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Link67

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Link67 last won the day on January 27 2020

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    Carey Price

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  1. Guys, I just want to drop a friendly reminder that Josh Anderson put up 17 goals in a 50 game season, he is easily a 22 - 28 goal guy on a full 80 games, and he did so playing in the top 6 for the most part. He has been relegated to 3rd line duties since the playoffs began with even a stint on the 4th line, the heaviness of his game has been more outlined than his goal scoring in these playoffs because of it. He has accepted his role and outside the Suzuki line, the other lines have generally popped in and contributed in games in sequences. There has only been one line truly firing on all offensive cylinders. As a side note, after reviewing most of his first dozen goals, they come generally, with Suzuki and Drouin, a luxury he has not had for quite some time. Enjoy the ride fellas, no time for pissing and moaning and harping on guys who have contributed in getting us to the chance we had in these playoffs.
  2. The habs will have to do the same thing they have been doing this whole ride, kill'em with structure, tireless commitment, stiffle them and counter attack when they get sloppy with killer intentions, while relying on their world class goalie(who too many in this fanbase had irrationally wanted deleted from this roster for years) to do the rest and take their souls and will to win. Though Tampa is a scary and dreadful opponent, they too play a game that still screams we want to overwhelm you with our skill, while we want to overwhelm with our team, so far we have done well against like minded opponents, lets hope for more of the same, it is very possible to take this thing home! But it will not be easy and we will not be able to miss a step the whole way.
  3. Thought of you all when the boys made it to the finals!! Decided it was a good time for a comeback haha We all deserve this, years of supporting a build, it didn't always make sense but we had to trust the process, and try to find the positives, the ups and downs, it has been a crazy ride. Hopefully they make it count in the end, but please, years down the road, in the event that we don't win, can we not use this season as "meaningless because we didn't win" type argument, making the finals is a huge deal, it is a shining moment, I hope I don't see it downplayed later on as if we forgot the stupid joy it has brought us now. With that said, Lets get what we came here for Boys!!
  4. Well i'll give you credit, if you were an NHL GM, you would never get fleeced on a trade, however... You would never get a deal done either, because you are always trying to fleece the other guys by offering up your 2nd rate product for their 1st rate product, this proposal is way off the mark for Detroit, even more so considering an intelligent GM like Yzerman is steering that ship.
  5. The whole point of this setup we got going on right now is to have a formidable and deep top 9, none of the top 3 centers are expendable for the simple fact that the entire thing falls apart if you start plugging Evans and Poehling in there. If you plan to build a roster with a deep top 9 up front, a deep top 4 in the back, and the arguable deepest goalie depth, you have to go all in on that, the only expendables are your 4th liners and bottom pair D, i'm not sure why we are even contemplating anything else. The only currently non expendable player in the top 9 I could see becoming expendable next season is Tatar, and only if Caufield looks ready to make some NHL noise.
  6. Ok, so you don't like the contract, I won't deny that it doesn't come without it's risks if he remains injury proned. However, you can't say we are choosing size over skill, while we are in fact getting size AND skill. Anderson is a big top 6 forward with good skating, a big shot, and good hands around the net, trying to diminish his skill level just because he is big and has a contract you don't like, isn't very fair, or accurate, for that matter.
  7. Come on man, watch the first 3 sequences here and tell me you see a plug with size and no skill..
  8. Big props so far to MB, love him or hate him, admit it or not, he is smashing his offseason out of the park and into a windshield in parking lot section F thus far.
  9. Not a Chance! Gallagher and Danault are the ones you keep, the depth that becomes expendable after that is Byron, Lehkonen, Weal, and to an extent, Armia.
  10. Love it, The cap hit is good, there is some risk in the term of course, but I love the player, love what he brings, the intangibles, the 5 on 5 stats, the advanced stats, the train engine mentality.
  11. Opening night looks like this for me.. Drouin - Suzuki - Anderson Tatar - Danault - Gallagher Toffoli - KK - Armia Lehkonen - Evans - Byron Chiarot - Weber Edmunson - Petry Romanov/Kulak - Juulsen/Fleury
