2016-17 NHL Season

[ATLL765]

I've tried to maintain a thread for a whole season before, but there's always seemed to be a lack of interest and my drug use has gotten in the way of keeping it updated the way I'd like it to be.

Gonna give it another shot this year starting with the offseason news.

As you may know, the first week of July is a crazy week. So here's all the news on your favorite team during Spendapalooza 2016 aka Can You Skate? Great, here's a 6 year, $40M contract! aka GM spring break aka NHL Free Agency.

I'm going to make a post for each team and their signings to date and give a brief opinion on these signings. I will try to get these all done in the next day or two....scratch that, make it the next month, lol. This is a lot more work than I thought it would be.

If anybody else out there is passionate about hockey and would like to lend a hand by typing one of these up for their favorite team, it would definitely help get this done much more quickly. If you are interested, send me a PM and I'll send you the format and the websites I pull the info off of. That way we can keep each post with an identical format.

 

[ATLL765]

Anaheim Ducks

Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	24	24	Max Jones	L	USA	6' 2"	206	OHL	London
1	30	30	Sam Steel	C	CAN	5' 11"	178	WHL	Regina
3	24	85	Joshua Mahura	D	CAN	6' 0"	184	WHL	Red Deer
4	2	93	Jack Kopacka	LW	USA	6' 1"	191	OHL	Sault Ste. Marie
4	24	115	Alex Dostie	C	CAN	5' 10"	165	QMJHL	Gatineau
7	24	205	Tyler Soy	C	CAN	5' 11"	174	WHL	Victoria

Signings:
​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
D	Nate Guenin	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
LW	Mason Raymond	$675k	1 Year	One-Way
RW	Jared Boll	$900k	2 Years	One-Way
D	Jeff Schultz	$575k	1 Year	Two-Way

Trades:​

June 20:

Anaheim Ducks trade G Frederik Andersen to Toronto Maple Leafs for 2016 1st-round pick (No. 30) and a second-round pick in 2017

July 8:

Toronto Maple Leafs trade G Jonathan Bernier to Anaheim Ducks for conditional draft pick.




Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Hampus Lindholm, Rickard Rakell.

Group 3 UFAs: Korbinian Holzer, Shawn Horcoff, Anton Khudobin (signed: BOS), Jamie McGinn (signed: ARI), Brian McGrattan, Chris Mueller (signed: ARI), Shane O'Brien, David Perron (signed: STL), Joe Piskula, Mike Santorelli, Chris Stewart (signed: MIN), Harry Zolnierczyk (signed: NSH).

Group 6 UFAs: None.

UFAs: Matt Bailey, Kevin Gagne, Martin Gernat, Brandon Pirri, Charlie Sarault.

Notes:

It would seem like Anaheim didn't really do much here to replace the forwards they lost. They lost depth on at forward in David Perron, Jamie McGinn, and Brandon Pirri. Perron will be returning to St. Louis on a 2 year deal worth $3.75M AAV. Perron put up a much better point totals after joining Anaheim from Pittsburgh, with 20 points in 28 games after only putting up 16 in 43 with Pittsburgh, but with the money he got from St. Louis, they can likely pick up a depth winger in FA still that can provide similar offense to what Perron would and still have freed up cap space. McGinn signed with Arizona for 3 years at a $3.33 AAV and Brandon Pirri was not qualified, so he is now a UFA despite putting up solid point totals last season.

There's still rumors floating around that the team is shopping a defenseman in hopes of bringing back a return of an established top 6 scoring winger. The names that have popped up as being trade bait are Cam Fowler and Hampus Lindholm. They have over $14M in cap space at the moment, so while they operate under a team budget, they still have plenty of room to add some depth and/or a winger with a high AAV contract if they do end up trading for one.

Then with the trade of Anderson, their goalie situation is a bit up in the air. Will it be Bernier, or will it be Gibson to grab the #1 spot.

Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?:

Definitely worse. They lost Perron, McGinn and Pirri and added no one that could replace their scoring. They still have to work out a deal with Rakell, but as he doesn't have arbitration rights, they'll likely put that off until they figure out what else they're going to do. It would seem like Anaheim had let players walk in hopes they could have signed a bigger name player like Okposo or Eriksson and whiffed on that. They will need to find a way to add some depth on the wings or they will be a team that is VERY reliant on their top 6 to do all the scoring. Between that and the definite downgrade in net, barring Gibson coming in and killing it, I just don't see how this team will do better this year than they did last year.

 

[ATLL765]

Arizona Coyotes

Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	7	7	Clayton Keller	C	USA	5' 10"	164	USHL	USNTDP
1	16	16	Jakob Chychrun	D	USA	6' 2"	200	OHL	Sarnia
3	7	68	Cam Dineen	D	USA	5' 11"	185	OHL	North Bay
6	7	158	Patrick Kudla	D	CAN	6' 3"	175	OJHL	Oakville
7	7	188	Dean Stewart	D	CAN	6' 1"	170	MJHL	Portage

Signings:​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
LW	Jamie McGinn	$3.33M	3 Year	One-Way
G	Justin Peters	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Jamie McBain	$650k	1 Years	Two-Way
LW	Garret Ross	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Jarred Tinordi	$700k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Klas Dahlbeck	$750k	1 Year	One-Way
C	Chris Mueller	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
RW	Ryan White	$1M	1 Year	One-Way

Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Stefan Fournier, Connor Murphy, Tobias Rieder, Michael Stone.

Group 3 UFAs: Kyle Chipchura, Shane Doan, Steve Downie, Maxim Goncharov, Boyd Gordon (signed: PHI), Alex Grant, Nicklas Grossmann, Anders Lindback, Brett MacLean, Dylan Reese, Eric Selleck, Derek Smith, Alex Tanguay, Viktor Tikhonov.

Group 6 UFAs: Brendan Shinnimin, Jordan Szwarz.

UFAs: Kevin Connauton (re-signed), Klas Dahlbeck (re-signed), Niklas Treutle.

Notes:

Arizona is still in the early stages of it's rebuild with new GM Chayka, the youngest GM in the league by a wide margin. They didn't lose any big pieces unless you feel like Tanguay could repeat his performance from last year, but this team doesn't need aging vets right now. Captain Shane Doan seems to only be willing to sign with Arizona is waiting to work out a one year deal with the team. I would think this gets done at some point. The big news for the team all occurred at the draft where they took standout forward Clayton Keller from the USNTDP with the 7th pick of the first round and then traded Joe Vitale and their 2nd rd pick for Pavel Datsyuk's contract and Detroit's 1st rd pick. They ended up taking defenseman Jakob Chychrun at 16th overall who, after being thought of as a possible top 5 pick early on, slipped to middle of the round.


Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?

They made some big moves for the future, but they're holding to their plan to build through the draft and are likely looking at a couple more years of struggling before their draft picks like Dylan Strome, Laurent Dauphin, Anthony DeAngelo, Christian Dvorak, and now Clayton Keller can be as successful as Max Domi was in his rookie season and join him and other young players like Anothony Duclair, Jordan Martinook and Connor Murphy. I'd say the NHL team is looking like it'll be just as bad as it was last year.

 

[ATLL765]

Boston Bruins​

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Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	14	14	Charlie McAvoy	D	USA	6' 0"	199	H-EAST	Boston University
1	29	29	Trent Frederic	C	USA	6' 1"	204	USHL	USNTDP
2	19	49	Ryan Lindgren	D	USA	5' 11"	203	USHL	USNTDP
5	14	135	Joona Koppanen	LW	FIN	6' 4"	192	FINLAND-JR.	Ilves Jr.
5	15	136	Cam Clarke	D	USA	6' 2"	180	NAHL	Lone Star
6	14	165	Oskar Steen	C	SWE	5' 9"	188	SWEDEN-JR.	Farjestad Jr.

Signings:​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
C/RW	David Backes	$6M	5 Years	One-Way
G	Anton Khudobin	$1.2M	2 years	One-Way
D	John-Michael Liles	$2M	1 Year	One-Way
D	Tommy Cross	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
C	Riley Nash	$900k	2 Years	One-Way
RW	Tyler Randell	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
C	Tim Schaller	$600k	1 Year	One-Way

Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Chris Casto, Brian Ferlin, Alexander Khokhlachev, Colin Miller, Joe Morrow.

