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Everything posted by CRAZY_4_NAZZY
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I almost feel right now he hasn't found a niche in his game as of yet at the pro level. I can't quite tell what exactly he is yet still as a player. It started to seem like he was figuring it out in the AHL with the Comets, but the constant call ups disrupted that progression. From watching his play I agree, his offensive upside seems to be very spotty, and I feel that has a lot to do with his lack of individual puck skills to hold the puck a split second longer to make a shrewd play. Overall his game with the puck on his stick shows a lack of poise especially for a centre, who you would expect to be a good distributor. I think watching his game for the second half of the season, he seems more like an energy role kind of player. Skates hard into the forecheck, brings some energy, but his overall talent is very raw still. Still think both his offensive and defensive game, reads, and overall awareness is still raw for the NHL. I do honestly believe there is a large chance that Sutter is retained and Gaudette is switched to the wing to learn the game more until Green chance can see Adam's game evolve. As of right now, I think his game is still very raw and because of it, Green has a hard time trusting him. Gaudette barely takes any faceoffs and when he does he is generally in the 20% efficiency. Considering that TG likes roling 4 lines, but if you don't trust a centre, he will likely not role that line very much. Honestly, I think Gaudette is better suited as a winger, than a centre.
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Been noticing quite a bit lately that Gaudette has difficulty with handling the puck, seems to bobble it and lacking some poise when he has the puck on his stick. Might be a confidence thing, but he certainly needs to work on it if he plans to be a centre. Works hard, skates constantly, and gets on the forecheck, but once the puck is on his stick, the play dies. Once that poise and confidence comes along, I'm sure he will be more noticable for the right reasons.
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[Proposal] Demko for Ristolainen
CRAZY_4_NAZZY replied to aGENT's topic in Proposals and Armchair GM'ing
Hell yes to this deal. -
After missing his check on Giordano for Calgary's goal, Virtanen has been making sure to finish his checks and not let anyone by him on the point, did it tonight by crushing Andy Welinski. Good on Jake for seeing his mistake and correcting it quickly. The difference between him and Goldy is that when he makes a mistake, he quickly rectifies it and doesn't let it become an issue again. Goldy you tell him the same problem, yet still gives you the same response like a broken record. The difference between a player that is coach-able and the other who is not.
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Without further ado, let’s dive into his post: Retirement, Recapture, and Recrimination: How the Canucks Could Approach the Roberto Luongo Situation Roberto Luongo turns 40 next month. Few NHL goalies play until 40, and even fewer play beyond. Luongo was playing at an elite level up to last season when he posted a .929 save percentage in 35 games. This year, however, he has struggled with injuries and is below .900 for the first time in his career, and there are rumblings that this season may be his last. If Luongo retires, the Canucks could be subject to a significant cap-recapture penalty. A number of writers in the Canucks world have written about this over the past few years, but there are some avenues open to the Canucks to avoid a potential cap catastrophe. So, without further preamble, how would a potential Luongo retirement affect the Canucks? Genuine Retirement If Luongo genuinely retires after this season – that is, he announces formally that he is no longer going to play professional hockey – the Canucks will be subject to a cap recapture penalty of roughly $2.8 million per season over the next three years, under Article 50.5 (d)(ii)(A)-(B) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed during the 2012-2013 season. It’s not ideal, but it’s far from team-destroying. However, the cap recapture penalty for the Canucks gets worse the longer Luongo continues to play. Should Luongo choose to play one more season and retire, this penalty rises to about $4.3 million for two seasons. Given that several of the Canucks’ brightest young players are going to be staring down their second contracts and the team should be entering their window to win, being penalized an amount equal to what one might expect to pay for a solid top-six winger or second-pairing defenceman could really hurt the team’s chances at contention. Finally, if Luongo retires in two years, the cap recapture penalty is a whopping $8.5 million for the 2021-2022 season. This could potentially hamper the Canucks’ ability to re-sign one of their young stars, or to bring in a high-end player in free agency to round out what should be, by 2022, a very competitive team. The cap recapture penalty for the Panthers? If Luongo retires this year or next, it’s negligible – in the million dollar range. If Lou retires in two years’ time, it’s $0. For a team like the Panthers that never spends to the cap, this will not be a problem. The Canucks, however, want to avoid the cap recapture penalty generally and must avoid the $8.5 million cap recapture penalty at all costs. Fortunately, they have a few options for how they might go about doing so: Buyout The Canucks could re-acquire Luongo’s contract and buy him out. If the Canucks re-acquire and buy out Luongo’s contract this season, the cap hit will be roughly $4.7 million for three seasons, and then $402,000 for three more (according to CapFriendly). That’s obviously worse than just eating the cap recapture penalty. If