PerreaultForever

Well, as much as that would be nice, it isn't going to happen. Even if they all stayed healthy the whole year (which is unlikely) and they played well as a unit, still doubt they'd get to that point total. With the Skinner contract being the burden it is, it would be unlikely they can pay Hall top dollar AND pay Reinhart any sort of substantial raise. One, but not both can get paid I think. So if Hall and Eichel have magic together Sam will be let go one way or another. If Hall doesn't do great things this year then it's him that's gone (maybe both as that's likely a total failure blow it all up scenario as Eichel will want out too) Hopefully for either in a trade where we get something rather than at the end of his contract for nothing but dumping a truckload of money into 4 forwards is a recipe for disaster (or the Leafs......). I'm excited with the additional of Hall (and Staal) and on paper this team seems much better, but making the playoffs is far from a lock. A lot rides on Cozens (or another 3rd line forward stepping up), Dahlin's development curve and what kind of goaltending we get. Skinner also has to get back to a 30 goal pace or thereabouts at least. The good news is last few years we've come out of the gate pretty good and with a shorter season that might help, but who knows. Cautious optimism is still how I look at it all.

I honestly don't care who is in our division. I suspect they will arrange them for the least amount of travel and state border crossings. Unless it's in some sort of bubble.

Spot on. We've already seen Jack best him head to head several times.

You're right, they probably will be moved up in the vaccination line, and it's wrong, but money will probably talk loudest.

Don't see how any of this starts early in the year the way things are going. Football's starting to fall apart.

Doesn't look like anybody did particularly well. Stone's obviously the golden pick. A few goalies, including Ullmark, so maybe 6th is the round to always draft a long shot development goalie as your best shot.

covid got Fred Sasakamoose, the first indigenous hockey player to play in the NHL. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/sasakamoose-covid-19-indigenous-hockey-nhl-chicago-leach-lacquette-1.5816236

is there anyone who would bet against that?

I think to some extent Kreuger will run an open competition for the bottom 6 (top 2 lines are likely just a question of whether it starts as Olofsson or Cozens) but I also think Kreuger is going to favour some defensive responsibility and most of all PK with the bottom 6. So the question for me is who are those PK guys going to be??? In this regard I think Asplund has a shot to make the team and Rieder and/or Lazar might be in the starting line up. but who knows, for the first time in a while we might have a few extra bodies and there's nothing wrong with that.

lol, too funny, I am (I kid you not) listening to Bruce while I went to this thread. Not his best album, and the acoustic outtake version of the title track is way better, but it's still a better album than most of the crap listed up there. Going to a Bruce show was the only time I ever crossed the border and went to the Aud aside from hockey.

of course, but I do not remember many as confident of it as I was based on what I knew about him because, if you remember, I talked about him and my daughter crossing paths in Yale Secondary when he attended their hockey academy. His dedication and drive to be a great hockey player is off the charts, which is why I am not in the least surprised he's already put on so much weight/muscle. The curve will be steep and quick.

Told ya. Told ya all. mark my words again, within 2-3 years he will be our best player behind Jack and Dahlin (or maybe one more if Hall is still here).

7th rounders are long shots (or luck) picks for sure. Rare to get a great one, but if you do your franchise can take great strides forward. here's a decent short list of late round greats: https://thehockeywriters.com/the-best-late-round-nhl-draft-picks/ Our best one as I mentioned in the other thread was Christian Ruuttu in the 7th and Uwe Krupp in the 11th of the same year, wow!

True, he wasn't all that, but the other 2 were stars so pretty good year all the same.

I don't think so. I mean obviously most drafts could be worse. We don't pick the worst player every time but every time you miss the best player it's a fail, just a question of degree. Every draft has ups and downs. The first one, we got Perreault, but the rest of that inaugural draft wasn't all that great. Now 1971, talk about hitting on all levels: 1. Rick Martin, 2. Craig Ramsey 3. Bill Hajt. Now that's a hell of a draft!!!!!!! 1973 was our first bad draft with Morris Titanic living up to his name. Bounced back in 74 though with Danny Gare as a 2nd rounder, another great hit. '79 was a good year with Ramsey and Ruff and more. Jiri Dudacek in 1981, well, somebody was smoking crack that year....... but we did pretty good with the 3 firsts in '82. '83 was a pretty good year too.(I know this is all older, but I thought what the hell, it was our 50th anniversary after all and I got nothing better to do). Totally shocked to see Christian Ruuttu was a 7th rounder and then Uwe Krupp in the 11th. That beats Olofsson as great late picks I think. The next stretch was a bit dodgy up to Pierre Turgeon who was what he was. Mogilny we got late (5th) but that was a gamble with the whole Soviet defection thing so I suppose that's reasonable. Worked out for us obviously, even with his oddities about flying and whatnot. lots of forgotten names in the next stretch aside from the obvious ones like \McKee, Biron and so forth. Brian Campbell 6th round in 1997. I guess he was considered too small. great pick. '99 Ryan Miller as a 5th, another good one. probably helped foster my idea of always picking a goalie every draft in a later round. They develop differently. then we get to Vanek, but followed by Mr. Lazy Drew Stafford. Not great after that, 2010 might be worst ever with Pysyk being the only NHLer in the bunch. and that pretty much takes us up to the modern era. Looking it all over there are some definite bad runs and that explains a lot about our success or failure. A lot of success we had was built on trades rather than draft picks (Briere, Drury, Hasek, LaFontaine, Peca. etc.) especially after the very early era. No idea how this all would measure up against other teams but likely the better drafters did better. Likely a direct correlation.

Nylander was definitely a bad one no argument there. In fairness, a lot of teams passed on Bossy for some reason.

Yes, I don't think it much matters unless it's measured against the guys they could have had. Like the obvious, you can rank Reinhart high, but Draisaitl would have been higher, so it's a fail. You have to look at that for each year, and if you do we draft very poorly. Very poorly. and we used to do it so well in the 70s.

It's my guess based on what I know and my gut instincts. I could be wrong, but I expect accolades when I'm right about it 🙂

No. Cozens will be a lot better.

You're not wrong, but I think all of this is a compelling argument (aside from giving up Dahlin which is no starter imo) https://thehockeywriters.com/kane-sabres-trade-makes-sense/

Kane for Reinhart.

He definitely isn't going anywhere this year. I will say this though, if, for some reason, we still can't win with Hall added and it all still somehow goes south, well then he might just give up and want out. But I do not think that will happen.

Seems to be removed. Which is fair.

but you're not removing the jab, which you do when it's the other side. You muted me just for using the T word. Come on man, be fair. Remove them ALL or remove none of them.

You're forgetting Scotty Bowman. Did it with Lindy Ruff. Using a D man as a forward was usually to add toughness up front in those days. I think this idea is a little different. It likely comes out of how much D men lead the rush now and I suppose instead of having forwards rotate back to cover for them, the third D man would do that. I'm just guessing .