Iron Crotch

Nah. It's your club. You make the rules! ?

I think he told these guys they'd be banished to Siberia if they lost!

Unbelievable. Russia just won't go away. Set pieces have been the undoing of many a good team this tournament.

Extra time goal from Captain Pony Tail Vida!

Modric is just so smooth. It's obvious why he is considered one of the best few midfielders in the world.

Absolutely right. We've seen massive turnarounds from one season to the next. This is why it is frustrating to me, given our woeful history the past several seasons, that we have a GM who is selling us on yet another long, slow, methodical building process, which IMHO is outdated. We already have a bunch of young top-10 picks on the roster (Eichel, Reinhardt, Risto, Mittelstadt, Dahlin, maybe Nylander), yet we're still trading assets for more picks and prospects. I don't like that one bit. As such, I think we'll again be terrible this season. Hopefully Mittelstadt and Dahlin develop - and ideally show flashes of brilliance - during their rookie seasons. Tage is another guy who really needs to show something. If he produces, the ROR trade will look a whole lot better. It'd also really be nice if Ullmark shows he is a legit NHL #1 this season. To me those are the things to look forward to this season. I don't think this team is anywhere close to a playoff run... yet...

I wish I could have the blind optimism that some of you do, but the roster as it stands is awful. Certainly there is some young talent, but that is almost entirely a function of a steady stream of top-10 picks courtesy of sucking so badly for the past 7/8 seasons. The team got 20 points worse under Botterill/Housley last season…. and we just ditched two 20+ goal scorers from the lowest scoring offense in the league. I don't see why putting together the worst team in the league, lucking into the first overall pick via the draft lottery, then selecting the obvious consensus #1 player on everyone's board constitutes great GM work by Botterill. Any one of us on this board could have done that. I'll continue to hope for miracles and I'll never root against my team (I was decided anti-tank back in the day).... but I honestly believe we'll finish dead last, or close to it, again this season. Happy Independence Day y'all!

Mina plays for Barcelona for a reason. That dude is really good.

He's had a calf issue for a while. Played about a game and a half this World Cup. Colombia isn't nearly as dangerous offensively without him. I go down to Colombia each fall for work. You should see their domestic league. It's downright dangerous. Yet, strangely awesome.

Truth. GMTM gets hammered around here and he certainly made some bad moves - IMHO mostly overpaying for certain guys that he wanted - but he also made some bold trades. And, after engineering the tank to get Eichel, the team did improve afterward as you note. Then he gets fired (I assume it was mostly a personality conflict with the Pegulas) and we hire Botterill who immediately takes the team back to dead-last in the NHL. Last season was atrocious. I figured Botterill would make some moves last summer to bolster the team, but he didn't do much of anything other than sign AHL guys. And, we just jettisoned two of the few guys on the roster who could actually put the puck in the net. Lottery tickets and hope. Another rebuild. Trust the process. :angry:

So.... he's Taylor Pyatt. ;)

This one isn't hard to translate. That's Mike Yeo's reputation (won't tolerate mistakes) and is why he lost the team in Minnesota.

I agree. The guy gave everything he had on every shift for a team that was absolutely awful. At the end of the year he expressed his frustration with all the losing... rightfully so for a competitive, proud player... and suddenly got lambasted as a "bad guy" and "locker-room cancer." Pretty unfair IMHO. We can argue whether he is a good player or not, fast enough, is a true #2 center, blah, blah, blah... but nothing in his game said he lacked character and heart on the ice. Nothing. My guess is he asked for a trade out. Seven straight seasons with no playoffs for this franchise, with no end in sight. I can't imagine anyone in the prime of their career would want to play for this organization.

He's recovering from a torn Achilles, so he may not be ready to go until December or so. I think most teams were reluctantly to give him a long-term deal until he shows he can still play at the same level. So, he took 1/3 of the money for a 1-year deal and a great chance at a ring. He's not a great defender, but is a matchup nightmare offensively and is a dominant rebounder. He'll get fewer minutes in Oakland, so he'll be effective. He fit in well with the Pels up-tempo system and the Warriors have the exact same system (our coach was an assistant under Steve Kerr prior to coming to New Orleans). The Pels were on a tear beating the best teams in the NBA when Boogie tore his Achilles in garbage time during a win over the Rockets. That effectively killed the Pels season.

