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HighOnHockey

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    CDCGML 2021-22

    in Fantasy Hockey

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Sharpshooter said:

    I told you to go &^@# yourself once and I have no qualms telling you to &^@# right off one more time, buddy. 

    Happy trails compadre. 

     

    I ain't your buddy, pal.

    • Vintage 1

    CDCGML 2021-22

    in Fantasy Hockey

    Posted · Edited by HighOnHockey

    Among rumours and speculation running rampant following the relief of HOH from his post as Rangers GM, a lot of questions are coming up around the Rangers organization as a whole. After the previous GM left the organization a contract catastrophe, HOH wasted no time getting to work clearing out bad contracts and piling up assets, but amidst reports of inappropriate conduct, TSN's Ryan Rishaug is asking the question: "how did this vile human being attain such a coveted, honoured job in the first place?" An almost complete unknown around CDC, more information is coming to light suggesting that this manager has a long, repetitive history of this kind of behaviour. "How was he given the job in the first place? Do the Rangers not conduct background checks?"

     

    Allegations now surfacing around Blue Jackets GM Rush, who had a close personal relationship with HOH and knew very well about his behavioural tendencies, yet still recommended HOH for a position in GML.

     

    A quote from an anonymous source inside the Rangers organization: "we knew full well about HOH's checkered past, as he's been banned many times from HFBoards and various forums and fantasy leagues, but ownership determined he is just such a goddamned hockey genius that the ends justified the means."

     

    So shortly after the recent firing of LuckyLager, GML has been plagued by controversy recently, and this marks yet another dark spot on the league's reputation.

    • Cheers 1

    CDCGML 2021-22

    in Fantasy Hockey

    Posted

    Mikael Granlund is available. I was thinking I'd wait until deadline or next summer, and maybe still will, but he's off to a pretty hot start so hit me up. Three years left on his contract, making 5.625 this year, 6.5 next year, and 7 the final year. I am only able to offer retention on next season. Mostly looking for futures but since it is early in the season I'd also need some calibre of NHL player to help me ice a complete roster. Something like a rookie who isn't doing much yet but has some upside, plus a good pick or prospect would be cool.

    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, stawns said:

    then it's irrelevant that they are near the bottom, no?

    I mean, if you're comment was geared towards people who are making a knee-jerk reaction based on the start, ok. But realistically I doubt there are very many of those. Most people that want a coaching change now have felt the same way for some time.

    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted

    1 hour ago, mll said:

     

    On why he was let go by Bern.  Montreal media actually had an article on that.  

     

    Players rebelled because he didn't give them any room to take initiatives.  In a given situation there were maybe 2-3 plays allowed and players had to follow strictly his script.  The system was so rigid that players felt that it removed them from all their creative freedom.  

    Lol that does sound like Boucher. Yet guys like Stamkos, St. Louis, Karlsson had all the creative freedom they could dream of. And this isn't some contradiction or paradox. this is how Boucher works. It's all about team defense and the team working as a unit, and then the offense is crafted specifically to run through the star players who actually have the creativity and skills to make things happen.

    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted · Edited by HighOnHockey

    22 minutes ago, MaxVerstappen33 said:

    Boucher doesn't sound like a practice Nazi. Some reporter asked if a bad play was because they didn't practice. Here's his answer

     

     

     

     

    Lol quite the opposite. Boucher used to say "rest is a weapon" and in the presser after he was relieved, Dorion made a comment something like "if I have to hear rest is a weapon one more time..." Lol, but as I mentioned in the OP there was clearly bad blood by the end of it. It seemed to me that the inexperienced Dorion felt like he was being walked all over by the coach.

     

    Those mentioning the boring style of play he implements, it is only boring if you're a fan of the other team. His system is all about disrupting through the neutral zone and attacking in transition. Some of you may have guessed, but I'm a diehard Sens fan (Canucks are my second favorite team), and that 2017 playoff run was honestly the most fun I've ever had watching hockey.

     

    Steven Stamkos had the second best point total of his career, and his best goal total (60) in 2012, and St. Louis also had the second best point total of his career (99) in 2011, under Guy Boucher.

    • Like 1

    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted

    3 hours ago, Rubik said:

    just to refresh everyone's memory, truly amazing regular season record, but his playoff record is a bit alarming (four straight game 7 exits during those Ducks runs, yikes)

     

    edit: just checked it, the first 3 washington runs also ended in game 7s.

     

     

    fe.jpg

    Anybody remember or able to find R.J. Umberger's comments about Washington? I believe it was while Boudreau was there. How they could score during the regular season but they're too run and gun and any good Western Conference team would beat them in the playoffs?

    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted

    4 hours ago, timberz21 said:

    You missed an important thing that Boucher is know for.   His systems or style only works temporarily.  His teams regressed both times after the honeymoon first years.