they were to buy out Luongo next year, the team is still looking at a $4.6 million cap hit for two seasons, and two more at $333,333. Again, this is worse than simply taking the cap recapture hit. The only scenario in which a buyout makes sense is if Luongo plays two more seasons and then wants to retire. In that scenario, a buyout would bring Luongo’s cap hit down from $8.5 million to $4.66 million for one season, with a negligible $333,333 hit the following season. That’s still far from ideal, but it’s a savings of almost $4 million in the 2021-2022 season, which is better than nothing. Robidas Island Steve Dangle coined the term “Robidas Island” several years ago to refer to teams skirting cap-recapture rules penalizing back-diving and age 35+ contracts by placing retiring players on the Long-Term Injured Reserve (LTIR). We’ve seen several players with similar back-diving contracts to Luongo’s take a trip to Robidas Island when their careers were winding down – in the past two seasons both Henrik Zetterberg and Marian Hossa have retired-without-retiring by claiming that medical conditions prevent them from continuing to play. In fact, the only player who ended his career in the midst of a back-diving contract who didn’t go on LTIR was Brad Richards, who was bought out. There are disadvantages to Robidas Island. A team must be cap-compliant at the start of the season prior to the player being placed on the injured reserve, and that team (or their insurance company, depending on the situation) must continue to pay the player the real dollars owed to him. In Luongo’s case, with a cap hit of $5.3 million and real dollars owed of only a million per season for the final years of his contract, Robidas Island makes a lot of sense for Vancouver. It may also make sense for Florida, if they have trouble reaching the cap floor; however, if they allow Luongo to retire they’ll still get a small cap hit without paying any real dollars, which likely makes more sense from the Panthers’ perspective. Vancouver simply cannot rely on the Panthers to place Luongo on LTIR and will have to be pro-active to avoid a cap recapture penalty. Sue the League There’s a more unorthodox, outside-the-box solution to the Luongo-recapture problem that the Canucks could try if they’re unable to re-acquire Luongo’s contract and place him on LTIR: Sue the league. While I think suing the league is a long-shot for a number of reasons I’ll get into in a moment, it is a genuine option for Vancouver and could be an effective Hail Mary move to spare the team from cap hell. The Canucks potentially have a couple of arguments against the cap recapture penalty, if they chose to go this route. I will say right up front that this seems like far too disruptive and unconventional a move for a GM like Jim Benning to make, but it’s fun to speculate all the same. There is a general presumption against retroactivity in law – that is, statutes passed by governments, and contracts entered into by private parties, are presumed only to be forward-looking, and not to govern behaviour that occurred prior to the passing of the law or the signing of the contract. This is only a hard rule when it comes to laws that carry a significant punitive element – criminal law, for example. In other areas, it’s merely a presumption. A contract can be applied retroactively if all parties to the contract explicitly agree to that retroactivity, but will never be applied retroactively without such an agreement. There is a very general retroactivity provision in the 2013 CBA – Article 11 states that all Standard Player Contracts signed under the 2005 CBA are deemed “modified” by the 2013 CBA. If the league were to attempt to impose the cap recapture penalty on the Canucks over Luongo’s contract, the Canucks could potentially argue that the recapture penalty did not exist when the Luongo contract was signed, and that the league cannot impose a penalty introduced in the 2013 CBA on a contract that was signed under the rules of the 2005 CBA. Such a penalty, the Canucks could argue, cannot be applied unless the team and the league explicitly agree to it, and this penalty wasn’t sufficiently contemplated by the broad retroactivity provision at Article 11. It could potentially get even more complicated: Professional sports leagues are strange entities. Each of the 31 teams in the league is technically an independent, for-profit business that is in competition with every other team in the league. The NHL itself is a non-profit entity that exists to co-ordinate the activities of those businesses, set schedules, negotiate CBAs with the Players’ Union on behalf of the teams, etc. If that screams “anti-trust” and “unfair business practices”, to you, it should. Independent businesses are not typically allowed to collude to set the price of labour, tickets, merchandise, or do the myriad other things that pro sports leagues do on behalf of their teams. Professional leagues in North America, however, are specifically exempted from anti-trust legislation, which allows the NHL to operate the way it does. Why does all this matter? Well, the NHL and the teams are separate legal entities, and the NHL negotiates on behalf of the teams with the Players’ Union. This creates a duty on behalf of the NHL to negotiate in the best interests of the teams. Rumour has it that Gary Bettman was livid about back-diving contracts and that he was responsible for the inclusion of the cap recapture penalty to penalize the Canucks, Red Wings, Devils, Wild, and Blackhawks for figuring out a clever way around the salary cap. This is a problem for the league, though, because in negotiating with the Players’ Union, the NHL has a duty to represent the interests of the teams. By introducing a clause in the CBA explicitly designed to penalize a few teams, the Canucks could argue that the NHL breached its duty to those teams to act in their best interests