NHL 2017 -Official Discussion Thread

[heydaralon]

Smitty, have you ever played hockey on a frozen lake? Do people ever fall through the ice?

[Smitty-48]

I never got into hockey. There's not much of a hockey scene in the Sunshine State. I can understand the appeal though. Its kind of crazy when you think about dudes sliding around on ice with razors attached to their feet. I saw a video years ago where a guy got his throat cut by a skate, and he was bleeding out on the ice.

Clint Malarchuk.

[Smitty-48]

Smitty, have you ever played hockey on a frozen lake? Do people ever fall through the ice?

I have, and nobody ever fell through, really only take it there when it's the depths of winter, no pond hockey come the spring.

[heydaralon]

Smitty, have you ever played hockey on a frozen lake? Do people ever fall through the ice?

I have, and nobody ever fell through, really only take it there when it's the depths of winter, no pond hockey come the spring.

Did you play street hockey in the warmer months?

[StCapps]

The Avs burned their bridges with Duchene and Duchene has burned his bridges with them. Other NHL teams are aware of this and are out to extort us, I'm sure Sakic's asking price is too high, but at this point they know the clock is not on our side and the longer they wait, the better deal they get for Duchene. Which is why I predict we can't trade him and will get nothing out of him, no team will give us even close to a half decent return until he rebounds next year and if he comes back and plays for the Avs, he won't rebound because we don't want him on the team and he doesn't want to be on the team, plus the team sucks. So Sakic is basically completely fucked because unless he deals Duchene for a bag of pucks, he won't even get the bag of pucks and then he'll get fired, and if he doesn't move Duchene, then he'll get fired because of that. Or Sakic will take some bullshit "promotion" that is a de facto firing, to some hands off position in front office to be a figurehead.

[Smitty-48]

Smitty, have you ever played hockey on a frozen lake? Do people ever fall through the ice?

I have, and nobody ever fell through, really only take it there when it's the depths of winter, no pond hockey come the spring.

Did you play street hockey in the warmer months?

Non stop, we'd play ball hockey from the morning till the streetlights came on, at that certain age, we also played a ton of ball hockey in the army, but that was serious business, rougher than the NHL by several orders of magnitude, sort of Hockey meets MMA.

[Smitty-48]

The Avs burned their bridges with Duchene and Duchene has burned his bridges with them. Other NHL teams are aware of this and are out to extort us, I'm sure Sakic's asking price is too high, but at this point they know the clock is not on our side and the longer they wait, the better deal they get for Duchene. Which is why I predict we can't trade him and will get nothing out of him, no team will give us even close to a half decent return until he rebounds next year and if he comes back and plays for the Avs, he won't rebound because we don't want him on the team and he doesn't want to be on the team, plus the team sucks. So Sakic is basically completely fucked because unless he deals Duchene for a bag of pucks, he won't even get the bag of pucks and then he'll get fired, and if he doesn't move Duchene, then he'll get fired because of that. Or Sakic will take some bullshit "promotion" that is a de facto firing, to some hands off position in front office to be a figurehead.

But the thing is, he doesn't have to hit it out of the park to help the Avs in big ways, the Leafs didn't have any leverage when Kessel's agent leaked his NTC and it was clear that Pittsburgh was the only viable option, none the less, the Leafs turned that into Freddie Andersen, Kasperi Kapanen, and Kerby Rychel, plus 6.8 million in cap room, which is about to become the most important acquisition of all.

Shanahan just cut his losses, to change the culture, and rightly so, getting rid of Kessel actually led to Matthews in the end, last thing the Leafs needed in tank mode, was 30 more goals from Kessel.

[heydaralon]

I have, and nobody ever fell through, really only take it there when it's the depths of winter, no pond hockey come the spring.

Did you play street hockey in the warmer months?

Non stop, we'd play ball hockey from the morning till the streetlights came on, at that certain age, we also played a ton of ball hockey in the army, but that was serious business, rougher than the NHL by several orders of magnitude, sort of Hockey meets MMA.

What position did you play the most?

[StCapps]

The Avs burned their bridges with Duchene and Duchene has burned his bridges with them. Other NHL teams are aware of this and are out to extort us, I'm sure Sakic's asking price is too high, but at this point they know the clock is not on our side and the longer they wait, the better deal they get for Duchene. Which is why I predict we can't trade him and will get nothing out of him, no team will give us even close to a half decent return until he rebounds next year and if he comes back and plays for the Avs, he won't rebound because we don't want him on the team and he doesn't want to be on the team, plus the team sucks. So Sakic is basically completely fucked because unless he deals Duchene for a bag of pucks, he won't even get the bag of pucks and then he'll get fired, and if he doesn't move Duchene, then he'll get fired because of that. Or Sakic will take some bullshit "promotion" that is a de facto firing, to some hands off position in front office to be a figurehead.

But the thing is, he doesn't have to hit it out of the park to help the Avs in big ways, the Leafs didn't have any leverage when Kessel's agent leaked his NTC and it was clear that Pittsburgh was the only viable option, none the less, the Leafs turned that into Freddie Andersen, Kasperi Kapanen, and Kerby Rychel, plus 6.8 million in cap room, which is about to become the most important acquisition of all.

Shanahan just cut his losses, to change the culture, and rightly so, getting rid of Kessel actually led to Matthews in the end, last thing the Leafs needed in tank mode, was 30 more goals from Kessel.

Joe Sakic is not Brendan Shanahan. Kessel's production hadn't fallen of the earth, and he didn't quit on the team the way Duchene quit on the Avs, he just floated for some stretches and had a down year, Duchene fell off the Earth and went over a month long stretch without scoring goals, among various other stretches where he was a complete ghost. He basically didn't even show up after the trade deadline, not that he was playing well before it, when doing so would have increased his chances of getting dealt, which is what he wanted for a year and a half, yet still he couldn't pull himself out of the funk. The kid has character issues, if your team goes into the toilet, he gets in his tries to hard and then if goes poorly for prolonged stretches and he doesn't get traded, then he is liable to quit on the team.

So yeah bag of pucks, that's the best we can hope for at this point. The other GM's have us over a barrel and until Sakic comes to them hat in hand, begging to move Duchene for almost nothing will one of them pull the trigger before any other GMs do.

[Smitty-48]

I think there's a deal there for Duchene, and I think it's a good deal for the Avs, just not next year, the deal the Avs can make tho, is one where three years from now, you're like "look at what we got for Duchene, a goalie, a top four D, and a top six winger, three for one, plus ELC's, so we can now go out and get somebody else for that 6 million on top."

Just have to go for the prospects who haven't broke through yet, but who have big upside, Dante Fabbro prolly not, but still a middle paring D, Thatcher Demko, also not, but still a replacement for Pickard, WIlliam Nylander, nope, but still a top six winger who could score 20+, it's all about finding value on guys who are being sold low.