The NHL Thread

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I don't think there's any threads talking about the fastest, greatest sport on the planet.....hockey. Why? Too many Football and Basketball fans in WZ I think.

I'm a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs, always have been and always will be. Born in Toronto and moved away when I was 12.

Anyway, The Edmonton Oilers now have the nicest looking arena in hockey. The outside of Rogers Place looks like a spaceship, the inside is modern with the leagues most expensive, massive scoreboard in the world. If that thing ever broke loose and fell it would bend Edmonton in half.

Keep your head up and your stick on the ice!

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I've actually run seasonal NHL threads a few years now, but didn't get to it this year. Forgot. There are a handful of fans here who watch the NHL, but not as many as you'd think, and this thread does tend to stagnate throughout the season.

Should be a fun season, though! Let's get the hockey talk going, boys!

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Already some decent fights in this early season. Here's one of them.....Tom vs Tom.

[YOUTUBE]HVPlHOVvOfc?t=74[/YOUTUBE]

 

[nwocongo]

Already some decent fights in this early season. Here's one of them.....Tom vs Tom.

[YOUTUBE]HVPlHOVvOfc?t=74[/YOUTUBE]

Has Scott Hartnell had his teeth knocked out yet? I honestly don't start watching much hockey until after the NCAA tournament. I always enjoy the playoffs but it's hard for me to get invested in hockey before baseball is over, every season I try to pay more attention. Go Blackhawks

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Jets make another dramatic comeback and beat The Leafs 5-4 in O.T.

Mathew's vs Laine, Laine the number 2 draft pick, completely outshines everyone capping his hat trick in O.T to down Toronto.

Leafs were up 4-0. Ugh.

To top it off, Mathew's was denied on a breakaway right before it swung the other way for a 2 on 1.

3 on 3 Overtime can't be denied for excitement.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

The Avs have looked decent so far, so that makes me happy. PK unit is shit though. Orlov maybe went low on Duchene, but damn it was a sexy looking hit. Ain't even mad.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Well, the Avs swapped arguably the second worst coach for one who actually understands and embraces the aspects of the NHL that produce success today — speed and skill. Two things they didn't lack, but were effectively coached against using. I'm not even an Avs fan, and I won't miss Patrick Roy one bit. Good riddance. Next up in line to have their heads lopped off in this respect for violating the same or similar priorities — John Tortorella and Randy Carlyle.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Roy looked like a good hire after the first season, even though he shit the bed in the playoffs. Completely failed to adapt though. Was also kind of a dick...okay a lot of a dick. Should have never given a first time NHL head coach full control like they did.

Speaking of dicks, Tortorella likely won't last long in Columbus. They aren't good and Torts style of player management isn't going to go well on a developing team. Plus after the disappointing World Cup run for Team USA and the whole national anthem thing, I'm not his biggest fan so I hope he gets the axe sooner rather than later.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I've never seen this. It might be old but I'm putting it here to watch it later.

Edit: Ya, it's old. Oh well.




[YOUTUBE]qwe6LgsPn-A[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

It's crazy how much The NHL is small potatoes compared to the filthy rich NFL.

NHL Value APROX Team by team

New York Rangers: $1.2 billion
Montreal Canadians: $1.18 billion
Toronto Maple Leafs: $1.15 billion
Chicago Blackhawks: $925 million
Boston Bruins: $750 million
Vancouver Canucks: $745 million
Philadelphia Flyers: $660 million
Detroit Red Wings: $600 million
Los Angeles Kings: $580 million
Washington Capitals: $565 million
Pittsburgh Penguins: $560 million
Edmonton Oilers: $455 million
Dallas Stars: $450 million
San Jose Sharks: $445 million
Calgary Flames: $435 million
Anaheim Ducks: $400 million
Minnesota Wild: $380 million
Ottawa Senators: $370 million
Colorado Avalanche: $360 million
Winnipeg Jets: $350 million
New Jersey Devils: $330 million
New York Islanders: $325 million
Buffalo Sabres: $300 million
St. Louis Blues: $270 million
Tampa Bay Lightning: $260 million
Nashville Predators: $255 million
Columbus Blue Jackets: $226 million
Carolina Hurricanes: $225 million
Arizona Coyotes: $220 million
Florida Panthers: $186 million

The NFL Team by team

The Dallas Cowboys have not been to the Super Bowl in 21 years, but their league-leading revenue ($700 million) and operating income ($300 million) make them the NFL’s most valuable team ($4.2 billion) for the tenth consecutive year. The New England Patriots ($3.4 billion), New York Giants ($3.1 billion) San Francisco 49ers ($3.0 billion) and Washington Redskins ($2.95 billion) round out the NFL’s top five most valuable teams. The commonality among the NFL’s most valuable teams is their presence in large markets and their stadiums, which provide them with more premium seating and sponsorship revenue than other teams generate.


The average NFL team is worth $2.34 billion dollars.

In comparison, The Florida Panthers couldn't afford to pay two player salaries of The Dallas Cowboys and pay their electric bill at the same time.

JUST The Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots are as valuable as 17 or 18 NHL Teams combined (lesser valued teams).

 

[It's Damn Real!]

It's not that crazy. The NFL is a goliath. It really isn't even a "sports league". Like the WWE, it's an entertainment hub. It's transcended "sports".

