Salary Cap: 24-25 Salary Thread Crosbicles Volume MXVI: End of season wrap up

[Peat]

Yeah... well... anyway... is it just me or has Wendy's gone like... WAY downhill the last ten-ish years?

It used to be a favorite guilty fast food pleasure but I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot barge pole, now.

I've never had Wendys. I keep telling myself I should try them but if I'm doing a burger, so many other places have more interesting offerings.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Depends greatly on the location. I have a Wendys in town that's absolute garbage, but there's another one that I go to which is much better.

Fair enough point but I would say consistency across locations is the hallmark of a quality fast food chain at least by my metrics. Burger King and KFC suffer badly from the same issue you bring up.

They’re dead to me after getting rid of the vanilla frosty.

Word. Valid.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Yeah... well... anyway... is it just me or has Wendy's gone like... WAY downhill the last ten-ish years?

It used to be a favorite guilty fast food pleasure but I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot barge pole, now.

I think all of fast food has just gotten way worse. Compared to McDonald's, Wendy's is like a luxury meal.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

I've never had Wendys. I keep telling myself I should try them but if I'm doing a burger, so many other places have more interesting offerings.

I wanted to hate Shake Shack bc it seemed like more fast casual millennial slop

But as far as $10 burgers go it’s pretty solid if you like the thinner smashburger tbh.

 

[Gurglesons]

What big swing should the Pens take this off season? The only one I can see as being feasible is trying to sign Marner. They should do that.

Beyond that? Doubt there's anything in trade that would be big enough to move the dial towards contention.

I don't know. I'm not a GM, I don't know what trades are available to Dubas.

Washington signed Matt Roy, added Chychrun and PLD. The Eastern Conference is a pit. I think you could make moves that get us in the playoffs next year if you want to.

Not terribly relevant to where the Pens are currently. They've been out of the playoffs for 3 years and have been moving players.

You could argue the Pens should be moving even more guys I suppose.

The Penguins are not closer to making the playoffs and not closer to drafting or acquiring real legitimate pieces to shape the post-Crosby era.

Dubas has seemed pretty committed to the current plan.

But, Dubas spent 10 minutes talking about Washington and made funny quotes about shit in one hand and hope in the other.

I don't really see how this team mimics the Washington model. So basically Dubas is straight out coming out and saying this team is in purgatory and we just have to accept it.

I think that's loser shit personally.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I've never had Wendys. I keep telling myself I should try them but if I'm doing a burger, so many other places have more interesting offerings.

Meh at this point you aren't missing out. 15 years ago maybe but even then their fries were a complete roll of the dice.

Burgers and especially their chicken sandwiches were the shit back then, though. And man... like @eXile3 said... their original Frostys were the shit.

Old yellow-box Wendy's pre-acquisition was far superior.

 

[Gurglesons]

I've never had Wendys. I keep telling myself I should try them but if I'm doing a burger, so many other places have more interesting offerings.

Bacon Cheeseburger and a Baked Potato is always a solid choice.

Best fast food is obviously Taco Bell though.

 

[PamBallam]

I do fine it hilarious that our GM is complaining about complacency while we have a coach that literally cannot be fired.

 

[Darren McCord]

Also, I'm very confused how Dubas expects to follow "the Washington" model by trading EK and with Malkin likely retiring next year.

So pretty much backstrom retiring and moving on from orlov.

The caps have ovi, Carlson and Wilson left from the cups. That’s like penguins having sid rust and letang.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

But he DID play most of the year on the top unit, right?

Yeah, he was their #2 scorer after Konecny (overall).

 

[Big Friggin Dummy]

I don't think you realize just how awful Chicago and San Jose were this year if you think that the Pens could have competed with that. Even without all of those three the Pens still wouldn't have come close to out tanking those teams.

I didn't say this team would out tank those teams. I said it's silly to suggest a 38 year old playing essentially by himself would be capable of preventing his team from being genuinely terrible. Not this "hovering around 6th to 9th" bad, but terrible-terrible.

All you can do is make the right moves for your team at the current moment, and the right moves for this team, right now, involve getting value for meaningless players (to this team) and loading up on futures to try and mitigate the inevitable and rapidly approaching misery that begins after Sid retires after he gets his final Olympics.

-edit- Oh, just saw your edit. I dunno about 14 more losses precisely, but if you remove two 30-35 goal guys from this team, yeah, I could see them dropping another 10 games throughout the year. Maybe more. I like McG and Koivunen but I don't think they're ready to jump in and fill Rakell and Rust's role and production right off the bat. Might never be able to tbh.

 

[Peat]

Right ok like I said you can't exactly pin this team's misfortunes on Kevin Hayes and for a 4th liner those are ok-ish numbers which is where his ES minutes certainly clocked in at.

But he DID play most of the year on the top unit, right?

I don't think so.

He was the 6th most used forward on the PP after Sid/Rakell/Rust/Geno/Bunting. Out of Hayes' PP time, it was a roughly 50/50 split whether he was with Sid or not - Sid played over 75% of his PP minutes without Hayes.

Looks more like he was a PP2 mainstay who got promotions when they were injuries and shake ups.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

I love Taco Bell but big believer in keeping it simple there

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

I think all of fast food has just gotten way worse. Compared to McDonald's, Wendy's is like a luxury meal.

