OT: The place to own your takes (both good and bad)

[PainForShane]

Hi everyone,

This is the first thread I've ever created, but I've been posting enough with I think enough value that I feel like I can start a thread like this. Plus I'm the last undefeated person and after 4 weeks am clearly leading in @RABBIT 's fantasy hockey league, there is no better time to ride the wave.

Honestly surprised we don't have a thread like this already, I really feel like we need something like this. Happy to help all of us superfans because it'll be fun in the long term.

Basically the idea is this. All of us are passionate about our team / hockey in general and I for one have seen so many passionate ideas flying around on these boards and as you all know have been part of more than a few of these passionate conversations. It's honestly inspiring even though sometimes the passion gets the better of everyone involved.

So, this is the thread to:
1) Tell everyone how smart you are when you had an unpopular idea that later on ended up mostly right.

For instance... last year I was the only one banging the drum that we should play Nick Schmaltz as a center, and I did so fighting significant headwinds against quite a few posters whose opinions I absolutely respect (@_Del_ I'm specifically thinking of you and the data you enclosed as part of this discussion but there are many others). Maybe some of you don't remember my line in the sand? Well I do!

and also

2) A safe place to own up to past mistakes. For those who may not remember, I was also the one with the line in the sand about 'no skill Conor Garland' -- at some point I essentially got memed in these boards and deservedly so. I would like to tell everyone I was 100% wrong re: Garland's skill level and absolutely could not be happier about it.

So, this thread is also the place to say, "oops I was wrong" and just to be incredibly clear I was absolutely wrong about 'no skill Conor Garland' who as we all know has lots of skill even though he came Yotes primary as a grinding power forward. A power forward who's 5' 6". *shrug*

Anyway! A few suggestions:
1) You should only talk about your own takes. For instance as much as I might want to chirp another poster for arguing Chayka was a top 5 GM (sorry, couldn't resist), this thread is a place to self-own and self-congratulate. This is where you say, "I told you so" if you had an unpopular opinion years ago that has now been proven right. I've only been a member of these boards for a few years but I'm sure some of us have very long memories and are too humble to say, "I told you so" over and over again (which is actually a good thing imo).

2) You should only claim credit or accept blame when you believe you have 100% been proven right or wrong. Re: Garland example, my mistaken Garland take from a few years ago is absolutely wrong, and I own up to it. Yes, Garland was a 5th rounder (123rd overall), yes, we were lucky to get him that late (he was our 7th pick that draft), and yes, I still think his biggest contributions have nothing to do with his skill (e.g., face goal) but at this point it is obvious to everyone that he has a pretty decent amount of skill in that midget frame of his.

In another example, my hot take of "if Kessel had better linemates and top 6 deployment he would be better" is imo still unproven because we still don't know either way despite Kessel's better play this year and how he performed against Nashville in last year's playoffs. If he ends up scoring the equivalent of 60 or 70 points this year in the shortened season, then yes it'd be appropriate to post something here.

So yes. Here is the place to own up to everything you've ever argued for, both the good and the bad. I'm hoping it'll save everyone time so no one will have to search through old message threads to find out who said what however many years ago.

Go Yotes!

Click to read more...

 

[lanky]

I'm entirely biased towards almost any players we draft. I think they're all going to be great. It killed me when Chayka traded away so many of our drafted players and picks for vets.

 

[rt]

At least four out of every five assertions I make here are ultimately proven to be incorrect. You want a collection of my L’s? Just click my post history. Lol. They’re basically all L’s.

 

[Sinurgy]

I thought for sure Hanzal would win a Selke and OEL would win a Norris.

 

[_Del_]

I've never said anything bad about Garland. Ever.

I'm still not really impressed with Schmaltz at center, and still not convinced the two tallest players on that line can keep up the hustle. But it's working surprisingly well when they are trying.

