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Koopa Kid posted:Whoever called Samsonov falling off a cliff in the predictions thread gotta be feeling pretty good right now I only didn't because I didn't regard him as perched atop a cliff to begin with
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Oct 12, 2023 02:47
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I had the displeasure of watching Reaves play for my team when he was much younger than he is now, and I would still trade Jeff Carter for him in a heartbeat
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Oct 12, 2023 03:37
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Don't want to compete with high school football in the U.S. South, the only region Bettman cares about
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Oct 12, 2023 16:10
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The Canucks do this every year though. They start fast, disastrously collapse in the late fall/early winter, then play .550 hockey the last six weeks to pull themselves out of the #1 pick lottery. It's their thing.
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Oct 12, 2023 16:47
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I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Like, he's a good third line winger playing on the first line because he's MacKinnon's BFF?
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Oct 12, 2023 17:54
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Obviously the only reason he's in Bowman's neighborhood is half his ties became wins, a luxury Bowman did not enjoy. OTOH Cooper did it entirely in the cap era
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Oct 14, 2023 00:53
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The Pens actually taking care of two bad teams in a back-to-back was nice to see. And I feel very very much better about seeing Nedeljkovic in goal than I ever did seeing DeSmith. But boy, the Pens need to work out how to move the puck out of their own zone without icing it in 5-v-5, or the good possession teams are going to grind their decrepit asses all the way down.
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Oct 16, 2023 00:53
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As prophesied in this space several years ago, Rust has lost a step and is already veering toward uselessness. His entire game has always been his speed and aggression, he doesn't have any really plus skills to go with it. Gonna be a swift and ugly decline for him. Carter and Harkins gotta go... but who do you replace them with? There is nothing. It's going to end up with the Wayne Train making its final stop in Pittsburgh, or something very much like that, and boy is that gonna be uuuuuuuugly. Still, with everyone healthy this is the 6th or 7th best team in the East. Going to need a second straight year of great injury luck to stay afloat though. By which I mostly mean Letang and Karlsson are both going to need to be good for 70+ games because without both of them the team may never leave its own end.
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Oct 16, 2023 02:00
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Interference as defined by the rulebook happens 200 times a game, so it's a go-to call whenever the ref wants to do some Game Management or blew a call and needs to give a makeup call. And yet incredibly egregious interference is actually called maybe 25% of the time.
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Oct 16, 2023 14:40
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Yeah the theme is "he used to be a pissbaby but now that he has everything he wants he's totally grown up." You know, for as long as he continues to have everything he wants.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:08
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By the book, if he was between McDavid and the puck at the time and not actively trying to play the puck, that's still interference. Whether you meant to get in the way doesn't matter. Of course I have no difficulty believing a penalty was called simply for making contact with McDavid, the Oilers were way behind and game management and all that. But it's probably a perfect example of what I posted above about interference being easy to call anytime since it happens constantly but is rarely actually called.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:24
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Wonderllama posted:thats not true. That may exonerate Joshua in the case ThinkTank cited, I haven't seen the clip. That's not what guys routinely do though, they actively move to initiate contact with opponents away from the puck. I mean it happens all the time, every shift, it's so common you don't even notice unless you're actively forcing yourself to.
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Oct 16, 2023 16:56
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The Flames are really slow. It's nice that the Penguins won back-to-backs but realistically the Caps and Flames are two of the slowest teams in the league, which allows the Pens to beat them with skill. I don't think they're going to deal very well with the Rangers or Devils.Levitate posted:Turns out Carolina really isn't a lovable bunch of jerks. The Hurricanes are going to collapse hard next year.
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Oct 16, 2023 22:05
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I only saw him in the Pens game but Ovechkin looked incredibly slow in that game. Like he was skating underwater. And that's playing against maybe the slowest team in the league other than possibly the Caps themselves. Not sure how much of that is just being old and how much of it is, uh, conserving energy, but he may finally have reached the point of being strictly a PP specialist.
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Oct 17, 2023 11:02
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Ovi will still be able to sock 15-20 PP dingers a year pretty much as long as he wants to. I think he's hit the point now where his 5-on-5 minutes need to be limited to strictly o-zone starts as much as humanly possible though
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Oct 17, 2023 14:50
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You know, it just struck me today that if h-ref's search box can be believed, Ovechkin is the only player in NHL history whose name (first or last) begins with "Ov"
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Oct 17, 2023 16:17
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Aphrodite posted:The Caps trying to force stuff to Ovechkin is not a small factor in why they suck and I hope they keep doing it. It is a pretty small factor. The big factor is that they are a very old and very slow team. The one game this year I saw of the Caps (against the Pens of course) Ovi had a couple plausible looks and passed, as he always has. They might be trying to force stuff to him but he still isn't going Full Bourque and forcing every possible shot. ThinkTank posted:Short of him being physically incapable of continuing to play, I don't see any universe where he retires prior to breaking the record. He's 73 back, assuming he's good for 20ish per year from here on out he'll likely just keep plugging away until he gets then there immediately retire. Would be awesome if when they stop the game and have a ceremony after he pots #895 he just says "yep my job here is done", drops the mic and leaves the ice, never to return. Pretty sure he'll at least stick around long enough to hit 900 though.
