Machine of Loving Grace

Jets fans have often said every 1/4 games he has a great game, but the other 3 he's just average. So the hope is that the Jets just didn't have room or patience for him and he breaks out the way guys like Weise and Danault have. And with the lack of size in the lineup, Julien would likely play him up in the top six just for that reason.

Centres: Danault, Peca, Plekanec Natural RW: Gallagher, Armia, Scherbak Any Position: Shaw, Drouin, Hudon Natural LW: Tatar, Domi, Deslauriers Either wing: Byron, Lehkonen Fringe: De la Rose (LW/C), McCarron (RW/C), Froese (C/RW) Rookies that could crack lineup: Kotkaniemi (C), Suzuki (C/RW) That's 19 forwards for 13 spots. Even if we cut the rookies and Froese there is still too many guys for the spots. Someone is going to sit or play 4th line when they shouldn't.

Sometimes young players can't deal with the mistakes and losing but the good players thrive on the lessons. While Mete can be put with a veteran RD in Petry or a returning Weber, Juulsen is screwed in having to put a guy like Alzner with him where all he will learn is that you can find a sucker when you hit free agency if your career has been covered up by a better player. All Juulsen can do is make Alzner look better or be pulled down by him. Let's say we had a guy like Yandle on the left side. Then I would be fine doing Mete-Petry and Yandle-Juulsen. But in our current situation, it is better to develop chemistry between Mete and Juulsen than tie an anchor to either player.

I'm fine with it because it guarantees we losing 40 games again. I just don't want anyone to think it's a recipe for success just because Tom Wilson got away with near murder.

Same contract length as Drouin, only Price and Weber longer.

Yeah I am all for keeping Mete and Juulsen together. Petry can play with Reilly. Alzner and Benn can either play together on a bottom pair or rotate in the press box.

Not a fan of this. Team has way too many wingers right now and will down the road. He had some value at the deadline to get a good pick. That said, good kid, seems happy to be a Hab.

Because it's a symbol of mediocrity in the NHL today. Unpredictable means they can cost you the game by getting too many penalties. Nobody fears the Habs with Deslauriers, Shaw, Domi, and McCarron. Add Weber and still nobody is scared of this team. If Tom Wilson wants to crash Price or hit Drouin high he would have no hesitation. It's more likely he draws a penalty out of the team than any retribution occurring.

I'm not gonna act like I don't enjoy fighting. I've watched pro wrestling my whole life, watched UFC since the first show went on VHS, I've watched the precursor to UFC like RINGS and UWF-i and Pancrase. One of my earliest memories is when Nolan Ryan put Robin Ventura in a headlock for running up to him after a bean pitch (the best part of that story is that the dugouts cleared and there was a pileup with Ryan on the bottom. Ryan said he was suffocating underneath and going dark and if it wasn't for Bo Jackson grabbing guys by one hand and tossing them off him, he believed he would have died) I have been in fights, I've broken up fights, I've had to stand up for friends. Fighting happens. While I believe the momentum thing is BS and just an old wives tale we have told to make it seem like fighters are necessary (if players need a fight to realize they need to win something is wrong), I understand when a game reaches a boiling point and tempers explode. It happens in any Athletic competition and it is not just a men thing (I used to goto girls softball games in high school because there was a better chance of seeing two people punch each other in that than our junior B hockey). But with hockey we mythologized the fight. We act like if there isn't some meathead on the bench to punch someone then every star player is going to die on the ice with no call. We act like if someone does throw punches after a player on the team got hurt it makes anything better. It doesn't. If we were honest and said it was just two people getting way too angry to play hockey and that's it, I wouldn't have so much of an issue. And as someone who has had a serious concussion, and has watched people I know who had serious concussions begin to deteriorate in their 30s mentally, and fear of it happening myself, I just can't watch a hockey fight anymore and think I'm seeing just some gladiatorial battle with everyone hunky dory after. I think back to the former NHL hockey player I met two years ago at a banquet in his 40s whose wife had to tie his shoelaces privately because he couldn't do it, with her repeatedly telling him to go see the specialist again. You can still watch his fights on YouTube though. And people came up to him to tell them how much they loved watching him play hockey. And I wonder if he could go back and protect his brain, would he? And better question, would any coach or locker room in the 90s/early 00s even allow him to play safer?

