Diamonds

Definitely some weird weighting going on. Clearly the teams that performed better last year are getting more games. But how do you you give LA 16 games and Anaheim only 3?

Hyman is definitely a huge head scratcher. Even if he "has played with McDavid before" wouldn't you maybe want to see something like MacKinnon on McDavid's wing? MacKinnon already plays wing from time to time and with the plethora of centers Canada has, he really doesn't need to center a line. Also how is there not a single mention of Devon Toews even as an alternate?

That's just mean. But also my god, that's a lot of 2nds. Those 2nds are only batting 50% right now on making the NHL (maybe Haight can bump it to 67%) but definitely also a few players that would be really nice to have.

Even without Pearson coming back we really needed to trade one of Beauvillier/Boeser/Garland as none of them are really suited to a 3rd line role, especially now that it's going to have more of a match-up/checking center. Now if Pearson is actually close it puts that much more pressure to get it done just to be cap compliant. I also agree with you that Pearson is better suited to the 3rd line than any of the aforementioned players if actually healthy. Beauvillier's expiring contract theoretically should make him the easiest of the 3 to move but you never know and I'm still in the boat of trading whoever they get the best return for/have to pay the least to dump.

Happy for him, but this also now makes our cap situation very complicated.

I'm right there with you on the 12-20 range. The additions of Blueger, Suter, Cole, and Soucy should do wonders for our PK which cost us a lot of games last year. But I also agree that our division is tougher than many give it credit to be. Obviously we have the Stanley Cup winner in Vegas and as long as McDavid and Draisaitl stay healthy Edmonton will be a strong regular season team. As you said, Calgary severely underperformed last season and should be at least a bubble team this year and PLD gives LA one of the best 2Cs in the league to play behind Kopitar (and moves another very capable 2C in Danault down to 3C). Despite, and because of, all the changeover on D it still remains our biggest question mark. While on paper it should be improved, there is a lot of new chemistry that needs to get built fast and a lot of new communication to be learned with Demko. If new partners don't click early in preseason we could be in for another really rough start.

He very much isn't. In the 6 playoff games the Islanders had, there was only one game where he didn't lead all forwards in ice time. Also in that one game he didn't, Barzal, Pageau, Nelson, and Bo were all within 1 minute of each other. The plan is clearly to play him as their 1C with Barzal on the wing, and if it doesn't work he will move back to 2C (a position he's held for a good 8 years now). And if he was still with the Canucks he would still be the 2C with Miller likely still on the wing, but also he isn't and it doesn't really matter now. Bo is not a true 1C, and shouldn't have been paid as such, but that doesn't suddenly drop him down to being a 3C. Back to Petey; I'm still fairly confident an extension will get worked out at some point but even if it doesn't, as an RFA, Petey will still bring back a heck of a haul.

As long as he stays healthy this season, I expect he is going to have a bit of a bounce back. My prediction is he will score around 30 points and get some use on the 2nd PP and 2nd PK units and ultimately be a solid 2nd pairing guy. He will play above his current cap hit but just not at what his previous one was (I'm expecting roughly 4M cap hit quality play). Having their top 2 RDs injured in Ekblad and Montour to start the season is definitely going to hurt Florida though. Their season outcome probably depends on how quickly they come back.

I believe he's at 8 teams now, so he's certainly getting close. However he's also 31 now and signed for the next 3 seasons with Columbus so I would be surprised if he gets to 12 teams.