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Oct 17, 2023 16:59
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The Dirty Burger posted:https://twitter.com/russohockey/status/1714301304150073470?s=46&t=2hVb1vPytx9OUpdE0UPz6Q If the cap were $170M half the league would still be playing a man short. That has nothing to do with the NHLPA, front offices are some combination of incompetent and willing to push the LTIR fuckery envelope alllll the way to the edge. That the cap is as low as it is, now, that's not ideal for the NHLPA!
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Oct 17, 2023 18:23
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Normally I think players coming in real slow on a shootout attempt is a mistake and they'd be better off skating down hard, making one move and taking the shot. But against a goalie who clearly is messed up mentally right now such as Markstrom, slow as possible is a good strategy. Give him all the time in the world to think.
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Oct 17, 2023 18:38
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Oct 17, 2023 19:36
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Friedman is a drat good bottom pairing dude who's flexible and never tries to do too much. The Pens will miss him. I don't know why they felt like they had to unload him.
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Oct 17, 2023 19:58
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Good Soldier Svejk posted:I think he was trapped up in the NHL because of injury at the start of the season and they knew he wasn't gonna get sent down without getting claimed so they'd have lost him for nothing They did lose him for nothing
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Oct 17, 2023 21:14
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Jamwad Hilder posted:It's so annoying. I don't remember other guys getting this much coverage, even McDavid, but I could have just forgotten. It's because the TV networks obsessively want to push the Blackhawks. Have we all so soon forgotten how for the entire span of like 2010 through 2018 there were only two teams in the NHL as far as the TV networks were aware?
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Oct 17, 2023 21:16
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Holy crap Kinkaid is 34???
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Oct 17, 2023 22:04
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Ginette Reno posted:I went to that game. First time seeing McDavid live. Pretty fun. Thought Draisaitl was the best player on the ice. Made some outrageous passes. Definitely the best passer in the NHL and I don't think anyone else is even that close. He is good but this is insanity. McDavid is just as good and Crosby is still king in that arena. Kucherov and Marner are at least as good at playmaking as Draisaitl. Makar and Fox also have amazing vision.
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Oct 18, 2023 18:27
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Yeah I don't understand that "trade" at all beyond doing Rutherford a solid.
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Oct 18, 2023 22:01
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IMO dumping Friedman to get a contract spot was a mistake though. Friedman is pretty much exactly what a team needs for a 6th/7th defenseman. He's cheap, he's versatile, he rocks no boats, you hardly even notice him most nights which given his role is a good thing. There must be something I'm failing to see because it's surprising to me that he's so little regarded by coaches and GMs. Or maybe it's nothing more complicated than "defenseman, not 6 feet tall, not a great skater, don't want him". Of course he's only 28 which is too young for the Penguins. e: and Ruhwedel is pretty much the same guy but 5 years older, so I guess the Pens felt Friedman was redundant Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Oct 19, 2023 |
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Oct 19, 2023 01:59
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Good Soldier Svejk posted:it could've been a courtesy thing from the organization as much as a business thing. They love Ruhwedel and he isn't displacing him (not saying that's a correct evaluation), and Pysyk is going to come off of LTIR at some point and they've got tons of bodies in WBS and they knew Friedman wasn't going to clear when they sent him down. I really like Ruhwedel for all the same reasons, but he's 33 and the next time he loses a half-step of speed he'll become useless overnight. (c.f. Dumoulin, Brian) I don't think they'd have lost much jettisoning him and keeping Friedman who IMO is a 5 years younger Ruhwedel pretty much. It's hard not to read this as the Penguins yet again obsessively clinging to the oldest players they can get. e: Pysyk isn't worth losing Friedman for
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Oct 19, 2023 02:12
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Hell, Dubas and Sullivan could have just admitted to themselves that Harkins was a mistake--or better yet, admitted to the world that Carter was a mistake and release him--and dress 7 D until one of them inevitably gets hurt. Would have left the team no worse off. Obviously you're right that they have reasons that make sense to them (though I'm skeptical it goes any deeper than "old players good, young players bad" in Sullivan's case), but it's real annoying to watch them dump a useful player so as to keep several useless ones
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Oct 19, 2023 02:23
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Guess they'll be calling Friedman up then oh wait poo poo
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Oct 19, 2023 22:02
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In Dubas' defense who would have imagined that Kris Letang would get injured??
