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NHL 2013 regular season thread!

#921
Leafs with the win, finally clinching a Playoffs spot for the first time in 9 years (IIRC)!!!

Ottawa is slipping fast. Hope Karlsson will be able to make a miraculous recovery to give them a better chance of having another Canadian team in the Playoffs. His progress has been quite speedy so far, so much so that he's now already cleared for contact! Wow!

Claude Julien has officially become the whiniest coach in history. After the Pens' win tonight, he whined about how Cooke allegedly hit a Bruins player on the knee when the video replay shows the Bruins player charging Cooke who protected himself by essentially turning around so he'd end up being hit on his back instead, which is a play/move that is done dozens of times every game. He complained that the refs didn't penalize Cooke. For what? Turning his back so he doesn't get hammered by a check? :rolleyes:

And let's not forget Jack Edwards, the Bruins' commentator, who's largely known to be a full-blown homer with occasional bouts of stupidity. Tonight, he blurted out the following during the play-by-play commentary ;

"When the Pittsburgh writers nominated Matt Cooke for the Masterton award for dedication and perseverance to hockey, the justification being that Cooke had changed his ways after basically assassinating Marc Savard. Nominating Cooke for the Masterton is about the equivalent of nominating Sirhan Sirhan as the prisoner of the year. "

Sirhan was convicted of assassinating U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and is serving life in prison.

He followed this comment later in the game with an on-air apology during play saying something to the effect that it was never his intention to offend anybody. He also posted a series of tweets apologizing by making these statements ;

"I am sorry for insulting Matt Cooke, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the National Hockey League, and anyone else upset by my Cooke comments. I made a mistake. My fault all the way. This is my apology. Bad week, bad emotional reaction by me. Not fun to make a mistake. I made a mistake. I am sorry for it. I can move forward if you can."

Emphasis mine. *shakes head*

He's insinuating that the Boston Marathon bombing somehow influenced his emotions on the air when he compared Cooked to a convicted assassin? Utterly amazing...
 
#922
I heard the comment from Edwards. I was mostly in shock at first, then when he apologized it really hit me what he said. Unfortunate indeed. He was really, really upset about the Cooke hit. It didn't seem that bad to me, but I may be slightly biased.

-Mike
 
#924
Isn't that essentially what guys like Kronwall and Orpik do all the time? I'm not aware of anything that makes that hit illegal. McQuaid is half a foot taller than Cooke. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out Cooke's hip isn't going to hit McQuaid's hip even if he's standing straight up in the air.
 
#926
Not surprised. Edwards stated during the play-by-play that his apology is triggered solely by his conscience. I remember rolling my eyes at that comment because there was no way a guy like that would apologize unless the station or somebody else was making a big stink of it.
 
#929
Edwards is an idiot; although I will take his side on the diving; and there are instances where he's called out players from his own team with regards to diving; but being impartial Edwards definitely is not. He is definitely unprofessional. Most commentators are pretty good not wearing their emotions on their sleeves.

Read a pretty depressing article with regards to the Flyers' D. Pretty much said the Flyers are probably going to continue to be horrible for the foreseeable future and the Flyers are wasting Giroux's prime years because the defense is so shoddy.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Although I do agree with the defensive learning curve being more difficult and a longer process to compete at the NHL level; I feel like this is a pretty pessimistic prognosis. I'd like to believe that when actually healthy,...Flyers D isn't that bad. I'd like to believe that guy who wasn't all that far off from retirement anyway; isn't the guy who (or more appropriately; who's ingury) ruined Giroux's career (Pronger). I'd like to believe that guys like Gustafson, Manning, Lauridson will develop into good defensemen; although I prefer that happen on an AHL or lower level. I'd like to believe that Luke Schenn will turn into that #1 defenseman.

If I were to pick; I'd say move a young forward or two to get a top pairing D-man. Coots and Read are on my radar. As much as I'd rather keep Coots.

I'm actually inclined to hang onto Gagne. As a fan it would be cool to see him retire a Flyer and he probably doesn't have any real trade value anymore. There are murmurings that he is willing to accept less money to stay in Philly.

/end Armchair GM mode.
 
#930
Some interesting points on the Flyers there, Warwick. As you hint at the end, it's much easier said than done.

Speaking of interesting, Sens play the Pens tonight for the first time since Karlsson was injured. I still think the Sens lied about the actual injury if Karlsson made a 100% recovery in two months. My guess is they made it sound worse than it really was, hoping that Cooke would get suspended for it. Well that, or he was simply misdiagnosed. Obviously much less likely! ;)

As a Pens fan, this whole ordeal has been incredibly annoying. It's still mostly just Sens fans that think the accident was anything but accidental. Wish the Sens would drop it and move on. Instead, tonight will probably be a blood bath.
 
#931
Pronger getting injured just threw the whole Flyer D into disarray. Without that stud #1 D, there wasn't enough depth. Holmgren tried to patch it up, not getting Weber sure didn't help, and have Timonen do his best as the #1 but there just wasn't enough there, then what was there got hurt as well. The Flyers ahve gone through an amazing 12 D this year NOT counting Pronger ever playing a game.

Bryzaster has been awful, but at least part of the blame has to be the revolving door in front of him.

