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Wamsley01

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Everything posted by Wamsley01

  1. At the end of the day it was the best decision for him to test the UFA waters. In reality, if he has a poor Kostitsyn season he can re-up for the same amount for another 4 years. If he is average, the UFA status will net him more. If he has an outlier career season of 70 points somebody will inflate his salary even higher. The only risk to him is a season ending knee injury, but as we have seen with Markov, that won't even stop him from getting his $$ next season.
  2. CC is 100% correct on Luongo playing deep being a direct result of being coached to do so. This type of coaching is what got him fired in Montreal, he tried to get Price to do exactly this. Now I am not going to criticize Melanson because he has done this a long time, to me (a guy who is the same size as Luongo) I find that when I struggle it is because I am too deep and not capitalizing on my size. Relying on reflexes at the age of 32 seems a little risky to me. I understand why Melanson tried to change his game, Luongo is not a strong skater and when he gets out too far his backside recoveries are embarrassing. Contrast videos to Price's footwork and ease of motion and it is shocking. I find the opposite with Boston and the way they just let Thomas roam around like an idiot and compliment his strengths and cover his weaknesses. Thomas gambles, his puck tracking is average, his rebound control non existant and his secondary positioning terrible. He has amazing reflexes for a guy his age and usually lines up the initial shot. Moving him laterally is a smart tactic, but the Bruins forwards commit deep and collapse the passing lanes through the middle. When there is a scramble Chara and crew are there to clean up the mess. Vancouver is a strong defensive club, so I don't understand why they don't do the same thing with Luongo. Let the guy be aggressive and clean up his mess, just because they couldn't do it against Chicago doesn't mean they can't do it against 29 other teams. The way they have treated him, it seems as though they don't trust him whereas the Bruins are going to live and die with Thomas no matter how ridiculous he looks on goals like the Burrows winner. In reality, that wasn't Thomas' fault because the Bruins KNOW what they have. To me that was Chara's fault. If he does his job then Burrows gets pushed off the puck and Thomas scrambles back into place with no damage like 90% of those scrambles. Canadiens fans don't realize how spoiled they are to have Carey Price. He may never have the resume of Patrick Roy, but he is Hybrid Roy 2.0. The model of the future before the future. Luongo is Roy 1.8 and plays the same way he did but bigger and just as fast. Thomas is Cujo 1.1 or Hasek 0.8. Ultimately whoever wins changes my life in no way, but I am cheering for Vancouver and the way Luongo looks confused I would start Schneider. He is just more efficient at this point. I agree. The Playoffs are a roller coaster. When you think you have everything figured out the track changes.
  3. I wish they had locked him in at that salary for 3-4 more years. He would earn that salary yearly with solid 5 on 5 play and the ability to handle tough minutes, plus we could have him on the cheap when he has that one 70 point season out of nowhere before regressing to his normal production.
  4. Game 3 is one game and can be tossed out. Nobody mentions the two atrocious goals Thomas gave up in Game 2 because the series is now tied. Copper and Blue had the scoring chances as 18-8 for the Bruins even though the shots were 38-29 for the Canucks last night. http://www.coppernblue.com/2011/6/8/2190772/canucks-vs-bruins-scoring-chances-game-4 The perception of fans is created by the shot clock, Luongo was strong in Game 1 and 2 and has been hung out to dry in Boston. Those losses are not on him when his team scored 1 goal!
  5. That's unfair. Not that I think Luongo is great, but the second goal was deflected by Salo and the 4th one went in off a hand. Marchand was all alone and is not on Lou. THe first goal was bad though. He went down early and had poor stick placement.
