NHL 2015-2016

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The 2015-2016 season will soon be upon us - training camps are starting up, preseason opens Sept 21.

Come complain about your team being terrible or brag about how they're wonderful. Wonder how many games are going to be resolved in 3 on 3 overtime this year (St. Louis' Hitchcock is saying that defense will essentially be impossible because of the long change and number of 2 on 1 rushes), and decide whether this means the shootout will essentially disappear. Speculate on whether Patrick Kane will be allowed to play for Chicago with a court case hanging over his head. Predict whether the LA Kings will be able to get out of the terrible Richards contract unilaterally or if the NHLPA will win their case to make them pay him, even if he's found guilty of a drug offence.

Or don't. I intend to watch everything the Leafs do and try not to get too depressed when they fail.

The NYT article on Patrick Kane is particularly good, linking again for more visibility: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/16/sports/hockey/patrick-kanes-status-is-shrouded-in-silence.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

I favourited this thread but let it be known that unless the Canucks choose to fire their coach and GM quickly, I will have little-to-no excitement. 'Tis a barren wasteland on the west coast.

There's no need for excitement, just settle for bitterness. I've subsisted for a long time as a Leafs fan on bitterness. I do find that it's easier if you start the season with hope though. Just build an unsubstantiated hope that somehow they won't be terrible, that way when they fail you can eat that and turn it into a nice depressed bitterness.

Or just cheer for the players young enough to still be around when the Canucks fire Benning and Desjardins.

But it's the preseason, time for unreasonable expectations. My hope is that Babcock will turn the Leafs' collection of cast-offs into a good underdog team. This season I want the Leafs to be a team that doesn't stop working, ever - that if they get beaten it'll be for lack of skill not effort.

nihilo wrote:

Or just cheer for the players young enough to still be around when the Canucks fire Benning and Desjardins.

They'll be traded for "character" players and to "get younger" despite their replacements being older.

...

ugh

The Devils will play spoilers, but our goalie will be good.

MaxShrek wrote:

The Devils will play spoilers, but our goalie will be good.

God damn it!

Props to PK Subban for donating $10M to Montreal Children's Hospital. As much as it's hard to like this guy, it's hard not to like this guy now.

Yeah, good on him for putting his new contract to use. I think it's pretty clear that Subban will be the new captain of the Habs this season. Subban is one of the best in the league, there really isn't a better option.

edit: Oh and I'm wrong already - Pacioretty is the new Habs captain. Still think Subban is the better choice..

3 on 3 overtime is going to be fun. I think so far the longest an overtime has lasted during preseason is two and a half minutes? It's way to easy to make a mistake that leads to an odd man rush the other way.

Justin Bourne just did a systems analyst article to show why forwards playing defense are going to get victimized out there.

I'm interested to see how many shootouts there are this year.. I'm guessing not many. Does this mean that for tiebreak purposes the NHL should distinguish between regular time wins and OT wins? It could matter.

Wait. OT is going to be 3 on 3 instead of 4 on 4 now? That will definitely change up the strategies for who's on the ice during OT.

First game of the year - Leafs lose, but were in it the whole time and were putting in the work. Which was what I was hoping for at the start of the season, so yay. They outshot the Habs, which is nice, and carried the play for the most part.

All in all that's good? I'm not expecting many wins this year. I just want to see them play well.

Canucks, somehow, won 5-1 and looked REALLY good doing it. Makes some sense considering the Sedins are still the Sedins and Edler-Tanev is one of the best pairings in the NHL. Decent depth too.

I'm watching the Avs game right now, and can someone tell me what's up with that REALLY annoying "woot woot!" thing the PA announcer keeps doing?

I was tempted to turn off the game after it went to 4-1 figuring the Wild had blown their chance to come back with the quick Avs answer to the first goal, glad I stuck it out.

Wait, the Avs lost?

:looks:

Holy hell, they did. Did Varly poop the bed?