Problem is that it's not "40% of the cap for four players." That 40% was actually just for 3 players and is actually 41.1% (33.537M of a 81.5M salary cap). If you include Nylander in the first year all of the contracts were active, 2019-20, Matthews, Tavares, Marner, and Nylander combined for 49.7% (40.499M of the same 81.5M salary cap). 50% of the cap for 4 players. That's more than 12% over the 37.9% cap hit of Henrik, Daniel, Kesler, and Luongo in 2010-11. 12% of the cap is not an insignificant difference. 12% of the cap in 2010-11 is an additional Joe Thornton, Jerome Iginla, or literally any winger not named Alexander Ovechkin. Heck, for 10% you could get Henrik Zetterberg, Mike Richards, and Patrick Elias who would clearly all have been incredible additions to that team. In 2010-11, our quartet was an Art Ross winner, a Selke winner, a Vezina runner-up, and a player one year removed from an Art Ross. In contrast, the Toronto quartet in 2019-20 consisted of only a Lady Byng finalist (and a 5 years removed Hart finalist who wasn't with the team then). Even if there wasn't a 12% cap difference, our quartet had much better accolades and was much more complete core to build around. Also, the quartet of Hank, Danny, Kesler, and Luongo won 3 rounds before the cup run in 2010-11. 3 out of the previous 4 seasons they made the 2nd round and were coming off back-to-back 2nd round loses against Chicago.

I think because he was playing in the east in Pittsburgh a lot of Canucks fans just haven't seen him play. He had a bit of a down year this past season, but previously he was easily one of the top 5 defensive forwards in the league in my opinion. He was also a monster on Pittsburgh's PK for a few seasons and I think even led the team in short-handed minutes (over the all the defensemen) one season.

I mean, technically we were also dumping 12M in cap which we had to pay for, even if it all expired after one year. The biggest problem was just how short-sighted the whole move was. It is a move teams make to try and push themselves over the top, not to try and finally make playoffs. I actually still think OEL is a serviceable defenseman, and should be better this year after a healthy offseason, but he never made sense for our timeline.

Well, at least Petey is an RFA so waiting until next summer isn't the end of the world. Plus, if we truly can't get a deal done he will still hold a lot of value as an RFA (see Matthew Tkachuk for example). Hopefully though it's all just posturing though and we can get something done at a reasonable price.

How is everybody sleeping on Kucherov? My top 5 forwards right now are: McDavid MacKinnon Kucherov Draisaitl Then probably Matthews at 5 (though Pastrnak is definitely on the edge and if Matthews has another down season he's out)

I don't think I would give them credit for Adam Fox. They kind of just lucked out that he refused to sign with Calgary after being developed at Harvard (and Calgary) and only wanted to go to NY. Kravtsov is another recent forward they've struggled to develop. Also Kreider is significantly older than Lafrenier/Kakko/Chytil/Kravstov. I'll give you K'Andre Miller and Ryan Lindgren who have both developed very well and Schneider seems to be on the right track. Their recent record with defensemen does seem to be stronger than their recent record with forwards.

Matthews definitely signed a 4 year contract so that he can get an 8 year retirement contract next. He is certainly getting paid well for his prime years. As much as Petey's camp will probably want to use this to negotiate, Petey's closest comp is definitely not Matthews but might be Barkov. Barkov is also a strong two-way center who, although doesn't have a 100 point season, does have a 96 point season and was on pace for 100+ two seasons ago to go along with his Selke and Lady Byng trophies (the two categories Petey cracked top 10). Barkov got 10M x 8years so factoring in a 1M discount for Florida Petey should be worth 11M x 8years. If Petey wants Matthews money instead, he better come into this season ready to compete with McDavid for the Hart.

I still think Hughes would greatly benefit from a partner that can regularly log 20+ minutes. One of the reasons Myers kept getting overplayed is that Hughes needed someone to double shift with as Schenn couldn't really handle those minutes. That of course led to Myers making more mistakes as he started regularly playing more minutes than is ideal.

I remember when there was a lot of hype around this guy and it was thought he had potential to be a future captain. Clearly he never quite got there, but he's still had a pretty lengthy career as a #7 guy.

It's really hard to compare that early era to the current game because they were played quite differently. However, if there was one guy who could challenge Orr for the greatest defenseman throne it's got to be Shore. Being a 4 time Hart winner and 7 time finalist is about as dominant as you can get. Shore trails only Gretzky and Howe in Hart trophies. Charlie Conacher is another standout from that era. Lead the league in goals 5 times and points 2 times. Conacher was basically that generations Ovi.