Flying elbow to the back of the head on Brock McGinn when he didn't have the puck. OHL only gave him four games because they are always soft on London Knights players. Domi once grabbed a guys beard in Calgary to goad him into a fight but he wouldn't. Domi I guess wasn't mad enough to pop him. Don't forget how he broke his hand, which was fighting Garnet Hathaway. Like I said, he's a goon in spirit. He will throw a predatory hit if he feels justified. He will grab players and tell them to fight. He will risk his career to punch a guy during a 1-1 tie at the end of the second because Hathway tried to hit him. Arizona lost that game in OT by the way so good job energizing the bench. This won't be his last incident. He likely will be a good boy until December or something when a Bruins game comes up. Maybe he can start throwing with his other hand and break that so he can join Karl Alzner in needing someone to open his pickle jars. This feels like we traded Pierre Turgeon for Shayne Corson again. At least we did it one for one this time instead of gifting Conroy.

He is tough to compare at this point but I think maybe Michael Peca would be the comparison. A guy with skill who does some seriously boneheaded decisions from time to time that gets remembered more than anything skill wise he does on the ice. Maybe sprinkle a little Darcy Tucker in there but Tucker knew how to get the puck in the net. He isn't a goon in role but he's definitely a goon in spirit. I'm guessing this will be just the first of the moronic decisions he makes as a Hab. Him and Shaw on the ice at the same time will be like two time bombs ready to blow each other up. The perfect guys to have when you want to go nowhere but down in the standings.

I didn't know that was your point but yes.

There were 280 fights last season with 227 games featuring fights. 10 years prior there were 664 fights with 473 fights with games. League revenue has close to doubled in the past 10 years. Ratings averaged around 1.8 million viewers last season for Hockey Night in Canada. That number was around a 1 million in 2008. Now pre-lockout it was around 1.9 million, so we're back to the numbers it was getting back then. And back then, there were 789 fights in the season. And back then, there was a lot less to watch and it was easier to get an audience share than now. There were less fights this season than the 12-13 shortened season. By 67. Fighting is dropping at an alarming rate but ratings are up, revenue has doubled, and as new arenas with more seats are built, the league keeps filling them for the most part.

I wrote a bunch of stuff back in the day on the expansion drafts because they are so much fun, and just want to add that the first GM to really take advantage of this was David Poile with the 1998 expansion draft of the Nashville Predators. The Chicago Blackhawks gave Nashville Sergei Krivokrasov so they wouldn't take Chris Terreri. Terreri ended up selected by the Minnesota Wild in the 2000 expansion draft and would be out of the league by 2001. Krivokrasov had a 25 goal season with Nashville but was gone after two years. But Greg Johnson, the guy they took, was a big part of the early Predators and became their second captain. The LA Kings didn't want Garry Galley selected so they gave up Kimmo Timonen and Jan Vopat. It's still to this day one of the most lopsided trades in NHL history. Galley retired in 2001. Vopat was nothing special, but Kimmo Timonen was the best defenceman on Nashville until Weber and Suter came along and put up five solid seasons. The guy they selected, Chabot, they ended up putting on waivers and the Kings took him back. And finally, to bring this back to the Habs, Montreal gave Nashville Sebastien Bordeleau to they wouldn't select Peter Popovic, who the Habs would trade less than a month later to the New York Rangers for a fifth round pick. Bordeleau had one good season with Nashville and was gone. Who did the Predators take instead? Tomas Vokoun, who is still the second best goalie in Predators history, behind only Rinne.