     

    Nope, I definitely talked about that.

     

    5 hours ago, HighOnHockey said:

    Quite the list of accolades, but it also leaves a lot of questions. Why was he let go so shortly after such success in both Tampa and Ottawa (and I suppose Bern too)? Did he lose the room? Did other teams get wise to his strategies?

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    Guy Boucher is still available

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted · Edited by HighOnHockey

    Guy Boucher was an assistant coach for two U18 Canada gold medals, and one WJHC gold medal. He was the one in charge of that devastating powerplay in 2009 with I believe it was Ellis on the point and Subban in the high slot. Seems to me that was long before the 1-3-1 style PP became prevalent across the NHL. It was certainly new to me as a fan, and remains a little unique in that it utilized a 2nd defenseman in what we would now call the "bumper" position. He also won a QMJHL championship in 2009 and then was named AHL coach of the year in 2010, leading his team to the conference finals as a rookie pro head coach.

     

    As a first time NHL head coach, he joined a young, fringe playoff team in Tampa Bay in 2010/'11 and immediately led them to the Eastern Conference Finals. He was let go two years later and went over to Switzerland and won the league championship in his second season, and was let go a year later. He also won a Spengler Cup while he was there.

     

    He was then hired by the Ottawa Senators, and once again immediately led his new team to the Eastern Conference Finals, and this time within a game seven overtime goal away from the Finals. But again, he was let go not much more than a year later. This time he has opted not to go overseas or accept any minor or junior coaching positions, and is instead is waiting around, hoping for another NHL opportunity.

     

    Quite the list of accolades, but it also leaves a lot of questions. Why was he let go so shortly after such success in both Tampa and Ottawa (and I suppose Bern too)? Did he lose the room? Did other teams get wise to his strategies? Perhaps, but he has pretty good excuses in both Tampa and Ottawa. For one thing, neither team really deserved to make it as far as they did, but it was due to his coaching brilliance that they had the success they had, thus creating unrealistic expectations for him going forward. Also in Tampa, they relied on a 41 year old Dwayne Roloson for that 2011 run, and as he rapidly declined after that, their goaltending situation was unsustainable. In Ottawa the situation was very public and well-known, starting from a megalomaniac owner threatening to move the team, down to a toxic locker room situation headlined by a feud between Erik Karlsson and Mike Hoffman.

     

    There are at least three things Boucher is particularly known for as a coach:

     

    1. His intricate, stifling neutral zone defense. We all remember the Tampa-Philly incident, where Philly refused to exit their defensive zone absent of any kind of forecheck from Tampa whatsoever. I recall listening to Torterella with Columbus repeatedly talking about how unique Ottawa's neutral zone was and how tough it was to crack. I also recall Sid Crosby on Spittin' Chiclets, the hosts were having a laugh about how boring Ottawa's defense was when Pittsburgh played them in 2017, and Sid looked like he was having PTSD flashbacks, "man, that was such a tough defense to play against, nobody wanted to play them." Basically, with the rise of the corsi era staring around 2010 or 2011, the fast-paced back-and-forth hockey of the early post-lockout years came to an end, and the teams that dominated offensive zone possession won playoff rounds. Boucher's system intended to counter this by as much as possible not allowing the opponent to gain the zone in the first place. The strategy was highlighted by the defense jumping up aggressively in the neutral zone to help prevent the zone entry.

     

    2. He designs his team's strategies around the star players, and gets the most out of those players. Stamkos and St. Louis both had some of the best years of their careers under Boucher in Tampa. After Matt Cooke stomped Erik Karlsson's achilles tendon it was thought that Karlsson would never be the same. But he ended up having arguably the best year of his career in 2017 under Guy Boucher. Certainly his performance on that playoff run was legendary, and one of the greatest individual performances I've ever seen.

     

    3. He likes to play veterans he knows and trusts. This was the big thing Sens fans were calling for his head over in 2019. Fans wanted to play some kids, but Boucher unwaveringly kept returning to Tom Pyatt and Nate Thompson, who knew his systems and executed them faithfully, in addition to being consummate professionals and trustworthy penalty-killers. In retrospect, the kids the fans wanted to play clearly weren't ready, and mostly ended up needing another couple years in AHL or else never amounted to much at all. There was clearly a rift between Boucher and GM Pierre Dorion, who had gone out and acquired guys like Pyatt, Thompson and Burrows at Boucher's behest when they were trying to contend, and then a couple years later when it was time to rebuild, Boucher refused to play the kids and kept playing his trusted veterans.

     

    What do people think? Does this sound like a good fit for the Canucks' current situation? I was thinking as with Karlsson, Hughes would be a perfect fit in Boucher's system, using his skating to jump up and break up entries in the neutral zone and create offense out of the transition.