Boogie Cousins just took a 1 year $5.3 million deal to sign with Golden State. He ignored the cash in favor of ridiculously good chance to win a championship. The Warriors now have 5 All-Stars. Ridiculous.

Rondo dominates in the playoffs. He's a coach on the floor and still one of the best assist guys in the league. Sorry to see him leave New Orleans. He was a great fit here.

I can buy this. Cocky kid who comes into the league as the next "generational talent" and thus far has been good but certainly not "generational."

In recent memory, I can't remember seeing a Brazilian team that played this sort of team defense. They've always had great offensive players, but these guys actually are buying into the system and defending as a team. Brazil is my not-so-bold pick to win this tournament.

If Boogie (DeMarcus Cousins) signs with the Lakers I'll be pissed. I want him to stay here in New Orleans with AD (Anthony Davis). (I translated for the non-basketball fans :P )

I'm just not understanding the love for JBott thus far other than blind optimism. He's had one season as an NHL GM and we finished dead last in the league by a fairly wide margin (Ottawa gave us a bit of a run). We had the worst goal differential by a wide margin. We were the only team not to score 200 goals on the season. He did exceedingly little last off-season other than trading for Scandella and acquiring a pile of nobodies. Then he took two of the four/five guys on the roster who can actually put the puck in the net and sent them on their way - both guys in their prime. And, thus far has signed a career backup goalie, Scott "Goodwill" Wilson, Svobotka, Berglund, .... we're terrible. Our roster is a collection of crap with some young, high draft picks sprinkled in. How in the wide world of sports can anyone see any cause for optimism other than the high draft picks we keep getting every year because we suck so badly? Middlestadt and Dahlin should be very good players... but any one of us on this board could create a terrible team then figure out who to draft in the top-10. That's easy. Tearing apart a roster is easy. Until we turn the corner... if that ever happens... I just can't praise any of what JBott is doing. This is a decade of sucking with no end in sight. *end of rant*

"Trades are hard" -Darcy Botterill

The reality is Wilson is a dime-a-dozen player who wouldn't be on the roster of a top team. We grabbed him off of waivers; he played for three teams last season. Unless Dahlin is the defensive version of McJesus, moves like this (giving a two-year contract to Scott Wilson) show me we're going to suck again this season.

If he takes all/some of the three 1st round picks we have next year (ours, San Jose, St. Louis) and uses them for a talented player who can help us right now then I can live with the recent "tear down" moves. But, if he plans to keep acquiring picks ad nauseum then the current core will be gone before we can field a winning team. In most businesses, yes, I agree that (the equivalent of) the "fans" don't matter. Do what you need to do. Sports is a bit different in that there are dual goals. One is a championship, but I would argue that the other is profit with the product being entertainment. Fielding last place teams every year obviously hurt with the latter.

This is my take. The context matters. A tear-down can easily be sold to fans when you have a team of aging vets who weren't quite good enough to get you to the promised land (e.g. Vancouver with the Sedins). But, we just had a tear-down and our core guys are presumably already here in Dahlin, Risto, Jack, Samson, and Mittelstadt. We don't need more picks. We need to surround the young talent we have with some solid veterans who can help them develop. I just don't think we're in the "trade your vets for picks" phase any more.

Werd. We've been terrible for almost a decade. I think most of us are going to be naturally skeptical at this point, especially when we see a trade that doesn't pass the eye test. Trying to spin everything as a great move just doesn't resonate when we've seen move after move yield null results over the past several season. In this case, we let our second leading scorer, best defensive forward, and the best faceoff guy in the NHL walk for a marginal prospect, two salary dump forwards and a couple of picks (the 1st is cap protected BTW - we don't get it if it is top-10). Scoring 60 points on the worst offensive team in hockey is nothing to sneeze at. We were poor offensively last season and we just let two of the few guys who can put the puck in the net (Kane, ROR) leave. Dahlin will help greatly, but I just don't see any way this team isn't at the bottom of the standings again this season. Our overall talent pales in comparison to our rivals.