Oh it's ALL shit. Occasional guilty pleasure for some (like me) but shit. And has only gotten worse.

I would say that I'm actually the opposite on your two specific examples. To me McDonald's has actually improved over time while Wendy's has nosedived. But again I weight heavily based on consistency. It's gross but I can almost always be fine enough with a Big Mac from just about any McDonald's. And their fries are of course super addictive.

Also the McFlurry is a bit underrated. And I would posit that being able to order a cardboard box full of warm chocolate chip cookies at any time via Doordash etc. is a stoner's dream.

 

[Peat]

Bacon Cheeseburger and a Baked Potato is always a solid choice.

Best fast food is obviously Taco Bell though.

What the actual f*** is wrong with you.

 

[Empoleon8771]

Bacon Cheeseburger and a Baked Potato is always a solid choice.

Best fast food is obviously Taco Bell though.

Saying this should get you kicked out of San Diego

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

What the actual f*** is wrong with you.

I dunno about best and maybe it's just the ignorant American with blowed-out tastebuds that have spent years marinating in MSG, salt, piles of sugar and various chemicals but I um... rather like Taco Bell. You have to like the five ingredients they use for literally everything though, of course.

I mean given the options in most one-strip, stroaded, plaza-encrusted Dollar General towns in this country... you could do worse?

 

[Gurglesons]

Saying this should get you kicked out of San Diego

Taco Bell isn't mexican food it's fast food.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

Nah Taco Bell rips

Healthiest and best ingredients by far. Dirt cheap

I literally just get basic ground beef corn hard shell tacos and throw hottest sauce on em

I’m a huge food snob too. Don’t eat true fast food.

 

[BlindWillyMcHurt]

Nah Taco Bell rips

Healthiest and best ingredients by far. Dirt cheap

I literally just get basic ground beef corn hard shell tacos and throw hottest sauce on em

This has always been my approach with TB. Like you said keep it simple.

Shockingly one of the better health choices too. Honestly most times I don't even mess with their beef and just do beans/rice.

All of their protein options are super duper weird if you make the mistake of looking/thinking about them too long, though lol

 

[Gurglesons]

So pretty much backstrom retiring and moving on from orlov.

The caps have ovi, Carlson and Wilson left from the cups. That’s like penguins having sid rust and letang.

Okay.

So...

Ovechkin is 39.

Sid is 38 next year.

Carlson is 35.

Letang is 38 next year.

Wilson is 31.

Rust is 33 next year.

We likely aren't competing for a playoff spot next year. So let's just say we try to do the Caps model two seasons from now.

So you're asking a 34 year old Rust, 39 year old Crosby and 39 year old Letang to effectively be what amounts to a 40+ goal scorer, 30+ goal scorer and 51 point, 23 minute defenseman on the current Caps.

 

[Gurglesons]

Nah Taco Bell rips

Healthiest and best ingredients by far. Dirt cheap

I literally just get basic ground beef corn hard shell tacos and throw hottest sauce on em

I’m a huge food snob too. Don’t eat true fast food.

Yeah, I'm vegetarian so I just get black beans crunch wraps and spicy potato tacos.

 

[DesertedPenguin]

I don't have any problem with them weaponizing cap.

I just think it's funny to hear Dubas call out players for complacency while purposefully adding a player like Kevin Hayes who two teams have now paid to make go away.

It just strikes me as a bit silly to complain the guy who came to the franchise because he believed PIT may be able to win a cup is not "giving it his all" when you're surrounding him with players like Kevin Hayes.

I'm curious - what in Dubas' comments do you think he was calling Karlsson out for complacency? I think he was absolutely criticizing him for inconsistency and that Karlsson has high goals but isn't necessarily doing the physical things needed to help achieve those goals.

"I had a long meeting with Erik on Friday," Dubas said. "My push to him would be that his actions have to match his ambitions. That's in consistency, preparation, training, like every other player on the team."

Karlsson actually said the same thing, as transcribed by Taylor Haase:
"Little too volatile than you would have liked, would have liked to kept a little bit more consistency throughout the season."

I think there is a merging of two of Dubas' thoughts - his criticism of Karlsson's game and the overall complacency that Dubas is guarding against. I agree with you that Hayes would be chief among those culprits. I think Graves is another.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

I've never had Wendys. I keep telling myself I should try them but if I'm doing a burger, so many other places have more interesting offerings.

I'm in Canada and have different options than most people here, but I'd take Wendy's baconator over any other fast food chain burger. The fries I'd give like a solid 7/10. Poutine disappointing. Above average chicken nuggets. You can also get mini burgers on their "quality choices menu" for pretty cheap.
Then the smoothies are quite excellent.

I don't need a restaurant's whole menu to be good. Just need a few things. So I hold them in fairly high regard.

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

This has always been my approach with TB. Like you said keep it simple.

Shockingly one of the better health choices too. Honestly most times I don't even mess with their beef and just do beans/rice.

All of their protein options are super duper weird if you make the mistake of looking/thinking about them too long, though lol

I’m cool with their ground beef

Their chicken is fine but not for me. Reminds me of like frozen Trader Joe’s chicken.

But I got their steak once on accident… nah mate. Never again. That shit was cat food or something.