and that they should not be held to a provision of the CBA that was negotiated contrary to their interests. So does this mean the Canucks could win a lawsuit against the league? Not necessarily – a lot of this depends on information the public doesn’t have, like whether the Canucks were aware of and consented to the recapture penalty, and whether they consented to it applying retroactively to Luongo’s contract. However, the Canucks could consider this a “nuclear option” – the openness of these questions means that if the Canucks did pursue a lawsuit, the league and the team could be tied up in costly, high-profile litigation for years. The NHL would want to avoid that outcome at all costs. In fact, I believe that this is precisely the reason the league has, so far, turned a blind eye to the existence of Robidas Island. By allowing teams to place ageing players on the injured reserve, they can avoid fighting about whether the recapture penalty applies to pre-2013 contracts while making it clear that such contracts will not be tolerated going forward. What does it all mean? Luongo’s impending retirement has the potential to cause the Canucks some serious problems over the next few seasons. It doesn’t have to, though, if the Canucks are pro-active and take steps to avoid the cap recapture penalty. The best-case scenario for the team is to re-acquire Luongo’s contract when they confirm that he’s done playing, and to put him on the injured reserve until 2021-2022. Jim Benning needs to be placing regular calls to Luongo and Dale Tallon to avoid an inconvenience over the next few seasons if Luongo plans to retire soon, or an outright disaster if he plays for another year or two. When Luongo does retire, we should take a moment to appreciate how lucky we were to get to watch one of the all-time great goalies in hockey history in a Canucks uniform in his prime. Luongo sits second all-time in games played among goalies, third all-time in wins, fourth all-time in save percentage (among retired goalies) and ninth all-time in shutouts. Remarkably, Roberto Luongo and Henrik Lundqvist will not only go down as the two greatest goaltenders of their era but will likely be the two greatest goaltenders to never win a Stanley Cup. At least we got to watch Lou get within one win. To be fair Ryan Biech is the only credible person left on CA. He does very good work covering our prospects and generally always has contract information ready to share about each player and the rules in the CBA. IMO, he is the last standing saving grace for that cite.
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As long as he retires this summer or plays out the contract the caphit won't hurt us.4 If he plays another year and decides to retire next season or the season after that, the cap recapture pentalty could be 4 or 8 mil on our cap, which would put us in a bind with Petey and Hughes needing new deals
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Wonder if Ottawa starts with Cedric Andree and ride him for the playoffs considering he was their guy before they acquired Mikey. Its been a tandem since the acquisition but I have a sense they will likely let Andree have his go and Mikey is an insurance plan.
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Actually any team could still claim him, but he just would not be eligible to play playoff games or to be send to the AHL, but would be eligible to play the remaining regular season. If a team really was decimated or was interested in Sautner he could still get claimed
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Not a shock for me honestly, once they signed Mitch Eliot, I automatically though back to the identical scenario when the Canucks signed Jalen Chatfield and let Carl Neill go.
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Part of me still kind of wonders if Gaudette is a centre or would be better off for a bit as a winger. He seems to be very tenacious on the forecheck, prefers to take a shot over distributing the puck, and seems to thrive carrying the play off the boards rather than up the middle. Not saying he isn't a centre, but I think he might one of the cases where he would benefit from playing a bit of wing for a bit too and learn slowly the centre game. Steep learning curve for a 22 year old playing a crucial position. As a 3rd line centre, have to be good offensively and defensively, but I think Adam is still a bit raw in his skill. Could definitely see the possibility growing that the Canucks decide to hold onto Sutter and play Gaudette on his wing to start next fall, and let him grow into the role slowly.
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2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
CRAZY_4_NAZZY replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
I agree seeing Toronto invest in the ECHL has allowed for the Marlies to be successful this past two seasons. Canucks management need to invest in Kalamazoo or a proper ECHL affiliate so that it can become a developmental space for prospects as well. Archibald, Grenier, McEneny, Valk, Kubalkov, Blujus are all byproducts of spending time i. The ECHL eho have been integral parts for Utica in the past and present. I believe they also need to give more autonomy to RJ and Esche to find adequate pieces as depth instead of having them try out Prospects the Canucks are semi interested in. -
To be fair to him, he was used in a very odd role that didn't suit him at all. When Green placed him besides Bo Horvat for a long string of games, Schaller was playing out of his element, instead of being an energy, crash and bang kind of player, he was used to create offense and shut down the opposition, which wasn't his role at all in Boston. Frankly, at times this year Green's deployment of a group players have been puzzling and Schaller was one of them and I think that is why Schaller started off so slowly.