You're going to say, "See?! They are untouchable", and I'm going to say that we've seen bursts of production and effort from them before that they've never been able to sustain, and say maybe this represents your chance to sell high and get rid of a questionable contract and pick up some otherwise unattainable assets...

 

[_Del_]

At least four out of every five assertions I make here are ultimately proven to be incorrect. You want a collection of my L’s? Just click my post history. Lol. They’re basically all L’s.

It's too bad the old Lauri Tukonen era posts haven't survived, for example. My top three the Turris year went JVR, Turris, Kane, in that order. I have plenty of bad takes.

The Schmaltz - Keller one seems like very early celebration, but they've been much more effective than I thought they'd be. They still get neutralized when they get played heavy, but they are putting in a lot more effort doing things they weren't doing before. I'd bitch a lot less about both if they maintained that level of effort regardless of their line or offense. That line looks great when they have the puck right now though. I don't think they've been great without it. Fortunately, Garland's heart is three sizes too large.

 

[RABBIT]

Thanks for doing this Surf. Fun idea. I thought Ballard would be a cornerstone defenseman. I thought Enver Lisin was going to be the next Russian superstar. I thought Bryzgalov was our end all be all in net for many years to come. I thought Taylor Hall was going to be the piece we needed to push us deep into the playoffs. I thought John Chayka was going to be the next guru in hockey, creating a new era in sports general management. I thought Galchenyuk was going to be a 30-40 goal scorer. I thought OEL was going to be a constant competitor for Norris. I thought Upshall was going to be a consistent top 6 scorer. I never thought I would be on HFBOARDS into my late 20’s, but I like you guys too much.

I also thought I was going to be good at my OWN fantasy hockey league, or the ones I’m competing in.

 

[PainForShane]

It's too bad the old Lauri Tukonen era posts haven't survived, for example. My top three the Turris year went JVR, Turris, Kane, in that order. I have plenty of bad takes.

The Schmaltz - Keller one seems like very early celebration, but they've been much more effective than I thought they'd be. They still get neutralized when they get played heavy, but they are putting in a lot more effort doing things they weren't doing before. I'd bitch a lot less about both if they maintained that level of effort regardless of their line or offense. That line looks great when they have the puck right now though. I don't think they've been great without it. Fortunately, Garland's heart is three sizes too large.

YES! This is the thread to apologize or whatever for takes are obviously wrong. And take credit for hot takes that were obviously right years later. I just looked that year up and Turris was actually ranked ahead of Kane in the NHL Scouting Bureau (?!) -- obvi putting JVR / Turris above Kane is silly but you were not the only one.

100% Agree that the jury is still out on Schmaltz - Keller, still too new and they're both too young still. And they've only had about a dozen games together so far. But, I also think that my 'Schmaltz should be a 1st or 2nd line center rather than a winger' take has been proven right by his play this season... and also I needed to feel better about myself given I am certainly the 'no-skill Garland' guy. Worth it.

@rt -- if you think 80% of your takes are garbage, well that means 20% of your takes are 100% correct. Personally I'd love to hear about them.

@Sinurgy That's exactly what I think this thread should become. Imo every fanbase needs one of these threads. To be clear, Hanzal winning the Selke is obviously silly... but could OEL still win a Norris? Imo it's absolutely possible Gio won one at what, 36 years old? Put a different way, if OEL were to play with an offense that could actually score (like it seems like we can this year), would any of us be surprised if he got to a 15G / 45-50 assist pace? That's enough for to be at least a Norris finalist imo. So I think the jury's still out on an OEL Norris although certainly with the benefit of hindsight Hanzal winning the Selke seems like a far too optimistic hot take.

Re: @lanky up to you if want to be more specific about loving our draftees. Were you defending Chych while everyone else thought he was a waste of space and his long term deal was ridiculous? That's what I'm thinking this thread should be about. If you were defending Chych while fighting against the grain I think the rest of us absolutely would love to know about it. And you would feel better telling everyone too.

