Around the league part 2
- Thread starter Bandit
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Whenever I watch clips of old sports from the 50's or 60's, I just marvel at the level of skill we're seeing today in comparison. These clips look like some of the rec leagues I've played in and some of those dudes are considered NHL legends.
johnjm22
Pseudo Intellectual
- Aug 2, 2005
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These dudes all look like they’re 45 years old and smoke cigarettes during intermissions.
fivehole32
Kicking rebounds to the slot
- Jan 11, 2015
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Thats what I was going to say, hard boozing and two packs a day ages you. There is a picture of Sparky Anderson his first year managing the Reds. He was 40, but looked like he was 70.
KingsFan7824
Registered User
And the real hockey men running things back then would soon go on to guarantee a spot in the Final to 1 of 6 concurremt expansion teams.
Steve Zissou
I'll order you a red cap and a Speedo.
9 NHL Players Who Are Slated to Break Out Next Season
It feels like we've been waiting a while to see Quinton Byfield emerge in Los Angeles. That time may be at hand.
The No. 2 pick in 2020 has had his development skewed by the pandemic and by injury. But he found a home on a line with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe last season and the Kings thrived with them together. Kopitar led the team in points (74), Kempe led them in goals scored (41) and in 53 games Byfield had 22 points. He also had four points in the six-game loss to Edmonton in the playoffs.
His great advanced stats are due in part to playing with those two for most of his NHL time, but that he stayed with them says the Kings and coach Todd McLellan see growth in his game. His offensive numbers will soon catch up to give the Kings an impossible line to try and stop.
Playing with Kopitar has done wonders for many players throughout the Kings' recent history and Byfield will have no better opportunity than this to show his gaudy numbers in junior hockey can be replicated in the NHL. At 6'5", he's a difficult player to contain in many ways and the Kings will hope his high skill level can lead to him having a Tage Thompson-like evolution in his success.
The tools and the opportunity are there for the taking and playing for a really good Kings team is all anyone could ask for to breakout.
It feels like we've been waiting a while to see Quinton Byfield emerge in Los Angeles. That time may be at hand.
The No. 2 pick in 2020 has had his development skewed by the pandemic and by injury. But he found a home on a line with Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe last season and the Kings thrived with them together. Kopitar led the team in points (74), Kempe led them in goals scored (41) and in 53 games Byfield had 22 points. He also had four points in the six-game loss to Edmonton in the playoffs.
His great advanced stats are due in part to playing with those two for most of his NHL time, but that he stayed with them says the Kings and coach Todd McLellan see growth in his game. His offensive numbers will soon catch up to give the Kings an impossible line to try and stop.
Playing with Kopitar has done wonders for many players throughout the Kings' recent history and Byfield will have no better opportunity than this to show his gaudy numbers in junior hockey can be replicated in the NHL. At 6'5", he's a difficult player to contain in many ways and the Kings will hope his high skill level can lead to him having a Tage Thompson-like evolution in his success.
The tools and the opportunity are there for the taking and playing for a really good Kings team is all anyone could ask for to breakout.
kovacro
Uvijek Vjerni
Dom L at the athletic with some real talk earleir regarding how much worse the leafs got this summer:
"The easiest way to look at it is Tyler Bertuzzi instead of Michael Bunting, Max Domi instead of Ryan O’Reilly and John Klingberg instead of Erik Gustafsson. The Leafs paid $12.2 million for their guys, $2.4 million more than the three players they lost. And they got 14.4 goals worse."
I really do hope the Leafs crash and burn out.
"The easiest way to look at it is Tyler Bertuzzi instead of Michael Bunting, Max Domi instead of Ryan O’Reilly and John Klingberg instead of Erik Gustafsson. The Leafs paid $12.2 million for their guys, $2.4 million more than the three players they lost. And they got 14.4 goals worse."
I really do hope the Leafs crash and burn out.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
Good deal for Gabe in WPG
hardly a reason for not even having contact discussions here, whether you like the trade or not, Blake dropped the ball ahead of time. They had already decided they were trading him.
hardly a reason for not even having contact discussions here, whether you like the trade or not, Blake dropped the ball ahead of time. They had already decided they were trading him.
unicornpig
Registered User
- Dec 8, 2017
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So I guess we will now just go with the thought process of that's what Gabe would have signed for here.......because everyone knows how those discussions were going....(or not going)
jimmy1100
Registered User
I think he's getting too much. That is a great deal for Gabe though! Worst case, he gets over $13m and his back doesn't hold up. If he stays healthy, he gets a big raise in 25-26.
Honestly, this makes the PLD trade more palatable to me.
EDIT: Strike all of that - I mis-read it as 6.875/per year. Not total. OUCH! Definitely had enough to re-sign Vilardi and still get a better G than we ended up with. Damn...
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Dom L at the athletic with some real talk earleir regarding how much worse the leafs got this summer:
"The easiest way to look at it is Tyler Bertuzzi instead of Michael Bunting, Max Domi instead of Ryan O’Reilly and John Klingberg instead of Erik Gustafsson. The Leafs paid $12.2 million for their guys, $2.4 million more than the three players they lost. And they got 14.4 goals worse."
I really do hope the Leafs crash and burn out.
Maybe not the best apples to apples comparison with Gustafsson/Klingberg since there's the lefty/righty aspect out of it. If anything Klingberg is replacing Justin Holl and not Gustafsson.
Not sure if it's after the fact, but it seems like O'Reilly wasn't as interested in sticking around. Also figuring in the taxes, CapFriendly has O'Reilly's 4.5 million as netting 2.61 million in Nashville. The same salary would get him 1.99 million in Toronto.
