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The 2018/19 NHL Thread!


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It also sets a team friendly standard for the RFA's this season. Matthews signing for $11.5 will help to keep the cost of Matthew Tkachuk down. Chucky wasn't ever going to make that kind of money on his new deal, and I expect he'll be the highest paid Flame next season, but Matthews taking the deal he did and not going after $13-$15 per year will help keep Tkachuk's demands a bit more grounded.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The Matt Duchene trade to Columbus is one of those rare trades that I hate on both sides. Columbus gets Duchene, but will he be staying? And this has to mean that Panarin and Bobrovsky are staying. 

Ottawa got what - the 18th overall pick and some middling prospects? If they get that 2020 first rounder, then it might become a good trade for Ottawa.

 

EDIT - Thinking about it a bit more... if the Senators move Dzingal and Stone, they might end up with multiple first round picks and the ability to either move up, or pick three good prospects. Of course, if they had not made that trade to get Duchene...

Edited by Toe
Didn't want to double post.
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I think Ottawa did ok there considering he was not going to re-sign. If they can get another 1st or so from Stone, they will be in an alright place. Still gonna be shit, considering they don't have their (likely very high) first. 

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It's possible that Columbus picking up Duchene is a lateral move to bring in a high scoring player because they're going to cut ties with Panarin. I don't expect the Jackets to be all-in on the Cup this year, but unless they got a high level NHL player first, moving Panarin would have been a very bad PR move. They have a good team and the chance to do some damage come playoff time, but I think Panarin gets moved. I feel like Duchene is there to replace him, not play with him. Especially since, recently, it's sounded like Panarin and Bobrovsky are both thinking they will be testing the free agent market.

If Panarin goes, that clears up a lot of space to make Duchene a big offer to stay long-term.

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Honestly if you're Columbus this is the year to go all in. You have no idea if Panarin and Bobrovsky are staying. Pittsburgh and Washington both haven't been their usual selves. The Isles play great defense but that kind of stuff can get exposed in the playoffs. I think the terms of the deal require Columbus to send more to Ottawa if they re-sign Duchene, so they may not be planning to do that. It's weird to think of them as a team going for it this year, with that Tampa Bay team, but hey why not. They've never even won a playoff series. You gotta have something, and at the end of the day after this trade they're close to the same place they were before it but with a few less prospects and one or two less picks.

For Ottawa it's awful, but it was always going to be awful. They should try to pry 2020 and 2021 1st rounders away from contending teams in hopes those teams crater in one of those years. Columbus would have absolutely been the team to do that with because their immediate future is a little uncertain. Nonetheless they'll be sending a pick that will be no lower than 4th to Colorado. Recouping in quantity is the most you can ask for right now. And they will be terrible again next year, so maybe they make up for it by picking top 3 in 2020. Either way, it's gonna be a long few years in Ottawa. To think they were a game away from the Stanley Cup Final less than 2 years ago...

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A lot of Flames fans lost their minds yesterday on Twitter when it was revealed that they only added a depth defenseman who probably won't even put on the Flaming C this year.

There have been a lot of people pointing to the return for Mark Stone as a reason why the Flames could have picked him up, and while it's true that we could have beaten that offer, there are a few things that these fans are forgetting.

#1, is that Stone would have been a strict rental for us. The price paid for him yesterday was way more than a team should be paying for a rental unless the clock is winding down on their competitive window.

#2, if we had traded for him and managed to sign him, it would have made him the highest paid Flames player, and in a locker room where chemistry has a huge impact, that's probably not a great thing to risk doing.

#3, forgetting about impact on team chemistry and happiness... if the Flames had managed to snag Stone and convince him to sign an extension, there's still the problem of trying to fit everybody else in under the cap. It wouldn't have worked, and we would have lost significant players to free agency, or been fleeced in trades prior to the entry draft in an effort to manage the cap situation and not lose any pending free agents.

