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Man, take all your ex-Blackhawks to Florida.
Dale likes what he likes. Surprised he didn't top Edmonton for Eager.
that seems like a lot to ask for, but i think it's also worth pointing out that if the organization thinks they have a chance to make a run in the playoffs when the trade deadline comes up, there's no doubt they'll be buyers.
i'd have much rather had that than talbot.
there's also leighton (1.5 million) and jody shelley (1.1 million) who should each be waived.
also, flyers draft picks over the next two years:
2012: 1st, 2nd, 2nd (LA-richards), 2nd (FLA-versteeg*), 3rd, 3rd (FLA-versteeg)
2013: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3rd (MIN-powe)
FLA has the option to push the 2012 2nd rounder to 2013. i'd bet good money on that happening.
oh, and also, they still need to come to an agreement with restricted free agent wayne simmonds.
Handzus to the Sharks nullifies my main complaint about the team's moves so far, a little. I've always liked him. And for a team that couldn't kill a penalty and couldn't keep pucks out of their net at the end of third periods when they were ahead, he fills a need.
that last part seems pretty amazing to me.
there were rumors that he was headed here, and i'm pretty glad to have dodged that bullet. he was slowing down when we traded him 5 years ago, and i can't imagine that's gotten any better.
he was a very, very good player earlier in his career, but he's not that anymore
there's a rumor that the flyers have an offer on the table for zenon konopka. you really have no idea how much i want that. i'm optimistic about the richards/carter trades, curious about the jagr signing, and disappointed about lilja and talbot, but konopka?
that guy was born to wear orange and black. he led the league in PIMs the last two years while being one of the best faceoff men in the league at the same time. i realize it's pretty insane for me to feel this way over a guy of konopka's stature, but i'd be positively giddy if they could put that together.
Still just one forward for one forward. Need a couple more.
Seriously. On the other hand, the Caps look like geniuses. Trade Varlamov for some nice draft picks, then sign Vokoun (who's better than Varlamov...or Bryzgalov, sorry STEAGLES) to a relative bargain of a contract. Dammit.
Yes. There are quite a few weird rules in the post-Kovalchuk era.
I haven't followed any of the roster moves since Friday while I was out of town, but I saw somewhere that the Blackhawks signed Carcillo. I'm hoping that I read that wrong.
Meanwhile, a contract that pays Brad Richards $7 million one year and $1 million the next is legal.
I don't get this trade. They're roughly the same production wise, the mechanism's different, but there's so much more risk with Havlat. Granted, over the past three season's he has managed to play in 81, 73, and 78 games, but the risk is there. I've always thought Heatley was a better player. We'll see if Havlat can start scoring more getting away from the Wild.
Seriously. On the other hand, the Caps look like geniuses. Trade Varlamov for some nice draft picks, then sign Vokoun (who's better than Varlamov...or Bryzgalov, sorry STEAGLES) to a relative bargain of a contract. Dammit.
What is Colorado doing? They made that trade at the deadline last year and now this one.
But there is also so much less salary cap with Havlat.
Heatley is due $18million over the next 3 years, with a $7.5million cap hit for each of them.
Havlat is due $21million over the next 4 years, with a $5.0million cap hit for each of them.
And there might be something about Heatley being on his 3rd team in 4 years. Maybe he's "clubhouse cancer".
I think San Jose v. L.A. is going to take shape as a great rivalry over the next season or two while the Sharks' top six are still in their prime. I like San Jose's top six a little better than the Kings', but I think the Kings are better on defense 1-6, regardless of their awful showing in the playoffs, and I'd take Quick OR Bernier over Niemi. I think they're pretty even on paper right now, but I give the Sharks the advantage until the Kings can win a playoff series. Still very excited about his core, though. Kopitar, Richards, Brown, Williams, Johnson, Greene, and hopefully soon Doughty all signed long term. Good mix of age and youth, skill and grit on the blue line. And Kyle Clifford is going to be a beast.
yeah, that doesn't look too ####### good right now. how does this league even exist at this point? that's a terrible rule.
i'm not crushed, but i'm not too far away from that. i really wanted the goon.
Five years. The Atlanta one is understandable. I'm confused on why he signed a big deal with Ottawa and then less than a year later wanted out. This one, the Sharks wanted Havlat and weren't scared of the price.