Group 3 UFAs: Chris Breen, Brandon DeFazio, Loui Eriksson (signed: VAN), Jonas Gustafsson (signed: EDM), Matt Irwin (signed: NSH), Chris Kelly (signed: OTT), Joonas Kemppainen, John-Michael Liles (re-signed), Jeremy Smith (signed: COL), Lee Stempniak (signed: CAR), Max Talbot.

Group 6 UFAs: Tommy Cross (re-signed), Tyler Randell (re-signed), Zach Trotman (signed: LAK).

UFAs: Brett Connolly (signed: WSH), Landon Ferraro (signed: STL), Ben Sexton.


Notes:

The Bruins have made some odd moves in recent years, with their insistence on sticking with certain players and moving on from others like Dougie Hamilton. It looks like this year they are again sticking to the plan of trying to stay competitive with their long term signing of Backes. This seems risky to me as players who play the power forward game like Backes does tend not to age well.


Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?

With the loss of Eriksson being offset by the signing of Backes, I'd say the Bruins are looking about the same. They will probably be a bubble team unless they can do something to fix their defense.

 

[JahSEEuS]

like it. good work.

 

[ATLL765]

Thanks. It's a fair amount of work to do this and format it in a way that looks clean instead of listing the information off as just plain text, but it looks so much nicer this way. I also figured putting a little blurb about the state of each team and my opinion on their off season transactions would give everyone a basis to start conversations.

I know the sports forum here isn't too big and doesn't carry a ton of discussion, but I'd love to have some hockey talk on here.

Hockey was my first true love. I believe it's the greatest sport there is. Unlike in the other major sports, each player has to be very skilled and be able to impact the game in a meaningful way for the team to be successful. You can't have just a couple star players carry a team like you can in basketball, as evidenced by Cleveland's recent championship, and all positions are skill positions unlike with baseball and football.

Hockey has been a needed constant in my life as a way to escape reality in a semi healthy way. Sports are great in that way because unlike in life, what happened last year doesn't have to have any bearing on what happens this year. Everyone starts with a clean slate, hopes renewed, if only to be tragically dashed, sometimes all too quickly, lol.

 

[JahSEEuS]

Yea, I was gonna say it's pretty lofty goal to have finished by your original deadline. I like that you include your opinion. Waiting with baited breath for your take on the Sabres

Man, you touching on so much good in that last post. Could be a P&S thread m8 (which is another great thing about sports, especially hockey, they get deep into philosophy and wutnot)

Ice Hockey was the first sport I played that afterwards I couldn't fall asleep b/c I just loved it soooo much and wanted moar.

I've been waiting for some good hockey talk, but I don't think there's much draw for it here.

I like hockeybuzz.com for forums and some of the blogs but they usually turn to shit posting pretty quick


Dude, that Chychrun pick is aces for Arizona. VVV Good draft for them, was kinda hoping they'd win lottery (if sabres didn't) as it'd be cool to see Auston Mathews there. But, alas the fucking Laughs get him...


You got a fav team? You think Evander Kane for Cam Fowler or Hamphuis Lindholm is fair or do Sabres have to give up more?

 

[JahSEEuS]

back on drugs?

 

[ATLL765]

Yea, I was gonna say it's pretty lofty goal to have finished by your original deadline. I like that you include your opinion. Waiting with baited breath for your take on the Sabres

Man, you touching on so much good in that last post. Could be a P&S thread m8 (which is another great thing about sports, especially hockey, they get deep into philosophy and wutnot)

Ice Hockey was the first sport I played that afterwards I couldn't fall asleep b/c I just loved it soooo much and wanted moar.

I've been waiting for some good hockey talk, but I don't think there's much draw for it here.

I like hockeybuzz.com for forums and some of the blogs but they usually turn to shit posting pretty quick


Dude, that Chychrun pick is aces for Arizona. VVV Good draft for them, was kinda hoping they'd win lottery (if sabres didn't) as it'd be cool to see Auston Mathews there. But, alas the fucking Laughs get him...


