xXx..CK..xXx

Not a big deal either way but Martinsen is better than Matteau in my opinion. I know you're not comparing the two in that way but I think Martinsen may check off more than one of those boxes. Then again, I kind of see him as the offensive version of where Barberio was in terms of their respective positions on the depth chart and he's gone. I prefer the Martinsen type over the Mitchells and Flynns on the 4th line but I guess that's like comparing 2014 sludge to 2017 sludge.

Yes, I meant that we traded Andrighetto for Martinsen and no one seemed to mind. Would people have preferred that Andrighetto play on the 4th line over Martinsen as well? Martinsen is what he is, a 4th liner. Andrighetto, Hudon and DLR are all 2nd or 3rd line suited players with the exception being maybe DLR who hasn't proven anything as of yet and (McCaron). I don't think Hudon or Andrighetto bring anything to the table given 4th line minutes. Martinsen, DLR, McCarron all have some size and I still don't mind Martinsen over (especially) De la Rose or McCarron as of now.

And what about Andrighetto? McCarron I won't argue with but I'd rather see Martinsen on the 4th line than the other two.

I'm not defending Shaw as a player necessarily but it's tough to develop a past cup champion through the farm. We've had players like Moen and Gill before for the same reason and I think during our run in 2010, we had plenty of cup experience whice I believe helped.

It's not just Sergachev but you're also giving up Galchenyuk and another 1st round pick. I rarely care about prospects but I have a good feeling about Sergachev. Why not just trade Galchenyuk, Beaulieu and a 1st. Throw in a 2nd or a 3rd. People can talk crap about Beaulieu but he's not that bad and I still feel like the Islanders are getting a lot.

In that case I guess management would argue that he needs to take less than he deserves since it's a one year deal. That may just be what ends up happening here unless MB offers more than Galchenyuk is worth. Not the easiest scenario. I think it will end up being a one year deal at 5 mil... or 5.25mil

I don't make that trade. One of the background reasons I'm fine with the Weber trade overall is that we have Sergachev coming in soon. I don't include him in a trade at this point. Remember this in 2 years.

Yeah I was going to put Guentzel up there with Marner and Gaudreau but it's tough to tell because I don't underestimate the effect Crosby can have on his linemates. Gallagher would tear it up with Crosby. If Guentzel does it again next year I'll start giving him a little more credit. I'm already starting to believe a little more in Murray than I did after last year. I still don't think he's the greatest out there. Kind of like a Bishop.

I can see how it would have at the very least taken quite a toll on him this season. I'd be surprised if he was ever 100% this season. As for the long term, I can see the argument but I think he can return to form. The one thing I have noticed is that many teams seem to have a Gallagher player of their own nowadays. Guentzel on the Pens, Arvidsson on the Preds, Dzingel on the Sens. They're not all the same type of player but they're all undersized players who tend to hustle and have some skill. Then you have next leve guys like Gaudreau and Marner who are a hybrid of Gallagher and Galchenyuk. When Gallagher came into the league, he was the new age Theo Fleury. A few years later and it seems as though these types of players are quite common and actually some teams have two or three Gallaghers. I love Gallagher and I don't want to trade him but I'm not sure I necessarily expect him to stand out for much of the rest of his career because of this reality. Nothing against him but we can't expect to rely mainly on him.

Alright, so my question is what's in it for management to sign Galchenyuk to a one year deal? Honestly, if they actually do sign him to a one year deal then they clearly have no faith in him and he likely should be traded. He's a 55-65 point player (although he has been a 50 point player so far) and should be paid accordingly.

