New to HF

[Fourier]

Hey Guys!

After much time following hockey and scowering hfboards, I decided to finally make an account.

I'm a 24 year old lifelong Oiler fan living outside of Toronto (so with the exception of the finals run, McDavid and Sam Gagner's 8 point game it's been rough) and I'm looking forward to talking hockey, speculate and complain/praise Chia all with you guys!

I am very new to hf, so I hope I don't get hazed too hard

Given that you live outside Toronto things are about to get even tougher. The parade route is planned so I hope you have thick skin. I've just started building my bunker.

 

[BoldNewLettuce]

If you can post metal videos or make delightful ms paint doodles than you will fill a gaping void.

 

[Jumptheshark]

My advice is to stay off the main boards

or any board till training camp--summer time threads are in full affect

 

[BlackDogg]

So what was your take on the Hall trade? ?

kidding

 

[Fourier]

So what was your take on the Hall trade? ?

kidding

Translated: Are you a Hatfield or a McCoy.

 

[frag2]

Toronto fans will. They love the mental gymnastics and using different stats only when it fits their argument. One day Corsi matters, the next its P/60, the day after its age, contract, and potential, the next its expected goals per 60, and the next its precise sample sizes. The list goes on and on depending on which stat supports their player. If you want to feel better about your own intelligence just hop in one of those arguments and enjoy reading some very very poor logic and reasoning.

isn't that just zeke though? or does he create his own 'advanced' stats?

i dont remember

 

[nightfighter]

If you can post metal videos or make delightful ms paint doodles than you will fill a gaping void.

wut did we lose headcrusher or something?

Love the name btw, @BendItLikePeckham

 

[ThreeOfAPerfectPair]

TIL Theo Peckham plays in a 3vs3 pro hockey league and was 8th in points last season.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Always looking for fresh ideas to trade Draisaitl.

Wait, what, oh...

Welcome to the board. Not the best time to join it offseason, but then again the worst time to join it would be reading any Game Day Thread or Post Game Thread comments of which are 90% in the moment and related to the last 15secs that ever occurred on ice. Consider it a myopic goldfish view.

This should probably be an in general "welcome to the board" type thread, not just for one poster. Would be good to have a generic one to welcome people before they get conked on the head with replies..

 

[Cloned]

This should probably be an in general "welcome to the board" type thread, not just for one poster. Would be good to have a generic one to welcome people before they get conked on the head with replies..

Did you get two?

 

[Drivesaitl]

Did you get two?

Says "cloned"





ps, no, but I got the secret Big Kahuna parade both times as well as a NT contract, endorsement deal, and twice the pay I was getting elsewhere to anonymously post online. Oh, and I got this ugly Conklin jacket, its a sieve and lets in the rain.

 

[Debbie Mathers]

Hi everyone,

might as well jump on the bandwagon and introduce myself as a new user.
I am German and grew up in a rural part of Bavaria. I started supporting my local hockey team when I was around 14 years old. The team played in the 3rd tier of German hockey at the time. Back then, only two non-German players were allowed on each team. My idol was a Canadian right wing called Kevin Pastachak - not sure any of you have ever heard of him. I thought he was truly world class. I mean, world class by German third-tier standards anyway. I will never forget his first game for us - he scored 5 goals and 5 assists in an 11-1 home win. Those were the days...
I got to talk to him once and found out that he was basically a part-timer. He used to work in a mine in Canada over the summer.

When I was around 20, the team went bust. This was pretty common in German hockey at the time, due to ever more sponsors shifting their money to football (or soccer, as you may call it). I had moved to Munich at that point and started attending games of the local team there, which was playing in the top division. It wasn't quite the same to me, but I got a bit into it after a while - and then that team folded as well. Soon afterwards, the top division split from the German Hockey Federation and became a franchise league. That was the point when I basically quit watching hockey, and so did many fellow fans. A franchise league is a very "uneuropean" thing, as all European team sports are played in a pyramid system with promotion and relegation, and in Europe, you grow up knowing no different, so a lot of people where against it. The counterargument to this was, of course, that in German hockey you did in fact not have relegation anyway, because every season so many teams folded that even the rock-bottom club would still stay in the league, which needed to be filled up. But still... I basically gave up on hockey and watched next to nothing for over 20 years.
Then, around 16 months ago, I met an old friend from back in the day, and he told me about Leon Draisaitl having a good season with the Oilers, and a certain Connor McDavid leading the NHL in scoring as a 19-year-old. I had read about Draisaitl in the papers, and I vividly remembered THAT penalty-shot his dad missed at the Olympic quarterfinal shoot-out - ouch. However, I had never heard of Connor McDavid and found it kind of hard to believe that someone that age could lead the NHL in scoring. I mean, I had never followed the NHL, because in my younger years, there was no internet, and the NHL was not shown on German TV, but I knew it was still regarded as the strongest league in the world by far. So I decided to watch a few highlight videos of the Oilers and kind of got hooked. I remember shouting at the screen "Eh ref, that was red-line offside!!" in the beginning, and it was only at the umpteenth time that it dawned on me there might have been a rule change...