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2018-19 Utica Comets Thread
CRAZY_4_NAZZY replied to stonecoldstevebernier's topic in Prospects / Farm Team
This has been the fourth straight game where the Comets have taken a penalty within the first five minutes of the game. For the past two months the Comets have almost averaged 5-6 penalties a game. That is wayyyyy too much. They have to seriously tone down the penalties and I am beginning to think that their style of play is far too aggressive and would explain why this team is decimated by injuries as well. I think top to bottom from the Canucks down to the Comets, the amount of injuries that have accumulated over 3 seasons is largely due to an overly aggressive style of play that just is not sustainable. Something drastically needs to change in order for self-preservation and the sake of not always playing from behind. -
I think JB has done a good job digging out a rotten root and planted a new one that is healthy and slowly growing. Through acquisition and the limited options he has had, he has done an adequate job in restocking the prospect cupboards, trying his best to find players to plug in to insulate the future and young prospects, and has had some shrewd acquisitions such as Baertschi, Leivo, Stecher. However, I do believe like any good team, you go through cycles of GM's and Coaches before you land on the spot. Good teams like Chicago, Pittsburgh, LA, Boston, Washington who have been successful in winning the Stanley Cup have cycled through many GM's and coaches before they found the right one. To JB's credit he has done great and helped us get to a good spot, but at some point I think the team will go as far as his skill set will take them. I think JB is a great foundation builder and that goes hand in hand with his scouting and talent finding experience. But I think for the team to eventually get over a significant hump to become a true contender team, a more experienced GM will be needed, perhaps even a more veteran tested coach. But we aren't there yet, and who knows JB could grow into that role. Overall, I am satisfied with where we are, but I am eager to see this team take the next step in its development, hopefully JB evolves as well along with this team. He makes mistakes, some pretty glaring ones, but humans are allowed to make mistakes...no one is perfect. Patience is a hard virtue to have, and its understandable that some fans and media are disgruntled.
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I like Tanev and his bravery, but him constantly out of the lineup hurts the consistency of the backend as pairings get jostled around endlessly instead of building chemistry and consistency. He has no value at all honestly, but at the same time, its time to move on from him.
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I'm a big fan of Sautner. Hope Canucks find a way to make room for him as a third pairing kind of guy. https://www.vancourier.com/pass-it-to-bulis/ashton-sautner-keeps-things-simple-to-carve-out-a-spot-on-the-canucks-defence-corps-1.23665267
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Can't we just appreciate the fact that Motte scored two beauty goals last night and is having a great season without crapping on him about not being excellent in all facets of the game? Considering how fricken frustrating this year has been for the team as a whole and for the fans, lets just bask in the goodness for lil bit please.
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This kid has had a stellar year. Seems like since not getting onto Team Canada's WJC roster, he has lit the world on fire with his play At the beginning of December he had only 16 points in 23 games and was left off the WJC camp roster. Since then in 35 games, he has had 44 points. He has had a strong 2nd half so far.
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Watching these highlights from last year from Boeser's goals/shots, there seems to be a trend where he has had the ability to score from angles/parts of the ice with very little time and space. His release was quick. Part of Boeser's amazing shot is not only is it deadly but last year he was bale to release the puck really quickly. I remember Crosby always saying its not about overpowering your shot, its about getting it off quickly that makes goalies quiver on certain snipers. Additionally, his hands were set even before the sot. Boeser on a lot of these goals last year was walking into traffic - so I don't really believe that teams are keying in on him more really makes a difference because the way he scored last year, he was walking into the high traffic areas where defenders were already guarding him closely. This season I'm noticing a lot that he is skating away from traffic, and his hands aren't set before his shot which is why his shot release has been soooo slow this season. He winds up way to long and his predictability has shot through the roof because his hands aren't set and his release is just really slow. I notice too that he bobbles the puck when he receives it. Can't tell if that is because of the lack of strength in his wrist to corral it properly or if he needs to change his stick curve. It could be the mix of his wrist injury, his confidence, and teams keying on him, but the way he is shooting looks so much different then last year. Another part why we are seeing such glaring holes in his game lately is that for whatever reason they are forcing Boeser to be a puck carrier more and more. This isn't his strength, at most the puck should be on his stick for a few seconds, however, the are forcing him to be the one that distributes it is why we are seeing so many uncharacteristic plays from him. I know people disagree highly on this, but I would like to see Boeser play the bumper position on the powerplay more. The reason behind is if you watch some really prolific powerplays such as the Pittsburgh Penguins or Washington Capitals they have guys in the middle position who can get their shot off quickly (Jake Guentzel and TJ Oshie). They make quick touches to bump back with the half wall playmaker or are set up for a quick snap shot. I think ideally you want players with good vision and playmaking abilities on the halfwalls so guys like Goldobin and Pettersson, and someone with a quick shot like Boeser's in the middle. Honestly, this would keep the high forwards more accountable on the PK, would draw more defenders in and allowing the half board players to have a half a second more room to make a pass.
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Hopefully they give Quinn time to heal it fully because playing on a bruised foot can lead to bone fractures.
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I would think could be a bruise.