  12. I agree with your point, and it is true, but you do also underline my concern, the ugly questions that need to be asked, because that scenario means someone is almost certainly going to be, performing below their inflated salary. Whether by a dip in their play resulting in a demotion that then doesn't provide them the opportunity for redemption, or by default by not having the opportunity to make good on their cap hit due to a bottom 6 role. This signing ticks some positive boxes, another hard nosed player with a 200 foot game, a winger capable of 20 goals, and obviously forward depth. However I have learned to be weary of the cautionary tales from around the league when teams start plugging 3.5 million+ dollar guys on their bottom lines. From Hanzal in Dallas, and Sutter in Vancouver to Bonino in Nashville. These guys who carve themselves a path doing certain things in certain roles, don't just keep doing said things in lesser roles. Everyone of those cautionary tales, and the ones in between, became an issue either because they were unable to perform the same, in a lesser role than they had previous, which is natural, or their cap hit becomes too much for a roster to bear from a bottom 6 position. I'm torn by what I do, and don't want to see happen at the same time, and that is this... Drouin has a bangin' year a long side Suzuki and Anderson, Tatar has a usual, productive year a long side Danault and Gally, Toffoli has a dozen goals and 35 point season on an effective, but 3rd line none the less, with KK and Lehkonen/Armia. Now he can't make good on his cap hit, he can't be the 20 goal guy that everyone expected when we signed him, and the BS starts, and we all know the BS i'm talking about. This also pushes a guy like Armia into a potential 4th line position, he is an established 3rd line player for us with upside, who can ferry up to the top 6 when it is required, he is also in a no win, can't succeed position, at that point. It's fine and dandy to rally for forward depth, but at what cost when you start having large chunks of Salary cap percentages sitting in your bottom 6, and half those players are in frustrating positions where they are expected/want to perform to a certain standard, and don't have the opportunity to do so.
  13. Not a HUGE fan of this move, just from a roster position It is kind of awkward now to figure out where he can get an opportunity to be a 20 goal guy with wingers like Drouin/Tatar and Anderson/Gallagher in his way. He is going to have a hard time justifying his cap hit with production from a 3rd line position, which at this moment is where he looks like he slots in our depth chart. We'll see what other roster moves will take place to give a better idea of how this all fits come Jan. 1st, but on a healthy line up, he is going to be playing a long side Armia and whichever center is in the 3rd slot between Danault and KK. While that could prove useful, to have such a formidable top 9, it could also come with its issues having inflated cap hits on your 3rd line. I don't hate it, but i'm not thrilled about it.
  14. You're still judging this by the same flawed criteria as many of those who hate it, point total averages. Anderson wasn't a top line player when he scored 27, he wasn't playing a long side the best Center on their team like he will be slotted to here. Max got all the top C luxuries here when he scored 70, and a skilled forward will find a way to produce in those circumstances, he is after all a very good player who just doesn't fit anymore in a context where he can thrive. With that said there are simply a lot of things Anderson does that Max never could. He drives the net and creates offense and forechecking with a power forward mentality, consistently, he will obviously thrive on the wing, something Domi seemingly can't do. He has a very heavy shot which creates a different threat than when Max is on the ice where you know he is looking more at creating plays than trying to fire rockets from the slot area. Then there is the market value to consider, smallish skilled forwards are much more plentiful than big top 6 power forwards capable of scoring 25+ goals. You simply can't give up, in any market place, a commodity that is readily available for one that is much less so, at equal value. We got the rarer player type, and naturally it cost us slightly more than our asset to acquire it. It also happens to be an organizational need, which makes it even more enticing to pull the trigger. We weren't going to get better keeping Domi around to eat into Suzuki or KK's minutes. We weren't going to be better forcing him to play wing, where he is less effective. We were also not going to get harder to play against in the playoffs, remaining as small as we are in the top 6. Like I said in my initial post, this was about building a roster that more closely resembles that of the one that can make some real noise in the playoffs. Truthfully, you don't acquire good assets without giving up some of your own, and in our case, Domi was one of the more expendable assets of value we had. We didn't waste it by not addressing team needs and roster balance, and ultimately that's fine by me. We don't know how this is all going to turn out in the end, but all I'm saying is I agree with the logic and strategy behind the move, and if everyone involved does what is expected of them, this is an organizational win for us.
  15. At the end of the day guys, Domi was just more of the same on this team, small, quick, fiesty, and skilled. Anderson brings a dimension with him that only Armia has, with more potential for production, and quick on his feet for a big guy. You simply subtract something you have plenty of to fill a void in something you barely have any of. It's a roster building trade even more so than the player for player. We are finally getting to a point where we are fine tuning the personal, and shoring up needs, there's no point knit picking this to death. Did we need another small, fast, skilled, at center in the line up or did we need a big body who plays quick, drives the net, with a big shot and plays wing? These are the years where we have to try to get this team from bubble to potential contender, and roster balance and holes need to be addressed.
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