Around the League XXXIV: Offseason

[BK]

I like the trade for both. Would love to have Vatanan on the Hawks.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

We have another trade



Seems like only yesterday that Leaf fans were hyping up Holland as some potential steal when they acquired him

As for Cracknell ,, How many crappy 13th forward Grinders does Berg need? Also like Niemi this will be his 3rd team on season

 

[ChiHawks10]

We have another trade



Seems like only yesterday that Leaf fans were hyping up Holland as some potential steal when they acquired him

Your tweet that you embedded is the same NJD tweet from the first post BWC.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

My mistake

Has been corrected

 

[TLEH]

I like the trade less for the devils because I think they lose Hall in UFA now

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Flyers have lost 10 straight

Hextall has been poor GM thus far and his coach is an absolute disaster

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

Not surprisingly the Sabres are looking to sell everyone but Eichel

Anything the Hawks could use?

I would love to see Hawks acquire Girgensen. His development has stalled but at worst he is solid 4th liner

 

[Putt Pirate]

Hackstall from ND was a horrible hire. Flyers have no depth but a great D pipeline of youth. Just wondering what the overall plan is for them. They should probably ride a couple pieces fo their top line for prospects since they are in no position to contend for even a playoff spot. Simmonds.....I am a fan!

 

[LDF]

Not surprisingly the Sabres are looking to sell everyone but Eichel

Anything the Hawks could use?

I would love to see Hawks acquire Girgensen. His development has stalled but at worst he is solid 4th liner

for me, i would love E. Kane as a winger that the team been missing. but man, the cost in prospect/draft picks to get him and i still can't see the team affording him with ref to the existing Salary Cap numbers .

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Seattle just took a major step forward with their approval of a major arena redevelopment memorandum of understanding for KeyArena. Hopefully going to advance their chances of landing an NHL team vastly. Go Thunderbirds/Totems/Breakers/Kraken/whatevers. Do that and then move the Yotes to Houston, and we'd have a pretty solid western conference market-wise.

 

[TorMenT]

Flyers getting outshot 39-19 but up 5-2 on the Flames right now, wtf

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Mike Smith blows.

 

[Teemu]

Russia officially banned from next year's Olympics

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Might still be able to compete under the Olympic flag though, albeit I'm not sure that Russia would go along with it and boycott even independent participation of their teams and athletes.

 

[Blue Liner]

Seattle just took a major step forward with their approval of a major arena redevelopment memorandum of understanding for KeyArena. Hopefully going to advance their chances of landing an NHL team vastly. Go Thunderbirds/Totems/Breakers/Kraken/whatevers. Do that and then move the Yotes to Houston, and we'd have a pretty solid western conference market-wise.

Saw someone mention similar but instead of Arizona moving to Houston they listed Carolina going to Houston and being in the Western Conference and moving the Hawks to the Eastern Conference. Not discounting your idea, just sharing another I saw.

It's such an old narrative but I do feel like it's just a matter of time before Arizona relocates, right? Know there's constant talk of a move downtown or a more central area of the valley (which would make a different in attendance and where they should have stayed in the first place) but that thing just seems too far gone out there.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Found this cool Vox video today. This guy wrote a book putting the five major sports on a spectrum of luck and skill for team success. One end of the spectrum deals with the most luck and the other end with the most skill. His results showed that hockey requires more luck, and therefore less skill, than other sports (basketball being the most skillful and least lucky).

He does go out of his way to clarify that hockey players themselves are EXTREMELY skilled, just that the game itself is less conducive of showcasing individual skill than other sports and that it's not necessarily a bad thing. There has to be a certain balance of both luck and skill to optimize entertainment value.

I think hockey requiring a lot of luck is a relatively common belief held here on HF but I'd like to know what you all think about it.

 

[Blackhawkswincup]

NHL in Seattle closer to reality today as Key Arena redevelopment is a go

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Found this cool Vox video today. This guy wrote a book putting the five major sports on a spectrum of luck and skill for team success. One end of the spectrum deals with the most luck and the other end with the most skill. His results showed that hockey requires more luck, and therefore less skill, than other sports (basketball being the most skillful and least lucky).

He does go out of his way to clarify that hockey players themselves are EXTREMELY skilled, just that the game itself is less conducive of showcasing individual skill than other sports and that it's not necessarily a bad thing. There has to be a certain balance of both luck and skill to optimize entertainment value.

I think hockey requiring a lot of luck is a relatively common belief held here on HF but I'd like to know what you all think about it.

Is it luck or just a far more even playing field.

 

[x Tame Impala]

Partly a more even playing field, sure. It's also that your best players play a little over 1/3rd of the game and their effectiveness is inherently limited, whereas in the NBA the best players play 3/4ths of the game and have a greater influence on the outcome

 

[DisgruntledHawkFan]

Right, guys like Keith are cyborg's for playing thirty plus minutes. A basketball player playing half the game is a rotational piece.

It's less luck and skill and more how much one guy can single handedly impact a game.