You got a fav team? You think Evander Kane for Cam Fowler or Hamphuis Lindholm is fair or do Sabres have to give up more?

Unfortunately I am, but there's just been a lot of other stuff going on lately that distracted me from completing this. My Mother has stage 4 lung cancer and we've gotten some bad news lately that she likely only has months to live, so I've been trying to spend more time with her. I also lost my girlfriend, who was my best friend last month and I've been struggling with that as well. Some days, I just don't have the energy or will to spend my time on this. Even though it's a pretty decent distraction and way to keep my mind occupied, sometimes it just seems so petty to care so much about sports when dealing with death.

As far as my favorite team, I'm a NJ Devils fan from birth. Only team to rep my state. Hockeybuzz is pretty good, but it's a crapshoot as to whether your team is being covered by a solid writer. Also Eklund is an idiot, so that drives me nuts. SBNation has some good blogs for each team too.

Arizona did well at the draft for sure. Their young GM Chayka is a big analytics guy and made some great moves. The trade for Datsyuk was so so imo though. They gave up too much in that trade. I was really hoping Keller would fall out of the top 10 and NJ could grab him, but that was a bit of a pipe dream.

Anyways, I'll get these all done by training camp though. It's been a bit more work than I anticipated. It takes at least 30 minutes to do each of these, so to get all 30 teams done, we're talking about a solid time investment.

I really want to do this the right way though and have it look semi-professional. I'm hoping that the quality of the posts will be enough to spark some decent conversations. Sorry for the delay everybody. I will get this done though, I promise. It's just very tedious and I only can have time to spend on this late at night. I can only do about a couple per night and I can't get on here everyday, so it's looking like it'll take me about a month to do them all.

 

[ATLL765]

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​

Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	8	8	Alexander Nylander	LW	CAN	6' 0"	178	OHL	Mississauga
2	3	33	Rasmus Asplund	C	SWE	5' 10"	176	SHL	Farjestad
3	8	69	Cliff Pu	RW	CAN	6' 2"	193	OHL	London
3	25	86	Casey Fitzgerald	D	USA	5' 10"	186	H-EAST	Boston College
4	8	99	Brett Murray	LW	CAN	6' 4"	217	CCHL	Carleton Place
5	8	129	Philip Nyberg	D	SWE	6' 3"	189	SWEDEN-JR.	Linkoping Jr.
5	9	130	Vojtech Budik	D	CZE	6' 1"	202	WHL	Prince Albert
6	8	159	Brandon Hagel	LW	CAN	5' 11"	160	WHL	Red Deer
7	8	189	Austin Osmanski	D	USA	6' 3"	193	OHL	Mississauga
7	9	190	Vasily Glotov	C	RUS	5' 11"	158	RUSSIA-JR.	Lvy St. Petersburg 2

Signings:​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
RW	Kyle Okposo	$6M	7 Years	One-Way
D	Justin Falk	$650k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Tayler Fedun	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
C	Derek Grant	$650k	1 Year	Two-Way
LW	Marcus Foligno	$2.25M	1 Year	One-Way
C	Daniel Catenacci	$575k	1 Year	Two-Way
G	Jason Kasdorf	$612,500	2 Years	Two-Way
G	Anders Nilsson	$1M	1 Year	One-Way
D	Erik Burgdoerfer	$575K	1 Year	Two-Way

G 24 $612,500
D 27 $575,000

Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Daniel Catenacci (re-signed), Marcus Foligno (re-signed), Zemgus Girgensons, Rasmus Ristolainen.

Group 3 UFAs: Carlo Colaiacovo, Chad Johnson (signed: CGY), David Legwand, Bobby Sanguinetti.

Group 6 UFAs: Jerry D'Amigo, Matt Donovan (signed: Frolunda HC), Eric O'Dell, Chad Ruhwedel (signed: PIT), Tim Schaller, Michael Sdao.

UFAs: Alexander Guptill, Colin Jacobs, Nathan Lieuwen (signed: COL), Andrey Makarov, Jack Nevins.