Having watched highlight videos of every Oilers game last season, and having watched around 25 full games live on the internet (most of them at the start of the season, for obvious reasons), I now felt it was a good time to register on this site in order to explain to you guys what the game of hockey is all about!

Sorry, just kidding. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time reading HF during the last season, and a lot of things regarding the game of hockey itself, the franchise system, the cap, trades, the draft and so on, which I had absolutely no idea about a year ago, have become somewhat clearer to me. However, every once in a while there is something I just don't understand, and I really hope it won't bother you guys too much if I put a question out here and there. Some of these questions might sound incredibly stupid to you, but it will all be genuine questions. I'm not the type to wind anyone up.

So here comes my first question, regarding the cap next year:
I have seen a lot of posts saying, we have x amount of cap space and only need to sign Nurse and Strome. But what about Bouchard and Yamamoto? I assume Bouchard will be signed to an ELC, won't he? And if (and I know, it's a big if) both of them stay on the team for the entire season, am I correct to assume that their salaries will count towards the cap? They will obviously only be on ELC money, but what if the unlikely happens and one of JP, Bouchard or Yamamoto hits bonuses? Even without bonuses, Bouchard's and Yamamoto's combined ELC money should be around 1.8M$... is that not a problem with the cap situation being so tight? Or is, as I suspect, one of my assumptions incorrect?

 

[Drivesaitl]

Welcome to the board, enjoyed your post, also the humor.

My parents came from Germany. Dad near Koln, mom near Luxembourg border. You know we have Draisaitl AND Rieder now right? Its nice that the Oilers are getting some love in Germany and not typical you would hear much about the NHL there.

The Oilers are playing games to start next season in Stockholm, and Koln, you probably know that, and that the games are already sold out and a big deal. Hopefully the Oilers start the season well out there. They don't get back home for two weeks, go straight on a road trip after the European games.

I approve of relegation. From a fan point of view it makes sense, you don't want a lot of uncompetitive teams in the league and also if you are a good lower tier team nice to get a chance to move up. I would prefer that. But here as well pro sports is all economics now. So that the league sells franchise fees that are very expensive now and this for the privilege of being a member team in the NHL.

I just did some research. Kevin Pastachak's son is now playing for the same Western Canada Junior team, the Estevan Bruins.

Kevin himself is coaching and while I don't know much about him there is this that I googled;

Incident shakes up AA bantam coaching situation


heres his alltime Germany stats;

RODI-DB - Die deutsche Eishockey-Datenbank

Looks like he liked Germany as well, played his adult career there. he played for Estevan Bruins in 83-84. I can't find any stats for that.

 

[McFlyingV]

isn't that just zeke though? or does he create his own 'advanced' stats?

i dont remember

He's probably the worst for it, but I see it in every single Leafs related thread. They'll have you believe Bergeron is why Matthews sucked in the playoffs when Bergeron missed a game and Matthews only played approximately 25% of his 5v5 minutes against him. Ahhh I hate Leafs fans.

 

[McFlyingV]

So here comes my first question, regarding the cap next year:
I have seen a lot of posts saying, we have x amount of cap space and only need to sign Nurse and Strome. But what about Bouchard and Yamamoto? I assume Bouchard will be signed to an ELC, won't he? And if (and I know, it's a big if) both of them stay on the team for the entire season, am I correct to assume that their salaries will count towards the cap? They will obviously only be on ELC money, but what if the unlikely happens and one of JP, Bouchard or Yamamoto hits bonuses? Even without bonuses, Bouchard's and Yamamoto's combined ELC money should be around 1.8M$... is that not a problem with the cap situation being so tight? Or is, as I suspect, one of my assumptions incorrect?

