Eric Staal out produced him by rate. But to each their own. - By points per game Okposo was 310th in the league, for Forwards. Solidly 4th line and dipping. - KO ranked 22nd on the Sabres with a -7 rating - in KO’s second half of 2022-23 season, over his final 41 games he registered 11 points and was a -12.

In my estimation, more likely: somewhat hurt. Sometimes you actually see better results over a short time frame in the playoffs relative to regular season, while replacing a player because all the minutes get lumped onto their best players, more so than evenly dividing them (while playing the regular season long game). That would be my distinction between “significantly” and “somewhat”. I don’t think the Oilers are significantly better than the Golden Knichels but I do think they are somewhat better. Therefore in the pick ‘em that results from isolating the Nurse variable you suggested I’ll take the team with a guy somehow playing better than their already rostered McDavid, particularly with Peetranjello (sp?) likely out

Casey is fine as a winger because we (see: most teams) play “positionless hAckey” in the o-zone. While positions matter while defending and in transition (making Cozens the better natural C) while on O Casey can still free flow to play to his strengths. But imo he seems fine on board battles and getting his shot off, anyways

And neither does KO, unfortunately

I think that’s the point though: Orr was dominant all-around. Changed the game to a greater degree than Wayne. Honestly should name the Norris after him. The Pointz award being named after someone lesser actually makes sense, I think that’s why you see Coffey mentioned for it a lot. Obviously he’s still great but, certainly not Orr, to your point Should be the Logan Stanley memorial award

Oilers have entered into a trend. First 4 games have played out in the exact same manner as vs Kings: L, W, L, W. In addition, their record since adding Ekholm has been exceptional. My money is on Oilers wins in 5 and 6, again following the kings series. Any Canadian team is absolutely an oversaturated media mess on the senses up here so I truly hope it doesn’t happen, but that’s my guess. Then again the dearth of interesting stories remaining and lack of intriguing games in round 2 has sapped most of the excitement anyways. Who’s left to root for? Jersey and Lindy is the best of the bunch and they likely aren’t long for it. I’m kinda anti-first round upsets for this reason tbh

BPA Or, better yet ^

BPA

Second round has been ultra boring. Too bad Most of the games haven’t been close Hopefully there’s some improvement in round 3 or it’s just about summer time

Yup. 5-5-10 in 8 games for JE. but it really hasn’t been about the points. It’s his 2 way game that’s been the most noteworthy aspect