If you were thinking Turris was the next Patrick Kane, then up to you whether you'd like to share that take. From my side, I'm glad I have a safe place to tell everyone I was an absolute moron about Garland's skill. Hopefully I'll have enough wins to counteract that in the future, time will tell

 

[RABBIT]

I don’t have a ton of good takes around here, but I do remember advocating Garland to be called up about a month before he was.

EDIT: Don’t get me started on Turris. I had a hard man crush on our future center. Fun fact, I was at a prospect development camp and Turris was coming out of the tunnel and made a snarky comment about the lack of fans in the building. Kinda had a feeling he didn’t wanna be here at that point

 

[SniperHF]

I post too much have an have a terrible memory so I'll have to think about this

One thing though: Never take my GDT posting all that seriously

 

[_Del_]

YES! This is the thread to apologize or whatever for takes are obviously wrong

You have no idea the meltdown everyone had the year we took Wheeler. If you thought the Hayton selection caused a meltdown imagine ten times that, and also eating # from fans from every other franchise. Worst day in my Coyotes fandom, and I was at the playoff game vs LA we thought would be our last game ever.
I was so angry that we didn't take Lauri Tukonen, and was a full believer in his WJC performance. Olesz would have been acceptable. I would have settled for anyone in the consensus top-15. I think hbk had Tukonen high, too, but I don't remember his lists. We tend to have the same biases towards size and motor and forwards in the first round.
I thought he was clearly the guy who stirred the drink on that line. Tukonen, of course, played five NHL games. and his linemates both suited up for the Coyotes eventually being serviceable NHL players (Korpikoski and Noke).

We could do hits and misses for every draft year haha

 

[SniperHF]

This is a bit of a random pull, but I remember myself and @_Del_ above here being pretty adamant that we'd regret the Vermette buyout/He was a "net negative" narrative.

Then we ended up playing Holland and Burmistrov for half a f***ing season because of lack of C depth and unwillingness to play Strome. Derp.



On the dumb side? Hmmm. I was pretty hard in my position that I thought Korpikoski's regression the first year was very temporary.

 

[Canis Latrans]

I thought for sure Hanzal would win a Selke and OEL would win a Norris.

You'll be sorry when OEL wins it back to back.

 

[Canis Latrans]

Once in a while, I tend to have a habit of hedging more things than not with outs so that I almost never commit to something, usually with a few conditions that are often nebulous enough to deign that I may have accounted for it.

 

[XX]

2) A safe place to own up to past mistakes. For those who may not remember, I was also the one with the line in the sand about 'no skill Conor Garland' -- at some point I essentially got memed in these boards and deservedly so. I would like to tell everyone I was 100% wrong re: Garland's skill level and absolutely could not be happier about it.

So, this thread is also the place to say, "oops I was wrong" and just to be incredibly clear I was absolutely wrong about 'no skill Conor Garland' who as we all know has lots of skill even though he came Yotes primary as a grinding power forward. A power forward who's 5' 6". *shrug*

It would be pretty impressive if someone put up 2 PPG in the Q without any skill.

Like rt, I have been around so long that I'm pretty sure you could find me fawning over Barnett moves (he's 70 and still with the rangers, good for him) that were completely insignificant or outright terrible. I still have a soft spot for Don Maloney. I don't have nearly the problem with Chayka that many of you do beyond his expenditure of draft picks/trade ammo for zero return and I've always doubted his ability to manage Tocchet (I was not super thrilled about this hire, iirc).

Like rabbit, I was super high on Lisin. The dude had all the tools you could ever want, just zero hockey sense. Kind of like Perlini, even though Perlini very much looked like a player until LA broke his wrist in the rookie tourney. He was never the same.

I still stan for Dylan Strome. No, he's not as good as Marner, but a lot of teams would have taken him over Mitch. He got done dirty by Tocchet and clueless coaches. Schmaltz has been a nice consolation prize this season.