Imagine the Flyers' D this year with Weber in there. Or maybe not. He would have just gotten hurt liek the rest of them.
 
#932
Lazarus.Bird said:
Some interesting points on the Flyers there, Warwick. As you hint at the end, it's much easier said than done.

<snip>
Click to expand...

To me,...I can speculate all I want,...but the reality is; I'm not in Holmgren's shoes and as we've seen in the past,...he isn't afraid to shake things up. He will probably make a move that will piss fans off,...but pandering to the fanbase doesn't win Stanley Cups and what would make this fan happy,...is playoff success. Yes, I like Simmer, Scorachek, Read, Both Schenns, Coots, Hartnell and Giroux, but I'd like a Stanley Cup at some point in time.

Homer hasn't made things easy on himself,...so much attention was paid to the goaltender position that developing a defensive core from the lower leagues got overlooked. I like that the author of the BSH article points out how many teams were carried to Stanley Cups; since the '05 lockout, on the backs of elite goaltenders as compared to how many of those teams had solid number 1 defensemen. The answer is Goalies = 1; Top Defensemen = All of them.

Other things that we Flyer fans will just have to see what happens.

-Can the Flyers manage big numbers offensively to compensate for shoddy D/poor goaltending.

-Can Mason be the goalie we are looking for. I get conflicting reports on the guy. He's a has been. He has the tools to become elite. In the tiny sampling of games that he's played,...he's seemingly endeared himself to the Philly Faithful, but still I'm hesitant on the guy.

-Does that mean that Bryz becomes trade bait to sure up the Defense. Again, I'm inclined to hang onto Bryz and get him playing a less tiring amount of games. Can a solid backup challenging for the starting position get Bryz to step up to the plate for once.

-Can we get Jaybo?

-Does Seth Jones (or some other young D prospect) miraculously fall into the Flyers lap, get rushed to the NHL level and potentially ruined by impatience.

I see mentions of Luca Sbisa,...another player I wish we would have been patient with. He was part of the package that sent Pronger over. Here we have a guy,...Dman Taken in the first round,...rushed to the NHL level and will probably be a footnote in the history of NHL defenders. But had homer played his cards right,...he could have been allowed to mature at the AHL level then slotted into a top pairing role this season or next.

In the end,...yes,...the Flyers look doomed for the foreseeable future,...but who knows.
 
#933
1) Forget about trading Bryz. Nobody wants that guy, and *especially* not with his bloated salary and contract. So that dream's as good as dead.
2) Timonen is way past his prime and isn't #1 D-man material on any NHL team at this point.
3) Bouwmester is highly overrated. He built his reputation during his early years as being a puck-carrying D-man with some PP QB'ing but has slowed down tremendously since his Panthers stint. His salary is still too much for what he brings.
4) The Flyers are in need of some stud stay-at-home D-men. Looking at the list of impending D-men UFAs, Ian White comes to mind as a good fit, as well as Scott Hannan, although he'd have to agree to a lower salary athn 4.5m/year.

From my perspective, it does look like a few more years of crappy D is to be expected from the Flyers. No easy solution as the team clearly needs secondary scoring, yet doesn't have one stud-in-the-making D-man with the exception of Schenn.

A GM who trades away or lets players like Carter, Richards, Meszaros, Kubina, and Bobrovski go isn't doing his team any favors.
 
#934
I would think the Flyers GM should take a hike before I blow out the coach or any players. It's really unfortunate to see them playing like this, especially after the way they manhandled the Pens last year.

I remember thinking after that series how the Flyers were going to get even better so the Pens better shape up in the offseason.

-Mike
 
#935
It just occurred to me over the weekend how many teams made strong pushes to the playoffs.

Islanders have not lost in 10 games. Caps are 9-1 in last 10. STL, and Columbus. Seems like more strong pushes than I can remember in recent memory.

Looks like the Wings are going to miss the playoffs for the first time in forever. They just can't score any points this year.
 
#936
MJ5150 said:
I would think the Flyers GM should take a hike before I blow out the coach or any players. It's really unfortunate to see them playing like this, especially after the way they manhandled the Pens last year.

I remember thinking after that series how the Flyers were going to get even better so the Pens better shape up in the offseason.

-Mike
Click to expand...

Haha. I remember after the series was over, my initial thought was "how the hell are we going to beat these guys next year?"

Funny how much can change in a year, or even just an offseason.
 
#937
Strat-Mangler said:
A GM who trades away or lets players like Carter, Richards, Meszaros, Kubina, and Bobrovski go isn't doing his team any favors.
Click to expand...

It's hard for me to be too critical of the Richards and Carter deals, given how well Wayne Simmonds and Jake Voracek have played this seasons, and considering that they are both still quite young (24 and 23, respectively, I think), so they should be around for a while.

I'm much more critical of Holmgren for the way he handled the goaltender situation.
 
#940
tastybasslines said:
Looks like the Wings are going to miss the playoffs for the first time in forever. They just can't score any points this year.
Click to expand...
It's another team that has relied too much on its aging stars and hasn't built for the future.

Brunner's a good find, but they'll need a lot more to be a contender. Nobody's picking up the slack for Holmstrom or Lidstrom retiring. They need a PP QB, a big body in front of the net, and secondary scoring.

They just signed Howard, so they're at least set in nets for a while.
 

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