Around the League Thread | November Rain

sandwichbird2023

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Aug 4, 2004
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Brodin-Faber-Middleton-Spurgeon could be the best top 4 defensive group in the NHL as well. Kind of built like our bluelines of the past. No true superstar but a bunch of fist pairing to #3 types.
Gustafsson is also having a very good, bounce-back season. Probably a top 5 goalie so far this year.

A little bit more scoring depth and Minny will be a very dangerous team in the playoff. Considering how much dead cap they have on the book, that is an insane accomplishment.
 

timw33

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And doing so with like a $12 mill or higher dead cap charge. Final year of the big amount before it drops drastically.

It's actually 14.7MM which is absolutely insane. They are playing well with one of the biggest handicaps in modern history. Close to $15MM that could be deployed to add 2-3 quality pieces to give them the depth they need to make some real noise.

Now just picture where they'd be if they hadn't given a washed Marcus Foligno 4x4MM or Trenin 4x3.5MM and replaced them a pair of $2MM or less guys.
 

bossram

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Gustafsson is also having a very good, bounce-back season. Probably a top 5 goalie so far this year.

A little bit more scoring depth and Minny will be a very dangerous team in the playoff. Considering how much dead cap they have on the book, that is an insane accomplishment.
MIN are for real. One of the teams I thought would have a bounce back.
 
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Vector

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Minnesota had surprisingly poor goaltending last season and that's rebounded. With Kaprizov is going super nova, Boldy is taking another step forward, and some other players playing very well (Rossi & Middleton stand out) it makes a lot of sense why they'd have a great start.
 
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Ernie

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Aug 3, 2004
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I'm afraid we're going to lose Boeser to them if we don't sign him soon. The closer he gets to FA the more tempting it will get.
 

sandwichbird2023

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Minnesota had surprisingly poor goaltending last season and that's rebounded. With Kaprizov is going super nova, Boldy is taking another step forward, and some other players playing very well (Rossi & Middleton stand out) it makes a lot of sense why they'd have a great start.
They also have a lot of blue chip prospects coming up too in Zeev, Yurov, Wallstedt, Heidt, Ohgren, etc. Their team has a pretty good future if they can hold on to Kaprizov long term.
 

StreetHawk

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Sep 30, 2017
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It's actually 14.7MM which is absolutely insane. They are playing well with one of the biggest handicaps in modern history. Close to $15MM that could be deployed to add 2-3 quality pieces to give them the depth they need to make some real noise.

Now just picture where they'd be if they hadn't given a washed Marcus Foligno 4x4MM or Trenin 4x3.5MM and replaced them a pair of $2MM or less guys.
The Wild benefitted with nearly $2 mill per year against the cap as those 2 got $98 mill over 13 years. Paid $87 mill over 9 years before their buyout of the final 4 years.

Parise was not worth the cap hit anymore and had injury concerns though he played 3 more years after the buyout. Suter his played dropped drastically last season and is a part player for the blues now. With full nmc MIN was stuck so opted to control the cap.

Realistically given that Detroit has been rebuilding and Mich is the home state of a lot of nhl players, they don’t see to attract their hometown guys like Minn does.
 

quat

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Gustafsson is also having a very good, bounce-back season. Probably a top 5 goalie so far this year.

A little bit more scoring depth and Minny will be a very dangerous team in the playoff. Considering how much dead cap they have on the book, that is an insane accomplishment.
I don't think they saw this as a year to compete as well. Yes, they have expectations of how their players need to perform, but they're watching their roster and looking for ways to improve. They're going to be a decent threat to be the Canucks of last season and much better with the right pickups next year. Their cap improves while the Canucks gets worse.

It's actually 14.7MM which is absolutely insane. They are playing well with one of the biggest handicaps in modern history. Close to $15MM that could be deployed to add 2-3 quality pieces to give them the depth they need to make some real noise.

Now just picture where they'd be if they hadn't given a washed Marcus Foligno 4x4MM or Trenin 4x3.5MM and replaced them a pair of $2MM or less guys.
Even good management make errors. Sometimes it's just timing the errors where they don't impact the clubs performance to a significant degree.
 

quat

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Minnesota had surprisingly poor goaltending last season and that's rebounded. With Kaprizov is going super nova, Boldy is taking another step forward, and some other players playing very well (Rossi & Middleton stand out) it makes a lot of sense why they'd have a great start.
If Podkozin had have shown even a fraction of what Boldy brings, the Canucks would be in a much better situation. Podz flaming out was another big hit to the team.
 

StreetHawk

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Ovie out 4-6 weeks. Absolutely brutal.
Well, he is 39. Which is why Wash went out and got players for now. He is 41 goals away from Wayne to start the season, but they'd be flirting with a 50/50 shot of him breaking the record in 25/26 if he only got like 20 goals this season and then you are holding your breath that he doesn't get hurt next season.

If he can hit 30, then he's pretty much going to get the record. If he gets 25, still confident, but always a shift away from an injury of 4-8 weeks.

Don't think Ovy/Wash want him to have to sign for another season to break the record.

Didn't realize he was at 15 goals already this season. So, he's 26 away from tying Wayne and 27 away from breaking the record. He may only get 60-67 games depending on how long he's out.
 

MarkusNaslund19

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Dec 28, 2005
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I thought both were excellent rental deals by Allvin that filled needs for the team. Allvin then made the correct decision to not re-sign them, identifying that it was very unlikely they could live up to the deals.

Z at least I think would have had a chance of not being a "bad" contract. Lindholm's deal was an outright disaster and anyone even having an inkling of a thought that trading Petey and re-signing Lindholm as a "replacement" was a good idea...just laughable. My absolute ceiling on bringing back Lindholm was 4 x $5M and even then, I didn't really like that. My ceiling for Z was 4 x $4M, maybe slightly higher for cap inflation.

If BOS wants to send Z back at around $3.75M...I'm down for that!
Yeah, I concur on all of that even if I was willing to offer an extra year or million here or there.
 
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MarkusNaslund19

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I think it's really cool actually.

I'm a big proponent of various forms of masculinity, but one of the corrosive sides that society (and professional sports) propagates is the idea of just pushing yourself and ignoring all feedback and nothing matters but the ends and who cares if you betray yourself in little ways every single day.

Well, there's a price to be paid for that. I see clients every single day who come to me in some form of unease (all the way up to despair) and one of the common threads, typically, is that the pressures of life (family, society, capitalism) have taught them to stop listening to themselves, and not to honour their needs to feel connected to purpose, meaning, themselves, community, truth, etc etc.

I know Toews is a controversial figure and I'm sure there are many things he has done, or looked the other way on, that I wouldn't like. But I also think he's a cerebral, philosophical person who is discovering that there is more to holistic health than the North American Medical model.

And as I say this, I want to be clear that I'm a science based person so I'm not talking about Raiki or crystals or whatever. But it sounds like he feels like part of the reason his body was rebelling so much was because he was consuming some kind of poison whether that be literal in terms of the wrong foods, or spiritual or emotional.

I think it's a great model for a lot of lost and angry young men who are being betrayed by grifters who try to convince them that their salvation will come from simply making more money and driving a nicer car.
 

MarkusNaslund19

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Making a strange prediction. I think if things continue to go poorly there's a greater than zero chance that Boston ends up retaining a million and dealing him back to us within the next year and a half. No intel, just a feeling it's possible.
Really strange timing that I speculated on this late last night and now I'm seeing local media (and Friedman apparently) speculating the same thing.

Obviously it was just me connecting dots and I'm not remotely implying that I'm the reason people are thinking this, but the timing makes me look a hell of a lot more prescient than I could ever claim to be.
 

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