Notes:

The team made some improvements last season and now with the addition of Okposo and the added experience of their younger players, they should improve a bit more.


Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?

Added scoring that should come from Okposo should help the team, but the key to whether this team will be much improved or again end up have a sub-par season, will be whether their young players, especially Eichel, show that they truly can thrive in the NHL. Bottom line, I think they are marginally improved going into next season.

 

[ATLL765]

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​

Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	6	6	Matthew Tkachuk	LW	USA	6' 1"	202	OHL	London
2	24	54	Tyler Parsons	G	USA	6' 1"	185	OHL	London
2	26	56	Dillon Dube	CAN	C	5' 10"	183	WHL	Kelowna
3	5	66	Adam Fox	D	USA	5' 10"	181	USHL	USNTDP
4	5	96	Linus Lindstrom	C	SWE	5' 11"	165	SWEDEN-JR	Skelleftea Jr.
5	5	126	Mitchell Mattson	C	USA	6' 4"	191	HIGH-MN	Grand Rapids
6	5	156	Eetu Tuulola	RW	FIN	6' 1"	224	FINLAND-JR.	HPK Jr.
6	15	166	Matthew Phillips	C	CAN	5' 6"	140	WHL	Victoria
7	5	186	Stepan Falkovsky	D	BLR	6' 7"	224	OHL	Ottawa

Signings:​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
RW	Troy Brouwer	$4.5M	4 Years	One-Way
G	Chad Johnson	$1.7M	1 Year	One-way
RW	Linden Vey	$700k	1 Year	Two-Way

Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Freddie Hamilton, Sean Monahan, Tyler Wotherspoon

Group 3 UFAs: Niklas Backstrom (signed: HIFK Helsinki), Chad Billins (signed: VAN), Jonas Hiller, Jakub Nakladal, Karri Ramo

Group 6 UFAs: Derek Grant (signed: BUF)

UFAs: Kenny Agostino, Bill Arnold, Joe Colborne (signed: COL), Turner Elson (signed: COL), Josh Jooris (signed: NYR), Joni Ortio, Kevin Poulin, Drew Shore, Bryce Van Brabant


Notes:

Calgary had a very disappointing season last year after a surprise run in the playoffs the year before. Many advanced stats people had speculated that the Flames had overachieved that year and were not surprised to see the 20 point drop in the standings. Their goaltending was a huge issue, as it was one of the worst tandems in the league. The Flames traded for Brian Elliot at the draft this year in addition to signing Chad Johnson to shore up the crease in the upcoming season. If Brouwer can play well on the PP in front of the net and score some dirty goals, it should help their awful PP become much better this year.


Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?

I'd say that the team definitely looks better this year. Being in the Pacific division is going to be real tough as it has many teams poised to make playoffs with Anaheim, LA, and San Jose all looking like they'll be tough to beat. That being said, the additions in goal, as well the signing of Troy Brouwer should help them immensely, especially on the PP. The Flames fate will rest mostly in the continued performance of their younger players in Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, both of whom are RFAs still without contracts as of now. Surely the issue lies with whether they or the team are willing to go for either a bridge deal or a longer term contract, which seems to be much more popular an approach with young players recently.

 

[ATLL765]

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Draft Picks:​

ROUND	PICK	OVERALL	PLAYER	POS	COUNTRY	HT	WT	AMATEUR LEAGUE	AMATEUR TEAM
1	13	13	Jake Bean	D	CAN	6' 0"	168	WHL	Calgary
1	21	21	Julien Gauthier	RW	CAN	6' 3"	231	QMJHL	Val d'Or
2	13	43	Janne Kuokkanen	C/LW	FIN	6' 0"	175	FINLAND-JR.	Karpat Jr.
3	6	67	Matt Filipe	LW	USA	6' 1"	198	USHL	Cedar Rapids
3	13	74	Hudson Elynuik	C	CAN	6' 4"	201	WHL	Spokane
3	14	75	Jack Lafontaine	G	CAN	6' 3"	197	NAHL	Janesville
4	13	104	Max Zimmer	LW	USA	6' 0"	189	USHL	Chicago
5	13	134	Jeremy Helvig	G	CAN	6' 3"	195	OHL	Kingston
6	13	164	Noah Carroll	D	CAN	6' 1"	178	OHL	Guelph

