Miss Korea Bob.Loblaw

The Pittsburgh Penguins are proud to select... from Ilves of the Finnish Elite League... Roby Järventie Roby Jarventie for you English-speaking peasants @Patrick Kane and his posse are up

It's difficult to try and replace players like Doughty and Kopitar. They are franchise players - Norris and Selke winners. Los Angeles is obviously banking on PLD being the next #1 centre. Until Kopitar retires, it's an excellent 1-2 punch. Replacing Doughty is almost impossible and you know it. But if you can have a solid blueline with 6 very good D-men, that's just as good. Did their moves this summer push them in the right direction? I agree with @D-Money above. They got little value in return for Durzi and Walker. So their blueline now looks like Anderson/Doughty, Gavrikov/Roy, Bjornfot/Clarke. Looks okay. And I still think the team is better than Vancouver. But I also think they won't make it past first round.

Or not! Flip a coin

Mac Allister & Tomiyasu - the tribe has spoken Tune in next week on spin the bottle

You would have to consistently watch Canucks games to realize Joshua gets moved up and down the lineup. But the author didn't do his homework - no excuses. It doesn't matter if Comtois is $5M or $3M or under $1M. Any price is too high for adding another underperforming middle six winger onto our roster.

Me not bothering to construct teams is because I think you're a very poor debater. You have done a complete 180 since the beginning, where you have professed that Canada would always be #1. And when I called you out on it, you pulled up pointless stats like how there are more Canadians in the NHL. No shit. You still haven't given a single substantive response to massive growth of American players in the past 15 years. Then you tried to suggest it was a matter of quality - that all these Americans are no good and the USA Hockey system doesn't work. And now you're back to arguing the opposite - that USA has great players but less quanity than Canada. You just go in circles and circles... Just admit that you weren't ready for this. You didn't do your homework on demographics changes in the NHL, you didn't do your homework on the increased viability of non-CHL development tracks (their pros/cons), and you didn't do your homework on development programs from each country. Rather than taking these things on with an open mind, you just come off as extremely ignorant. "Makar didn't learn anything in college" - wtf is that?

His potential is elite... *shrug* The Kings are an interesting team because they were supposed to suck for a couple more years, but suddenly the team turned things around and now that rebuild got accelerated. They do have a lot of solid top six players in the mid to late 20s (Arvidsson, Fiala, Kempe, Roy), some very solid younger players (Vilardi, Dubois) and a ton of HIGH-END prospects. But there are two problems. The first one is that some of those players weren't able to make the big jump this year, like Byfield, Kaliyev, and Clarke. That will come with time. The other problem is that there are very few finishers on this team. A lot of really good passers, but nobody to convert those into goals. They've got Kempe (Carter 2.0), and that's it. That problem can probably get fixed as the new players get accustomed to the Kings system. The team is still VERY young. Kopitar and Doughty are the only two old guys on that team. They can't really go anywhere but up... unless they go sideways again like they did this year. But that's still going to be good enough to propel them into the playoffs.

Honestly, I'm also a little surprised nobody has offered him a 1 year minimum deal, but I guess all his hype has burned out. He's big and he occasionally hits, but he's a reckless player who will give up the puck. He can finish his chances occasionally but he doesn't drive play at all. That's not a good thing for someone who's made for top six play but can't live up to those expectations. Add a long list of injuries and it just doesn't look very good. I don't think adding him will make our squad any better or worse, so I see no point in trying to get him. @RWJC Dakota Joshua a casualty? I highly doubt it. He is a very effective bottom six player. Obviously it drives us nuts watching him struggle on the 2nd line, but as long as Tocchet doesn't overextend him, Joshua should be a great contributor for the team going forward.

Great addition to fill up that paper-thin Carolina blueline

So which one is it? Does Canada have better quality or quantity? Two posts ago you were bragging about how Canada has way more players and way more points than the US. Now that I point out the sheer volume of players coming out of the US system (this also includes notable Canadians), you've backtracked to the argument that Canada produces better players. I've already presented you with two fully loaded team USAs where team A could easily contend for the gold medal and team B could easily be cup favourites. Why would I waste time trying to construct a team C? If you want quantity, then the charts I showed you prove the growing trend of American players. If you want quality, then my team A is literally filled with award-winning players from top to bottom, to the point where I literally had to demote the current Calder winner to team B. I'm not even trying to argue that American hockey is superior. I'm just showing how your notion that "Canada will always be #1" is silly and ignorant of what's been happening over the past decade. You want to talk about Canada? Try to come up with a reason why we've failed to develop any Vezina goalies over the past 10 years. Dozens of articles have been written about this issue. It's a legitimate problem that boils down to the way coaching/training is conducted in Canada.

It is not the all-time team. It is the current team. Nieuwendyk, Kariya, Belfour are all. HHoFers so they were easy to find. I'm not sure how many more retired stars there are. But even if there were, the point of my post was to show that there are already a bunch of high-profile Canadians today that picked college over the CHL. Honestly, it makes sense for defencemen, since they can avoid toiling away in junior and also avoid getting rushed into pro. It's insane to ridicule the NCAA when we see college players going pro and becoming superstars year after year. It's already been a viable options for Canadians in the past, and it seems like more and more kids are opting for that path. American hockey is... the future. Ugh.