Count me as stunned the Kings were able to reach a settlement with Richards, let alone one that favourable to them. They've basically escaped his cap hit and really.. aren't taking any responsibility for it. I don't understand the rationale for why the NHLPA agreed - maybe they're happy as long as he gets his money?

Substance abuse in hockey, specifically painkillers, is becoming a problem. The NHL/NHLPA need to help players like Richards who are in trouble.

They still get a cap hit but it's far less than a buy-out would have incurred. Apparently several teams are pissed off.

So far they've managed to get rid of Richards' and Voynov's cap hits.

I'm just gonna leave this here. I was lucky enough to be at the game yesterday (my seats were basically right next to the camera from the first replay). Eichel is such an exciting player.

My wife surprised me with tickets to the Flyers game tonight. Hopefully their offense can get going early because they're gonna need it. Chicago has nine goals in three games, and we have a whopping four in three games.

3-0 baby, Stanley cup here we come!

Great game last night. Flyers get their second straight shutout.

Canucks are off to a surprisingly strong start. Think there's going to be points coming from up and down the lineup instead of just the top this year.

Beesem wrote:

Canucks are off to a surprisingly strong start. Think there's going to be points coming from up and down the lineup instead of just the top this year.

We'll see. I expect regular production from Hansen, Burrows, Higgins, Horvat, and Vrbata but Sutter has never been a point producer and I'm not even sure which rookies will stick for the full season. Another worry is that Miller will drop off like he's done the last two seasons. Hutton, and to a lesser extent, Bartkowski have done wonders for the puck moving from the defence. That alone should help the offence. I think they're an 6-10 range team but with some poor goalie play and injuries, they'll be a bottom tier team.

Vector wrote:

They still get a cap hit but it's far less than a buy-out would have incurred. Apparently several teams are pissed off.

So far they've managed to get rid of Richards' and Voynov's cap hits.

Well, if it makes those teams feel any better, LA's the worst team in the league through 3 games. 0-3, a measly 2 goals scored to 12 yielded. Of course, Anaheim has only scored 1 goal, but they're 0-2-1.

Must be because we have no water out here to make ice. We're skating around on concrete or something.

Ridiculous, ludicrous, or click-bait: Fisclher of THN says the Penguins should trade Crosby

It's Fischler and he commits all of two lazy sentences to the story. I'd add stupid to your already accurate list of adjectives.

Anything to distract me from the Leafs season..

Dallas tonight. I just really want a win, but I'm not holding my breath.

DoPS is back to using the NHL Wheel of Justice again.. after weeks of boarding and charging calls(some of which caused injury) being ignored, they're now handing out multi-game suspensions for accidental collisions.

I'm sure that Crosby piece is all sorts of awful.

There's a Toronto Star piece about intangibles where the reporter asked hockey people to define intangibles.

Ray Ferraro's definition of "grit" is recovering loose pucks. That means Patrice Bergeron's the grittiest forward in the NHL with Joe Thornton and Scott Gomez right up there with him. If you look only at recovering loose pucks in the offensive zone for some arbitrary reason Semin is one of the best. So that's pretty fun.

GrandmaFunk wrote:

DoPS is back to using the NHL Wheel of Justice again.. after weeks of boarding and charging calls(some of which caused injury) being ignored, they're now handing out multi-game suspensions for accidental collisions.

Now I haven't watched an NHL game since the season opener last season so maybe things have changed but if you replaced NHL referees with random number generators making penalty calls I don't think anybody would notice much of a difference. So much stuff is let go again these days that who knows whether or not they'll actually blow a whistle for an infraction.

It's not even a piece. It's just a bunch of bullet points and puts the most controversial at the beginning. Fischler has been a sh*tty writer for a while, though.

I actually really like Ray Ferraro and is one of the few talking heads in hockey that is able to back up what he says. I get what he's trying to say his definition of "grit" is and it's less of trying to get the loose puck and more "doesn't give up". Both are dumb explanations and intangibles are usually part of an argument made by someone who doesn't fully grasp what they are talking about but really thinks they do.

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