Signings:​

POSITION	PLAYER	CAP HIT	CONTRACT LENGTH	CONTRACT TYPE
RW	Lee Stempniak	$2.5M	2 Years	One-Way
LW	Viktor Stalberg	$1.5M	1 Year	One-Way
C	Andrew Miller	$650k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Matt Tennyson	$675k	1 Year	Two-Way
C	Victor Rask	$4M	5 Years	One-Way
D	Keegan Lowe	$750k	1 Year	Tw0-Way
D	Dennis Robertson	$650k	1 Year	Two-Way
LW	Brendan Woods	$650k	1 Year	Two-Way
C	Brody Sutter	$600k	1 Year	Two-Way
D	Ryan Murphy	$787,500	2 Years	One-Way

Free Agents:

Group 2 FAs: Keegan Lowe (re-signed), Ryan Murphy (re-signed), Victor Rask (re-signed), Dennis Robertson (re-signed), Brody Sutter (re-signed), Brendan Woods (re-signed)

Group 3 UFAs: Evgeni Dadonov, Nathan Gerbe (signed: NYR), T.J. Hensick, Brad Malone (signed: WSH), Riley Nash (signed: BOS), Chris Terry (signed: MTL)

Group 6 UFAs: None

UFAs: Danny Biega, Zach Boychuk, Anthony Camara, Dane Fox, Michal Jordan, Rasmus Rissanen, Carter Sandlak, Justin Shugg, Rasmus Tirronen


Notes:

Carolina is continuing with their rebuild this year. Last season, despite their poor performance in the standings, they were a quality team in terms of possession. If they can continue that trend into this year, they should win a few more games. They made a few low risk signings in Stempniak and Stalberg, as well as trading for Teuvo Teravainen and Travis Bickell from Chicago for draft picks. They also have an interesting situation with Jordan Staal now that Eric is no longer with the team and him having joined the club specifically to play with him. Whether he will remain committed to the team or request a trade is something that will have to be worked out, hopefully for team it'll be sooner rather than later.


Is The Team Better? Worse? The Same?

Carolina looks poised to be a bit better this year, but a lot will depend on the performance of their younger players, as well as the recently acquired Teravainen. I think at best, Carolina will be a bubble team this year barring any big trades or runs of insane luck.

 

[undead]

I'm sad to see this thread so buried, so here's a healthy bump.

As a Blue Jackets fan, I couldn't be more happy with how they're playing right now. It sucks that in Ohio (and in the NHL) the Jackets get virtually no love. They've won nine straight games. They have the best PP% in the league. Their offense is looking so good. And yet... there's practically NO TALK of them in Ohio. It's upsetting. They were supposed to be good last year, but the atrocious start to the season was just too bad to come back from. This year, they seem to be finally making good on that expectation. It doesn't hurt that their AHL affiliate won the Calder Cup last year. I couldn't be more stoked about the future right now. They've looked incredible this year. I can only assume they'll start to level out soon, but if they can continue playing they way they are right now, they're bound for the playoffs. What they do from there, we'll see, but man are they playing good hockey right now!

 

[JahSEEuS]

Hey, another hockey fan.

Whatup?

Good on you for supporting an unloved team / the NHL in general.

Seems that Johansen trade is working well for you. I truly wasn't sure how it'd play out. Werenski looks to be a top-2 for a long time there. Good pick.

I am a Sabres fan and am accepting of our season so far. It's at least watchable hockey (something we haven't had in about 5 years). Passes are crisp, we can control the puck in the O zone, D is ok, Goaltending solid. Just need a few more pieces and a couple of years before we are true contenders.

I only know of one other NHL/Hockey fan on these boards besides OP and she is a Boston Fan that hangs out in The Lounge Social. Morphine-Dreams. Rather knowledgeable about the sport and enjoys discussing it.