He also may be either breaking down or not able to play in a speed game. Goals are decreasing every year.
vokoun got 1/1.5. bryzgalov got 9/51. + Jeff Carter + Mike Richards
<i>yeah, that doesn't look too ####### good right now.
Man, I knew NHL contracts were getting crazy, but I didn't know players could be paid in slaves.
That's probably the largest RFA cap hit for a defensemen ever, which sounds reasonable. Seabrook just got $5.8 for 5. Doughty is too young for one of those lifetime circumvention contracts.
Defensemen who put up a 15 GVT season at age 20 or less:
Raymond Bourque, Bobby Orr, Paul Coffey, Scott Stevens, Larry Murphy, Phil Housley, Brian Leetch, Glen Wesley, Drew Doughty, Alex Pietrangelo.
Doughty had 20 GVT at 20, the only other guys over 20 are Bourque and Orr. Only 32 D-men have ever even played a full season as a teenager.
Also, Pietrangelo had a pretty nice season, huh.
They'll match any offer sheet though, unless it's so huge that it's an obvious ploy to screw the Kings. If that's the case, they'll wave goodbye and use their prospects (they have a solid top 6 defensemen, and probably three more who could play in the NHL right now with about 25 other teams) and the picks they get from the signing to trade for someone to fill the hole.
Doughty has amazing potential, but he also has had an issue with staying in shape, and after reading a few too many press clippings, he put up a pretty mediocre year in 2010-2011. I loved Wayne Simmonds, but they were roommates, and there are rumors that part of the goal of the Richards deal was to break up Doughty and Simmonds. Young Canadian kids in LA with lots of money can occasionally be a recipe for disaster.
No it's not, Drury got 5/35.25, Stamkos got 5/37.5.
anyway. that seems a bit of a nitpick. the extra 500K per year aside, it's still a stunningly modest commitment.
As far as I can tell, this makes Stamkos the 4th highest paid (non-arb eligible) RFA since the lockout. Ovechkin ($9.5), Malkin ($8.7), Crosby ($8.7). Sounds about right.
Absolutely shocking that the Flyers weren't able to fit him into their $.175 of cap space.
For combined seasons, from 1990-91 to 2010-11, playing goalie, requiring Games Played >= 500, sorted by descending Save Percentage.Rk Player From To Tm Lg Pos GP W L T/O GA SA SV SV% GAA SO PIM MIN GPS
1 Dominik Hasek 1991 2008 TOT NHL G 735 389 223 95 1572 20220 18648 .922 2.20 81 170 42837 156.8
2 Roberto Luongo 2000 2011 TOT NHL G 672 308 269 75 1622 20098 18476 .919 2.53 55 32 38527 148.5
3 Tomas Vokoun 1997 2011 TOT NHL G 632 262 267 76 1538 18495 16957 .917 2.56 44 119 36083 130.3
4 Patrick Roy* 1991 2003 TOT NHL G 788 418 248 102 1895 21956 20061 .914 2.45 54 234 46375 154.5
5 Martin Brodeur 1992 2011 NJD NHL G 1132 625 350 137 2467 28443 25976 .913 2.22 116 118 66637 190.8
6 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 1997 2011 TOT NHL G 525 231 195 67 1258 14398 13140 .913 2.53 34 88 29777 95.6
7 Miikka Kiprusoff 2001 2011 TOT NHL G 529 276 177 58 1261 14424 13163 .913 2.46 40 47 30697 94.2
8 Evgeni Nabokov 2000 2010 SJS NHL G 563 293 178 66 1294 14757 13463 .912 2.39 50 100 32492 97.7
9 Dwayne Roloson 1997 2011 TOT NHL G 566 214 241 79 1424 15816 14392 .910 2.65 28 90 32198 98.8
10 Marty Turco 2001 2011 TOT NHL G 538 273 165 66 1200 13337 12137 .910 2.35 41 166 30696 84.1
11 Jose Theodore 1996 2011 TOT NHL G 580 260 232 55 1468 16090 14622 .909 2.69 30 36 32792 99.8
12 Ed Belfour 1991 2007 TOT NHL G 940 480 308 122 2243 24146 21903 .907 2.47 76 374 54547 154.1
13 Nikolai Khabibulin 1995 2011 TOT NHL G 743 316 308 88 1928 20765 18837 .907 2.72 43 134 42496 123.7
14 Olaf Kolzig 1993 2009 TOT NHL G 717 303 295 87 1873 20055 18182 .907 2.70 35 107 41551 122.2
