2018-19 Non-Blues NHL stuff

[theohall]

In the Bruins preseason opener, 2 thing stood out.

1) Halak looked ridiculously good. Boston's mixed line up gave up LOTS of chances. Despite only having had one practice with his new team, Halak kept turning them away, even stopping some outstanding odd-man breaks.

2) Backes has lost weight. In the pre-game ceremony, I only realized it was Backes because of his jersey number. Apparently, he'd been training to increase bulk his whole career, but trained this off-season in a more hockey-specific manner to increase speed, which he felt was lacking last season. He did look faster.

[WaukeeBlues]

In the Bruins preseason opener, 2 thing stood out.

1) Halak looked ridiculously good. Boston's mixed line up gave up LOTS of chances. Despite only having had one practice with his new team, Halak kept turning them away, even stopping some outstanding odd-man breaks.

2) Backes has lost weight. In the pre-game ceremony, I only realized it was Backes because of his jersey number. Apparently, he'd been training to increase bulk his whole career, but trained this off-season in a more hockey-specific manner to increase speed, which he felt was lacking last season. He did look faster.

New NHL. Guys in their 30's who used to solely dominate in those power forward roles (also e.g. Getzlaf) have GOT to be able to still think the game at an incredible speed, and play at an incredible speed. Hope it works for him!

[theohall]

If anyone watched Leafs-Hawks tonight, it's painfully evident how good Q is at changing his offense to take advantage of an opponent's defense, even in an OT loss, when one compares how the Hawks scored vs the Blues and how they scored vs the Leafs.

Vs the Blues man-zone - the guy with the puck is doing most of the skating to create picks, shooting lanes, and move players out of position.

Vs the Leafs passive zone - the guy with the puck isn't the one doing most of the skating, it's the guys without the puck skating to create screens, bump guys out of position to create shooting lanes, or open themselves up for passes from whomever has the puck.

This Leafs-Hawks game emphasized how important it is for a coach to be adaptable and change what his team is doing to counter whatever an opponent is doing.

So two completely different styles of offense in back-to-back games from the same team. Something we will never see from a #YeoMustGo coached team, unless Yeo magically starts doing something he has never done as a head coach - actually make adjustments to his system, even doing something completely different, within a game - vice just substituting players on different lines in the unchanged system.

[theohall]

Listening to NHL Prospects radio this morning heard an interesting comment about the Rangers. Quinn, the new coach, has had a problem getting his players to continue skating after passing the puck to help create plays. The defenseman, in particular, would pass the puck and basically stop and watch what happened with the pass, instead of skating to create more opportunities for the guy they passed the puck to.

This came up when they were discussing how Nils Lundqvist, their 3rd 1st Rd pick in 2018, was playing in Sweden and how he always makes himself available to support whomever has the puck, whether it's him moving the puck to them and moving afterwards, or moving to support whomever has the puck in the first place.

[theohall]

Buffalo Sabres: 1st team in any major North American professional sport to end a season in last place and reach first place within 25 games to start the next season.

[gaijin]

Buffalo Sabres: 1st team in any major North American professional sport to end a season in last place and reach first place within 25 games to start the next season.

Sabres minus O'Reilly plus Berglund and Sobotka equals 1st place? This is blowing my mind.

[ComradeT]

Buffalo Sabres: 1st team in any major North American professional sport to end a season in last place and reach first place within 25 games to start the next season.

Sabres minus O'Reilly plus Berglund and Sobotka equals 1st place? This is blowing my mind.

It looks like + Carter Hutton is what really made the difference.

[theohall]

Buffalo Sabres: 1st team in any major North American professional sport to end a season in last place and reach first place within 25 games to start the next season.

Sabres minus O'Reilly plus Berglund and Sobotka equals 1st place? This is blowing my mind.

It looks like + Carter Hutton is what really made the difference.

and + Dahlin and Skinner.

Dahlin made a very subtle play that almost no one has mentioned which led to Skinner's game winner in their last game. And the play he made essentially prevented Karlsson from being able to do anything defensively to stop Skinner. No assist, but it created the space for the goal.

[glen a richter]

Nikita Kucherov is playing some scary good hockey, with 71 points so far (21-50). Barring unforeseen apocalyptic events in Tampa, that group has to be the team to beat out of the East. I wouldn't be surprised to see them win it all.

