Curt

He is not tied for 6th, or 30th for that matter. There are 21 players who have scored more points in the playoffs. He is tied for 22nd.

Totally agree that these types of signings are important and shouldn't be downplayed. Sometimes these guys don't work out at all. Sometimes they become good AHL players, which is always good to have. Sometimes they will surprise and show themselves to be useful NHL players. For example, one year ago, who thought that Pilut was going to immediately show that he was an NHL 3rd pair D at worst? Two years ago, it looked like Rodrigues was probably going to be a career AHLer and when he signed he was considered by the fanbase to be mostly a favor to Eichel. Now he looks like a decent versatile NHL bottom-6er.

This is factually incorrect. Buffalo traded their 2019 2nd and 2020 3rd for Skinner. Buffalo recieved the Blues' 2021 2nd in the O'Reilly trade. I did have the year wrong on that 2nd.

Ok, no Gronborg. That's ok. I will be a little sad if the hire isn't Tippett or Keefe though.

Regarding the bolded, Skinner has nothing to do with that. Acquiring Skinner was not dependent upon those trades. Also, Buffalo acquired an additional 2020 2nd from St. Louis.

Yeah, saw that too. Just came back to correct myself. Nothing wrong with spending another season in Liiga if he doesn’t make the Sabres. It’s good organization depth no matter what. EDIT: Also, Liiga regular season does end in mid March, about 1 month before the AHL regular season ends, so he could play in Liiga, then come over to play in Rochester for the last 2-3 weeks of the regular season and the playoffs.

Or maybe next year’s gOlofsson.

Never saw it written and it didn’t turn up when I looked for it. Did anyone else out there see this?

He is saying that there are rumors(whispers) out there that Pegula said no to giving McLellan $5M. I have not heard anything like that.

Who was whispering this? Rumors I heard were that Buffalo was offering up to $5M, then that Buffalo and McLellan were not going to be a match, then McLellan signed with LA for $5M.

Theoretically, and ideally, the head coach would be the main decision maker when it comes to who his assistant coaches will be, so I would think a head coach is selecting assistants that he is comfortable with.

Flyers just hired Michel Therrien and Mike Yeo as assistant coaches. So that's 2 unappealing potential options off the table.

Maybe Botterill would like to interview all of the top people he is interested in (some of which are probably still involved in playoffs) before he makes a decision.

I would say that he is an overall very good skater, especially for his size. Excellent straight line speed. Agility, edges not as excellent, but still good.

This idea that the Swedish National teams are made up primarily of SHL players and is beating teams made up primarily of NHL players is false. The Swedish teams are also almost completely made up of NHL players with only a few SHL players sprinkled in.

Oops, Krebs was a pure oversite. Added him. I actually like him a lot, probably more than most. Caufield I agree, but I personally would rate him below all those players in that large group, or Tier 2. He is a wildcard though and I wouldn’t be shocked to see a team take him in the top 10.

I know it wasn’t directed at me, but here is my opinion. Tried to address your question best I could. After Hughes and Kakko, the next group of players: Byram, Turcotte, Podkolzin, Dach, Zegras, Krebs, Cozens, Boldy all probably will get 1 or 2 years before being full time NHLers. None of them are expected to be NHL ready. I think that group has very similar hype/expectations as Nylander and Mittlestadt had at the time of their drafts, along with guys like Dubois, M. Tkachuk, Sergachev, Puljujarvi, Chychrun, Juolevi from 2016; and guys like Makar, Pettersson, Glass, Vilardi from 2017. Newhook, Caufield, York, Soderstrom, Broberg are generally rated just below this group, but have the potential to be selected before some of them. There is definitely no Dahlin, McDavid level prospect in this draft, and honestly probably no Eichel, Matthews level prospect. Hughes and Kakko are probably more comparable to Hischier, Laine level prospects. However, the group of guys after that is deeper than normal, IMO. With something like 15 players who could would go in the top 10 most years. I think that’s the real strength of this draft compared to most years, the quality of the players who will be available in the 5-15 range.

Actually, I don’t think everyone feels that way. The majority of people/scouts’ player evaluations differ greatly from your’s.

Very unlikely. I think it would be a bad idea. However, any player can be pushed into the NHL before they are ready. We’ve seen that once or twice.

Baseball still has bench clearing brawls on a semi regular basis. Multiple times per year at least.

Not really. The Islanders are in pretty good salary cap shape. They shouldn't have a problem bringing everyone back.

Ok, fair enough. I’m trying to understand exactly what you are invisioning though. Could you elaborate on this 5-man unit concept you are talking about above?

I don’t really think that he is. Do you think he is after some sort of positionless way of playing hockey with all 5 players seamlessly rotating positions around the ice? Perhaps he is interested in using 5 man puck moving type of stuff through the neutral zone, like Nashville has done at times. As coach of Sweden’s national teams, has he been using groundbreaking tactics that are blowing peoples minds?

Sounds great to me. I’m all for a coach who will use all available information to help make decisions. Like I said, he seems like a good candidate. I’m a little uneasy about the fact that Grönborg doesn’t have much experience in a league environment, coaching the same group over a 6 month, or year after year, period of time. No candidate is perfect though, and he check pretty much every other box.

I can’t wait until he is hired, fans spend the entire offseason basking in the warm glow of it, then Grönborg shows up to training camp completely clean shaven.