15 John Vanbiesbrouck 1991 2002 TOT NHL G 566 236 218 88 1443 15525 14082 .907 2.65 33 157 32635 98.8
16 Sean Burke 1991 2007 TOT NHL G 693 270 287 95 1850 19723 17873 .906 2.83 34 212 39249 123.5
17 Curtis Joseph 1991 2009 TOT NHL G 928 445 347 95 2468 26360 23892 .906 2.78 51 126 53202 164.5
18 Chris Osgood 1994 2011 TOT NHL G 744 401 216 95 1768 18629 16861 .905 2.49 50 137 42564 108.3
19 Felix Potvin 1992 2004 TOT NHL G 635 266 260 85 1694 17864 16170 .905 2.76 32 82 36765 106.3
20 Tommy Salo 1995 2004 TOT NHL G 526 210 225 73 1296 13591 12295 .905 2.55 37 67 30436 78.6
21 Mike Richter 1991 2003 NYR NHL G 643 289 253 68 1774 18533 16759 .904 2.89 24 34 36863 112.1
22 Jocelyn Thibault 1994 2008 TOT NHL G 586 238 238 75 1508 15706 14198 .904 2.75 39 18 32892 90.7
23 Arturs Irbe 1992 2004 TOT NHL G 568 218 236 79 1513 15033 13520 .899 2.83 33 90 32066 83.6
24 Mike Vernon 1991 2002 TOT NHL G 543 247 210 67 1475 13877 12402 .894 2.84 24 167 31162 73.7
25 Bill Ranford 1991 2000 TOT NHL G 511 179 234 61 1639 14686 13047 .888 3.45 10 37 28521 70.5
I don't know about you, but that screams Hall of Fame to me. ####### Red Wings.
and even if your number was the end-all be-all, i believe there's a 10% buffer that the teams can use over the offseason to go above the upper limit. simply put, there's no issue with the cap right now.
That *is* the number, sans Walker and Leighton.
That's great, trade him away a year after bringing him over from Russia as a 21 year old kid and exceeding expectations. Fantastic way to run organization.
I presume you are talking about Osgood. My initial reaction is that he is a HoFer, but I also realize my bias as a Wings fan.
I don't think he even rises to the level of "very good", he was the very definition of cromulet, he was literally "good enough" since they won two Cups with him in net. He had a nice four year peak, probably HOVG-worthy, from 94 through 98. Outside of that, he ranged from mediocre to terrible.
Really, his HOF case is built on wins. Goaltending wins, in my opinion, have even less validity than pitcher wins. Every statistic that an Osgood supporter can trot out is a function of team quality, like wins and GAA, and he played on some of the best teams in history.
My case against him:
1) Save percentage is the best measure of goalies that we have. GAA is too dependent on the quality of your defense, but once the puck has made it to the crease it is essentially just the goalie's skill, and that is what save percentage represents. Look at that table I posted in #1237, that is Osgood's entire career as well as all other goalies who played at least 500G during that time. Osgood is 18th on the list, surrounded by un-notables, and it is not a case of selective endpoints dragging Osgood down as most of his contemporaries decline phases are also captured. What, other than wins, distinguishes him from those around him? Certainly isn't black ink.
2) He didn't play that much. 44,000 minutes is short for a modern HHOF goalie. What's more, he never topped 67 starts in a season, and his peak averaged only 55 games per. Broduer at his (much, much longer) peak averaged 72. Roy, 60. Belfour, 57 but with 3 seasons over 70. Hasek, 60. And all of those guys played much, much more outside of their peaks as well, so that they all had over 50,000 minutes (other than late-starting Hasek). Maybe the Red Wings were saving him for the Cup run, but it is hard to say his other numbers were mediocre because he was running himself to exhaustion. The truth is he spent most of his career as the 1A at best, hard to distinguish from what should be clear backups to a HHOF-level goalie.