Nice to see you around here.

 

[undead]

Awesome! Yeah, I was sad to see an NHL thread missing here, then when I searched it was pretty inactive and buried. I couldn't let that be the case. Hopefully Morphine-Dreams comes around here a bit. Either way, if it's just you and I, so be it. :D

But yeah, I've been a hockey fan since as far back as I can remember, which was truly remarkable considering I grew up in a non-hockey market. I had one friend who played on a team, but his parents had to drive him about an hour or more just to get to practices and games. I went with him for a few of those trips. Never had the chance to place, myself, but I remember tagging along in the lockerroom and everything (I was probably 10 at this point) so being as my friend was a netminder, I helped him carry his pads. I walked out with the team and had a hat on, so one of the parents, while walking by patted me on the shoulder and told me good game. I didn't tell him I wasn't on the team, I just went along with it. Made me feel cool. :D

I live an hour north of Columbus, so before the Jackets came around, my fandom went to the highest bidder, basically. I always loved Gretzky (how couldn't you?), but as far as teams go, I kind of like the Red Wings, Devils, Hartford (because one of my favorite hockey cards was Zarley Zalapski because he had the coolest name :D). I basically loved all things hockey and tried to get as much info as I could through collecting cards, Sports Illustrated for kids, etc. There was no hockey on my tv until 1995 because I lived out in the boonies and only got the basic channels, eventually Fox had a contract with the NHL, but even then... they only televised one game a week starting with the All-Star game (obviously meaning no televised games the entire first half of the season) and running through the end of the season. The playoffs were at least covered much more extensively. And then they ruined it by making the puck glow in 1995. I hated that. Thank god that shit went away. So, against all odds, I became a die hard hockey fan. You can imagine my elation when I found out Columbus was getting an expansion team.

Anyways... I started rambling. :D

Yeah, that Johansen trade... when I heard about it I was bummed, but I withheld my criticism until I saw how it played out. I'll be honest though... I don't have much criticism at this point! And yeah... Werenski has been a huge part of their success. And enough can't be said for Foligno's role on this team. It's really cool to see them coming together the way they are now. They didn't get a GREAT start this year, but after the start they had last season, this year at least wasn't bad. They just started out mediocre, but their powerplay seriously has been such a huge boost. They're so dangerous with the man advantage and they've got a few shorties on the kill too. They're just playing with a ton of confidence right now. It's awesome!

And I used to be way more familiar with Buffalo than I am now, but man... a while back (probably ten years ago now) when they had Briere, Kotalik, Afinogenov, Vanek, Pominville, etc. and Miller in goal (plus Conklin, who I really liked during his time with Columbus)... they were pretty damn good. They were a fun team watch (even though I kinda hated Briere, sorry!). You guys have a pretty good fanbase though. I was in Buffalo for a cousin's wedding years ago and it had such a small town feel for being a big city. I loved it there. And the Buffalo sports fans are legit.

 

[JahSEEuS]

Nice,

I too am a goalie. We make the best friends.

That is awesome that you made it this far against all odds. Hockey is def at a disadvantage in terms of coverage and exposure to new fans.

 

[undead]

It really is. Like I said, the Jackets have won nine in a row. They're one of the hottest teams in the league right now. And the hottest sports team in the state of Ohio at the moment, and yet there's virtually no discussion about them at all.

And hell yeah to you being a goalie! I always have mad respect for keepers. They're a unique lot. :D

 

[starting_over]

nucks here

they are a terrible team now sigh, still cheer for them though.

 

[undead]

They'll come around eventually. Every team seems to have their ups and downs in the NHL. I feel like most Canadian teams are bound to be good from time to time. They just can't not be.

 

[subotai]

OP either has ENTIRELY too much time on his hands or is real good at copy/pasting

idk, I can literally ramble on about almost absolutely nothing when it comes to football and basketball but hockey is different

I enjoy watching it, I understand the strategy involved and the subtleties a casual observer wouldnt get, I even know a lot of random players and what teams they used to play for...

but its always been a distant 3rd on my favorite sports list.

but anyway, heres a wayne simmonds fight