  6. I don't think I agree in regards to Luongo, your parallel is correct in relation to fans being stupid and wanting Racicot over Roy, but where I think it doesn't work here is the chasm between Racicot and Roy and Schneider and Luongo differs immensely. Nobody bothers to study the goaltending position. The media does not understand the position at all and I wonder if GMs do with some of the things they do. If anybody wants to truly understand the position all they need to do is go on youtube or take a look at a new set of pads in the sports store and contrast them to what Roy wore. The style that is being taught is essentially robot goalie, the difference between Price and the worst goaltender in the league is nowhere near the talent technique difference between Patrick Roy and Alan Bester and that was a 21 team league. Where the future elite will distance themselves is athleticism and intelligence. Over the next decade you will see cookie cutter goalies learning all the same techniques and nobody will know the difference because the standard for what differentiates goalies for general fan is SV%. So a guy like Leighton plugged into a Devils type team can easily be misinterpreted as "elite" because of the fans lack of understanding the position and the lazy fallback on the stats page. Luongo is not among the new school. He is among the Roy generation. Large butterfly goaltender with average footwork and great reflexes. I don't think it is out of the question that Schneider could be better than him today let alone two years from now. Schneider is a member of the next wave. The Price style movements that work on fluid footwork, effortless sliding ability and hybrid style setups. Miller, HIller, Ward, Rask are all among this wave and are changing the game. Drop Jimmy Howard into 2002 with his equipment today and technique and he would be the best goaltender in the league. That is evolution, the same evolution that saw Eric Lindros as a monster and wrecking machine and now sees Ovechkin almost the same size and nowhere near the same reputation as a beast of a man 15 years later. This is not Price/Halak part two. Trading Schneider could be a massive mistake because of his age, experience and technical efficiency. In Montreal both goaltenders were young and the Canadiens rolled the dice on the bigger, younger more technically efficient keeper. In Vancouver they might deal the future and be stuck with an underperforming aging asset with a monster contract.
  7. One that is covering it's ass for their ridiculous decisions over the last two seasons by being heavy handed while all the media in North America is on them. It is a typical Bettman move. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/canucks-fume-at-ruling/article2050943/ This is how the NHL operates. They can't use their head of discipline to rule on the matter because his son plays on the BOSTON BRUINS!! So their solution is to use Mike Murphy and he chooses to call Brian Burke for advice? Former GM of the Canucks and a man who has a stake in where the Bruins finish because of his draft choice? Is this some sort of joke? This league is an embarrassment to pro sports leagues.
  8. It is a predatory hit in both cases. Stevens is full of shit and so is Rome. Those hits were meant to hurt and hurt significantly. For either of them to suggest otherwise is absurd. I am suppossed to believe that Rome didn't know that Horton had given up the puck? No chance. That suspension is all about the offending player being a nobody. Pronger beheaded McAmmond less than two weeks after driving a players head into the glass and got 1 game. Claude Lemieux got 2 games for his hit on Draper. It was a dirty play, but 4 games is ridiculous considering the no-calls this season on worse hits.
  9. Watch this and tell me there is a difference between what Stevens did to Kariya and Rome did to Horton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8up-tkxZ4r8
  10. The part that irritates is the "lateness of the hit" and "significant injury" quotes from Murphy. Two factors that were totally ignored for Pacioretty in order to set up the red herring of intent. This is all about the skill level of the offender IMO. THAT is why they have vague unprovable criteria like intent, it allows them to shift the focus to let off the Chara/Ovechkin's of the world.
  11. Horton will not be back in this series. If he is, he won't be effective after that. I don't wish any harm on Horton and hope he is ok, but I don't feel any sympathy for the fanbase that came up with ridiculous excuses to justify Chara's hit.
  12. One game means nothing. Montreal blasted Philly 5-1 last season in Game 3 and were shutout 3-0 the next game with barely a fight. The Canucks are the better team, but the Bruins have been riding unsustainable percentages all season. I expect the Canucks will go up 3-1 like they have in every series this year.
  13. I thought the Chara incident was a no-brainer, so I refuse to guess on anything that involves the words "discipline" and "NHL".
  14. Oh, I fully expect the bias machine to start churning. I mean, if Horton didn't fall that way and his head didn't make first contact we wouldn't be talking about this, would we. It was unfortunate, but it wasn't intentional. Dripping with sarcasm.
  15. Well ain't that a bitch. Let's see if the media mentions "intent" or "hockey play" or tells us how Rome "isn't that type of player". I am also looking forward to Bruin fan telling me how this was dirty after defending Chara. I am a big fan of karma right about now.
  16. Johan Hedberg is not any better than Alex Auld. He is 38 years old and has a career .901 SV%. It is a lateral move that adds $200,000 to your cap. Either the Canadiens want to upgrade their backup (ie. a guy who can run with starters minutes for more than 10 games) or they re-up Auld. Hedberg has been a stiff on the same level as Auld for his whole career, no sense in picking up a guy like that. If you aren't going to significantly upgrade the position then don't change.
  17. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/globe-on-hockey/colin-campbell-resigns-as-nhls-chief-disciplinarian/article2043139/ Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out!