3) He had great success in the postseason, but you'll be hard pressed to find a goalie who was less tested than Osgood. For example, his team trailed in a playoff series ONCE in their two championship runs. Once!
People like to compare him to Belfour, who just went into the HHOF, because they were contemporaries and Belfour has a similarly pedestrian .906 save percentage. But Belfour played 55,000 minutes to Osgood's 42,000. And that .906 ignores the fact that Belfour's best seasons were in the "80's", which were in full-effect up through 92-93, coincidentally the year before Osgood was called up. If you neutralize their career save percentages to a .910 average, Belfour's is .917, while Osgood's is exactly league average.
So the case for Osgood is basically that he had 400 wins in only 42,000 minutes. Either he is the clutchiest clutcher that ever clutched, which is ########, or he was a pretty okay goalie on some great teams.
On the other hand, the HHOF is already basically a joke.
http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2008/06/no-to-hhof-for-chris-osaverage.html
http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-to-make-of-chris-osgood.html
http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2010/12/it-doesnt-matter-how-good-his-teammates.html
http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2010/12/two-sentence-argument-against-chris.html
but once the puck has made it to the crease it is essentially just the goalie's skill, and that is what save percentage represents.
That assumes all shots are the same, and that a defense has nothing to do with the type of shots that the opponents take. Save percentage is a good metric, but it is hardly the end all to the debate.
He had great success in the postseason, but you'll be hard pressed to find a goalie who was less tested than Osgood. For example, his team trailed in a playoff series ONCE in their two championship runs. Once!
Taken alone, this is pretty poor reasoning. Perhaps Osgood was the reason they only trailed once during those two runs?
Despite these issues, I generally agree with your conclusion. I think the most difficult issue for Osgood is the games/minutes played. For that amount of time, he needed to have a much higher peak. He just does not make it.
Of course, but over a career? I can't imagine it is that significant an effect. And if anything, if we took a defense-impacting-shot-quality tack, it would discredit Osgood, not benefit him. Save percentage isn't the end-all, be-all, but of the numbers we have, it's by far the most meaningful. I do hate how standard save percentage does not distinguish between regular strength and powerplay shots, but again, in Osgood's case this could only hurt him as the Red Wings were generally very disciplined.
The Blackhawks have locked up their entire roster until the heat death of the universe by signing Patrick Sharp to a 5 year contract with a $5.9 cap hit. It is both wonderful and terrifying as a 'hawks fan to have such a good core for the team for so long, with essentially the top-6, both top pairs and the #1 goalie locked up together for the next three years, with many of the big pieces around for 4+. It is terrifying because they are basically reduced to rearranging deck chairs for the next half-decade, and if, oh lord the cap ever went down...
Thoughts on Shanny?
Other than that, either put a damned tie on for your videos or wear a track suit. Don't go in between.
i think jagr also scored a goal or two in there.
more interestingly, there was an incident that took place between sean avery and wayne simmonds. things to know:
1, sean avery is a gaping #######.
2, wayne simmonds is black
3, last week, wayne simmonds was the victim of a incident where a fan in london, ontario, canadia threw a banana peel at him while he was on the ice for a shootout
4, sean avery is an advocate for gay rights.
5, sean avery is claiming that wayne simmonds called him a faggot at some point last week.
my head is basically exploding with this one.
i'm fine with players getting lengthy suspensions for dangerous hits, but the past incongruency in the discipline for similar hits based almost solely on the severity of the resulting injury, or the lack thereof, has made it really hard to respect the integrity of the people who dish out the discipline. looking at the body of campbell's work, it's hard to say that his interest was in protecting the players of the league, so much as it was about protecting the reputation of the league from the same mainstream sports media who forgot it existed once it moved off of ESPN.
there's not exactly a high bar for shanahan to live up to, so i guess i'll just be happy that campbell is gone and patient in waiting to see the effect of shanahan's new rules implementations.
Now, I did get a PS3 during the season last year, largely to watch games thru GameCenter on my tv. And that app was all messed up. Not an option. Which really frosted me, because the app costs ten bucks and doesn't work, whereas MLB.TV is free and works. I hope it is fixed for this season. But you also have many other streaming to tv options, like Roku, Boxee, etc.
