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2022-2023 Around The League

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Metallo said:
Strangely I like them and never liked the Ducks gear before.:dunno:
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On the ice I think they look ridiculous. If they had just gone with their regular black pants it would’ve been fine.

FTR I never cared much for the film and haven’t watched any of the sequels or the TV series.
 
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So the Ducks are absolutely awful...looks to me that Zegras and Bedard will be the new faces of West Coast Hockey. The next generation of hockey players will love them.
 
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Eakins is an utterly terrible coach, but Anaheim would much rather secure finishing bottom 4 than anything else right now. Add to that they are a budget team and the spending bump that would happen from firing this early just isn't worth it to them. He'll wait and then hire Groulx in the summer.
 
Pokecheque said:
Yzerman had a chance to fire Blashill after the end of last season, he apparently didn’t because he felt Blash was still developing talent well. And that’s fine, they waited, couple key players had breakout seasons, and when it was time to take the next step, Yzerman swung the axe.

My concern if I’m a Ducks fan is if talent development has stalled. Sure feels like it has. No coach is gonna swoop in and save the season, but I think Verbeek has to ask if not going with an interim guy to finish things out is gonna make things worse long term.

I feel bad for Eakins, because he’s a really smart guy and very good coach at the AHL level who’s never gotten an actual good team in the NHL to coach. That said, I don’t think his approach appears to work in the NHL.
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Meh, Eakins has consistently since his Edmonton days had some weird superiority complex where he's got to be the smartest guy in the room at all times.

Failed tenure in Edmonton and now a failed tenure in Anaheim, I'd be shocked to see him get another NHL job. He hasn't shown any semblance of successful NHL level coaching in all his years. And I don't know about Anaheim but it's very well known that the players in Edmonton couldn't stand him.
 
Calgary should have scorched earth it this offseason. If this is how they look in year 1 of this regime yikes.


Did Verbeek actually say he’s not firing Eakins til the offseason, that’s hilarious.
 
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Chiarelli said:
Calgary should have scorched earth it this offseason. If this is how they look in year 1 of this regime yikes.


Did Verbeek actually say he’s not firing Eakins til the offseason, that’s hilarious.
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Scorched earth wouldn't have been supported by ownership and would have gotten most of the front office fired. I can get the reasoning of it, but that is very difficult to do in reality. Each team at the end of windows goes through this exact problem. I think Calgary will gel and get it together at some point, but all their moves were to win this year... maybe next with the window slamming shut after that (though they'll try to Boston it for a while).
 
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dahrougem2 said:
Meh, Eakins has consistently since his Edmonton days had some weird superiority complex where he's got to be the smartest guy in the room at all times.

Failed tenure in Edmonton and now a failed tenure in Anaheim, I'd be shocked to see him get another NHL job. He hasn't shown any semblance of successful NHL level coaching in all his years. And I don't know about Anaheim but it's very well known that the players in Edmonton couldn't stand him.
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I get it. I thought Eakins was done at the NHL level the last time, but can't deny the man knows how to win at the AHL level. I imagine he'll find himself there again at some point, though this next time he'll have to be insanely successful to even get another sniff.

He reminds me of Tom Renney, a guy who knew the X's and O's of the game and can teach it to the kids but struggles to communicate the game properly in the NHL. I also think he has some great ideas but he doesn't really deliver them all that great. The whole "the perfect game is no hits" exchange is an example of that. I was listening to NHL Radio and they had an Edmonton media guy who said he remembers players yawning when Eakins would be talking for like 15 minutes during practice in front of a whiteboard

Anyway, not worth debating too much, just kinda surprised that Eakins has lasted this long. Ducks just look completely uninspired at the moment. I thought they were setting up Bouchard to be the heir apparent but they were one-and-done with that guy real fast.

They also waited WAAAAAAAY too long to trade Gibson but that's another story for another day.
 
Jakub Voracek says he's likely not playing this year due to a concussion, and there's speculation he may be done. A shame, dude has talent in droves but it just never seems to have come together for him for various reasons, either in Philly or both stints in Lumbus.
 
Pokecheque said:
Jakub Voracek says he's likely not playing this year due to a concussion, and there's speculation he may be done. A shame, dude has talent in droves but it just never seems to have come together for him for various reasons, either in Philly or both stints in Lumbus.
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Add one more reason to the pile of why Columbus needs to rebuild around their 1st pick 2023.

They gotta find a way to unload Laine and Gaudreau to speed up that rebuild and it's not going to be an easy task. Laine's value is at its lowest and Gaudreau just committed long term there...he's too old for a rebuild.

Jarmo took so many bad decisions.
 
Balthazar said:
Add one more reason to the pile of why Columbus needs to rebuild around their 1st pick 2023.

They gotta find a way to unload Laine and Gaudreau to speed up that rebuild and it's not going to be an easy task. Laine's value is at its lowest and Gaudreau just committed long term there...he's too old for a rebuild.

Jarmo took so many bad decisions.
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Again, if you're gonna cite bad decisions, it's the ones made by the two guys before Jarmo that made this mess. Ownership not likely going to sign off on blowing it up.