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Oct 19, 2023 22:03
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rex rabidorum vires posted:Unless you have the 'Actually Jack Johnson is good' level spreadsheet he has been the worst statistical Penguin all year and there are already 2 players in WBS with way better career NHL numbers anyways. Why they decided to claim ZAR but with even worse offensive output to play on the 3rd line I don't know. Giving away their perfectly cromulent 4th RD instead of just waiving Harkins 2 days ago makes so much sense let me tell you. poo poo like this was Dubas' weakness in Toronto too. He just doesn't have any grasp at all for how to fill out the bottom half of a roster.
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Oct 19, 2023 23:04
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rex rabidorum vires posted:I think it's more Dubas wants to fill the bottom 6 with players that have 'jam' and just don't get scored on....which might work if the top 6 is so dominant that it doesn't matter they don't score. And never, ever works in the playoffs, where you need 3 lines that can score to win the Cup.
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Oct 20, 2023 00:52
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Canadiens probably already called Calgary
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Oct 20, 2023 01:13
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Am I the only one that's noticed that it seems like the worse the Penguins look in the first 10 minutes of the game, the better the chance they'll end up winning it, and vice versa
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Oct 20, 2023 23:25
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Yeah the Red Wings are going to be big contenders, assuming they're going to continue playing rocket boosted high flying teams like the Penguins, Jackets, Senators, and Flames all year
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Oct 21, 2023 20:48
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I don't think it's any more complicated than that the Pens are really, r e a l l y slow. They don't have a forecheck, because they're too slow for that. They can't keep the puck buried in the attacking end for whole shifts--a hallmark of the early Sullivan years--because they're too slow to win races for pucks in the corners. They struggle for periods at a time breaking the puck out, because almost all of the players are too slow to create space. They don't play sound positional defense at all, because the system doesn't call for that. The system relies on raw speed to make up for the times defensemen are caught out of position... but apart from Karlsson, they're all too slow for that. Except POJ, but Sullian is carrying out an ongoing vendetta against him for who knows what reason. And apart from the Big Five, the team really does not have any skill at all. It's those five guys at the top and then 13 grinders. Most of them slow grinders. It's good they got Karlsson I guess, because Letang is, regrettably, just about finished. There'll never be another quite like him. Jarry isn't as bad as the Pens make him look. They give up high danger chance after high danger chance after high danger chance--and this is against a slate of five opponents so far that it would be charitable to call mediocre. But you can see it shooting Jarry's confidence to hell. It's too bad Robin Williams is dead because he needs someone to corner him and say "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault." I was wrong about the Pens--even fully healthy, they're not a playoff team. They and the Caps are probably going to finish right where they are now: 7th and 8th in the Metro. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Oct 23, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 00:15
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Last year they started 4-1 (then lost 7 in a row) Year before that they started 3-2 (then lost 5 out of 6) Year before that they started 4-2 (then lost 4 out of 5) Year before that they started 7-2 (then lost 3 straight) Their last 2-3 start was 2018-19 and was followed by 4 wins
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Oct 23, 2023 01:55
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Poor Jacob Trouba, always minding his own business when so many other assholes fail to protect themselves and nitwits on the internet have the gall, the absolute gall, to suggest he might hurt people on purpose
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Oct 23, 2023 03:53
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rex rabidorum vires posted:They are insanely slow. Letang looks extremely done This is one of those cases where I don't care what the numbers say, there are High Danger Chances and then there is the gong show of odd man rushes, straight-up breakaways, and really open looks the Penguins allow multiple of almost every game. It would break almost any goalie. Jarry is not playing well--I wasn't disputing that broad point--but that's only going to get worse, because the gong show is not going to stop anytime soon. All that said, they should probably switch to Nedeljkovic as the 1A. He will get way out of position and allow some maddening softies (he's never yet met a coach who didn't hate him) but he is a much better bet to make the kind of highlight reel saves the Penguins' interpretation of "defense" demands from its goaltender. But it will break him sooner or later, too. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Oct 23, 2023 |
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Oct 23, 2023 16:56
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agreed they're not a playoff team. Probably 6th in the Metro again. They aren't Jackets or Flyers bad. Maybe Flyers bad.