Grape

At my school (University of Michigan), classes have been shut down for the rest of the year (~45K students). Everything is shifting online. A few weeks ago, it was ignorant to believe that the virus was anything but fear mongering and mass hysteria. Now it's ignorant to believe that this we're not in a crisis right now.

Do you really believe that we don't have a puck moving defenseman? if you don't think Quinn Hughes is a puck moving D then what is he? If you took away everything that is associated with his puck moving ability he's probably not even an NHL'er. The guy literally is quite allergic to shooting and 95% of the time moves the puck. This is quite a baffling take and I'm genuinely intrigued to hear your reasoning.

Edler just backed right into the crease with MacKinnon coming at him. What a horrible play.

.

Don't think that's fair. Markstrom was far more "garbage" than Demko at Demko's age right now. Of course, Markstrom is our star and we'll have to pay him, but that doesn't make Demko garabge lol

I think if Marky was healthy, we'd have one extra win (the Leafs game). Otherwise, I highly doubt there's much of a difference. We're seriously just playing THAT poorly.

Why do so many people here, SO MANY, insist on the "wanting it more" factor. Like when the other team plays better, the first thing a good amount of people on here think is that it's because "they wanted it more."

Well I think you're just being immature now with these responses lol Let's say we had the first overall pick in the 2018 draft, and picked Quinn Hughes. I would've loved the pick due to my personal allegiance and my strong belief that Hughes was a top 2 player in the draft. However, if people were to make a point today, that we could've perhaps traded back a few spots and then picked Hughes, I wouldn't say they're wrong either, even though I was right in my unpopular original opinion

Of course, if you believed it back then, you were absolutely right. It also doesn't make the person you were responding to wrong at the time for thinking we could've gotten him for less.

Ahhh which is evidence to "they didn't understand how important it was." They just didn't execute. That's all. Stop attributing our failures to the players not caring. You're letting your own emotions affect logic. You think Horvat would've made that pass if he just simply understood how important the powerplay was?

I understand his point though. It's like if you trade a 3rd round pick for a 5th round pick, and that 5th round pick becomes a better player. It wasn't really a "steal" back then, it was a player who was traded for at market value who some though was we overpaid for. In hindsight it was a steal of course, so you're both right.

Why do we have fans who always blame the team not doing well on things like "they don't understand how important it was," "it didn't mean enough to them," "they didn't try hard enough"

Our top line + Horvat + Motte are our only forwards that are useful relative their indicated role. Everyone else is hot garbage and have been riding their tails. Hughes is damn near the only defenseman in that category.

The only player I'm enjoying right now is JT Miller. Everyone else is just ugh

We'll usually lose based on the way we played against the Habs. We'll usually win when we played like we did today. Hockey has so much variance involved that you expect this to happen quite often. But that's why 82 games is necessary in hockey (as opposed to basketball); things will eventually even out and the best teams will be at the top. Of course it's more fun winning ugly than losing pretty, but in terms of predictive ability for our future performances, today doesn't change anything and I'd say you're overreacting if you think it does.

This is such a poor argument against analytics and I don't even have the energy to explain why. I hope you realize it yourself.

Hmm... I would disagree. Rafferty, as great as he is playing, is a 24 year old guy alongside really good offensive teammates. Tyler Madden is a 1.4 PPG sophomore who is the best player on a really good college team. I found three recent prospect rankings. -Madden was one of the three Canucks TSN's top 40 prospects; Rafferty was in the top 50, so it's definitely close. -Madden was third in The Hockey Writers' rankings, Rafferty was 8th and Juolevi was 5th. -Madden was third in the Athletic, and Juolevi was 4th. Don't think Rafferty was considered as a prospect here. The only guy that I would have considered close to Madden is a guy you didn't mention - Jack Rathbone, who is averaging over a PPG as a defenseman and is also 20. I think you might be undervaluing the competitiveness of college hockey. The level of play in the competitive conferences is closer to the AHL than to the CHL. AHL >> NCAA >>> CHL. Somehow college is still being undervalued, despite most of our direct products all being from the pipeline. Within the last decade, If I can think correctly: College guys: Tanev, Stecher, Demko, Boeser, Gaudette, Hughes Elsewhere: Bo, Jake, Petey (all lottery picks so it's not a surprise they panned out) It's like as soon as the aforementioned guys leave college, people started to see their value. Same thing can be said with Rafferty! I think it might have to do with college not getting as much publicity? Anyway, since Schroeder, all of our high end college guys have done well, while a few low end guys have made it too. Wow I went off topic

We had 2 prospects ahead of him on the depth chart. Pod and Hog. Who else was ahead of him? Madden was a stud and you wouldn't say any of that if he was still here. Also, I'm sure Madden was on the list of no trade prospects - for Barrie. The Madden trade was made for Toffoli, who is of significantly higher value which is why we are fine with it.

Not a good game for Hughes at all; until OT, when his presence tired out the Habs and allowed Bo and TT to create their magic.

Those two passes were 100% on EP for fanning. Miller created two grade A opportunities by passing.

I know. But the whiff was still majestic.

Only one was a "surefire" goal though

Nothing beats Tanner Glass' majestic whiff in game 5 of the SCF.

Miller has been good. Toffoli has looked fine too.

Lol let me know which part is inaccurate before you come with your age argument . It's a message board, not an academic paper; I'm not going to cite sources for you lmfao. I found intriguing quotes and pasted them. If you're upset with that I can't help you! Edit: Another thing, unless you're extracting your numbers off of original databases and doing your own statistical analysis, you're also finding your "proper research" through essentially the same mediums as I am. The difference here is that you disagree with my viewpoint.