I'd expect Bouchard to sign an ELC soon. If they both stay on the team it means other guys get sent down to the minors. You're allowed to bury around 1M cap hit per player in the minors so if their cap hit is under that they don't count against the cap in the minors. Bonuses (or at least the big ones) are hard for players to hit, and only McDavid and Draisaitl have hit full bonuses in recent years. It won't be a problem if Yamamoto and/or Bouchard make the team as their contracts will basically just take up the space of whoever gets put on waivers/sent down to the minors to make room for them. Even if they did hit their bonuses (which is rather unlikely to the point that it would take us over the cap) you're allowed to have those bonuses carry over to next years cap.

 

[Soli]

Having watched highlight videos of every Oilers game last season, and having watched around 25 full games live on the internet (most of them at the start of the season, for obvious reasons), I now felt it was a good time to register on this site in order to explain to you guys what the game of hockey is all about!

Sorry, just kidding. I have spent a ridiculous amount of time reading HF during the last season, and a lot of things regarding the game of hockey itself, the franchise system, the cap, trades, the draft and so on, which I had absolutely no idea about a year ago, have become somewhat clearer to me. However, every once in a while there is something I just don't understand, and I really hope it won't bother you guys too much if I put a question out here and there. Some of these questions might sound incredibly stupid to you, but it will all be genuine questions. I'm not the type to wind anyone up.

So here comes my first question, regarding the cap next year:
I have seen a lot of posts saying, we have x amount of cap space and only need to sign Nurse and Strome. But what about Bouchard and Yamamoto? I assume Bouchard will be signed to an ELC, won't he? And if (and I know, it's a big if) both of them stay on the team for the entire season, am I correct to assume that their salaries will count towards the cap? They will obviously only be on ELC money, but what if the unlikely happens and one of JP, Bouchard or Yamamoto hits bonuses? Even without bonuses, Bouchard's and Yamamoto's combined ELC money should be around 1.8M$... is that not a problem with the cap situation being so tight? Or is, as I suspect, one of my assumptions incorrect?

Lol, enjoyed that.

As @McFlyingV was saying, you can bury a contract in the minors for $925k of its contract and caphit. So if you bury a player in the minors (waive a player for assignment to the minors without being claimed by another team) with a $1M contract, you have a $75k caphit hit.

As far as I know (AFAIK), if players hit their bonuses, it effects how much cap you have for next season following the bonus being attained. I believe the term that will lead you into a rabbit hole of cap discussions is "tag room".

Welcome to the boards, both of you.

 

[McFlyingV]

Lol, enjoyed that.

As @McFlyingV was saying, you can bury a contract in the minors for $925k of its contract and caphit. So if you bury a player in the minors (waive a player for assignment to the minors without being claimed by another team) with a $1M contract, you have a $75k caphit hit.

As far as I know (AFAIK), if players hit their bonuses, it effects how much cap you have for next season following the bonus being attained. I believe the term that will lead you into a rabbit hole of cap discussions is "tag room".

Welcome to the boards, both of you.

The amount you can bury is actually up to 1.025M this upcoming season per player.

Bonus overage to the next season is however far over the cap that the bonuses take you. One interesting thing if I remember correctly is that LTIR actually hurts you when it comes to bonus overage. For example if your cap team is 4M below the cap, but you have a 4M LTIR contract any performance bonuses would then accumulate as cap overage as you don't get the LTIR relief on them.

 

[Debbie Mathers]

Welcome to the board, enjoyed your post, also the humor.

My parents came from Germany. Dad near Koln, mom near Luxembourg border. You know we have Draisaitl AND Rieder now right? Its nice that the Oilers are getting some love in Germany and not typical you would hear much about the NHL there.

The Oilers are playing games to start next season in Stockholm, and Koln, you probably know that, and that the games are already sold out and a big deal. Hopefully the Oilers start the season well out there. They don't get back home for two weeks, go straight on a road trip after the European games.