More Canucks staff get fired midseason

We also get Ed Belfour and Marty Turco. That makes it a cup team for sure.

@Elias Pettersson I'm gonna try and make a team of Canadian NCAA alumni. A fun task... Zach Hyman - Jaden Schwartz - Reilly Smith Alex Killorn - Jonathan Toews(??) - Alex Kerfoot Brandon Tanev - Evan Rodrigues - Warren Foegele Tyson Jost - Adam Fantilli - Ryan Lomberg *Joe Nieuwendyk* Devon Toews - Cale Makar Brandon Montour - Chris Tanev Colton Parayko - Carson Soucy Zach Whitecloud - Matt Benning Matt Irwin - Justin Schultz Cam Talbot/Devon Levi Looks like... a legit NHL team, doesn't it? It's not perfect but the blueline looks completely stacked. It does feel like a lot of Canadian defencemen opt for NCAA because it has a longer development track. Makes sense.

College free agency, an early track into the AHL, and a quality education (which can be completed at any pace over any period of time) are fantastic examples on why the American development system is increasingly becoming an attractive option for hockey players of any nationality. You made some great points here.

This is an incredibly weak response. You have absolutely nothing substantive to say, so you're just making excuses now. The importance of the player....? You are desperately grasping at straws here, man. Just look at the teams I constructed in my opening post. American players are extremely talented. In terms of pure skill, they have just as much talent as the Canadian superstars. The USA has a larger population? What kind of argument is that? You are acting as though suddenly the United States became a bigger country than Canada. Why should it matter where someone's parents are from? Brett Hull is one of USA's best players of all time. Just accept it, man. The United States is quickly becoming a powerhouse in men's hockey and will likely overtake Canada in both quantity and quality, probably within a decade. Note how Connor Bedard played in the CHL but Adam Fantilli did not. Why is that? Why did a Canadian player (a phenomenal kid) opt to develop his game in the United States? I'm sure if you tried to tell Makar all his skills were learnt in Junior A and not college, he'd just ignore you. Try to approach this with an open mind. Instead of dismissing the numbers and trends, try to understand why more and more hockey players (both Canadian and American) are choosing the US development system over the CHL. Try to understand what USA Hockey has done much better than Hockey Canada. Get over this uber-Canadian patriotism. https://www.google.com/amp/s/torontosun.com/sports/hockey/nhl/more-canadians-taking-ncaa-route-to-the-nhl/wcm/e3c639e1-8986-4bd0-a9f1-4b67a0026eb7/amp/

There was a study on the Canucks and how much "skin in the game" impacted the team and the league... https://reddit.com/r/canucks/s/54XRTWt6hN Puck drop cannot come sooner. IG tells me Matt Irwin days til puck drop. So... is that 28 or 52?

@Elias Pettersson We are entering basketball territory aren't we "Who on your Mt Rushmore" "Who your starting five"

Doesn't it look beautifiul

Pittsburgh selects Koehn Ziemmer from the Prince George Cougars. WE GOT EM BOTH BABY

Via discord, @grandmaster is happy to announce the return of Martin Jones to the Seattle Kraken. Welcome back, Martin! You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave... @Dion Phaneuf

Hehe if that first line ever loses possession it's a three-on-zero going back... You're 100% right about center depth. Russia is spoiled with elite wingers so it's wild that you have to fill the middle with crap. Kuznetsov has really fallen off and will probably return to KHL when his contract ends. I don't know if I'd even put him on my team. There are a handful of two-way forwards to work with, so lemme try to balance things out. Kaprizov - Malkin - Kucherov Panarin - Buchnevich - Nichuskin Ovechkin - Shipachyov - Kuzmenko Svechnikov - Trenin - Mikheyev Dorofeyev - Barbashev - Tarasenko Gavrikov - Sergachev Orlov - Zadorov Nikishin - Zub Romanov - Lyubushkin Shesterkin - Vasilevskiy - Sorokin Realistically you only need one really good goaltender. After all, if your first guy gets chased out, you're already in trouble trying to mount an epic comeback. Let me try Finland - probably the last good country that has any chance for winning gold... Hintz - Aho - Rantanen Lehkonen - Barkov - Laine Haula - Kotkaniemi - Kakko Lundell - Luostarinen - Tolvanen Maccelli - Pärssinen - Teräväinen Lindell - Heiskanen Välimäki - Ristolainen Määttä - Hakanpää Saros - Raanta - Husso Finland seems to have the opposite problem that Russia has - no wingers, only centers. Maybe Saros steals the game, but I guess Finland has zero chance here...

The Pittsburgh Penguins recall Jakub Lauko and Rafaël Harvey-Pinard from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton. @GatorHarvey-Pinard should be backdated!