http://www.eightleaves.com/2014/11/measuring-performance-in-the-nhl Does shot difference make a difference? But is it necessary for teams to outshoot opponents in order to outscore them? Not in every game, of course, but is it true on average? In the shots for and against stats for the 2009/10 season, the correlation between the shot difference and winning percentage is fairly high (0.63). On average, it appears winning teams tend to outshoot their opponents. This seems to support the idea that the Corsi number can be used as a proxy for performance. But, if you take a closer look, the support falters. Teams that outshot their opponents won 580 games in the season. How many games did the outshot teams win? 588! More teams had a higher winning percentage when they were behind on shots (19) than when they were ahead (11). And a team’s winning percentage didn’t change by much whether it outshot or it was outshot by opponents — about 8% on average. If outshooting opponents is pivotal to winning games, we’d expect this difference to be wider. Instead, we see that a team’s ability to win games was fairly independent of its ability to outshoot opponents. Why? The incentive to shoot Teams shoot to score goals. And, depending on who’s ahead, each team’s incentive to score another goal (and hence take shots) is different. It’s always more important for the team that’s ahead to prevent a goal than to score a goal. Similarly, it’s always more important for the team that’s trailing to score a goal than prevent a goal. To put it in economic terms, the marginal value of a goal is higher for the team that’s behind than it is for the team that’s ahead, and the marginal cost of a goal allowed is higher for the team that’s ahead than it is for the team that’s behind. The biggest problem with the Corsi number is that it assumes that incentives stay the same throughout a game. It penalizes players when they’re protecting a lead and have little to gain by venturing aggressively into the offensive zone. And it rewards players who are taking the space their opponents give them and taking shots from all angles without affecting the outcome of a game" Or

And when the Bruins were outshot in 16 of their 25 games in 2011 they won the cup. Tim Thomas was praised but all people remember is that the Bruins won the cup. The team who outshoots their opponents wins less than 50% of the games in the NHL and now because it's Nashville who is losing this way, everyone cares. The reason for that stat is because shots on goal doesn't take into account how dangerous a scoring chance it was. The Habs have outshot their oppponents many a time to no avail because most of their shots were from the outside and that goes to the point that Nashville's offense isn't that dangerous. They can shoot all they want but they don't have the skill Pittsburgh does, especially up the middle. EVERY analyst agrees with that. They have heart and will win a game or two but Pittsburgh will win the cup. Now I'm not sure what the argument with that is.

Goalies don't face 2 on 1s unless the team breaks down. Rinne hasn't played great but he's a solid goalie. It's a weird argument because Rinne is praised for similar things that Price is, such as playing the puck and rebound control in general. If this was Price, and Price has looked like this in a playoff round before, what would the point be? I would get that Price is having a bad series from that argument. Not that Pittsburgh shouldn't have won and the reason really would be, because they are Pittsburgh. A team with this era's and the only ever other Gretzky. Alright, Rinne is having a bad series so far but what happened in game 1 is nothing new. Teams get outshot and win ALL the time. I argue that Pittsburgh is better on paper and whether it's looked that way in the first two games, I still believe it. We're talking about arguably a better dynasty than Chicago who everyone praises and all of a sudden Pittsburgh is the underdog against newcomer Nashville after they beat perennial contender San Jose just last year.

Sure and let's just ignore the fact that once again all three goals in the 3rd period were odd man rushes. One 3 on 2 and two 2 on 1s. Those types of situations don't increase the level of probability that a goal will be scored or anything. Guetzel's goal was relatively weak and then Nashville as a team broke down trying to press too hard and Pittsburgh capitalized on two 2 on 1 rushes. That's not only on the goalie any way you slice it. You can keep calling it a fluke that Pittsburgh has already won twice and frankly you can keep calling it a fluke based on only one factor (goaltending) once Pittsburgh wins their 4th. It doesn't really matter. In my opinion they have more skill and experience and will win the cup largely in part to that.

Who cares what the reason is? The Pens scored off 3 odd man rushes in the third period and no goalie in the world would have stopped Malkin's snipe. That's the point, the Penguins are more dangerous than Nashville because they have players like Crosby, Malkin, Kessel and even Guetzel who can score on any given shot. Nashville has physical leader Mike Fisher and Jarnkrok missing empty nets. They have to rely on players like Scissons, Arvidsson and Aberg to win a cup and eventually that will catch up with them. On one hand we're hearing that goaltending is the reason and on the other hand we're hearing about Pittsburgh's lucky bounces. Well it's good to know that for whatever reason Murray would have stopped those lucky bounces if he were on Nashville. Pittsburgh's the better team, has more experience, and will win the cup.

