Half-Assed GDT: gasoline scented cologne @ sad noises 7pm fsmw BRINGIN BACK THE BOOKS

[m1a2lt]

I first thought of the the circus.

Physical Training?

 

[BlueOil]

I'm hoping one day soon, Maroon will not be on the team anymore. His good plays are the bare minimum plays I'd expect from an NHL'er. I dont give a rat's ass what he's done prior to Stl. He is a negative player. He's slow, little to no hockey sense and surprisingly....NOT physical.

I'd rather see Kostin get his chance. He can actually skate, He actually has hockey IQ, he's a physical presence. Yea...he's going to have his warts, but Maroon has those same warts without the positives.

I use Kostin because of the power forward need

chris stewart lite, imo

his successful 1.5 seasons next to mcdavid and primo minutes on a nj team that sorely lacked any forward depth will probably prove to be more of an abberation than untapped talent. seems like he's a good power forward in lower, slower leagues.

he needs to be given top line minutes and pp time to produce, but can't play well enough most nights to skate on those lines without negatively affecting them.

 

[DeuceNine]

chris stewart lite, imo

his successful 1.5 seasons next to mcdavid and primo minutes on a nj team that sorely lacked any forward depth will probably prove to be more of an abberation than untapped talent. seems like he's a good power forward in lower, slower leagues.

he needs to be given top line minutes and pp time to produce, but can't play well enough most nights to skate on those lines without negatively affecting them.

I'm sure All-American would love to have him back

 

[Saint Loser]

Physical Training?

PT Barnum

 

[Dbrownss]

chris stewart lite, imo

his successful 1.5 seasons next to mcdavid and primo minutes on a nj team that sorely lacked any forward depth will probably prove to be more of an abberation than untapped talent. seems like he's a good power forward in lower, slower leagues.

he needs to be given top line minutes and pp time to produce, but can't play well enough most nights to skate on those lines without negatively affecting them.

Honestly I think that applies to every NHL player, especially if McDavid is in the mix. Dude needs to be 86'ed. He cant play in the top 6 here and he's a brutal 2 way player.

 

[Brockon]

Its about time the lucky bounces went our way for once. As Kelly said, we really have not gotten those all season. On Barbashev's goal, everyone is complimenting Thomas, and it was a nice play. However, he was intending the cross-ice pass for Sundqvist and it bounced off the goalie's blocker right to Barby. Perron's 2nd goal was a blind pass that perfectly bounced off a Panther's stick to go in. The Botuzzo bounce didn't count, but normally that would have happened to us, and would have counted for some obscure sub-section of the rule (Pucks deflected off referees directly into the net do not count as goals, except on prime numbered days of the month, in months that don't end in "y" that fall on a Tuesday).

I'm not saying all our ills are based on bad luck. We've sucked for much of the season. But it is good to see us get the bounces for once. And getting the bounces can go a long way to turning around a downward slide. Had they got the bounces instead of us, the game goes from a close 4-3 win to a blowout 5-2 loss. So now we have momentum instead of more despair. We just need to keep it going for more than a god-damn game.

As for the tank, I'd much rather play decently and start to figure out what is wrong with this team than maybe get a top 5 pick. I think in the long-run figuring out which players we need to move and what style of coach we need, and creating a winning culture that keeps Pietrangelo and Schenn here is far more important than a single high-draft pick. Also we are 9 points out with at least between 1-3 games in hand on all our competition. If we are still within striking distance with as awful as we have been, we can get back into it if we play like we can. While it is rare for teams that are out of the playoffs by Thanksgiving to end up making it, it still happens. Even if it only happens like 10% of the time (I don't know the actual stat), that would equate to at least a team or two every season. I'm not saying it will happen. But I'm glad we got some lucky bounces, got the win. And I'm interested to see what they do with it.

The Hockey Guy did a YouTube video on this a little while back.



Summarized, of 16 playoff teams in a playoff berth on US Thanksgiving weekend the following number of those teams made it into the post season that year.

2017-18 11/16 68.75%
2016-17 13/16 81.25%
2015-16 12/16 75%
2014-15 13/16 81.25%
2013-14 13/16 81.25%

So on average since the last lockout, 77.5% of the teams in a playoff berth at US thanksgiving made the playoffs. The corollary is that 22.5% of playoff berths went to teams not in a playoff berth at US Thanksgiving over the past 5 seasons.

So, the turnover rate is better than 10% @Majorityof1, but we've got a lot of teams to climb over to be one of the 3.6 teams that historically play their way into the post-season after US Thanksgiving. Right now we have to pass 5 teams to make the WC2 spot (Dallas, with 1 game in hand), which we're 9 points behind with 1-4 games in hand on teams ahead of us. We're 13 points behind Colorado for a divisional spot with 2 games in hand.

Edit: (clarified the corollary statement).