tomh009

So much will depend on the return, though. A marginal deal, no, but a first and a prospect will probably convince him.

Getting players over from the top European leagues and getting them from the KHL are two totally different kettles of fish.

Sometimes pretenders think they are contenders ...

Brzustewicz has been outstanding for Kitchener in the OHL this year. With Lindholm off the market ... it may also mean that the trade will happen sooner rather than later.

So often people say that teams won't trade within a division--and yet, here we are, the two teams are very much in the same division.

How recent is that? Here is another JFresh summary but from December, before he really picked up steam--and Cooley's card by comparison.

Fifteen years ago Putin wasn't really a factor, and the draft-age Russians were not signing long-term contracts with KHL teams.

I think he's better than Armia, but is he a LOT better? I think Ylonen is/will be better than Armia as well, and he's cheaper--and doesn't cost us any assets. So, it doesn't make a lot of sense to get another player at the Armia/Ylonen level, I think. Or can St-Louis get Kakko to the next level? I'm not sure ...

For comparison, here is Armia, a player we have now, on a roughly similar contract--and who attracts lots of complaints from the Habs fans. His PK is 59% (I don't know how the percentile is determined for PP and PK since not all players play on special teams). Data is from three years ago, though, I can't find a current one.

The trade could happen at any time. As soon as someone makes the right offer to Hughes ...

20-25-4 would be 44 points, not 48, would it not? Which would mean that the Habs are on pact to finish with 7-8 more points than last year.

A good team but ... they are playing in the Memorial Cup because they are the host city, not because they qualified for it.

Quite. happens in other kinds of businesses, too, and it's far from rare. And some exec egos go far enough that they need to send rockets into space ...

I think Hughes sees more potential in Xhekaj than that; otherwise he would have accepted a trade for a young top-6 forward that was apparently offered to the Habs.

Four excellent games, one very bad one. If he can bounce back, he is still a very good signing. Let's see what happens in his next few starts.

That's a really good point: longer average shift length can also be a symptom rather than the cause of the problems. It would probably be more instructive to look at the median shift length rather than the average, but I don't think anyone is providing such analysis at the moment. This is the best I have, the shift report from naturalstattrick.com. Note the highlighted ones, for players who had the most long or extra-long shifts:

And Flyers sure could use a goaltender, although I don't have any good ideas about how to make the cap work. Is there a contract on the Flyers that the Habs could (and would be willing to) take back? Neither Ersson or Petersen (at a $5M cap hit) seems to be the solution to their goaltending puzzle.

100% agreed on that.

Yeah, trading Slafkovsky for Anderson is not going to improve things. But Suzuki and Caufield were also playing against Crosby and Malkin, and that would have contributed to their crappy xGF% stats as well.

I suspect he needs some downtime to get his energy levels back up.

Holu cr@p, I had not seen them before, but the Jets' baby blue sweaters are even worse than the Habs'! 😮

So, if the Rangers really need a C, what would Hughes be able to extract for Monahan?

Philly dropped a 6-2 game to Boston this afternoon in spite of outshooting them 37-28. Ersson 10 saves on 14 shots, Peterson 12 on 14. They might be looking for goaltending sooner rather than later.

Or he takes a pay cut and stays, to finish his career in Pittsburgh. Much less likely, but possible. And it would still help start the rebuild.

In a single game, anything can happen, but unfortunately fans expect it to be repeatable. Just as with Poehling, too.