Of course not. Also key word was used to (like 2003). I used to be also be able to build and manipulate scripts mostly in my head for websites. Now I scratch my head and buy a Wordpress template to do all the work. All that knowledge is gone along with everything else I did on the internet in my teen/early adult years.

Tatar - Danault - Gallagher could be the top line this season. Maybe they put Domi there instead of Tatar but I could see that working with Tatar. Good test for Kotkaniemi to have Drouin on his wing and his hero Armia on the other. Will be good for Armia to show he's more than just a third liner.

Oh I don't know. Not like he ever had a history with Russian players or anything.

Okay. You're posting online. I used to have the ability to hack pretty much anyone I wanted to. So because you know the dangers of hackers on the internet, it's okay if I hack you? If I take your credit information? Browsing history? You knew the risks. You know people like me exist. You put yourself out there and didn't protect yourself properly, right? That's the problem with that viewpoint. And almost any viewpoint that places the responsibility on victims. It's literally about allowing people to exploit others until someone goes too far. And when it comes to fighting in hockey, for decades it was an expectation. Fight or don't play. Fight or your teammates won't respect you. And guys got hurt. Guys hurt others when they didn't want to. And then had decades of a career to deal with the fallout. And while you think personal responsibility, Derek Boogaard downed pills to numb himself from who he was and eventually died. When they looked at his brain he had suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy at a level worse than Bob Probert when he died at 45. Derek was 28. Georges Laraque, who all things considered seems to have got out healthy, said he never liked being an enforcer. Ask any player who had expectations to fight and they will tell you they didn't goto the ice sober because the anxiety in fighting was near impossible to deal with unless intoxicated. Personal choice though. Steve Downie, a guy who I hated when he played from junior to the NHL, later expressed his resentment for hurting people and how much of hockey culture (Rock em Sock em) impresses on you the importance of hurting people to help your team. That yes, it was his choice, but that choice was wedged between a toxic hockey culture that wants players to murder each other on the ice so we can call them warriors when watching their Youtube clips and they are six feet under. But hey. Personal responsibility. This is men stuff. Watching men beat each other up and then kill themselves after. This is what we do.

To this day history stands that the best hockey game of all time was New Year's Eve in 1975 between the Habs and Red Army. The only game that can compare is the 2010 Gold Medal game. They both have something in common: No garbage, pure skill.

Yeah, those Gold medal games were all tutus due to the lack of fighting and slashing.

Eh, the entire jist of that is referees need to be tougher on players and call everything while DOPS needs to deliver harsher suspensions and fines. I personally would be good with people reviewing a game afterwards and delivering fines for calls that were missed. Were you hacking at a players wrist and the ref didn't see? Cool, you are still getting punished for it. In my mind some of the hits from behind and headshots, I would have given full season or half season suspensions and the league thought they were being tough with a 5 game. 5 games is a vacation. I want real punishments. And until we see real punishments, people and players will have this stupid vigilante justice viewpoint.

Two guys fight? Both ejected. One guy tries to force another guy to fight and he isn't willing and he still hits him? Ejection, 20 game suspension, referees disciplined for not stopping it sooner, coach receives $10,000 fine for playing the player.

I absolutely hate fighting and would prefer players be ejected when they do. That said, I love watching puck scrambles in front of a fallen goalie (so long as nobody is throwing crosschecks. Guys like Pronger got away with that for too long), I love corner battles, I love two players jockeying for position for the puck, and it's great when players get angry at each other and in their face. At the same time I don't care for the "scrum with players after a blown whistle because they got too close to the goalie" crap that got popular in the western conference. I'm fine with physicality. But after Todd Ewen, a guy who never wanted to fight but was pressured to due to being huge, then got so many concussions and had so much regret he eventually killed himself, I'm done with unnecessary physicality. If two guys want to punch it out? Fine. But get off the ice and go home after so the actual hockey players can finish the game.

That thread was fun to read again.