#4, is all of that headache really worth losing more draft picks or high end prospects? Apparently, unless the Flames were willing to add Kylington, Andersson or Valimaki to the deal, it was a non-starter for Ottawa. The way all three of those guys have played this year at such young ages in the NHL would make that a very hard pill to swallow, especially in exchange for a guy who would either be gone at the end of the season, or would force out other players that we want to keep. For instance, I can't see a way Tkachuk signs an extension with the Flames if they picked up and signed Stone. They would have to do some heavy lifting in trades prior to free agency to make room, and the sheer amount of movement necessary would ensure that it would almost be a completely different team next year. There's really no reason to do that when you're first in the division and the vast majority of your players aren't even at the height of their prime yet.

Stone is a great get for Vegas. The Sharks added depth to their scoring with Nyqvist. The Flames didn't do anything, but it could turn out to be the best thing they could have done, and it blows my mind that there are so many fans out there who can't see the bigger picture. They were citing the Flames as potential Cup winners a week before the deadline, but now that Vegas has potentially upset its team chemistry and San Jose added a guy who may or may not make a difference, all of a sudden the sky is falling? They all need to relax. The Flames aren't any better coming out of the deadline than they were before it, but they're not any worse this year or next because of it either.

Stone is a gamble for Vegas though too. They're having another surprisingly good campaign, but Fleury has been awful of late and if he can't turn it around, they could be an easy round one match up for someone, or worse yet, it's possible they could fall out of the playoffs with a few teams still jockeying for position in the wildcard race.

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Vegas is making some head scratching decisions only because they're deliberately giving themselves a small window. The money they have locked up in older players is a ton, especially with the NHL landscape increasingly favoring teams that have a lot of young, fast players. Vegas needed to make some move, but the pressure is clearly on them to win now. By basically standing pat, Calgary is able to have flexibility to get better beyond this season whereas Vegas sacrificed that.

From a business standpoint I can't see Vegas fans, after getting a few years of the good times at the franchise's inception, really being as avid a fanbase when they bottom out a few years down the line. It's the kind of environment that creates fair-weather fans.

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4 minutes ago, Toe said:

Senators fire Guy Boucher

I'm not sure why you do this now. Why not wait until the end of the season?

You put in an interim coach and then management can begin searching for someone else. You get a head start on every other team. If you're coach is still there, you can't really have your office looking for someone else. 

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20 minutes ago, Ms. Canadian Destroyer said:

You put in an interim coach and then management can begin searching for someone else. You get a head start on every other team. If you're coach is still there, you can't really have your office looking for someone else. 

Why not? It's not like the Senators are competing for anything this season, and is Marc Crawford really going to help players more then Boucher? 

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4 minutes ago, Toe said:

Why not? It's not like the Senators are competing for anything this season, and is Marc Crawford really going to help players more then Boucher? 

It's not very good practice to have a guy in the role that knows he is getting fired at the end of the season. What motivation does he have at all if he knows the team is looking at other options? You're basically trying to maximize your chances of getting your first choice in the off-season. 

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"WHERE'S YOUR JAMMIES?" was my personal favorite Tavares chant from last night.

Anyway, it's been a really fun ride this season but my expectations for the playoffs are tempered just due to the uncertainty I have around this offense.  The good news is having a hot goaltender is the #1 thing you need for a deep playoff run and I do think the Isles are capable of that, but still - facing top flight competition without a consistent scoring threat is gonna be really tough.

Would've liked to see them add a scorer, but we'll see.  Captain Lou knows what he's doing so I'll trust his judgment and hope for the best.

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Depth scoring and goaltending are going to be the two big keys to this post-season, I think. Which makes me very excited for my Flames. When Smith has been bad, Rittich has been outstanding. When Rittich has come back down to earth a bit, Smith has been able to rebound and get at least a couple of great outings before faltering. Even though a lot of people questioned why there wasn't a goalie added at the deadline, I feel like this is the best position that Calgary has been in regarding goaltending in a decade. Of course, the off-season will provide the major question of what to do. Obviously, Rittich gets re-signed as he's breaking out at 25 in just his second year in the league... but do they re-sign Smith and hope for the best, or is there going to be a better option out there that won't cost a lot?

Our scoring depth has been great. The Flames have won 7 in a row, and most of those came without contributions from Gaudreau or Monahan. If James Neal can start getting some puck luck, the amount of chances he'd been putting together prior to injury was close to his norm, so he could be able to contribute as a very dangerous playoff performer. I'm actually feeling the magic this year, and think they could make a serious run.

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