Around the NHL 2022

[PredsV82]

Old thread at way over 40 pages. Figured today is a good day for a restart.

Columbus lead Carolina 4-0 and now has given up 6 unanswered goals... oof

Edit.. 7 unanswered..

Click to read more...

 

[herzausstein]

Old thread at way over 40 pages. Figured today is a good day for a restart.

Columbus lead Carolina 4-0 and now has given up 6 unanswered goals... oof

Edit.. 7 unanswered..

Atleast Edmonton only got 1 point. Helps us should we fall back to wildcard status

 

[Predsanddead24]

-5 in Minneapolis for puck drop of the Winter Classic. That’s how it should be!

 

[hockey diva]

4 former Preds playing for Minn tonight.

 

[LCPreds]

Atleast Edmonton only got 1 point. Helps us should we fall back to wildcard status

Yah I think our fate is going to be between Central 3 and WC1. We’re WC1 at the moment based on P% but it’s really really tight across the Central top 4.

 

[101st_fan]

Yah I think our fate is going to be between Central 3 and WC1. We’re WC1 at the moment based on P% but it’s really really tight across the Central top 4.

8 remaining games against the Avs, Blues, Wild, Oilers (2 each).

 

[hockey diva]

Talbot getting lit up.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

The hockey gods are smiling on Pitlick with the ridiculous goal.

 

[PredsV82]

4 former Preds playing for Minn tonight.

3 of them scored... but they still lost

 

[OldFan]

Reckon what’s up with Trotzy?

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Reckon what’s up with Trotzy?

Their last 10 games they are 5-2-3 and sit just two game below .500 right now, so seemingly they've gotten the ship righted. All they need is a "Primm" and they're right back in the thick of the playoffs.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

Good day for scoreboard watching with Colorado, Winnipeg, and the Stars all playing today. Almost midway through the season teams should start to separate themselves a little bit.

 

[OldFan]

Their last 10 games they are 5-2-3 and sit just two game below .500 right now, so seemingly they've gotten the ship righted. All they need is a "Primm" and they're right back in the thick of the playoffs.

Sorry, I meant he’s reportedly being out for”personal reasons”(non-covid).
Edit: Report now is he missed last game. Lane Lambert stood in. And said something like “our thoughts are with Barry”. Wondering what’s wrong.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

With Colorado having only played 28 games so far I looked up their schedule to see when they'd be playing all those "games in hand". Well if my math is right, by the end of the month they will have made up 4 of the 5 games and we'll have a better understanding where the Preds stand in the division.

 

[PredsV82]

Sorry, I meant he’s reportedly being out for”personal reasons”(non-covid).
Edit: Report now is he missed last game. Lane Lambert stood in. And said something like “our thoughts are with Barry”. Wondering what’s wrong.

Crap. That doesnt sound good.

 

[Roman Yoshi]

I've never been more sure I could be an NHL GM than watching the Kraken and the Flyers continue to splutter.

 

[nine_inch_fang]

I've never been more sure I could be an NHL GM than watching the Kraken and the Flyers continue to splutter.

The Kraken was a pure dereliction of duty on the part of the GM. He got no prospects or draft capitol because he was asking for too much to protect players and he doubled down on that by not picking an of the high level available talent that was left unprotected. I don't remember all the players he passed on but could you imagine that team with Johansen and Tarasenko as the only additions?

 

[herzausstein]

The Kraken was a pure dereliction of duty on the part of the GM. He got no prospects or draft capitol because he was asking for too much to protect players and he doubled down on that by not picking an of the high level available talent that was left unprotected. I don't remember all the players he passed on but could you imagine that team with Johansen and Tarasenko as the only additions?

I believe voracek was left unprotected as well. Either him or Joey feeding tarasenko would’ve been sick

 

[Kat Predator]

Vanecek, Twarynski, Bayreuther, Quenneville, MacDermid, ... hard to argue Francis didn't just throw away some picks rather than work out any significant side deals, which doesn't really make any sense if the strategy was to bootstrap as a bottom feeder and focus on building through the draft and developing in-house prospects. If that's the strategy, then picking players that other GMs would be interested in was the correct play.

PS: The "plan" seems muddled. The Kraken signed Grubauer as a foundation piece and Francis says he put together a strong defensive team. But they aren't very sound defensively. They hired a coach who's experience is more in developing young players, and the ED is designed to hand a roster of mid-6 and 2nd pairing D veterans in the prime of their careers to the expansion team. Even if one hits on nearly every draft pick, it can take several years to come together as a team.

 

[Armourboy]

Honestly I don't think he had the guts to make the moves he needed to make. He tried to bluff his way into good prospects and picks, the GM's out there figured out he was going cheap, and left him a bunch of expensive players they knew he didn't have the cajones to take. He expected GM's to hand him draft capital and players, and they just weren't going to do it this time around. If his plan was to build long term he needed to be grabbing players that he could flip and get draft picks or prospects for but he was too scared, cheap, or both to do that.

Now if he wanted to be competitive out of the gate he definitely went about it wrong. He could have come out of it with a solid top 6 to at least be a bubble team, and then the guys he signed that are playing in the current top 6 could have been his depth. Instead he landed right in the middle and isn't competitive and has very little to pick up picks and prospects. Frankly had I been the owner I probably would have fired him the minute that draft was over simply due to incompetence.

 

[GoldOnGold]

Updates on some former Preds from around the league:

Arvidsson had a 4 point game last outing and has 18 points in 26 games.

Jarnkrok has 5 points in his last 3 games and 10 points in 22 games (after going pointless for the first 12).

Watson has 2 points, both goals, in 16 games for Ottawa.

Bonino has 6 points in 33 games with the Sharks, not sure what happened to make his production fall like that.

Ellis has been having an extremely rough season so far. Played 3 games to start the season, then he got injured. He came back almost a month later and immediately was re-injured after playing 1 game. Got put on COVID protocol in December while injured, came off COVID protocol, but yesterday the Flyers' coach said he hasn't made much progress with his injury.

Carter Hutton hasn't played for Arizona since October after putting up a .741 across 3 games.

Rem Pitlick has 11 points in 18 games for Minnesota. That one still makes me mad.

Fiala has 21 points in 31 games for Minnesota, but he seems like he's on the verge of leaving.

Freddy Gaudreau, also on Minnesota, has 10 points in 28 games.

 

[GoldOnGold]

Also, Radulov has been really rough for Dallas. I thank my lucky stars (get it?) they lost in the SCF to Tampa.

 

[Armourboy]

I'm glad for Arvy but considering he has that many points and is only a +1 that means his line is giving up just about as many as its getting.

The only one that semi bothers me is the Pitlick one as it still feels like we lost him for Grimaldi who isn't even playing for use anyways.

One again Poile gets away from a contract just in time with Ellis.

 

[Scoresberg]

We really did dodge a major bullet in Ellis, didn't we?

 

[Predsanddead24]

Pitlick has had a pretty interesting progression since the last time we argued about him. Despite his production the coaching staff in Minnesota doesn't seem to particularly like how he is playing. They significantly cut his ice time and then scratched him for several games prior to Christmas. Pitlick kind of shrugged it off in an interview saying that he would listen but is still going to play how he plays. I suspect he might have run into similar issues here, but who knows. Still irks me that we let him go for basically no reason though, but in the end I'm not sure it makes any appreciable difference in how our season has gone.