coho8888

Also don't forget, there are players on our roster right now whom we need to consider trading to clear cap (Myers, AB, BB, Garland etc..). Need to make sure we pump up these players for more trade value.

The way I saw it last year was that we had Solid Goaltending from Demko which hid alot of our flaws on Defense both in structural play and personnel. Under TG we played a system which did not suit our offense well. Case in point whenever we got a lead, we would stop forechecking and collapse in our zone trying to protect the lead. Other than Myers, our team was too small to play that way and even with stellar goaltending, we were far from a playoff spot. In came BB and he took the shackles off our Offense. Our goal production increased and combined with our Solid goaltending we were able to take a run at a wild card position. We fell short because we still did not address any of our defensive issues. Fast forward to the first half of this year and nothing changed except for our Goaltending which was at an AHL level for most of the season. Whether you like Tocchet or not, he has put in place a more effective structure and I've seen a difference in the number of grade A chances we are giving up. Just looking at our mostly AHL defense, if we did not improve our defensive structure we would get lit up every game. Still work to be done though. What I'm trying to get at is that this coaching bump is different than what we saw last year and more likely to extend into next season.

If you are talking top 4 yes. But we never had a chance at top 4 unless we won the lottery. If you compare picks 5 to 13, there has been quite a bit of movement amongst those players from the beginning of the season to now. And there still will be more as some of these players are involved in playoffs with their teams. The draft lists from 5 to 13 or even lower may look a lot different. Players can rise or fall on the lists based on just how they perform in their playoff runs. May still get the player you want at a lower pick

Yep. Thats what I am getting at. Same complaints every lottery year for us. Yet we happen to get the best players out of those drafts. If the lottery gods smile upon us and we get Bedard then great but we will should get a solid player where we end up picking.

Its kind of Deja Vu for me. 2017, why don't we Tank for Hishier/Patrick, 2018 Canucks blow their chance at Dahlin by not tanking. On and On it goes. Like this every year we are out of it early. Will never change.

Getting so ticked off because we lose a few % points in the bedard raffle seems mind boggling to me.

Seafood pizza in a brick oven

Kuz there it is!

They are also selling deeply discounted tickets to students. My daughter has been taking me to a few games for 50 bucks a piece in the lower bowl

Their viewers have trouble with numbers?

Thank god no leaf fans this game

We see how effortless his skating is. There is a big difference between how much energy he expends as opposed to say someone like Boeser who is not blessed with the same skating ability that Quinn has. Also, we've never had a true number 1 defensemen that can log big minutes. A defenseman like a Drew Doughty would play half the game regularly. Once we build a true top 4 defense crew, we will expect them to play most of the game with the bottom pairing getting 5 or 6 minutes. Thats what championship teams do.

you see a team like leafs who are so top heavy in forwards and have over the years neglected their defense and goaltending which is probably why they keep getting bounced out of the first round. How much worse is our defense compared to theirs and yet we acknowledge that we still have lots of work to do in that area. Demko is positively better than any of the goaltenders they have. Balanced is the way to go.

I hear what you are saying but whether you dial down their minutes, its still not going to get us to the bottom three. At best we may finish 5th or 6th. Detroit is 8 points ahead and it is unlikely we catch them. At most we finish 8th or 9th. Difference in % odds between 5th and 9th is only 3% for the Bedard sweepstakes. Sure, picking 5th is better than 9 or 10 but you still are not in the top tier. Not sure what dialing down the minutes would do to our stars. Maybe its ok, maybe not.

Wasn't referring to Hronek's contract. Unprotected 1st may or may not happen. Signing a UFA? hmm we still need to do that. Our defense needed so much work that prospects from draft picks alone would not have fixed it. Hronek's contract comes at a time that we should have cleared some cap. They know what they have in Hronek. They found one piece just one. Good cheap ELC players? Who is out there that fits this that's available? What team is going to let go a good Player currently on an ELC for just a few picks? Care to name anyone that would help us?

So lets skip every opportunity to improve your team in an area which we desperately needed a ton of work on because you are afraid of things that may or may not happen? Alvin got the first from trading a pending UFA who could have easily walked for nothing July 1st.

I've followed this team for almost 50 years ever since I was a kid playing street hockey in my neighborhood. If anyone would be skeptical, it would be me. Who knows? you may be right and this is might turn out to be JB 2.0. But I've seen enough good moves from this management team to give me some hope. They have no choice but to clear cap. Lets hope that by doing so, it won't cost us a chunk of our future.

They've only had a year which is not enough to fix all our problems. You cannot look at what they've done and extrapolate that to what they will do the next few years. This group is not like Benning's group. Benning would have traded our 1st to get a temporary Starting goaltender after Demko went down with his injury just to try and make the playoffs

Again, there are moves yet to be made. You are just jumping the gun here. I don't mind spending as long as it fits in with our plan and we get value. Myers will be gone. One or two of Garland/AB/Boeser. as well.

The only 2 ugly contracts that I see (poolman is only2.5) are the myers and OEL contract and both were inherited. No I don't consider Miller an ugly contract. He is full value for what he's been bringing. Those 2 contracts are not a good enough reason to blow it up. Not sure what you expected since this mgmt group has only been here for around a year and inherited a coach they didn't ask for. BTW Tampa's cap room was due to screwing around with the LTIR. Something the league is trying to stop.

Did the wide divergence in ages hinder Tampa? Why are we so hung up on age gaps? All Stanley Cup teams in the past had mixes of young and old.

I know most of us here are hardcore fans that are more concerned about whether they will see us hoist a cup in their lifetimes. But there's also a part of me that wants to enjoy entertaining hockey and be able to watch players like Petey and Quinn in their prime. Down the stretch they have provided that. I've been going to more games in the later half of the season. Just got 3 lower bowl seats for the game tmmr. in the corner row 18 for a total of 149 bucks. Take advantage of this while you can.

Actually start a Tank Whining thread. PGT and GDT should be about the game

GDT and PGT has become a sounding off board for Tank Whiners. Everyone here knows what happens when we get points from the remaining games in this season. Don't need to post the same bloody thing every game. Its one thing to joke about it but quite another to continually trash the team because they played well enough to win. Its getting rather annoying. I want Bedard as much as anyone here. So should we have traded Petey and Quinn at the TDL just to finish last and get an 18% chance at Bedard? Because that would be what it would take. So should we sit them out for the rest of the season even though they want to play? Good luck f%$king up our chances at resigning them when their contracts are up. Grab a brain and stop this incessant whining. We all knew this team was not a cup contender at the beginning of the season and that changes needed to be made. Had we not had crappy goaltending and a defense without structure, we may be where Calgary is right now, fighting for a playoff spot but not good enough to go far. Even worse, we may have given up even more draft picks for rentals just trying to make the playoffs. As I said Ad Nauseum, sit back and enjoy the Hockey. we still have tickets in the barrel.