The 2018/19 NHL Thread!

[gunnar hendershow]

The greatest hockey sweater of them all is coming back for 2 games this season. The Hurricanes (who started selling Whalers merch in their team store after the new owner bought them) are going to wear the beautiful green Whalers sweaters against Boston twice this year.

I actually think it's tacky and I doubt anyone in Hartford cares, but god those sweaters. 😍

[SeanDMan]

Didn't. Work.

[Toe]

I really don't want Nylander to miss the first game of the season tomorrow...

[Ruki]

Tavares scoring in his first game as a Leaf. Perfect.

[Ruki]

That's the Leaf-iest thing ever. Stacked team (in theory) gets beat by the tire fire that is the Sens.

[Plubby]

No, this remains the Leaf-iest thing ever:

 

 

[MDK]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/ice-hockey/45777251

Guy tries to score with his arse but it was ruled out

[Ruki]

So many goals!

[Toe]

Quote

Auston Matthews - pretty good at hockey, eh?

UPDATE: Auston Matthews - still pretty good at hockey!

Edited October 12, 2018 by Toe

[Ruki]

2 hours ago, Toe said:

Auston Matthews - pretty good at hockey, eh?

I am still disappointed that Nylander is still out. Can't wait to see what this team looks like when he's added to the line-up.

He better sign soon otherwise Kapanen is going to steal his spot. 

[Gabriel]

11 minutes ago, Ruki said:

He better sign soon otherwise Kapanen is going to steal his spot. 

I am honestly shocked that no one has tried to force the Leafs hand by submitting an offer sheet. Nylander's an RFA right? There's gotta be a team out there with the cap space to do it, and it seems strategically like a good move. You either get a top end prospect who is already contributing heavily at the NHL level, or you put the loaded Maple Leafs in a cap jam by forcing them to match an offer that would probably be more than they're hoping to spend.

[Ruki]

4 hours ago, Gabriel said:

I am honestly shocked that no one has tried to force the Leafs hand by submitting an offer sheet. Nylander's an RFA right? There's gotta be a team out there with the cap space to do it, and it seems strategically like a good move. You either get a top end prospect who is already contributing heavily at the NHL level, or you put the loaded Maple Leafs in a cap jam by forcing them to match an offer that would probably be more than they're hoping to spend.

A team may have sent an offer sheet, but Nylander has to accept it. From everything that I've read, he wants to remain a Leaf (and how can you blame him?). 

[gunnar hendershow]

Stastny looks to be out for around 2 months. If everything went right for Vegas last year, this year it's been mostly the opposite so far.

[Draevyn]

Justin Schultz broken leg looked sick as hell. As if our defense wasn't already shoddy as hell already.

[Twist]

On 10/10/2018 at 18:11, Toe said:

UPDATE: Auston Matthews - still pretty good at hockey!

He doesn’t stop, does he?

[gunnar hendershow]

Watched Canadiens-Capitals last night and wowzers the Habs are blindingly fast. No holding the puck on defense, they get possession and immediately flip it to the other side of the ice. That's some fun hockey to watch. Overall that's the story of this season for a lot of teams, just a ton of youth and speed making for some very good games with lots of goals.

[Liam]

I've been enjoying the Flames games I've been watching, I know that much. Good comeback yesterday against Colorado.

[Gabriel]

3 hours ago, Liam said:

I've been enjoying the Flames games I've been watching, I know that much. Good comeback yesterday against Colorado.

One thing they haven't done this year is play a boring game. They've also been playing incredibly well this year, for the most part. Some small lapses, but nothing major like in previous years. The Flames major issues that need to be addressed if they want to stay where they are in the standings (FOURTH IN THE LEAGUE) are the Power Play, which has been shit again this year despite new coaches... and the goaltending. Oddly enough, this year's discussion in net isn't about who is going to be able to do the job, it's about how much rope Mike Smith is going to get before David Rittich (top 5 in Save Percentage in the league) gets an extended look at stealing the net from Smitty.

Rittich had a rough end to last season, but that can be partially attributed to the fact that the entire team took a nose-dive after Smith got hurt. His pre-season wasn't great though either, and I was legitimately shocked that Treliving didn't try to get someone else before the season started. Well, here I am now with egg on my face, because David Rittich in the regular season has looked like Miika Kiprusoff in his prime.

I don't feel like Colorado outplayed Calgary last night for any real extended moments, and yet, they scored four in the second period to go up 4-1 heading into the third. On less than 20 shots. Smith has had some good games, for sure, but there's something not right about him. He looks like he did after he returned from injury and the team had given up, and not at all like he did when he tore through the competition in the first half of last year to earn an all-star nod.

I've been liking what Bill Peters brings as a coach to this team, but if he doesn't start Rittich tomorrow night against the Hawks, I'm not sure that he understands what's going wrong with the team. Similarly, I get that we have all this fire power that should translate to great power play success, but two different groups of coaches couldn't make it click now. Maybe the problem is that the personnel being deployed aren't worried that they will be removed from those units. Maybe it's time to put together a third power play unit and give them ice time when the others aren't delivering.

Before I go here, how freaking good are Rasmus Andersson and Juuso Valimaki? It's not often that you see a rookie tandem on the back end that isn't borne of necessity. It's even less often that you have three other guys on the back end who could be playing with your stud defenseman (Giordano), and the rookies wind up getting extended looks with him when Peters needs to separate Canadian Mr Bean and Chief Jay Brodie.

Real quick, Brodie's been a scape-goat this season for a lot of the problems early on, and rightfully so, as his first batch of games were just awful defensively... but he's played much better over the past three games against Toronto, Buffalo and Colorado. He really must not want to be separated from Giordano, because he's taken a lot of the criticism to heart and improved because of it.

 

EDIT: Annnd again, real quick, before anyone points out that a backup goalie doesn't play as much, so it's easier for them to score better looking numbers due to the smaller sample size... both Mike Smith and David Rittich are in the top 33 for shots against this season. There are 31 teams in the league, which shows that Rittich as a backup is seeing more action than the backups in other cities. So, Rittich is 33rd in the league in shots against despite not being a starting goalie, and still sits in the top five in league save percentage. It's time for him to start playing more. Realistically, if he doesn't play 41 games this year (and doesn't melt down and channel his inner Andre Racicot), then Bill Peters is a dummy.

Edited November 2, 2018 by Gabriel

[Ruki]

I miss Matthews and Nylander and when the Leafs used to score goals. 

[gunnar hendershow]

I feel like the Nylander stalemate has to end very shortly, but I don't know how it ends. He's not going to be a Leaf for much longer, the only thing I can see keeping him there for a season or two is a bridge deal.

I tend to like the way the salary cap adds to competition and parity, and it's good from a business standpoint of helping some of the smaller non-traditional markets survive, but I hate that it basically forces teams that draft well to keep only some of their talented finds. Feel like there should be a bit of wiggle room there.