Drag0nDan

I think thompsons playing wing with bottom line minutes makes it a tough comparison to find. One thing charts have shown me about thompson is that... location of shot matters when determining if a shooting percentage is an outlier. His shots this season were much more located to the slot vs. his previous time. He also became much more reliant upon his line mates - passing, setting up their passes etc. Previously he tried to do it all himself and there wasn't a ton of trust there.

He was the line driver for the only scoring line. Skinner. Touch. Olof. They all benefited from playing with him, not vice versa. Played multiple spots on power play. Played PK when asked. He is our best forward and I'm not sure it's super close at this point.

I always felt that way about babip in baseball too. It can be used to indicate if someone is luckier or not... But good hitters just have good babip because they hit it where people are not.

Uhh tell that to Jeff Skinner

Their remaining goaltending options are not good. They'll try and swing a trade once their LTIR stuff is settled with Lehner/Weber. The issue becomes... who is going to trade a goalie to them- and why? Not likely to happen until mid-season.

Depends on the relationship with the European org I would think. Olofsson also had 18 points in his first 50 SHL games fwiw. The SHL has a relegation system as well, which means they couldn't care less about Rosen's development. This isn't the NHL where you're awarded a pick if you finish last. They just joined tier 1 in 2020, and they need to win to get players to sign and stay.

Agreed. Send Bjork... wherever else is not in the realm of NHL playing time. Players get hurt, he'll get some time with the big club as a depth forward who can center a bottom 6 line, kill some penalties, and help keep the puck out of the net.

I like the draft a ton now philosophy though - figure out who's good, cut your losses on the failures and re-stock again.

Bit of an outdated statistic but he was a plus player on the Kraken of all teams. Kills Penalties. Immediately the best available player for d-zone draws. Not to mention - we had over 150 games played by Eakin/Bjork/Hayden because of injuries. This guys better than all 3, and when injuries strike is a decent 4th line center option.

And by the time they need to make that decision - it becomes far more palatable.

As they age out though - it will get pretty crowded in rochester. Plus you may sign or trade for other pieces.

He's a solid skater, good shooter, decent on the walls, draws penalties, and doesn't rely on straight speed. He just seems to know how to get to areas to score goals be it rebounds, one timers, whatever. He's also not PP dependent at all which boosts his value a bit. I don't mind a long contract if I'm buying out RFA years. Usually you get a discount there. But it was a poor decision to give skinner that term, with that salary - while never scoring more than 63 points in his career. 2M more AAV, and 4 more years than Pacioretty (admittedly coming off a poor year there, but), but pacioretty has some additional value at the defensive side of the ice and kills penalties. Kucherov got 9.5M AAV for 8 years - but he had arb eligibility left.

I have an athletic subscription and read the article and im still not sure i understand it 🙂. From what i can tell they put him at a 47 point pace to split the difference between last year at 2.1 wins and the year before at basically 0. They then forecasted some age related deterioration. https://theathletic.com/3435602/2022/07/26/nhl-worst-contracts-2022/ -- Paywall obvi

I'd say ok, but we have drafted a LOT of players the last couple of years. 10 picks in the first 2 rounds (6 1sts) over 3 drafts, plus they have another 1st and 3 2nd's in 2023. Running out of space for all the younger players so we'll see how they want to approach. I suppose they could add some 2024 and 2025 picks to just keep that pipeline full as seasons go along.

I like Krebs the least of those 3 players so... I'll go with Krebs i guess? Though I doubt any are moved anytime soon.

I watched probably 50-60 games this year and my opinion is that Thompson was head and shoulders our best forward. I think there might be a shooting regression a bit - but he definitely transformed his game offensively. He should be at least looking at something like Sam Reinharts contract AAV - for term as he'd be 26 at signing time 4-6 years would be ideal.

I'm not totally sure either. My speculation is the AHL salary is divided by the games on the AHL roster and vice versa for NHL - the guarantee must be a bonus or something to the AHL number in some way.

I'm hoping he figures out that hybrid 2-way forward this year. Need that FO% to jump up a lot, and to win more important draws with eakin gone. As for points, i'd be disappointed if its sub-50, and sub-20 goals.

i think Hino stays with cozens, and mitts gets VO or Tuch (I'd lean tuch). That will generally result in a few more points as both VO and Tuch score more points. I think from a gameplay standpoint though - quinn on the cozens line makes a lot of sense. I'd probably run asplund with girgs and okposo, and krebs with mitts and tuch.

Also a lot of misses in that pool. Yes you had Eichel and Reinhart. You also had Bailey, Baptiste, Fasching. Then a huge whiff on nylander in 2016... UGH. Sergachev, Mcavoy, Chychrun the next 3 d-men off the board. They moved Zadorov, Compher, Armia - and other players - plus 2 1st round picks and the 1st pick of the 2nd... to get that 2015 roster together.

I don't see us in on miller. If we were in the mix at the deadline? Maybe? But even then its going to cost a high value prospect (krebs or cozens) and picks.

Caps have guys they can put on LTIR. Vegas has weber. Tampa will do something weird to get under. Florida will need to do something though. Philly is floating JVR (expiring on a 7M deal and they want assets) and Provorov (LHD we dont need). Vancouver seems set to move JT miller (expiring on a reasonable deal, but coming off a 99pt year thats going to cost buffalo more than a mittelstadt).

He's also a 19 year old dude, awkwardly posing for a stranger.. thats about as good as it gets

He needs to put pucks in the net. Cozens too.

I'll usually say "im doing well" - which is probably making it wrong 🙂