And depending on where you get your CI from, the picture quality is better on GC. I know Comcast only has one HD channel for CI, for example. It's all good on GC.
So, that seemed like a reasonable response; better than just saying it's a problem with Sony and call them if you've got a problem, we don't handle any of that, which is what everyone was told last year.
I'm hopeful. May not get to test it until sometime over the weekend though with Game 5s the next two nights. Looks like it'll be baseball on the tube and Habs/Leafs on the laptop tomorrow.
I fiddled with all kinds of settings and even had a friend better versed in home electronics than I try to get it right, with no luck.
Again, I don't really know if there was something I was missing, or it's my tv or my laptop or my HDMI adapter or what. You and others may have no problem. But watching it that way was not good, for me.
Zack -- my impression of the Hawks last year was (a) they were a bit unlucky from a goal-differential-not-translating-to-wins perspective, and (b) they were not at all deep, forcing them to play far too many replacement level types. These are admittedly simplistic, as I wasn't as in tune with the Hawks last year as I usually am (part Stanley Cup hangover, part bitterness over seeing such a great team decimated because of the salary cap). I'm going to focus on (b), as (a) seems like a combination of micro level adjustments that Quenneville needs to implement as well as a few more bounces going their way. It seems like they tried to address the lack of depth issue, and for the most part I'm on board with their offseason moves. Still a bit skeptical of signing Montador for four years, but the cap hit isn't too egregious.
Anyways -- I'm curious as to your take on last year's group and the prospects for this year. Also -- please tell me I won't see too many Fernando Pisani and John Scott types this season.
Shredder - Streaming quality, while it worked, was just fine watching Gamecenter on the PS3. The problem was, you could watch about half a period, and then it would just flip out. Most commonly, it would jump back in time. Getting back to live was impossible without exiting and restarting. And oftentimes, then Gamecenter wouldn't load again and you had to uninstall and reinstall the app. As I said above, there is some hope these things have been worked out. I can give a review after a week of the season or something. But during the time before the app would flip out, the picture was great.
I think that's pretty accurate. They were clearly in that group of top-5 teams in the West by roster talent. If you look at the numbers, the 'hawks peripherals were much better than their record would indicate: 3rd in goal differential, 2nd in shot differential. They were first in the NHL in 5v5 shot differential (!). And yet they finished 8th in the conference in points.
They were 18th in save percentage, mostly thanks to Turco being god awful. Their penalty kill was 25th, which destroyed them in many games (and almost can't be that bad again). Their record was 26th of 30 in 1-goal games. Both of those factors have a heavy luck component.
They had a bad habit of coughing up leads late in games, which most people will attribute to character, but had more to do with the fact that all the good players were worked like mules, because of the lack of depth. Toews and Hossa were both in the top 40 for forward time on ice. Keith literally led the league in TOI by 40 seconds a game, and Seabrook and Campbell were top 40 for defensemen.
All of that adds up to the core, which is still intact other than Brian Campbell, comprising easily one of the best teams in the league, and even with the scrub bottom end of the roster from last year you would expect much better results this year. Having watched most of the games, it never felt like they were that good, but I think it's easy to get caught up in the negatives when you're blowing a lead in the 3rd every other game.
New post for this year's team.
The top-6 should be rock-solid again, and Brunette is a solid addition. I'm convinced Hossa is done as an elite scorer (due to chronic shoulder problems), but he can still go into \"#### You I'm Marian Hossa" mode and dominate the run of play. Kane as a center probably won't last, but no matter how you mix them up, Toews, Hossa, Kane, Sharp and Brunette and random rookier are an elite top-6. The good part about the random rookie thing is that the development system is churning again, and while pretty much all our prospects are too young for the NHL, one of Morin, Kruger, Smith, Pirri, or Saad should step up and be a contributor.
The checking line will hopefully be Bickell, Bolland and Frolik all year. That should create one one of the best shutdown lines in the NHL, allowing the top two lines to be heavily leveraged, and will even pop in a few goals. Bickell is one of the best values in the NHL and has great size, Bolland is Bolland, and I've loved Frolik's backchecking. He should also get off the schnied this year, after shooting an impossibly low 3.2% as a Blackhawk last year. Even though he does like to shoot from beyond the circles.