Agree to disagree. I'm sure Crosby and Malkin would be able to figure "Lord Murray" out.

Not sarcasm at all. Their offense isn't good enough. Especially with Johanssen out. And they don't have players who have crossed the finish line before like Pittsburgh and Anaheim.

Nashville's no match for Pittsburgh. Anaheim would have been a better final. 4-1 Pittsburgh in the 3rd

The proposed method doesn't work because two of the three years you keep it the way it's been. In this scenario, it's not fair to the teams who finished near the bottom on that third year since teams benefited the prior two seasons. I would never support the idea of the Habs tanking but I don't really think there are teams out there who go into a year and plan this as a method. Tanking only becomes a thought three quarters of the way into the year when a team has been struggling. We should be happy that the Habs rarely have had to tank and that we do have a shot at the playoffs most years. Not think it's unfair that other teams are able to.

To Montreal Alex Ovechkin Niklas Backstrom Braden Holtby 1st Round Pick To Washington Carey Price Alex Galchenyuk Max Pacioretty 2nd Round Pick I wouldn't do it

I agreed with the development issue thing but Don brings up a good point in that the sample size is really small. Galchenyuk being the way he is involves about 15 different factors and not all of those reasons have to do with management. In addition, I have personally been fine with his play in general. As long as Julien handles things well, I expect th negative thoughts towards Galchenyuk from this season to be an aberration. Next, there seems to be a bit of a blurred line when people talk about drafting and our scouts like Timmons versus MB. How much should the picks that haven't worked out be blamed on our scouting, how much should be blamed on our general management and how much should be blamed on our AHL organization and Lefebvre. Of course many will say that all three have to do with our general manager but I don't necessarily agree. Other people have to be responsible for their jobs as well. It seems as though pretty much everyone agrees that Lefebvre is not doing his job but I sincerely wonder how much of that is blown out of proportion as well. I'm willing to be looked at like I'm crazy but I'd like to think if he really were that obviously terrible, something would happen.

Exactly. He assists with the sticks and there's no shooting or scoring with them allowed.

That was my proposal for them from a few weeks ago.

It's not so bad but if the alternative is that we need to acquire two top 6 centers as a result of having not one, it's probably the more reasonable expectation. I'm probably not the best person on this topic though because I actually see this as being somewhat similar to the Semin situation now that you said that and I was in the minority with my thought process there. I was frustrated when we let Semin walk not because I was in love with Semin but because we were void of a top 6 player with skill and had no one to replace him, but most people's response was that he didn't have the skill of a top 6 player anyway so my argument was moot. The coaching staff has approached this situation similarly, at least in the playoffs this year, in that they did not play him in a top 6 role even though we need more top 6 skill. The main difference is that more fans seem to believe in Galchenyuk as a player than Semin and think he can fill that top 6 center role. It's one thing for some of us to say he should be slotted in as a top 6 center but I don't think it can be argued that the coaching staff seems to feel the way most fans did about Semin when he was let go and no one batted an eye. They have yet to act like they believe he belongs in the top 6, let alone at center. I personally haven't seen any glaring deficiency in his game when he plays center, but it looks like Julien has in his brief stint with us thus far. Not only that, he wasn't even in the top 6 as a winger. So while I would play him in a top 6 center role myself, especially since we have no top 6 centers, I've been through this before.

May 23rd I hadn't seen the article until Lovetts mentioned it. http://www.gohabsgo.com/2017/05/23/larry-robinson-sounds-off-on-pk-subban/ Enjoyed Ott. My perception of him changed due to his brief stint with us and I believe he will do well in his new role with the Blues.