2022-2023 NHL Misc. Thread
- Thread starter CanadaCanes
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Can’t believe we got swept by those schmoes. Bob reverted to his regular season norm.
CanadaCanes
Well-known member
Repeated Lumberjack wood chopping will do that to a man! Funny how the fake tough guy stuff dried up real quick last night when they had their asses handed to them.
He did the full Carey Price.
Interested to see where Bill Zito goes from here. He's got some contract turnover built in, but the core of this group is pretty much set to roll over for one more year. Goudas and M Staal are out of contract and probably done. As much as their fans love Goudas, he's a net liability and only getting slower. Staal is a rounding error in terms of routine game impacts. They should be able to get better on D simply by getting more mobile. Up front, they basically have everybody that matters back. Plug up a 4th line out of spare parts and kids and they can run it back if they want.
In net it remains tricky. One assumes Knight will be back from the player assistance program next fall, but do you let him eat up $4.5 mil of your cap space? Do you trust him to find his rookie form? Can you actually trust Bob now? The answer to all of those questions could easily be no, and yet Zito might get stuck with that goalie room anyway. Trading Knight as a scratch and dent makes little sense and Bob is another year away from the point in his contract where a trade or buyout is even do-able. But this is probably the last year or two in their compete window coming up. Glad I don't have to make that call.
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OK ... with a Cup winner in the books, it's time to guess what wrong lessons GMs will learn from Vegas. My candidates:
1. The most obvious ... Vegas is a big team so we all need to get "heavier." Yeah, that's a physical team but the thing that stands out about Vegas' roster construction is not team size. It's depth and versatility. Always has been.
2. Aden Hill was only bad in San Jose and Phoenix because the Sharks and Coyotes are bad, so pay him all the money. In truth, Adin Hill has never actually been all that bad, just like he's not actually as good as he's looked for the last 2 months. Goaltenders, man. Don't over pay guys who are career average keepers just because they got hot at the right time. See Binnington, Jordan.
3. Ivan Barbashev is gonna figure out how to be as good in the regular season as he is in the playoffs. No, he won't. He's an awful contract waiting until July 1st to jump out of a cake.
4. Less likely, but I've seen a few writers testing out the case that you need to make Eichel, Stone, Peitrangelo level deals to win. Eichel and Stone are crucial to that roster at it's best, but if you "need" to pay a guy who's playing at Alex Pietrangelo's actual current level $8.8 million until he's pushing 40 to win things then I'm missing something somewhere. He's fine, but that contract is still stupid to the point of malpractice.
1. The most obvious ... Vegas is a big team so we all need to get "heavier." Yeah, that's a physical team but the thing that stands out about Vegas' roster construction is not team size. It's depth and versatility. Always has been.
2. Aden Hill was only bad in San Jose and Phoenix because the Sharks and Coyotes are bad, so pay him all the money. In truth, Adin Hill has never actually been all that bad, just like he's not actually as good as he's looked for the last 2 months. Goaltenders, man. Don't over pay guys who are career average keepers just because they got hot at the right time. See Binnington, Jordan.
3. Ivan Barbashev is gonna figure out how to be as good in the regular season as he is in the playoffs. No, he won't. He's an awful contract waiting until July 1st to jump out of a cake.
4. Less likely, but I've seen a few writers testing out the case that you need to make Eichel, Stone, Peitrangelo level deals to win. Eichel and Stone are crucial to that roster at it's best, but if you "need" to pay a guy who's playing at Alex Pietrangelo's actual current level $8.8 million until he's pushing 40 to win things then I'm missing something somewhere. He's fine, but that contract is still stupid to the point of malpractice.
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Mo said some guys could be out 4-6 months after surgery, so they may struggle off the hop next year. They do have a goalie problem. Even if Knight is OK, his 2 seasons since his 6 game first year were meh, 2.95/.905, pretty similar to Bob. Behind Knight, they have 2 other guys under contract, one of whom spent the season in Switzerland, the other was meh in Charlotte and has played as many NHL games as me.
Honestly ... they're probably stuck running back the Knight/Bob battery. Knight is un-tradable until he actually plays some games and shows he's ready to play again. Bob's contract is un-tradable until this coming season's trade deadline, at which point they could probably find a taker if they retain half. Prolly better to wait and buy him out next summer. Either way, they're gonna be in that crowded market looking for an NHL calibre No. 3, because there's no way Zito trusts either of their actual goalies.
Eric Staal knows the drill all too well. I would submit that this Florida team is a significantly better constructed team than the 21 Canadiens though.
He’s gonna follow the Patrick Brown/Potsie route.
Columbus is bringing Niklas Backstrom in as their goaltending coach. He’s been their European goaltending scout since retiring in 2019. He‘s tasked with salvaging Elvis’ career and getting Daniil Tarasov started. He worked with Tarasov when he played in Finland.
Yeah, one thing Carolina has done consistently since Darren Yorke has been in charge of scouting is to find a steady supply of solid young depth guys. That sounds easy, but other clubs struggle with it and end up shopping for other clubs' leftovers.