Commandant

Now Pouliot traded for Andrey Pedan (who cleared waivers yesterday) and a 4th. Point proven. Jimmy Murphy = BULLSHIT.

Thats probably true as well. I just will believe an actual deal is done when it comes from a much better source.

If he plays 40, Tampa gets our 6th rounder instead of our 2nd.

Jimmy Murphy also said the Penguins turned down a deal of Duchene for Pouliot and a 1st, which is laughable. The Penguins would never turn that down. Pouliot is a bust at this point. Murphy is a bullshit artist.

I'd guess Redmond plays a lot. Especially since he's a RH shot and Gelinas is a left.

Schlemko likely to IR.

Fucale probably is the AHL backup and McNiven to the ECHL. They will want McNiven to play games.

Notable Rocket statlines today Jerabek 3 assists Scherbak 2 assists Redmond 2 goals Taormina 2 assists Terry 2 goals Waked 2 assists

Also there is no chance Gelinas is better than Benn... none. Gelinas is terrible.

They had 17 shots for the entire game. Calling any one of the defencemen brutal is a huge stretch.

Jerabek has earned a longer look. Scherbak's best game by a mile Galchenyuk looks lost. Mete looked rough for first half the game, looks great in the second half. Byron - Danault - Shaw should be a line.

Galchenyuk needs off of LW. If you are going to play him at wing, at least go RW.

Mete had 2 bad turnovers on the habs pp, and one at 5v5. Its easily the worst game he's played. Jerabek does look good.

We got worse at Markov's position, and better at the other two spots. We also have Benn all season, and thats an upgrade on 3/4 of a season of Pateryn and 1/4 season of Benn. We also got a small bit better at forward. What is the overall change? Well if you look at the advanced stats (Dom Luczyshyn had a good article in the athletic today for those who have a subscription), the net effect is a different team, but one who is still the same in terms of overall talent level, and projects as a 102-103 point club.

We haven't seen our D-Core play together yet. in fact Schlemko who has decent speed hasn't even played a single game. Petry and Alzner haven't played much. There has been a lot of watching Davidsson, Morrow, Streit, Gelinas etc... and these guys aren't even going to play much on this club. There may be issues in moving the puck forward and getting offence, but i don't see the fear of all the breakaways. It wasn't an issue last year. Schlemko is a better defender than Beaulieu. Alzner is a better defender than Emelin. Markov's offensive contribution will be missed, but he wasn't the fastest skater anymore. I don't see where the defensive side is going to be the huge issue here. The issue as it always was, will be goals for.

I like that this post came out after the second leaf game. A game where Schlemko, Alzner, Benn, Petry did not play. Those four guys will be in our regular defence. A game where Weber was his usual self (aka a top pairing guy). A game where Mete played well (and he won't make the team). yes, Davidsson, Morrow, Gelinas Streit sucked.... but we might have only 1 in the lineup. If that, if Jerabek or Mete is the 6th defencemen, then these guys won't even play regularly. Guess what, every team's 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th defencemen kinda suck.

Huge game for Mete and Jerabek.

Lets remember that last night the Weber-Mete pairing looked fine. We might have had a group where only Weber is in the starting lineup opening night. For all this talk that this was the Leafs "B" team last night, our defence was Our #1 guy A 19 year old, who might make the team and might not. 4 guys competing for the #6 spot at best. Schlemko, Petry, Benn, Alzner all didn't play last night.

Scherbak called back up. Probably don't want to run all vets in the two games this weekend, and then he'll go back down.

Thats also what I think. They never intended to be short a puck mover. Also explains why Mete is being given every chance to make this team, and why they scrambled to get Streit when they did. It also explains going for Morrow even though he's a player that Julien wasn't really fond of in Boston. They are throwing as much crap at the wall as they can to find a puckmover right now and praying something sticks.

The crazy thing about this summer is that all 4 of the defencemen they drafted are puck movers. Last year... all three of the defencemen drafted were puck movers. (1 is now traded). Either, there seems to be a disconnect between what Bergevin is doing with the NHL roster, and what the scouting staff is doing. Or they never intended to go this low on puckmovers. Most of Bergevins early moves for defencemen were adding puckmovers to the back end and subtracting guys like Gorges.

If Carey Price is in net... I'm pretty sure he stops 4 of the 5 Leafs goals. The Matthews long shot. The one where Montoya is lying on his back and doesn't know where they puck is... Price's rebound control wouldn't have let it get to that point. The shot from the goaline. Beaten five hole on the breakaway. Those are all stops price regularly makes, and suddenly its not a blowout. The narrative is different as the scoreboard is close and the Habs dominated possession.

The team is going to have issues scoring goals from time to time... thats the team they were last year, and thats the team they are on paper right now. Is it as bad as it looks in pre-season? No its not. But yes we still have the same problems we had last year. I still say this team did not get worse over the off-season... but it didn't get better either. We are still the same team, competing for division but not quite good enough for cup.

Call me when the vets are giving 100% every shift.