Around the NHL: 2024-2025 Season

[Pimlach]

On 3/28/2025 at 10:45 PM, Archie Lee said:

Columbus currently in WC2, on pace for 86 points. 

A 3-4 point improvement on last year’s 84 point season, might have put us in the playoffs. $6-7 million in unused cap. 10 picks in the coming draft. One of the deeper prospect pools in hockey. Adams makes not one move from the start of the season, with the intent of improving the team now. And all signs are he will get another shot at it. 
 

[Porous Five Hole]

In news around the Eastern Conference, the Sabres just passed the Bruins in the standings.  Please dot “the Sabres will have a better record than the Bruins” on your bingo card.  

[Thorny]

4-4 record from Habs here on in would prevent a 10 game winning streak to wrap up getting us into the playoffs 

[HumanSlinky39]

Wings lose in OT to the Blues. Sad they got a point, but ay least they didn't get two.

[Weave]

7 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

In news around the Eastern Conference, the Sabres just passed the Bruins in the standings.  Please dot “the Sabres will have a better record than the Bruins” on your bingo card.  

A decade after some here started calling the Bruins a lesser organization we are finally going to pass them in the bottom half of the standings?

In my best KA voice:

We’re ahead of Boston? Really?

[North Buffalo]

Big test Saturday against hot Lightening team with 4 rest days... may be interesting revenge game for Tampa

[\GoBillsInDallas/]

12 hours ago, Porous Five Hole said:

In news around the Eastern Conference, the Sabres just passed the Bruins in the standings.  Please dot “the Sabres will have a better record than the Bruins” on your bingo card.  

Buffalo Sabres 2025-2026: "We suck less than the Bruins do!"

[DarthEbriate]

The Bruins are doing a proper end-of-season tank. They’ll get a top pick, maybe get Marchand back, re-add their top d-pair and still have $25M+ to reshape their roster next season. But! That roster needs a ton of re-shaping and I think they may also opt next season to see how close they are to McKenna-world.

[Thorny]

9 hours ago, Weave said:

A decade after some here started calling the Bruins a lesser organization we are finally going to pass them in the bottom half of the standings?

In my best KA voice:

We’re ahead of Boston? Really?

Palm trees gets the flowers but real die hards know “we got him? we got Matt Irwin?” is the real lore 

[matter2003]

Blues on a heater winning 11 straight games and 17 of their last 20

[kas23]

46 minutes ago, matter2003 said:

Blues on a heater winning 11 straight games and 17 of their last 20

Their GM stuck out his nuts big time with the offer sheets and it has worked out handsomely for them. I expect this will open the flood gates of OSs. 

[Archie Lee]

17 minutes ago, kas23 said:

Their GM stuck out his nuts big time with the offer sheets and it has worked out handsomely for them. I expect this will open the flood gates of OSs. 

Also with being willing to fire his recently hired coach because a better one was available. Montgomery is an upper tier coach. 

[PerreaultForever]

53 minutes ago, Archie Lee said:

Also with being willing to fire his recently hired coach because a better one was available. Montgomery is an upper tier coach. 

It has become well known that Montgomery wanted to be in St. Louis. This is part of why he got fired in Boston. He didn't want to re-sign and commit. He would not have come to a team like Buffalo. 

[Archie Lee]

22 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

It has become well known that Montgomery wanted to be in St. Louis. This is part of why he got fired in Boston. He didn't want to re-sign and commit. He would not have come to a team like Buffalo. 

The point is that Armstrong was willing to be aggressive and act with urgency to improve his team. There are lots of moves Adams could make. When the season was still on the line, he did not make any. 

[shrader]

2 hours ago, kas23 said:

Their GM stuck out his nuts big time with the offer sheets and it has worked out handsomely for them. I expect this will open the flood gates of OSs. 

It was a perfect storm with a poachable team. It’s a very specific scenario that won’t readily be repeated. Teams don’t want to waste time negotiating with the good chance of waking away with nothing. And players don’t want to do the same and then wind up with a different team. 

[PerreaultForever]

43 minutes ago, Archie Lee said:

The point is that Armstrong was willing to be aggressive and act with urgency to improve his team. There are lots of moves Adams could make. When the season was still on the line, he did not make any. 