Bolland's health is a huge question mark for the team, between the concussions and the back problems, and he is already hurt again. Center depth in general is a huge concern, as there isn't really a 2nd or 4th line center on the roster. I really wanted Reasoner or Belanger or Madden as the 4th line center for that reason, to shore up the kill and be able to step up if Bolland got hurt.
That leaves the scrubs. Bowman went out and got a bunch of grit, since everyone thought the team last year was soft. Dan Carcillo is famous for being a moron, but he swears he's wisened up, and along with old guy Jamal Mayers should form the mainstay of the 4th line. The rest will be a mix of: Rostislav Olesz, the bad contract we had to take back for getting rid of Campbell's. I see nothing in his track record or preseason to suggest he's worth a ####, but he's pretty big and is a failed first round pick. He could see time anywhere from the 4th to the 1st line. Ben Smith, who I think is worthy of the top-6, but will probably start as the 4C. Stalberg, if his knee clears up, will hopefully return to flying around the ice hitting things like a crazy person. Then there's the list of prospects who might see time when Carcillo is suspended, but most of our kids are too skilled, too small and too young to really be "energy" players. That combination should be better than last year's mostly worthless 4th line. I wouldn't expect much scoring, but they should be hard to play against.
The defense is where the big improvement was (such as it was). Campbell's absence will definitely be felt, but you had to trade that contract if you had the chance. In return, we trade the god awful bottom pairing of Nick Boynton/Jordan Hendry/Jassen Cullimore for one that should be cromulent. And hopefully means that Keith won't have to play 25 minutes a night again, and the PK should be less horrible. I'm high on Steve Montador, I follow the Sabres as well and he was good defensively and is very underated offensively. Sean O'Donnell probably won't play much, but he's basically a less-immobile Sopel. Sami Lepisto has been directly responsible for about half the preseason goals-against that I witnessed, but that's probably just random.
Other than health, the season rests on the defense. Is Keith over the burnout from last year? Hjalmarsson was pretty awful with the puck last year, but had great poise the year before, which is for real? Nick Leddy has incredible paitence with the puck and is blazing fast, but he's also 20 years old and 180 pounds. In the minors, we have a bunch of high end prospects, but in my eyes none of them are remotely ready for the NHL.
We won't talk about the possibilty of Crawford being a mirage, because if he is we're pretty screwed. Ray Emery "won" the back-up job by refusing to go to the minors, he looked terrible in preseason and has a necrotic hip. But he was excellent in a quarter season last year. Alexander Salak is a highly regarded prospect, but who knows with goalies.
Don't make me laugh.
O'Donnell needs a walker to get around the ice these days.
Like I said...
You said he's more mobile than Sopel. I'm disagreeing with you.
I didn't follow the pre-season too closely- what's the reason for Jeremy Morin not making the team? He didn't look too out of place last season and I think he'd fit nicely in the top 6.
He had his bell rung last January and is still down with postconcussion symptoms.
EDIT: Ok, in this case it came up about five minutes after the hour and before the game started. The audio and video are out of sync by about 20 seconds. Anyway, I'll stop giving blow-by-blow analysis now and give a little time for any start of season kinks to get worked out. But I needed to vent on that BS.
My thoughts on the Hawks generally mirror whats been discussed above. I also think more depth on the blueline will help in a lot of unseen ways. In baseball, a strong defense not only gets more outs on a ball in play, but it saves runs on the back end because your more talented pitchers throw fewer pitches. A good defense takes innings away from your scrubs and gives them to your aces.
I think blueline depth would do the same thing for the Hawks. Not only will it push the GF/GA pace when the 3rd pairing is on the ice, but it will improve the top pairings by preventing fatigue and allowing them to play in more critical situations. I realize the baseball analogy only goes so far, since you're almost doing the opposite w/r/t playing time, but you all see my point.