They don't really need to unload anyone in order to obtain a high pick at this point. May as well just take Bedard/Fantilli/whomever and add him to the mix. They already appear to have a pretty good prospect base to build off of.

Bad luck for both players invovled in that deal. Cam Atkinson hasn't played this year I don't think.

FTR the last team I recall that truly blew it the hell up was Buffalo and they're STILL working their way back over a decade later.
 
Pokecheque said:
Again, if you're gonna cite bad decisions, it's the ones made by the two guys before Jarmo that made this mess.
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How? Only injuries will save Jarmo from aiming at the 2nd wildcard playoff spot again this year. Either you're statistically the worst team in the playoffs or you're in no man's land. That's shitty GM'ing.
 
Balthazar said:
Add one more reason to the pile of why Columbus needs to rebuild around their 1st pick 2023.

They gotta find a way to unload Laine and Gaudreau to speed up that rebuild and it's not going to be an easy task. Laine's value is at its lowest and Gaudreau just committed long term there...he's too old for a rebuild.

Jarmo took so many bad decisions.
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Columbus' moves have to do with the idea of a budget and keeping fan interested. Hard to make it as a small market team, when you're tanking. This year is really just injuries all over the place. I think Columbus is up to 11 different defensemen played and 18 forwards. Outside Philly, they are the most injured team in the league. Their attendance issues this season are not a good sign for the overall health and budget of the team. If they go down a 3-4 year path, you might as well start talk about ownership selling and moving.

With that, their U23 group is phenomenal. Johnson, Sillinger, Marchenko, Jiricek, Mateychuck, Malatesta, Chinakov, etc. If they even get close to the haul of 22 in 23, they'll have a top 5 group that is setup nicely for a 24-25 turn around anyway.

The Laine/PLD situation was just a mess in general. I know the talent on Laine is vast, but I'd never want to build around that guy. A not as flashy trade would have been the better choice.
 
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henchman24 said:
Columbus' moves have to do with the idea of a budget and keeping fan interested. Hard to make it as a small market team, when you're tanking.
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As far as fan interest goes, selling a young and exciting team with a bright future >>>>> 10 years of being a bubble team like CBJ, MIN and MTL.
 
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Balthazar said:
How? Only injuries will save Jarmo from aiming at the 2nd wildcard playoff spot again this year. Either you're statistically the worst team in the playoffs or you're in no man's land. That's shitty GM'ing.
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As Henchy has pointed out this is as much about keeping the franchise relevant in a smaller, softer market as much as it's about building a winner. The two previous GMs squandered a lot of years and a lot of money where they could have and should have built/rebuilt the right way, and simply chose not to. MacLean got greedy after a better-than-expected inaugural season and signed a whole lot of ineffectual players and drafted disastrously. Howson took over and made the bold move to trade Rick Nash, but then immediately used the term "reshaping" instead of "rebuilding" which reportedly annoyed the hell outta Nash, who was essentially told they were blowing it up. Jarmo inherited a doubled-down-on mess where he was allowed ZERO room for error, and to be fair he has erred in some areas (more like none of the gambles he's taken have paid off, which is more bad luck than anything else).

They weren't expected to contend but injuries have just imploded them. They could've made some noise if they had stayed even remotely healthy. But I will agree getting Laine and not moving on from him may have been a mistake, but it ain't like Dubois made things any easier.

If Jarmo made ONE big mistake IMO, it was keeping Torts around one year too long.
 
Balthazar said:
As far as fan interest goes, selling a young and exciting team with a bright future >>>>> 10 years of being a bubble team like CBJ, MIN and MTL.
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It really doesn't put butts in the seats and it is a myth that it does. Columbus in the 'meddling' team era was well over 16k per year, almost 17k after Bread left. The Richards era where they tried to sell an up and coming team was in the 14-15k ranges. New Jersey as the best up and coming team in the league is struggling to beat 14k consistently in attendance. In their meddling years they were well over 15k a year.

Even here the Avs didn't put butts back in the seats until they had won a round. Rebuilds and sucking for a period of time really hurts the bottom line of franchises. For many organizations, paying the bills is as much, if not more important than winning 4-5 years from now. Very few organizations can tear down and rebuild with full support of ownership. Avs are an exception instead of a rule. Hell, even Buffalo is an exception. Many teams of the Columbus, Carolina, Anaheim, San Jose, Isles, St Louis, etc sort of ilk, just can't go that path because of the financials.
 
Didn't realize Joonas Donskoi got injured in training camp and hasn't played at all this season.
 
HockeyFan100 said:
No wonder why Seattle is doing well this year. :sarcasm:
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the_fan said:
Yes, and I think Kuemper got injured in his last game with Caps
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Toffoli (accidentally from the looks of it) elbowed Darcy in the face, hence his reaction by whacking Toffoli in the leg with his stick afterwards. Given his concussion history that could very serious.

Side note: I've been harping good and bad about these new RR's and yikes the Devils rolled out theirs the other night. I've no idea why in recent years they're so intent on honoring their past as the Rockies/Scouts when they rightfully didn't give a damn about it before. Not only did they bring out an atrocious "throwback" uniform, they made just enough alterations to mess up their perfectly acceptable, albeit boring, regular ensemble.
 
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