 

[b1e9a8r5s]

I think the word "luck" brings the wrong connotation when really what I believe what he is referring to is random. People hwar luck and think unearned and therefore unskilled. But hockey is just more random. One random play can have a much larger impact on the game. A "lucky" bounce here or there can change the game.

 

[JaegerDice]

https://deadspin.com/that-was-bad-football-1821008439

Great article about the nonsense in the Pittsburgh/Cincinnati game, that applies just as well to hockey.

But they can’t police each other. Or rather, this—last night—is what that policing looks like. It’s enforcement. It’s punitive. It’s an escalating cycle of revenge. You take out our guy, we’ll take out your guy. And it doesn’t work. If it worked, if players feared retaliation, we wouldn’t see the dirty hits in the first place. But we still do. We always have.

The whole 'let the players police themselves' remains one of the single dumbest arguments in all of sports, IMO.

Players do not and have never felt fear of retribution. Or if they have, that fear has NEVER acted as an effective deterrent.

And it's not as though the formality of a 1on1 fight magically curbed bad hits in hockey for all the years it was common. Hockey was a dirty, DIRTY game through the 70s, 80s and 90s.

I agree with the solution in the article (both or football and for hockey). Be generous with misconducts and suspensions for head hits. Be generous with misconducts and suspensions for instigating fights. You start a fight, you sit 5 games. End of discussion. Curb this crap, already.

 

[Blue Liner]

Players deter nothing. Nothing. It's one of the longest running myths in sports. It's never deterred anything, and it will never deter anything. Most of the time the players committing the offenses that are supposedly deterred are the guys who are the "police" on their teams. It's nonsense.

As JD pointed out, watch clips from any previous decades and it's borderline barbaric compared to what you see now. Especially if you go even further back to the 40s, 50s, 60s, stick-swinging at guys' heads (no helmets, reminder), sucker punching, getting physical with officials, fighting with the crowd.... "Slapshot" took a lot of that to the extreme for comedy's sake but a lot of that was based on what the game was at that time.

And spare me the "snowflake, soft, played da game" nonsense. I played junior in a time where you were still having to fight even if you weren't a fighter to make a roster. When you'd get a literal tap on the shoulder and essentially have to go with a guy just to prove you're willing to do it. At no point ever in a game in my life did I feel worried about any guy on the ice if I did something. It sure as hell didn't scare any others who were actually dirty players or walked that fine edge. High level minor hockey, NCAA, many professional leagues throughout Europe, International hockey...all manage to get on just fine without the "cops".

JD nailed it. You want to cut that crap? Get a real, legit, consistent discipline system in place and hit guys hard with games missed and money lost. That'll cut that shit in a hurry. I don't care if fighting is banned. I don't care if it's not. I still love the odd spontaneous tilt. But I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep if it were removed or more heavily penalized because having it does not deter anything from happening out there.

 

[LDF]

Players deter nothing. Nothing. It's one of the longest running myths in sports. It's never deterred anything, and it will never deter anything. Most of the time the players committing the offenses that are supposedly deterred are the guys who are the "police" on their teams. It's nonsense.

As JD pointed out, watch clips from any previous decades and it's borderline barbaric compared to what you see now. Especially if you go even further back to the 40s, 50s, 60s, stick-swinging at guys' heads (no helmets, reminder), sucker punching, getting physical with officials, fighting with the crowd.... "Slapshot" took a lot of that to the extreme for comedy's sake but a lot of that was based on what the game was at that time.

And spare me the "snowflake, soft, played da game" nonsense. I played junior in a time where you were still having to fight even if you weren't a fighter to make a roster. When you'd get a literal tap on the shoulder and essentially have to go with a guy just to prove you're willing to do it. At no point ever in a game in my life did I feel worried about any guy on the ice if I did something. It sure as hell didn't scare any others who were actually dirty players or walked that fine edge. High level minor hockey, NCAA, many professional leagues throughout Europe, International hockey...all manage to get on just fine without the "cops".

JD nailed it. You want to cut that crap? Get a real, legit, consistent discipline system in place and hit guys hard with games missed and money lost. That'll cut that **** in a hurry. I don't care if fighting is banned. I don't care if it's not. I still love the odd spontaneous tilt. But I wouldn't lose a minute of sleep if it were removed or more heavily penalized because having it does not deter anything from happening out there.

i am undecided on the idea of fighting during a game. what i hated was the fighting of the 90's-2010 when players would tap on the shoulder and they have an agreement. that was WWE of hockey and i hated it.

the incidental brewhaha of the 80's and before were really tit-fore-tat fights. they had a purpose in that era, b/c the game was different.

 

[BK]

I agree with the solution in the article (both or football and for hockey). Be generous with misconducts and suspensions for head hits. Be generous with misconducts and suspensions for instigating fights. You start a fight, you sit 5 games. End of discussion. Curb this crap, already.

While I agree with most of what you said, 5 games for a fight is just overkill. I could be on board with a escalating scale such as 1 fight: 1 game, 2 fights: 2 games, 3 fights: 4 games, etc. I am not a huge fight fan but 5 games for 1 fight is overkill.