caucasianheat

You can definitely blame him for a lot of the team's decline over the longterm but that's not quite what I meant. Preordained shitty goaltending aside, I think their roster today is better than decent and they can play above the level they have been (quite bad). It's always pretty obvious when a coach has lost the handle and training camp was only a week ago.

Flyers are dreadful 5 on 5 right now and almost all of their point-producing forwards (specifically, all ones that have been under Laviolette for a while) have gotten nothing done. Holmgren I'd leave for now because I don't think it's a failure of the team he's put together. Never liked Laviolette much.

Delvin

But hey, Cotto's looking back in form and hopefully has settled on a trainer in Freddie Roach. He looked vicious last night.

Aside from a few nice saves, Brodeur was pretty lousy with two really leaky goals down low. I think the older goalies will have the hardest time adjusting to the new trimmed down pads this year.

Relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvV5PM9-ROM

New Yuck and Dr. Dog are out today, plus Basement Jaxx has their latest single in stores. It is a good day.

I think people got stars in their eyes for Colborne when he was gotten 'for' Kaberle. Good player, lots of development still to come.

He's on a one way contract in a cap crunch. Toronto pretty much has zero leverage in trading him at the point they decided to snip him from the roster. Big bodied centre who can shoot is one a few things Calgary needs, so it'll be interesting to track his development there.

Not Sam Gagner's?

The extra spear on Scott, who was already tied up in another fracas, was uncalled for and awesome and hilarious.

Ashton is on a twoway contract and his NHL salary is higher than a guy like Colborne. He'll probably get demoted but be among the first to get a forward callup. I've also been impressed with what he's shown; he's definitely gotten grittier since his last stay with the Leafs.

"Not going to score fights anymore" is another way of putting it.

Six really good rounds and then kind of a tail off as Mayweather pushed the gap further. His timing and instincts are just ridiculous. Canelo seemed stumped into doing nothing at times, but he was also poised and never humble. He is definitely still closing in on his best years.

I would watch these two rematch in 2 years or so, would be interesting to see they measure up a little further on.

I don't think they can top Mayweather-DLH on PPV or at the gate, because that was two generational stars clashing at the perfect time. But this fight has some resonance of that as well and it's going to be a massive success regardless.

I'm a big Canelo fan, would love to see him get a win but I'll settle for just a good showing. Learned long ago that "Floyd wins" is the safe bet.

Hi Phil, good to see you! Welcome back.

Definitely of the mind that the TEW series was a step too far in detail, but I also appreciate that people love a deep simulation. EWR still scratches my itch because I like a very simple booking interface that lets me fly through shows when I have the compulsion to play. TEW had too many kinks and I was getting very frustrated with the play results more often than not. I was gifted a couple licenses over the years and regrettably made little use of them.

Said all that to say that I actually haven't played TEW13 and Skummy's contention that it's more scaled down and simplified has me interested.

Everybody here discouraged and mocked the Serious Parody guy (that's me included), but god damn, he went out and actually did it and has probably made some coin by now off of it. There are people who will play your game if it's done well and/or comes cheap, so go for it.

Yeah, really dumb. Detroit conversely is promoting the shit out of Montreal and Toronto coming through this season.

Anybody holding season tickets or routinely go to games? Somehow I don't think this has ever come up...

Pink makes the worst music I've ever heard in my life, far and away, no contest.

Imagine Dragons is the new one I really fucking hate right now. Mumford and Sons and System of a Down can go in too.

Got a listen of John Frusciante's new EP today. Probably the weirdest record I've heard in the calendar year because it's a lot of fusion of his guitar style with synthesizers and orchestral elements and weird lofi techno sounds. I'm not even sure yet if I like it or not, but it's interesting and really out there.

Holy shit, Denis Grebeshkov appears from the mist!

Doubtful, they're not really screwed over by it. They lose their best player and there's no downplaying that, but they're also free of an absurd, debilitating contract that they would have probably shouldered for the whole term because he's so good.

He wants to raise his family in Russia, apparently. Devils aren't really on the hook for much of his salary (a few hundred thousand each year) because he's just walking away from it. So the bonus for them is that they gain a lot of cap space, which actually would have been more helpful had he retired about a week and a half ago.

Alfredsson told the Senators last night that he wasn't returning with them and it sounds as if Detroit is the destination.

Lecavalier has been bought out by Tampa and can't resign there for one full year. Because of some his contract stipulations, he can avoid waivers and go straight to free agency. I wonder what the bids will look like.

Letang is the best defenseman in the game in terms of all-around ability, so I can't see that there's too many on the Leafs roster who should be untouchable in trying to get him. The Leafs' books are virtually clean after next season and I'd love to see them secure Letang for the longterm.

It wasn't mentioned in the report what a Toronto contribution would have been, but I think they would be required to offer *something* in return to make the trade even possible.

Jagr still has talent but was mostly ineffectual this season. What playoff team is going to bolster their lineup with a guy who had 0 goals in 20 games for Boston?

The KHL offers will come and they could be better than what he'll get over here, especially in a shrinking cap environment. Admittedly, Detroit would be a fun destination just to watch Jagr, Datsyuk and Zetterberg go all Harlem Globetrotters on teams every now and again.

Rumours abound about an aborted cap circumventing deal between Toronto and Tampa. The Lightning would allegedly have sent Lecavalier (who the Leafs would then buy out) and another player as juice for the favour. The key which makes it a wash is that Lecavalier would then have signed as a free agent with Tampa while Toronto paid out his old deal. The league sent out a memo today in response warning teams about trying to get funny with trades.

Plubby will receive many fabulous prizes for his win, the first of which is creating the new thread on draft day! He also gets year-long naming privileges and more to be revealed. Ruki would get a runner-up prize except that I can't give him anything better than Boston's 17 second collapse.

I wanted to do a review post of our predictions and follies, but it's all lockout talk for the first half of this thread.

Flyers have bought out Bryzgalov and will pay him for the next 14 YEARS.

I genuinely don't like Boston or most of their goofy players, so I was just satisfied to see them get beat. Kane had clutch goals even if he no-showed half the series. I also thought there were more deserving choices for the Conn Smythe, though.

Boston dominated most of the series but Chicago kept managing to hold out and when the opportunity presented itself, they closed. Hard to say they didn't earn it.