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I'm 45 years old so more in the old school demographic. But I play a lot of video games. Sometimes I get out of hand. I used to play counter strike for hours. To the point that the guys on my server are basically my friends. It's easier to lose control with gaming than it is with cards. If guys are out partying till all hours, teams often enforce curfews, or make changes to curb the behavior. Gaming can be very addictive and should be curbed if its out of hand.

You should know by now that the 3 Stars are entirely irrelevant around the league and really shouldn't be paid attention to*. * - The exception to this rule is the HW Habs 3 Stars that appear as part of the postgame article. Those should be read at all times.

Scherbak, Benn, and a second

I'm no prospect expert, but what I see here is a team with a ton of middle-tier FWs and hardly any defensive depth trading a bottom-6 FW prospect for defensive help. Prima facie, that makes quite a bit of sense. Given Ben's scouting report of Olofsson, I kind of wonder what's in store for Alzner. Alzner was benched to start the season, and Olofsson basically sounds like an Alzner who can skate. And therefore he fits much better with the team identity we saw on display last night. If I'm Alzner, I'm starting to hear the footsteps of the Grim Reaper behind me.

It's a good point. The defense is brutal, but the 4 lines of forwards reminds me of vegas. There isn't one forward without 15+ goal potential. Several with 20+ potential. If kotkaniemi can play, they have potential to be better up front than we may be projecting.

How I feel watching this kid

Playing cards leads to gambling. There have been several players and management who have had gambling addictions, including Jagr. There is also alcohol addiction, pain medication addiction, and sex addiction, all of which people say are wrong but little is ever done to curb it. All of the recent player suicides and overdoses where players were hooked on pain medication were pretty much ignored or supported by the medical staff of the NHL clubs. That actually kills people. Videogame addiction is barely a problem compared. Laine was right in saying this is just making excuses for the Canucks sucking last season. Create a scapegoat and claim you're doing something to fix it. They probably learned that from Marc Bergevin, though he'd never ban videogames with all of those trades he does on his Playstation. That's the claim, which even if true, it's stupid. It's a bunch of guys thinking they are being old school.

Wasn't it the players and not the management that made the call about videogames?

Its interesting how differently people think. My first thought was that there must have been some addiction issues with guys staying up and owning noobs. Your first thought was that old school people were enforcing antiquated logic.

This is just a funny one, but me and Dad have been calling him “Coconut Miami”

Peca looked fine, except when deaked out by Tavares on his goal, but it is Tavares so he is not the only one who he will make look bad. Oulette had couple weak plays, bur Reilly, Juulsen and Mete all did fine. But, zero pts from defense. Nice to see Domi with 2a and Kotkaniemi didnt look out of place and on pace for a 82pt season. Go youth go! (funny that Armia led the forwards in icetime?)

Glad to see I wasn't the only one frustrated with Drouin. Coming off a lousy year last season, he cannot continue like that. We gave up a huge ransom for this guy and he has yet to impress. The Leafs showed last night what sheer talent does: you can get outplayed for large stretches and still win, because of one or two unstoppable plays. The Matthews goal was Lafleur-like in the specific sense that it made the goalie irrelevant - no one has a chance to save that. And very few players actually pull off what Tavares did on the second goal: he looked like Kovalev at his best. I always liked the "roll four lines" model. Based on one game, it looks like we can finally do that again. We haven't seen the team play that kind of deep, short-pass, support-the-puck-carrier hockey since about 2015. It looks to be a team that actually has an identity: fast, spunky, competitive, and relentless. The negative is that its lack of elite talent means that it will need a lot of chances to get the goals. The Matthews and Tavares of the world need only one chance to score. Not having watched preseason, I was a bit leery of the Kotkaniemi excitement, but boy, do I get it after watching that game. The last rookie to step in and play with that kind of presence was a fella named PK Subban. While he's not fully-realized yet, he seems smart and unflappable, with impressive vision. The Bobby Smith parallel applies to more than his number. Hopefully he can keep it up! The good, then: Price in Beast Mode, most of the FW unit but especially Special K, Lehkonen, Matthew Peca, Domi's second half (after a dodgy first half IMHO). And was it just me, or did Victor Mete seem a quite capable top-4 d-man last night - ? He struck me as much more fully-rounded and mature than last year. I'm thinking he's a guy who might make a major statement this season. The bad: Drouin, Petry's overuse (not his fault, but frustrating). I didn't think the defence corps looked that bad, all things considered. Juulsen and Reilly seemed OK to me. Weber will help to a truly gigantic degree. You find yourself thinking: if the team looks that competitive without Weber, what happens when he gets back - ?!?

We're running the voting for the HW rankings starting tomorrow but I didn't expect him to get top-10 consideration from our writers. I figured he'd be in the late teen/early 20 range by the time I sat down and did the full listing.

MOLG's favorite player ties it up. First NHL point for Kotkaniemi.

If the team plays like this all year they will be a lot more entertaining than last year

Defensive defensemen still have value, you just have to redefine what you think of as a defensive defenceman Mike Komisarek types, big, can't skate well, hit a lot and block shots... they don't work. The new style is the vlassic type, guys who can skate, are strong in puck battles and clearing the front of the net, good sticks, good angles and positioning and make a good first pass. Think the Vlassic type as the #1 example of this type of player. The Habs have one in the system in Noah Juulsen. Olofsson and Kulak might mirror this type as well. So does Romanov. They still have a spot in the NHL I also question how high Bitten's ceiling is. He wasn't close to my top 10 Habs prospects... Heck he probably doesn't crack my top 15 if I went that far.

As much as I'm curious about the 4 line team, I'm terrified of this garbage defense.

Sorry Joe , I know you're French and I don't mean to be ignorant, but the whole Drouin trade was a P.R stunt. The fan favourite Subban was traded, then Markov was let walk, as was Radulov. Bergevin saw the outrage in fans, so he tried to soften the blow by adding a hometown boy, that could potentially be a hero... None of this is to say that Drouin isn't a great hockey player, it's just to the fact that he's probably more of complimentary piece. Also that we moved a potentially elite d-man, when our defense is probably one of the worst in the league.

I guess MB is working on getting rid of all the talent Timmins drafts. Who needs skilled defence when you can get pilons...then say the team needs to be better in front of Price. I find it funny that a guy who played defence has no clue how to evaluate defence talent.