2020 Offseason Miscellaneous Thread
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One of the discussions seems to be swapping St. Louis and Minnesota. That makes the Central a tougher division, but still no reason to think the Canes wouldn’t be top 3.
Without blowing everything up and starting over, I don’t see how the eastern divisions can be fixed. Each division has 2 teams pretty much guaranteed to miss the playoffs, Slugs/Devils and Hawks/Wings, so they can’t move any of those 4. So they’d have to nibble around the edges. Swap Pens and Jackets? Almost a wash. Move the Caps and reunite the late, great Southeast Division? Who gets moved out of the Central to balance it out?
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There should be. I don't feel like any thought was given to competitive balance at all. Canada is what it is, but the rest was a mess.
I think the first consideration was geographic proximity, to limit travel times, even though they all travel by charter. The geographic outliers cause issues no matter how you slice and dice. Competitive balance was always going to be an issue. All the Canadian teams except Ottawa were in the bubble. Take them out of consideration and the East/Central was left with 4 stragglers. So how to take the 12 remaining teams, keep them reasonably close geographically, and have reasonably balanced divisions? You can nibble around the edges with St. Louis, Minnesota and Dallas, but 2 of them are legit contenders, the other is an also-ran. The problem is the concentration along the I-95 corridor from Washington to Boston. Swap one of them out with who? It can’t be Chicago or Detroit, so who? Columbus? Or put the Canes in the monster Northeast division and move Pittsburgh to the Central? That leaves the Florida teams as geographic outliers, like they are in the Atlantic Division. There really isn’t a way to do it to satisfy all the criteria.
Sean Tierney, who is the Director of Analytics for the OHL Hamilton Bulldogs, has run season simulations based on the current division alignment. He has the Canes a distant 2nd to Tampa in the “Central“, with an average of 70-72 points, a 102-105 point pace. The high of 93 projects to a ridiculous 136 points, the low is an equally ridiculous 73 points.
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They’re already $1.9 million over and only have 19 players under contract. They’re still missing Cirelli and Cernak. And who knows about Stamkos’ health? A 120 point pace is 12 higher than last year (92 points in 80 games=108 points)
I don't see how. And I don't see how the Islanders do either. I feel like there has to be another shoe dropping about Cap or roster exceptions ... or something.
NoMich
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As in, they're going to increase the cap limit by $10 million or something?
The Isles have $4 million of cap space and Boychuk’s $6 million to move to LTIR. That should give them enough to re-sign Barzal.
There are 10 teams over the cap right now. Some, like Arizona, have LTIR moves to make, they’re still carrying Marian Hossa. The Blues have $13 million tied up in Tarasenko and Steen. Anaheim has Ryan Kessler. Other teams...Vancouver, Washington, Vegas...they have problems.
They can't apply that LTIR space until the season officially starts, so ... yeah. And Barzal isn't the only guy they have to get signed. In fact they just added another one via trade.
Following the Panthers lead, the Flames have established a goaltending department. Jordan Sigalet is Director of Goaltending, Jason Labarbara is the goaltending coach and Thomas Speer is the development goaltending coach.
Sigalet was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis while he was in college at Bowling Green. He missed a season but came back and was 2nd team All-CCHA. He played 1 game with the Boston Bruins in 2006, playing the last 43 seconds of a game after Andrew Raycroft sprained his ankle.
Sigalet was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis while he was in college at Bowling Green. He missed a season but came back and was 2nd team All-CCHA. He played 1 game with the Boston Bruins in 2006, playing the last 43 seconds of a game after Andrew Raycroft sprained his ankle.
Paulie Walnuts
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since he's still here I wonder if Cam Ward was asked about a job with the goalies? Or maybe he asked the Canes.
I read Francis is in no hurry to hire a coach , he probably wants to see who gets fired this season.
I read Francis is in no hurry to hire a coach , he probably wants to see who gets fired this season.
I see very little chance that Dundon jumps early on a trend that involves essentially spending a cheap-ish NHL backup's salary on goaltending support staff. Maybe if it shows some results he'd give it a thought, but that's not the guy's preferred management profile by any stretch.
Paulie Walnuts
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Still waiting for Dundon to build a local golf range since Drive Shack is down the street from PNC. Or maybe he thinks 1 is enough for our market.
They'll miss Steen's defense, but won't miss paying $5 million and change for it.
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