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    • RoughGame 2

    [PGT] Edmonton Oilers at Vancouver Canucks | Oct. 30, 2021

    in Canucks Talk

    Posted

    9 hours ago, VancouverHabitant said:

    It's actually one of the deeper drafts in a while from the early looks of it.  

    Maybe @HighOnHockey could comment more on this as he would have a better perspective in relative depth to other years.  

     

    We are too good of a team though to finish in the bottom 10 of the league, and only the bottom 10 teams will have a shot at 1st and 2nd picks in the new revised format.  Also the 3rd overall pick will not be up for grabs.  

    Absolutely. 2022 draft is looking like maybe the best we've seen in years. I'm thinking even better than 2020, and might be up there with some of the all-time drafts like 2003 and 2015. Doesn't have a top 2 like 2015, and 2003 is known as maybe the deepest draft of all time (probably not going to get a Weber or Bergeron in the 2nd round), but like those two drafts, just about every pick in the top 20 to 25 should come away an impact player. So as I've been saying, not the best year to tank, as you may very easily get a player at 20 as good as you would get at 10.

     

    I'll try not to write an essay here, but would like to compare 2022 to the past few drafts. I like to break prospects down into tiers so that I can try to compare across drafts - generational prodigy, prodigy, phenom, elite, bluechip, legitimate, project, longshot. Comparing to the past three drafts, I had 2019 with one prodigy, one phenom, and about 12-15 elite prospects. I had 2020 with one prodigy, three phenoms, and again around 12-15 elite prospect (but then 2020 looked deeper than 2019 beyond that). 2021 I had no prodigies and one phenom (Eklund), and something around 7-10 elite prospects. 2022 I've got one prodigy (Wright), could be up to six phenoms (Miro, Yurov, Kemell, Slafkovsky, Nemec, Savoie), maybe even more. And easily another 15-20 beyond that who could be elite.

    • Cheers 1

    Green Jacket winner (loser)

    in General Hockey Discussion

    Posted

    29 minutes ago, morrissex95 said:

    What Messier did was not equal to what Toews did. 

     

    Toews did nothing to protect his teammate and all Messier did was rub a few guys the wrong way. Toews watched Kyle Beach get taunted, disrespected, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed while all Messier did was mail it in a little while he was here. Also, Messier put up 60, 48 and 54 point seasons while he was playing here. I know the people who watched said he was terrible, but he certainly wasn't as bad as Player Name and Player Name was here for FIVE years while Messier was only here for THREE. Plus Messier wasn't costing any cap space he was just costing the team money which isn't our job to care about.

     

    Did Messier wear Wayne Maki's #11 when he could've chosen another number, like #27 which is what he wore in Cincinnati. Did he steal the captaincy from Trevor Linden? Did he watch Mike Keenan dismantle our team? Finally, did he cover up a rookie getting raped by someone who should probably be a registered sex offender? Case closed. 

     

    Now we'll get to this Green Jacket nonsense. People don't realize that Chychrun is actually a very talented player. Seth Jones is also a good player. Jones plays on Chicago, which just traded their first to Columbus and moved their defensive stalwart in Duncan Keith to the Oilers. Chicago could probably compete in the central, but Arizona? I mean Chychrun is holding the whole team together but Jones? He's got guys helping him out. Chychrun has Stralman, Soderstrom and Timmins and that's just about it. At forward, he's got Kessel, Schmaltz, Keller and Hayton. That's it. So yeah, Arizona is a tire-fire because of the damage done by John Chayka. 

     

    Chicago and Seth Jones though? Well, he'll be there for the duration of that contract, he'll get traded or he'll get bought out. Chicago's dynasty is definitely over though. Chicago doesn't have the talent to go the distance and Toews and Kane are too old to wait. DeBrincat is good, but he's also small and is a complimentary player. Strome needs to be traded. Borgstrom is more of a bottom six guy. Adam Gaudette is there for depth. Kirby Dach is probably a good 2C. Mike Hardman looks promising. Brandon Hagel is another good player. But on the backend? Nah, Chicago is mediocre. But Arizona, they're downright horrendous. 

     

     

    Personally I think Chicago could still be a contender, Toews or no. Name Jones captain. With this stockpile of young talent they've got, plus Kane, Johnson and Jones, it looks bad right now, but if they can just sneak into the playoffs they can do damage. Kane has proven that time and again. They'd need a couple of those young players to emerge into legit top liners. DeBrincat, Dach should be, but what about guys like Nylander, Borgstrom, Hagel? And if they could somehow use this situation to null Toews' contract, that would be the windfall of the ages, as they could go HAM at UFA next summer.

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