Well yes, this has been the same for every year. He has a wealth of picks and prospects and could make deals but he hasn't. he also wants to "win" trades and that is unnecessary if you are actually trying to win now. As long as you get what you want/need it is okay to overpay sometimes. Especially when you have that wealth. He's not in a "don't want to trade away the future" scenario, there's actually too many prospects and unless things change we will just end up giving people away cheap like Jokiharju for a 4th or losing them on waivers. There's only so many roster spots. 

[kas23]

50 minutes ago, shrader said:

It was a perfect storm with a poachable team. It’s a very specific scenario that won’t readily be repeated. Teams don’t want to waste time negotiating with the good chance of waking away with nothing. And players don’t want to do the same and then wind up with a different team. 

There’s plenty of teams (approx 50%) with young players that spend to the cap. There’s really no lasting costs to negotiating a contract with one of these player. It’s not a tangible expense outside of possibly being a waste of an effort. You put in an offer sheet for 2 players, you’re bound to get one. In this case, they hit the jackpot and got both. As Armstrong put it, even if his mother was GM of Edmonton, he still would’ve done it. Why? Because he’s not afraid to make his team better. 
 

https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space2

[JohnC]

Ovie scored tonight against Carolina. Three goals away from passing Wayne G. 

https://www.nhl.com/news/alex-ovechkin-scores-goal-892-now-3-from-breaking-nhl-record

[Jorcus]

Washington is losing their minds in this one. They have turned into the goon squad but Carolina is just giving it right back.

[Big Guava]

1 hour ago, kas23 said:

There’s plenty of teams (approx 50%) with young players that spend to the cap. There’s really no lasting costs to negotiating a contract with one of these player. It’s not a tangible expense outside of possibly being a waste of an effort. You put in an offer sheet for 2 players, you’re bound to get one. In this case, they hit the jackpot and got both. As Armstrong put it, even if his mother was GM of Edmonton, he still would’ve done it. Why? Because he’s not afraid to make his team better. 
 

https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space2

The contracts weren't even that much...2 years 4.5 million for one and 2 years 2.3 million for the other.

Cost them a 2nd and a 3rd for compensation for signing both.

 

Edited April 3 by Big Guava

[Archie Lee]

9 hours ago, Big Guava said:

The contracts weren't even that much...2 years 4.5 million for one and 2 years 2.3 million for the other.

Cost them a 2nd and a 3rd for compensation for signing both.

 

The Oilers lost Holloway, Broberg, and McLeod, in order to keep or bring in Jeff Skinner, Arvidsson, and Henrique. If I were McDavid, that might give me the final nudge I need to say to myself, l’m just gonna see what happens in free agency. 

[mjd1001]

Checking in on a former Sabre....Mittlestadt is having a rough year, and its gotten worse on Boston.

Since he got to Boston, they are 2-9, with those 9 losses being the last 9 in a row. He has 2 goals and 2 assists, is a -11 in those 11 games (82 game pace of 15 goals, 15 assists, -82)

Colorado moved him pretty quick after signing him, and now he is even worse in Boston.  Is there something going on with him? Or was he just worse a player even here than we gave him credit for?

 

 

[shrader]

11 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

Checking in on a former Sabre....Mittlestadt is having a rough year, and its gotten worse on Boston.

Since he got to Boston, they are 2-9, with those 9 losses being the last 9 in a row. He has 2 goals and 2 assists, is a -11 in those 11 games (82 game pace of 15 goals, 15 assists, -82)

Colorado moved him pretty quick after signing him, and now he is even worse in Boston.  Is there something going on with him? Or was he just worse a player even here than we gave him credit for?

 

 

Now go back 9 games ago and read the post-trade deadline comments here about him and Jokiharju. 

[CallawaySabres]

Bruins make playoffs for 100 years in a row, tank for one year and will draft their future #1 center.

must be nice to have a an organization that operates like a well oiled machine.

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, shrader said:

Now go back 9 games ago and read the post-trade deadline comments here about him and Jokiharju. 

Ya, they won the first 2 games after the deadline and both guys looked fast (everything's relative) and Bruins fans went what is this madness? Are they good? 

Reality has set in and now they are saying do not sign or keep. Mixed on Jokiharju maybe but Mittelstadt is being hated on along with his game completely falling apart. Constant give aways. Worse than Cozens the other day. 

Their tank is strong. 

The question is are they tanking just for this year or is this a continued tank for McKenna too? The current roster is certainly capable of dead last next year.