Admittedly I haven't liked much of what Dom writes.
Yea I think so also. It must have went sour at some point. He didnt seem happy a couple years back being in the minors. Coach just didnt take a liking to him. Also I remember in a broadcast them mentioning he was not very social with the team as far as having people over and things like that.
They reportedly had him in a trade for Chychrun a couple years back also.
All of it is probably just rumors but where theres smoke…
DoktorJeep
Fair winds and following seas Nikolai.
The amount of time, money and stress Rob Blake has spent on a 2C for Kopitar is astounding. Definitely eclipses his quest for a scoring wing for Kopitar, which was thankfully cut short once Kempe came out of nowhere to be the team’s All Star.
Carter, Vilardi, Danault, Byfield, and now PLD. So much for so little to date.
Carter, Vilardi, Danault, Byfield, and now PLD. So much for so little to date.
Herby
Thank You, Team 144
But then we would be garbage at C.
No team is winning a cup with 36 and 31 year old C’s playing as much as Kopitar and Danault would have.
Ollie Weeks
the sea does not dream of you
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bland
Registered User
- Jul 1, 2004
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Silk hat/pig.
Except its a moody silk hat with an intermittent work ethic, on an old, tired pig that was a ribbon winner for a very short span but still celebrated as if it were still in contention.
Blake didn't spend anything on Carter, but if you want to include him you might want to amend "so little" to "only two cups".
Vilardi and Byfield are draft picks, they didn't cost anything. So just Danault, who also cost zero assets and has been great and paid about right. PLD hasn't even played a game yet, and we don't even know if he will be in the middle. At any rate I don't see how it's astounding since before the PLD trade no assets have been used.
Not sure what the argument is here, sounds more like just an excuse to rip on Blake rather than anything of substance.
I think they had decided that as well. There was some ball dropping, but with arbitration you never know. They get a different hearing with a different arbitrator, and Gabe might get more (or less) than that.
It shows how rough it is on GM's now compared to 10 years ago. Everyone is so tight against the cap they have to use LTIR just to gain the tiniest advantage. If you are a cap team, arb. eligible guys are risky. Even a slightly elevated award can screw up your plans, and they come down after the draft and big free-agent action. Blake is pretty conservative, so I'm sure that played a huge role in the decision.
Raccoon Jesus
We were right there
I think it's sweet that you think TM will reduce Kopitar's ice time haha
Schrute farms
LA Kings: new GM wanted -- inquire within
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bland
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T
Every stinking year for the last three summers we have sat here thinking that this HAS to be the season they rely on the kids moving into prominent roles, then every stinking October we realize that this organization has NO interest in handing over the reigns. They do not think that this is the route to success, and these kids aren't the future, they are a feeder system to keep the old guard on life support.
Maxing out diet stars that are happy to come here is exactly what plagued this organization during this managements playing time in LA, and they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.
The model here is the problem, not the players. It is very rare for difference makers to become available, but "talent" is always on the move. You can find a Fiala or Dubois any summer - for a reason. They aren't cornerstones, they are accesories given cornerstone contracts.
It will always be very difficult to win with a #1c like Kopitar. You need your #1c to consistently impose pressure on the opposition. When you have a player like Anze who is perfectly willing to back off instead of forcing the offense, you aren't forcing them to scheme against you, to alter their plans or make any adjustments. Kopitar INVITES pressure by assuming offensively pessimistic positions that allow the puck to move the wrong way far too often. It sets the next line up to be in a defensive position too often.
McLellan actually planned to let Edmonton take the early lead, probably because he knew the teams best chance was to come from behind. His teams do no dictate, they passively react. And given how they cannot hold even huge leads, it was probably their best shot - meaning they have no shot.
None of that has changed.
The Kings are a soft touch, incredibly easy to play against - and a lack of helmet punchers isn't the issue. Its a team that neuters itself and none of that has changed. You don't have to make any adjustments to play LA, just roll your best players out and let nature take its course.
There is an awful lot of misplaced positivity here this summer.
Every stinking year for the last three summers we have sat here thinking that this HAS to be the season they rely on the kids moving into prominent roles, then every stinking October we realize that this organization has NO interest in handing over the reigns. They do not think that this is the route to success, and these kids aren't the future, they are a feeder system to keep the old guard on life support.
Maxing out diet stars that are happy to come here is exactly what plagued this organization during this managements playing time in LA, and they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over.
The model here is the problem, not the players. It is very rare for difference makers to become available, but "talent" is always on the move. You can find a Fiala or Dubois any summer - for a reason. They aren't cornerstones, they are accesories given cornerstone contracts.
It will always be very difficult to win with a #1c like Kopitar. You need your #1c to consistently impose pressure on the opposition. When you have a player like Anze who is perfectly willing to back off instead of forcing the offense, you aren't forcing them to scheme against you, to alter their plans or make any adjustments. Kopitar INVITES pressure by assuming offensively pessimistic positions that allow the puck to move the wrong way far too often. It sets the next line up to be in a defensive position too often.
McLellan actually planned to let Edmonton take the early lead, probably because he knew the teams best chance was to come from behind. His teams do no dictate, they passively react. And given how they cannot hold even huge leads, it was probably their best shot - meaning they have no shot.
None of that has changed.
The Kings are a soft touch, incredibly easy to play against - and a lack of helmet punchers isn't the issue. Its a team that neuters itself and none of that has changed. You don't have to make any adjustments to play LA, just roll your best players out and let nature take its course.
unicornpig
Registered User
- Dec 8, 2017
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Said it last year before he even re-signed that it was idiotic to re-sign hi. Money could have gone to vilardi
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