I approve of relegation. From a fan point of view it makes sense, you don't want a lot of uncompetitive teams in the league and also if you are a good lower tier team nice to get a chance to move up. I would prefer that. But here as well pro sports is all economics now. So that the league sells franchise fees that are very expensive now and this for the privilege of being a member team in the NHL.

I just did some research. Kevin Pastachak's son is now playing for the same Western Canada Junior team, the Estevan Bruins.

Kevin himself is coaching and while I don't know much about him there is this that I googled;

Incident shakes up AA bantam coaching situation


heres his alltime Germany stats;

RODI-DB - Die deutsche Eishockey-Datenbank

Looks like he liked Germany as well, played his adult career there. he played for Estevan Bruins in 83-84. I can't find any stats for that.

Thanks for your reply! I know that the Oilers will play a game in Köln at the start of the season. I thought about getting a ticket, but the whole package with accomodation and travel would have been a bit steep money-wise. Will have to watch it on a stream.

I'm glad to hear that Kevin Pastachak is doing well for himself. He seemed a genuinely nice and humble guy.

 

[Debbie Mathers]

I'd expect Bouchard to sign an ELC soon. If they both stay on the team it means other guys get sent down to the minors. You're allowed to bury around 1M cap hit per player in the minors so if their cap hit is under that they don't count against the cap in the minors. Bonuses (or at least the big ones) are hard for players to hit, and only McDavid and Draisaitl have hit full bonuses in recent years. It won't be a problem if Yamamoto and/or Bouchard make the team as their contracts will basically just take up the space of whoever gets put on waivers/sent down to the minors to make room for them. Even if they did hit their bonuses (which is rather unlikely to the point that it would take us over the cap) you're allowed to have those bonuses carry over to next years cap.

Thanks for explaining that. But... if and when Strome and Nurse are signed, we will still only have 13 forwards and 7 D on the roster. Am I right to assume that the full roster will be 14 forwards and 8 D? If yes, that's two extra players whose wages will count to the cap...

Also, which players are on two-way contracts and likely to be candidates for Bakersfield? I would assume Gravel, Aberg and Rattie? Is any of them waver-exempt?

 

[McFlyingV]

Thanks for explaining that. But... if and when Strome and Nurse are signed, we will still only have 13 forwards and 7 D on the roster. Am I right to assume that the full roster will be 14 forwards and 8 D? If yes, that's two extra players whose wages will count to the cap...

Also, which players are on two-way contracts and likely to be candidates for Bakersfield? I would assume Gravel, Aberg and Rattie? Is any of them waver-exempt?

23 man roster is the limit including goalies, but you can have as few as 20 on the active roster. Most teams obviously won't carry that few due to the risk of a player getting sick or injured in morning skate before a game.

The only waiver eligible players would be Yamamoto (which could be a reason he starts AHL if he doesn't kill it in preseason), Puljujarvi and Koskinen. All of Gravel, Aberg and Rattie are on 1-way contracts, but that has no meaning on cap or waivers. It just means Katz has to pay their whole salary whether they're in the AHL or NHL.

 

[Aerrol]

@Debbie Mathers welcome to the boards! It's always really cool to see people from non-traditional hockey countries join in the conversation. Especially Germany for me, as I remember when we drafted Draisaitl, a lot of discussion about how it would be huge for hockey in Germany to finally have a true German NHL star. Nice to see that in effect now!

As for asking questions about the league and how things work, I wouldn't feel bad about that. I don't think I've seen almost anyone here in my years be cruel about a genuine question. All the animosity and sarcasm comes out in response to stupid opinions strongly held (e.g. everyone's opinion here on the board ). Lots of dedicated, very knowledgeable posters here who are more than happy to answer questions. I still ask them occasionally, especially about Cap/Contract issues.

 

[Debbie Mathers]

23 man roster is the limit including goalies, but you can have as few as 20 on the active roster. Most teams obviously won't carry that few due to the risk of a player getting sick or injured in morning skate before a game.

The only waiver eligible players would be Yamamoto (which could be a reason he starts AHL if he doesn't kill it in preseason), Puljujarvi and Koskinen. All of Gravel, Aberg and Rattie are on 1-way contracts, but that has no meaning on cap or waivers. It just means Katz has to pay their whole salary whether they're in the AHL or NHL.