I don't know if it's a 'good' take but I'm pretty sure @_Del_ and I were banging the "Tippett has to go" drum pretty early. The guy just starves organizations of talent and doesn't know how to coach in the salary cap era. In a way, he and Holland are the perfect pair. His palace coup with owners that were friends was pathetic.

Chychrun stepped right into the NHL and was outplaying OEL at points right after his draft. No one was upset with him. Tippett and Playfair put a stop to his enthusiasm and he stagnated until Varady came along. It's nice to see him thriving, even if the yips from his junior days show up sometimes.

I watched a ton of meh Gopher hockey to get hyped for Wheeler and then the motherf***er takes less money to sign elsewhere. I still hate him. I don't really hate Turris, because he was right to get away from Tippett (funny how that worked out) and made himself a nice little pile of money as a 2C.

I remember really liking Kolarik and Porter, because they were great for Michigan. Then they did mostly nothing. Same with Summers and Chris Brown. David LeNeveu put up super gaudy college numbers, I was sure he'd be something. Nope. Got some bad luck in his few opportunities and never got any more.

We all hated the 2011 draft I believe and recognized it was a disaster. At least Murphy panned out. Someone got really attached to Kale Kessy.

The board has gone through several migrations and one database meltdown in particular, so some things are lost to time.

Once in a while, I tend to have a habit of hedging more things than not with outs so that I almost never commit to something, usually with a few conditions that are often nebulous enough to deign that I may have accounted for it.

You're a smart poster, and should post more. But nobody should take this super seriously. At the end of the day we are bunch of crazy people that like one of the least rewarding franchises in pro sports. We don't have definitive looks on the inside or crystal balls. We just shoot the shit.

 

[JasonDemersWasOkay]

I thought tikhonov would be a surprise 20 goal scorer when he returned. I also remember thinking our 7th rounder from 2014, Edgars Kulda, would become an NHLer, but he didn’t even get signed and fizzled out in Europe.

My biggest one I think was Samuelsson. I thought he would be our next Doan with how he performed for the Oil Kings in junior. I cursed Tippett when he refused to play him at the end of the 2015 tank season and never understood why we wouldn’t give him a chance. Now I think he’s out of hockey altogether.

 

[British yote]

I thought tikhonov would be a surprise 20 goal scorer when he returned. I also remember thinking our 7th rounder from 2014, Edgars Kulda, would become an NHLer, but he didn’t even get signed and fizzled out in Europe.

My biggest one I think was Samuelsson. I thought he would be our next Doan with how he performed for the Oil Kings in junior. I cursed Tippett when he refused to play him at the end of the 2015 tank season and never understood why we wouldn’t give him a chance. Now I think he’s out of hockey altogether.

Agreed 100% on Samuelsson. Thought he would be a right wing or centre power forward for us for years. Really like his game and his first year in the AHL.

I may as well put this here so I can be destroyed in 5 years time. But I still believe that in the 24-25 season Christian Fischer will be the Zach Hyman on a line with AM34 and Keller.

 

[Prarievarg]

I thought tikhonov would be a surprise 20 goal scorer when he returned. I also remember thinking our 7th rounder from 2014, Edgars Kulda, would become an NHLer, but he didn’t even get signed and fizzled out in Europe.

My biggest one I think was Samuelsson. I thought he would be our next Doan with how he performed for the Oil Kings in junior. I cursed Tippett when he refused to play him at the end of the 2015 tank season and never understood why we wouldn’t give him a chance. Now I think he’s out of hockey altogether.

Agree about Samuelsson. Also though Ryan MacInnis for sure was gonna be a player for us. On the other hand I get all hyped up about most of our draftpicks, except Garland, thought he'd be an AHLer for life.

 

[Gwyddbwyll]

2) A safe place to own up to past mistakes. For those who may not remember, I was also the one with the line in the sand about 'no skill Conor Garland' -- at some point I essentially got memed in these boards and deservedly so. I would like to tell everyone I was 100% wrong re: Garland's skill level and absolutely could not be happier about it.