Also, relevant to the above quote, Second City Hockey is probably my favorite team-centric blog in all of sportsdom.
the forwards have been pretty remarkable so far. voracek has been a dart through the neutral zone and on the forecheck. simmonds has been tough at the net and on the boards (plus he drew an instigator on a devil last night for a fight in which he clocked the guy twice in the face). couturier has been strong on the boards and in his own zone, getting tons of time on the PK. the JVR-giroux-jagr line has scored the first flyers goal in each of the first 2 games.
what really is impressive about them so far is the combination of speed and strength that they've shown. they've been flying in the neutral zone on the breakout and the backcheck, but they've also been dominating the boards in the offensive zone. it's also notable that they're really young. jagr, briere, hartnell, and talbot are the only true vested veterans on the opening roster. JVR, giroux, voracek, simmonds, and couturier are all 24 or under, though the first 4 all have multiple years of experience. plus brayden schenn is still waiting in adirondack for an opportunity.
with the way the phillies season ended, the way the eagles season has begun, and the way the NBA has committed to losing the season, the flyers are really gonna have to carry my fandom through the winter. so far, so good.
Sadly, probably the later.
there's really not been much lost offensively, despite having traded carter and richards. the jagr signing has been brilliant, and giroux has gone nuclear with the extra icetime. hartnell has really taken advantage of being inserted on giroux's wing; i don't think anyone thought he had this kind of run of production in him. talbot has been better than i expected, but he's ####### brutal on faceoffs. couturier has been really good, but i think laviolette is trying to moderate his icetime, so as to keep him productive through the end of the season.
the defense has been like a chicken without its head since pronger went down with the eye thing; they're prone to turnovers and they've struggled in the corners and in the paint. coburn specifically has been disappointing on this front, since he's actually got the body to have filled in during pronger's absence, but he's really just a guy at this point. he's 26; he should be in his prime, but he just hasn't stepped up in the way that he really could have.
the goaltending has not been as bad as the numbers say, but at some point, all the fluke goals just add up to mediocrity.
oh, and the team is ####### awful at faceoffs; dead last in the NHL, 46%. in yesterday's game, there was a run of about 30 seconds where the flyers lost 4 or 5 consecutive faceoffs in the defensive zone, with each one leading to a scoring chance against. if this issue isn't fixed, it's gonna pop up in a meaningful situation, and it's gonna cost the team its season.
The only thing I'm really concerned about right now is the defense (to be fair, that's a big concern right now). The forwards are too good for the PP to sputter for an entire season; I think that'll get going at some point.
The defense is a mess (outside of Crawford & Keith). Leddy's been fine but he's being asked to be a number 2 d-man when right now he's more like a 5 or 6. Seabrook & Montador have been mediocre. Hjalmarsson hasn't improved much since the 2009-10 season. Sean O'Donnell looks done. Lepisto's nothing more than depth. And they've got nothing at Rockford.
If one of the big five forwards go down injury or Crawford turns into a pumpkin then I'll get really worried.
Also, it's weird that Jamal Mayers has probably been the best off-season signing so far.
he's got the talent to be worth this contract easily, but i don't see what necessitated this signing at this point in time. he hasn't really done anything this year.
Agree, and it's not like they haven't had chances. In the current 1 for 30 slump, they've had like 4 goals either not allowed or waived off (Bolland was unlucky last night that the whistle came so quickly). Of course, half of the time they don't even set up the PP. And then for the PK to fall apart like that at the same time, it's make it easy to overreact. It also doesn't help that Q overreacts by switching up the lines, and doing silly #### after a bad game. In reality, it's only 2 bad games. It's going to happen to every team at some point during the season - and it happened to coincide with Keith being out (and his first game back).
The defense is a mess (outside of Crawford & Keith). Leddy's been fine but he's being asked to be a number 2 d-man when right now he's more like a 5 or 6. Seabrook & Montador have been mediocre. Hjalmarsson hasn't improved much since the 2009-10 season. Sean O'Donnell looks done. Lepisto's nothing more than depth. And they've got nothing at Rockford.
Going back to Q, he needs to just put Keith and Seabrook back together and stuff ####### around with both of them. They both play better together than apart. Leddy's is a little slump, but I'm not worried yet since he played fine early on (SCH's pet peeve is that Leddy and Keith need to stop playing together, and I'll agree Leddy looks better away from Keith). I'm much more disappointed in Hjalmarsson, not only has he not improved, he's clearly getting worse.
