Around THE League; 2025 Playoff Edition

Wholl win the Cup


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It’s also no coincidence this is Kuzmenko’s 4th team. Not saying his handling was perfect but he takes a good chunk of blame as well.

I don’t think you can win unless you have elite offensive talent or strong two way players at the top of your lineup.

But Kuzmenko is more of a complementary player than a star player. Teams with great top end talent can use their strengths to their advantage in integrating those types of players even if they have defensive warts. E.g. Colorado did this with Burakovsky, Vegas has gotten great value out of Olofsson this year (and I expect Dorofyev would be similarly viewed if he weren’t on Vegas), and the Canucks did this with Kuzmenko for a period.

I’m not surprised it’s working for him again on a great two way team like LA when it didn’t in Calgary or Philly.

Whether that was worth $5.5 million/year is more questionable.

These seem unfair on Kuz. He was a cap dump to Calgary because our coach didn't really leave management with any other choice but to get rid of him. He then had 40 points in 66 games with Calgary, hilariously having both an insanely hot shooting hand in one season (shooting percentage of 21.95%) and then an insanely bad one for this season (3.85%), which yeah, when your goal scorer goes through a rough luck stretch like that, it's going to be tough, but every player goes through that, it's just how it goes.

He was then flipped to Philly because he was on an expiring contract and obviously he wasn't a logical extension option for the Flames given where they are at as a team, even with them loosely in the wild-card race this season. Likewise, it's pretty obvious the Flyers were always planning to flip him, given who the then-coach of the Flyers was and who the dream coach for the Flyers for next season is. So yeah, 4 teams in 2 seasons, but it would have been insanely silly for the Flames and Flyers not to trade him. I don't think it means much at all

And I'm not even that big a fan of Kuz. I wanted him traded before they signed his extension in the first place.
 
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These seem unfair on Kuz. He was a cap dump to Calgary because our coach didn't really leave management with any other choice but to get rid of him. He then had 40 points in 66 games with Calgary, hilariously having both an insanely hot shooting hand in one season (shooting percentage of 21.95%) and then an insanely bad one for this season (3.85%), which yeah, when your goal scorer goes through a rough luck stretch like that, it's going to be tough, but every player goes through that, it's just how it goes.

He was then flipped to Philly because he was on an expiring contract and obviously he wasn't a logical extension option for the Flames given where they are at as a team, even with them loosely in the wild-card race this season. Likewise, it's pretty obvious the Flyers were always planning to flip him, given who the then-coach of the Flyers was and who the dream coach for the Flyers for next season is. So yeah, 4 teams in 2 seasons, but it would have been insanely silly for the Flames and Flyers not to trade him. I don't think it means much at all

And I'm not even that big a fan of Kuz. I wanted him traded before they signed his extension in the first place.
You wouldn't give Kuz a 3-4 year term at the $5-6 mill his talent would call for. He's more of a 1-2 year term guy around the NHL imo.
 
Yup, once they hire their GM, it's time to have talks about Barzal or Horvat.

Start with Willander, as I'm sure Dobson will get traded also, they need a blue chipper back to soften the blow.
 

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