Did you have another username? Your join date is Dec 2019 and Garland's poor rookie camps were before then?

 

[Jakey53]

At least four out of every five assertions I make here are ultimately proven to be incorrect. You want a collection of my L’s? Just click my post history. Lol. They’re basically all L’s.

LOL. I think we all could join this club.

 

[MIGs Dog]

I'm 100% accurate in assessing my own limitations.

"I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a good judge of NHL talent..." -Nov 30, 2018 - commenting on Garland.

Prospect Info: - 2015 NHL Draft: #123 - Conor Garland RW

 

[Gwyddbwyll]

The mistakes I remember making are ones from a while ago when I paid much more attention than I do now. I'm happy to just watch rather than try to make predictions.

I absolutely loved the Freddie Sjostrom pick. All speed, hustle and great attitude. Had some highlight reel goals in Calgary and was clearly going to be better than that inferior sidekick named Getzlaf. Similarly I loved Mikkel Boedker's game. Just really adaptable player who could do most things well. Both players just peaked early and plateaued big time.

Aku Raty is someone I'm keeping tabs on - I think he could be a valuable player with the ability to play up and down the lines but he doesn't seem to be particularly rated on here.

 

[ParisSaintGermain]

Jakub Koreis, finally our first time center.

On that basis:

- I am surprised I am still allowed by the mods to post here
- Further than that, I am also surprised that I am still allowed to have a computer and an internet connection.

 

[The Feckless Puck]

The catalogue of things I've been wrong about is about the length of the Bhagavad Gita, but none more so than my head-scratching stanning of Andy Miele.

Not even my man-crush on Enver Lisin can make up for that (the guy was lightning in a straight line but had no lateral skill or speed at all).

 

[_Del_]

I don't know if it's a 'good' take but I'm pretty sure @_Del_ and I were banging the "Tippett has to go" drum pretty early.

I think it was you, WJF, and Remo months before I jumped on board.
Even as late as 2013-14 and two missed playoff experiences, I defended Tipp and put most on the players.

Dave Tippett's future after not making the playoffs for 2 straight seasons

This room needs a wake up call, and if that's trading someone we don't want to trade, then that's what we should do. If I'm GMDM I'm shipping out or waiving Schlemko and Halpern and thinking about moving core players.
Play Rundblad and at least see what we've got. We have bottom six guys in the system. See where they are at Brown, Lessio, Rieder, even Miele who I don't particular care for (and where the hell is Brandon McMillan if we need a pk'er). Make DT play them. Tell him this season is a lost cause and we want to look at next year. He gets a mulligan, just see where the kids are at. Maybe the kids will actually listen to the coach. Tipp looks as pissed as I am disgusted. And that's a lot.
It looks like we're not making the playoffs this year. Especially if this is what we're getting on the ice. Trade off guys that aren't in the long term plans and some of the fillers and start the auditions. I'd look at major changes in the lineup in the offseason. If we're still brain-dead with no heartbeat, then I think about saving Tippett from an aneurysm by canning him.

Of course, they decided to scratch Rundblad for 50 consecutive games that year, play no youth, do no evaluation, absolutely zero development, and whined whenever a UFA retirement club buddy got traded.
Then the next year we started our 56 pt season campaign (we started 6-3-2, as a precautionary tale on how great we are), and doubled down on doing all the same things that made us awful and still wouldn't evaluate anyone, and I turned hard on both the gutless country club and the asshat making terrible decisions behind the bench.


I still think Summers and Brown could have had useful NHL careers if they had been drafted by a different club. We sat on them long enough that other teams would rather give the time to their own younger kids by the time they were liberated. Summer was 25 or 26 when he was finally cut free and dealt as part of the Duke/Yandle trade. The Rags had plenty of young defensemen to play and develop instead of trying out a mid-twenties defenseman with a handful of NHL games over five seasons under his belt.