Babysitting maybe not, but a complementary player that can actually log 20 minutes a night would sure be nice to have on what should be our top pairing. Ian Cole is very much a stop gap option and, while I like him, he has only averaged more than 19 minutes in ice time twice over the last 5 seasons. Maybe Hronek is that guy, but at the moment he seems better poised to anchor our second pairing rather than stack our top pairing offensively.

While we still don't necessarily have a long-term partner for Hughes, management definitely did a complete overhaul of the defense this offseason (including trade deadline). There's a very high possibility that 4 of the defenseman being iced in the opening night lineup are new to the team. My biggest concern is with so much turnover it takes a long time to develop chemistry (and also communication with Demko) and we again come out slow and have to play catch up. I'm excited to see what a new defense corps is capable of but I'm really hoping they settle on pairs early in training camp to start building chemistry and don't just run a revolving door until opening night. Likewise, after his teaser at the end of last season I'm excited to see if Hirose can force his way onto the opening night roster.

Bonino wasn't a PK specialist, but he was fine on the PK. Yes, Pittsburgh had Matt Cullen as their primary match-up center which eased the burden off Bonino, but you are trying to make him sound worse than he was and he also improved defensively when he went to Pittsburgh. He was also fine on face offs, hovering around 50%. It's not like he was Adam Gaudette out there. (They also used Ian Cole really heavily on the PK which helped them as well) Looping back to Karlsson though, I'm excited to see how he does in camp. Even though we would need to move some wingers to make room for him I think he will be able to push for a spot.

If I remember correctly, he also dropped due to concerns over his attitude.

While I agree that Lidstrom isn't the 5th best player ever in the history of the game, I do also see people far too often try to discredit his achievements as well. While Konsantinov may have been the better rounded, and older, of the 2 early, his accident also forced Lidstrom to take on more responsibility and further develop the defensive side of his game. As well, Pronger was 4 years younger than Lidstrom and Lidstrom's first few Norris trophies were very much against a prime Pronger and a prime Niedermayer. Pronger only ever finished above Lidstrom in Norris voting twice in his career, in 1999-00 when he won the Norris and also won the Hart (and Lidstrom was a close second in the Norris and still outscored him), and in 2003-04 when Lidstrom had an off year. So the whole "Pronger was old and doesn't count as real competition when Lidstrom was winning" argument I think is a bunch of bologna. Niedermayer was also 3 years younger than Lidstrom and Lidstrom's later wins (even ignoring his last win) were against a prime Chara as well. While it may not be the stiffest competition ever in the history of the NHL for the the Norris trophy, prime Pronger, Niedermayer, and Chara were very tough competition. Yes, Lidstrom also played on a very good team but he wasn't exactly a passenger. His first Norris win in 2000-01 Lidstrom finished second in team scoring and only 5 points behind Shanahan for the team lead. He also won the Conn Smythe in 02 ahead of Yzerman/Shanahan/Hull/Fedorov. Lidstrom's greatest tool was his brain and one of the things that makes him truly stand out was his ability to adjust to the Dead Puck era without a drop in production. Likewise, I have never seen any other defenseman be able to read and break up a play as well as he could. He wasn't the most physical defenseman but it was truly masterful the way in which he could intercept plays and cause turnovers. In terms of rankings, I also have Orr as the clear #1 all-time and probably place Shore and Harvey at 2 and 3 who were also generational talents. I also agree with you that Borque tends to get under-rated now and is a borderline generational talent who only got overshadowed because of the sheer dominance of Gretzky and Lemieux playing at the same time. I would however rank Borque and Lidstrom roughly on par with each other.

I do think at their peaks and when healthy Lemieux was the more dominant of the two. Unfortunately Lemieux didn't have a very long or healthy career, and so Gretzky had the better overall career (and still very close to as dominant).