Ah... I wasn't aware the roster is limited to 23 players. Capfriendly shows three teams with more than 23 players as we speak. I suppose those teams will have to reduce their rosters at some point.

So we could, for example, have 2 goalies, 7 D and 14 forwards. After the Strome signing, we now have a shade under 5M$ in cap space. A fair chunk of that will probably go to the Nurse extension, and that would bring our roster to 22 players.

That basically means that if Yam and Bouchard were to make the team, one other player would have to start the season in Bakersfield, right?

You said Yam is waiver-eligible. Am I correct in assuming if he starts the season on the big team, we basically can't waive him to Bakersfield because he would instantly be snapped up by someone else as soon as he appears on the waiver list?

But... could we theoretically send Yam from the big team back to junior? Or would he appear on the waiver list as well in that case? If that case is possible at all? And does all of this apply right from the get-go, or only after he has played more than nine games?

Oh man, there is so many questions to be asked!

Some more:

You said Gravel, Aberg and Rattie are on one-way contracts. What does that mean? Are they only able to move in one direction? Like from the AHL to the NHL? Or vice versa? Or that only one move per season in either direction is allowed? Damn, this is all real tricky!

 

[Debbie Mathers]

@Debbie Mathers welcome to the boards! It's always really cool to see people from non-traditional hockey countries join in the conversation. Especially Germany for me, as I remember when we drafted Draisaitl, a lot of discussion about how it would be huge for hockey in Germany to finally have a true German NHL star. Nice to see that in effect now!

As for asking questions about the league and how things work, I wouldn't feel bad about that. I don't think I've seen almost anyone here in my years be cruel about a genuine question. All the animosity and sarcasm comes out in response to stupid opinions strongly held (e.g. everyone's opinion here on the board ). Lots of dedicated, very knowledgeable posters here who are more than happy to answer questions. I still ask them occasionally, especially about Cap/Contract issues.

Thanks for that reply, I was laughing so hard... if I let some of my friends know that you referred to Germany as a non-traditional hockey country, HFOil would probably have a few new registered users very soon, and the moderators would be doing extra shifts!
Seriously, Germany is very much a traditional hockey market. Germany is also still a traditional Handball market, and, to a lesser extent, a traditional tennis market - at least since the times of Graf, Becker and Stich. It's just that football has hugely increased its percentage of TV time amongst all sports in Germany in the last 25 years or so - to the extent that hardly any other sport is shown live on the main German channels.

As far as asking questions is concerned - so far it has gone really well! Thanks everyone!

 

[Aerrol]

Thanks for that reply, I was laughing so hard... if I let some of my friends know that you referred to Germany as a non-traditional hockey country, HFOil would probably have a few new registered users very soon, and the moderators would be doing extra shifts!
Seriously, Germany is very much a traditional hockey market. Germany is also still a traditional Handball market, and, to a lesser extent, a traditional tennis market - at least since the times of Graf, Becker and Stich. It's just that football has hugely increased its percentage of TV time amongst all sports in Germany in the last 25 years or so - to the extent that hardly any other sport is shown live on the main German channels.

As far as asking questions is concerned - so far it has gone really well! Thanks everyone!

I'm actually curious to hear more about this - I had no idea. What do you mean by traditional hockey market? That it has been played a long time there? I was under the impression that it certainly has never been very popular in Germany. Ice hockey, at least.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I'm actually curious to hear more about this - I had no idea. What do you mean by traditional hockey market? That it has been played a long time there? I was under the impression that it certainly has never been very popular in Germany. Ice hockey, at least.

Germany has had Hockey eras before, has had somewhat competitive sides before, participation before, and a lot of club teams, leagues.

Really for at least 50 yrs a lot of Canadian kids and others go spend their career playing in Germany.

Theres also been German Ice Hockey leagues and championships longer than there has been a modern day NHL.

Germany also has 2 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals in Olympic mens hockey.

Germany have regularly medaled or placed high in World Championships.

Germany have often been the Deutschland Cup champions.

Germany even played in one of the original Canada Cups and was good enough to be there. In that historic tournament Germany was outgunned by the few top nations but tied the Czechs, played close games against US and Sweden.

The hockey world isn't really all that big and Germany would often have to be considered one of the ten top nations. Probably better now in the Draisaitl era and as recent Olympic glory has shown.