Kucherov, of course, was a 2nd round pick in 2011. For perspective, the Blues had three picks in that round that year, all with Kucherov still available, and used them on standout future HOF'ers as Ty Rattie, Dmitri Jaskin and Joel Edmundson. I won't undervalue how important Edmundson is to this teams overall defense, but I'd love to have a do over on those first two picks. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.

[theohall]

From Jan 3rd:

On December 1 Mikko Rantanen was eight points ahead of Nikita Kucherov in the scoring race.

Rantanen has an excellent 19 points in 15 games since then.

Kucherov, at this moment, is now seven points *ahead* of Rantanen in the scoring race.

As of last night, Kucherov is only 5 points ahead of Rantanen, but still...

17GP 11G 25A. A better than 2 points/game pace. He's only had 2 games since Dec 1st without a point.

As lethal as Kucherov's shot is, he doesn't lead Tampa in goals, but assists. Brayden Point is their goal scoring leader. Weird seeing the winger lead in apples and the center lead in goals.

[WaukeeBlues]

Ryan Reaves v. Adam McQuaid in a full on tilt.

Man you don't see this much anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmDrO4xtVbo

[gaijin]

Ryan Reaves v. Adam McQuaid in a full on tilt.

Man you don't see this much anymore.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmDrO4xtVbo

Winner = Reaves.

Honestly, I can't think of a time I saw Reaves lose a fight.

[SteveO]

Rick Nash retires.

[gaijin]

Rick Nash retires.

Concussions. It's a damn shame.

[WaukeeBlues]

Rick Nash retires.

Concussions. It's a damn shame.

Definitely had a bit of an emotional reaction when I was reading the agent's statement on twitter. Damn shame is right. Glad he's being prudent though and choosing to protect himself moving forward. Hope he has a healthy regular life.

Hearing what Pronger, Primeau, et al have gone through in their post playing days is not pleasant.

[theohall]

Tampa again shows why it's always one step ahead

they’ve (Tampa) traded six of their last eight first-round picks, retaining just Andrei Vasilevskiy (for obvious reasons) and 2017 first-rounder Cal Foote, who’s doing fine as an AHL rookie defenseman.

You don’t need to continually onboard draftees if you’re hitting as many home runs as the Lightning have in the last seven or eight drafts. Of Tampa’s current points leaders, literally almost everyone on the current roster fall into one of three categories: Drafted (Kucherov, Point, Stamkos, Hedman, Killorn, Joseph, Cirelli, Palat, Erne, Paquette, Cernak, Vasilevskiy), traded for (Miller, McDonagh, Sergachev, Callahan, Coburn), or signed as a free agent out of junior (Johnson, Gourde).

The only thing missing from this article is Point, Joseph, Cirelli, Erne, Cernac, and Gourde all spent some time in the AHL playing under Benoit Groulx at Syracuse. Point, not so much, since it was just 9 games after his 14-15 Junior season on a 10 game thing.

Hopefully, the Blues have started building a similar pipeline with San Antonio, but we won't know for a couple of years. One thing that stood out vs the Caps, Kyrou was way more patient positionally in the defensive zone and seemed to be more controlled aggressively in the offensive zone than the way he was playing in October. I think that's partially from the impact of playing so much in San Antonio where he also got off to a slow start.

[theohall]

With the Muzzin trade, it is going to be a real interesting off-season for the Leafs.

Without any other trades and the assumed cap increase to 81(ish), they have 17M to re-sign

RFA - Matthews
RFA - Marner
RFA - Kapanen
RFA - Johnsson

UFA - Hainsey
UFA - Gardiner

Matthews and Marner alone will eat up that 17M and that doesn't even include signing the bottom of the roster players I didn't list. Something has to give.

[glen a richter]

I don't think Toronto will re-sign Matthews, nor do they really need to since they have Tavares.

[theohall]

The Lightning-Rangers game tonight. Tampa dominated the first period, then went to sleep the next two like I hadn't seen them do since they got thrashed by Arizona months ago. Yet, the Lightning still win in OT.

[WaukeeBlues]

The Lightning-Rangers game tonight. Tampa dominated the first period, then went to sleep the next two like I hadn't seen them do since they got thrashed by Arizona months ago. Yet, the Lightning still win in OT.

You wonder if they don't start going on cruise control to end the year. Honestly the worst thing that could happen is they do that and then draw a desperate Penguins team in round 1. I think the Bolts would still win that one but it would be a full on tilt in round 1.

102 points with 64 games played... obscene.