tomh009

Now, that would be good news for player safety ...

Or else he is the interim GM because he will get the permanent job if/when Murray is gone.

140 minutes TOI for Kotkaniemi so far this season, 270 minutes for Dvorak.

Potentially different painkillers ... but here I am playing a doctor, and I have not even met the patient.

I think so, too. He certainly doesn't have the drug-fueled-partying kind of personality, but (opioid?) painkillers would make a lot of sense.

That's definitely a possibility, although then I would have expected him to stay in the program longer. I think the optimistic view is 3-4 weeks, but we really don't know the details on his situation.

They're still losing, but they look more legitimate, less like an AHL team. Hopefully by the end of the month we'll have Price and Edmundson. And Drouin would help, too.

I gotta say that power play looks good, even if they haven't scored.

What a pretty move by Evans! Both goals with the third line on the ice.

The middle path would be an expansion of contract buy-outs, enabling teams to get out of bad contracts. Maybe easing the current buyout rule, or else allowing a limited number of full buyouts (without discount, as with a coach being fired) but up to $X (say, $10M) per year of it not counting against the cap. Conceptually you could buy out Savard's contract at the end of the year (3x $3.5M remaining), write off $10M of cap, and you would spread the remaining $500K of cap hit over the three years. Savard still gets fully paid, and can sign for another team if he wishes to. Or buy out Gallagher (5x $6.5M), write off $10M, and then spread the remaining $22.5M of cap hit over five years. Obviously doesn't work as well for long or big-money contracts but I think that would be the intent anyway. I don't think NHLPA would turn into Adam Ant over this approach ...

And NHL teams release almost no information about player injuries, as a rule, so this is not unusual.

And they have less than a 20% probability of getting him, even if they finish dead last. There are no guarantees with tanking.

If Roy is the GM, figure on 2035 instead, once the team has recovered from Roy's reign.

At what point during the game was this?

The way I see it, the way things are going, we should be open to selling anyone 30+ at the deadline (and then some). The 30+ group includes Chiarot, Hoffman, Petry, Savard and Wideman -- four of the current regulard D. Allen ... well, we do need someone to play goal, and he is not expensive.

Indeed. I would rather send Romanov to AHL where he can play a big role this year, and sit Savard once Edmundson is back. Let's play Petry, Edmundson, Chiarot, Kulak, Niku and Wideman, pairing them for balance. If the season is going to be a writeoff, let's use it to figure out what Kulak, Niku and Wideman can really do. If they end up costing us some games, does it really matter?

Hudon really is an excellent AHL player. He's just not an NHL player.

Missing Price, Weber, Edmundson, Drouin and Byron ... I don't think that's any easier injury situation than Vegas.

What have they done with our 2021-22 Habs? Not that I mind this version ...

Carolina will not finish 82-0, that I'm sure of. There are still many opportunities for them to slump in the regular season, or to collapse in the first round.

Don't need advanced analytics. The good old +/- can do: Savard -8 Romanov -5 Kulak -1 Chiarot -1 Petry +0 Wideman +0 Niku +3 This doesn't consider the tougher matchups that Petry and Chiarot get, nor the PP that Petry, Niku and Wideman contribute to. But I still say that Kulak's play is not atrocious as some people make it to be. Yes, he is a bottom-pair D, but I think that with the right partner, he is a credible bottom-pair D that can also help move the puck.

You think that there are zero capable people working for the Habs? Really? That's 60+ people you would like to arbitrarily throw on the street and start a hiring process for all the positions from scratch? Uh huh.

Roy, just say no. Madden could be a good candidate, unless he has been told that Murray's retirement is imminent and his name is already pencilled in for the job.

Yes. Of course, if the surgery were unsuccessful, he would have been untradeable and would have been on Buffalo's LTIR for years to come, with nothing at all in return. They decided not to risk that. I respect the choice, we'll have a better idea of whether it was a good decision once Vegas allows Eichel to have the surgery and the results become clear.

Or Alzner. We grossly overpaid him, but he worked hard and was a positive influence even in Laval. He just didn't have the skills (any more) at the level at which we chose to pay him. Not his fault.