Going into the year I though they'd use the cap space midseason trade to get another center, but that appears to be a strength right now (Kruger is playing great on the 4th line). It seems like the obvious target is a top 4 defenseman.
The penalty kill sucking you could see coming, they were 5th worst in the league in shots+misses/60 against. Despite the recent crapfest that saw them drop from best in PK% to below-average, they're now only 7th worst in the shots metric!
I personally think the D will be fine. Leddy has been frankly outstanding*. My big beef with Q is for criminally underusing Steve Montador. Montador is averaging 15 minutes/game, and couldn't even break that when their #1D man was out. They also need to cut Scott or Olesz, because this team clearly needs another forward and there are a half dozen in Rockford who need a look.
*Didn't watch the last two shitshows.
- I agree with Moses re: Kruger, and now that Bolland is out for however long, I'm curious to see how he handles playing with more skill guys. Last night it seemed a like-for-like swap, with Kruger centering Frolik and Bickell. He still seems a bit physically weak, but given that, I actually think he's done a cromulent job working the boards/corners. Passing/vision appears to be a plus tool. Haven't seen enough of him defensively to really make an assessment there, but he's killing penalties, so Q apparently must think he's at least reasonably decent in his own end.
- Viktor Stalberg... what do you guys think of him? Is he just a bottom six player who I have too high of expectations for? He's already 26, so it's not like he's all that young. Doesn't hit and not much defensively, so he kind of has to score to justify his roster spot, right?
- Is there anyplace where I can find up-to-date Blackhawk Corsi numbers?
- I only saw bits and pieces of that Flyers-TBL game -- what happened? Was it simply a case of Philly taking their ball and going home, refusing to play against the trap? The clips I've seen are pretty damn funny. How long did they play the stall game for?
for a team that wasn't supposed to score a lot, they're scoring an awful lot. just looking at the 3rd line, maxime talbot has 6 goals and 4 assists, matt read has 5 and 5, and jake voracek (who really, really needs to change his number) has 3 goals and 9 assists. their 2nd line has JVR and briere, who have each notched 13 points. on the first line, claude giroux is 2nd in the NHL with 22 points. jaromir jagr has 17.
i mean, the scoring really is balanced over 3 lines to an extent that i don't think is matched by any other team in the NHL.
and i said this about coburn's contract a few days ago:
well, since that point, i couldn't be more enthused with his play. he's been absolutely nasty since he signed that extension, and he's starting to look like his 2008 self again.
- How often do teams stray from the 12 forwards / 6 defensemen setup?
- How often does a player switch from his normal position during (or right before) a game?
Since hockey is such a physical sport, I could see that there are in-game injuries that force a team to do a position switch like the Caps did with Laich, but I never have seen it before.
i also remember that during the mid-2000s, sami kapanen switched from wing to defense when the flyers were obliterated with injuries during the playoffs one year.
Byfuglien was a defensemen originally, so it's more like he made the transition to forward.
Annoyingly, position isn't recorded on a game-by-game basis, so there isn't any record of these changes that I'm aware of. For example, Patrick Kane has skated full-time as a center this year, but he is still listed as a RW in the box score.
Then there's the always fun forward-as-goalie.
Not terribly often, but I wouldn't call it rare either. Hell, the Devils last season for a while couldn't even dress 18 skaters thanks to injuries and cap problems. Occasionally as well, they'd dress a 7th Dman to rotate in and out, as the 4th line wasn't getting a lot of time anyways, and they'd double shift a different forward. Some teams only give those 4th lines a couple shifts a period, and maybe none in the 3rd.
In addition to the examples above, I'll just add Brent Burns - 08-09 the Wild had him all over the ice.
They had 15 skaters two days earlier vs the Pens. Though to be honest, I don't remember any such thing happening very often in the 25+ years I've been paying attention.
Oh, absolutely. A #93 Flyers sweater is Disappointing Eastern European Forward made tangible.
hopefully both teams will be healthier by the time the winter classic comes around. getting back jagr, pronger, and JVR should put some punch back in the offense.
I believe that was the series where Darcy Tucker absolutely destroyed Kapinen in OT only to have some no name chump score the series winner moments later. All-time Leaf great Karel Pilar sent the game into OT with a late equilizer too. I believe that was the last playoff game Toronto ever played as well.
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