  18. In the new NHL, they are a legit contender moving forward with the roster they have right now. They might not be the Canucks level favourite, but they are certainly as good as the Lightning/Bruins are right now.
  19. I didn't mean to imply that they are interchangeable, but that they are not as responsible for success as their players are. (note: Bowman coached the Sabres to 110 points in his first season and a trip to the Conference Finals, but the Sabres 5 seasons before Bowman resulted in 113, 105, 104, 105 and 88 points with a Stanley Cup appearance), so I don't think it is entirely accurate to say his arrival was the reason for the improvement.) You singled out Carbo, but he also had a 1st place Eastern Conference finish on his resume as well as a couple of meltdowns. It is the easy storyline. The media always searches through a team and looks for a difference between the roster in the average year and the good year. They then take the difference and try to figure out which change is the reason for the improvement. Story complete. I think it was pretty obvious before the season that Boucher picked a team that had nowhere to go but up. Coaching is not as easy as everybody believes, but I believe that a bad coach can ###### up a good team more than a good coach can improve a bad team. I also think that the differences are easier to detect in the playoffs when the ability to line match, exploit weaknesses and motivate are more prevalent than in the regular season with a different opponent every night. Talent carries you in the regular season. The NHL is not the NBA. You CANNOT win the Stanley Cup with 1-2 lines. You need talent and depth, no coach in the world can make up for a team that lacks these things for four rounds. They are overplayed because fans generally don't understand the game to the degree where they can pinpoint the issues that ail the team, so they simplify and the easiest thing to do is blame the guy behind the bench. It leads to ridiculous discussions about how Carbo caused the Habs to get extra penalties by complaining too much and that Martin causes the Habs to get extra penalties because he doesn't complain enough.
  20. Coaching is as good as it's players. Scotty Bowman won nothing with the Sabres, he turned them into a responsible defensive team and provided Don Edwards, Bob Sauve and Tom Barrasso with some hardware, but not much else. He won all his Cups with the Habs, Wings and Penguins. All star studded rosters. Can coaches make a difference? Of course they can, but it is nowhere near what fans would like to believe. Fans want a saviour and a scapegoat. The coach is the perfect remedy for this, as are goaltenders. It is why Therrien can be an idiot and then almost win a Stanley Cup. It is why Bowman can win 12 straight series with the Canadiens in 4 seasons and then 4 series over the next 7 seasons. It is why Michael Leighton can be a career AHL goaltender and then get to Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final. Should we imply that Randy Cunnyworth is a better coach than Boucher because he took the Bulldogs to Game 7 of the Conference FInals with considerably less NHL talent? Or did the Bulldogs do better because they had more veteran AHL talent? Boucher cherry picked the best situation. Would I be replying to this if he had chosen the Blue Jackets instead of the Lightning and St. Louis, Lecavalier, Stamkos, Hedman etc? The answer is no.
  21. I felt the same way about Toronto for years. I didn't realize until the advent of message boards that Canadiens fans were just as irrational. I would probably be irritated if I had to deal with Canucks fans justifying the Bertuzzi hit, just like Leaf fans annoyed me when they justified the Chara hit because defending the CH is not in their makeup. The notion that others are superior based on their proximity to a successful organization (something beyond their control) is ridiculous. Most bizarre goal I have seen in a long time.
  22. As opposed to the fanbase who wanted Martin fired all season, wanted Carey Price traded, bailed on this team with every injury, booed Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden?? If the Canadiens make the Stanley Cup Final next season and it was on the back of Scott Gomez scoring 11 points in the Conference Final would you be a hypocrite and not allowed to cheer for Scott Gomez because you have complained about his contract? Should those who cheered for Halak and wanted Price traded be held accountable and not allowed to revel in Price's success? Remove yourself from the situation and the things that irritate you about the Canucks fanbase will travel with you to EVERY city you re-establish yourself. Fan superiority is a self serving exercise that ignores personal bias and the individual flaws of your own fandom. It isn't a particular city's fans that are absurd, it is FANS that are irrational and absurd, the city is irrelevant.
  23. I don't know how they CAN compete for one with Gomez, but not with a $6M Price. If they bring back the same core with Wiz are they a Cup contender? I think so. That would be with Gomez and his $7M per contract.
  24. That is the scariest statement in the paragraph. Why does the media choose to ignore this when discussing the subject?
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