Don't confuse team worth limitations with the ability to pay a player an NFL-like salary. Depending on the market we're talking about, that's actually entirely possible if the NHL didn't operate with a hard salary cap. The Buffalo Sabres, for example, have a net worth of $300 million as a team, but their owner, Terry Pegula, has a personal net worth of $4.1 billion. He alone could stroke the check for Tony Romo and Dez Bryant and not bat an eyelash.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Roy looked like a good hire after the first season, even though he shit the bed in the playoffs. Completely failed to adapt though. Was also kind of a dick...okay a lot of a dick. Should have never given a first time NHL head coach full control like they did.

Speaking of dicks, Tortorella likely won't last long in Columbus. They aren't good and Torts style of player management isn't going to go well on a developing team. Plus after the disappointing World Cup run for Team USA and the whole national anthem thing, I'm not his biggest fan so I hope he gets the axe sooner rather than later.

Not really. His rookie year the Avs operated with the highest PDO in the league by a country mile. Every analytics voice in the league was predicting a hard crash for them, and that's exactly what happened.

I actually think on the Torts topic, he's relatively safe for now, but he and Jarmo Kekäläinen are probably both gone in the off-season in a large front office overhaul, because that's needed to change the direction of that team. They're just poorly constructed top to bottom despite having a lot of really nice pieces in players like Saad, Wennberg, Hartnell, Atkinson, Milano, Werenski, Jones, etc.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Who has the best national anthem singer regular in the NHL? I was highly impressed with Chicago's singer last Saturday night. Ottawa has a good one too.

 

[Richard Blonoff]

Anyone catch Ben Bishop losing a few teeth? Dude was a total boss and stayed in the game after taking that shot to the face. Too bad he couldn't keep his shutout. Losing teeth and keeping the net empty, would have been a hell of a game.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I stopped watching after 4-0. Tampa is a good team.

 

[nwocongo]

Who has the best national anthem singer regular in the NHL? I was highly impressed with Chicago's singer last Saturday night. Ottawa has a good one too.

Was it Wayne Messmer? He's worked a lot with the Chicago teams for a long time. I don't recall ever seeing him at Bears game but for a while it was almost a given he'd be singing the Anthem at Cubs and Blackhawks games. I remember seeing him on the news when I was a kid maybe 93 or 94 somewhere in there, he got shot in the throat but eventually was able to return.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Shea Weber is showing The Habs that they made the right choice in that trade with P.K Subban. P.K hasn't been showing much the last couple of games, especially his mistake filled last game. I scoffed big time at the trade when it was announced. I feel P.K Subban can be a force in the league with the right voice in his ear. He needs to calm down and think, listen to veteran leadership.

Unrelated note. I held my first ever $150 Hockey Stick the other day. It's one of those flexi graphite things, it's incredibly light. I can't get over how light it was, like holding a toothpick in your hands.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Patrik Laine gets his 6th goal for The Winnipeg Jets. The number two draft pick is a major sniper. Good for the Jets. 121KM wrist shot. What a nightmare for goalies.

Habs are hot with Price in top form. 7-0-1.

Mitch Marner gets a three point night for the Leafs victory.

Crosby is throwing hits and scoring two goals. He's looking really sharp. Boychuk cries about getting thumped by Crosby and getting the game winner scored on them.

Detroit wins again. This one vs The Blues in 8 rounds of shootout.

Hard to believe any game gets to a shootout with 3 vs 3 O.T. Especially when Tatar gets a breakaway, does a spin-o-rama, spins back, dekes and somehow is robbed.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Another hard-hit in the head infraction. Gilbert suspended three games for deliberately tracking and boarding in retaliation to an earlier incident. It's not as bad as The Bruins player Pastrnak's dirty head hit the other week. It boils down to lack of respect these players have for their opponents and each other. If this was 1985 Gilbert would definitely be thinking twice on delivering that hit, because every team had a few enforcers to glide your way and fuck you up for your bad choices.

There are far too few enforcers in the NHL right now and these dirty headshots will increase year after year as enforcers continue to completely vanish from the league.

It's a shame. I really liked having a Clark, Domi and such to keep the ********s in check.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

Not really. If this was 1985, Gilbert would make that hit and Tiger Williams or Jay Wells would have gone toe-to-toe with whomever the appointed "enforcer" of the other team (there were no Ducks then) as part of the odd ritual of NHL fighting "enforcement".

It's an utter myth that their presence or their actions actually deterred dirty play. What it did was pacify the historic belief it did. A belief a lot of fans, myself included, held in spite of the lack of evidence.

But the evidence is pretty clear today. Enforcers aren't needed. At all. You can't legislate injury out of contact sports without legislating contact out of the sport, but you can gear the game toward safety with best practices. One of those was removing pugilists on skates who couldn't actually play hockey. Another was the league-wide shift that happened in conjunction with that (perhaps because of it) that's redefined what third and fourth-line players in today's NHL are.

I still love fighting, but I'm long past arguing for the Colton Orr's of the world. They don't belong. Give me Iginla and Lecavalier at center ice any time, but give me hockey players first and foremost. That's what I pay to see. Anything else is just gravy.

 

[It's Damn Real!]

On a somewhat related note, I'm writing for a Rangers blog a long-time friend of mine just launched. If anyone is interested in it, I've got three pieces up right now. One on Why the Rangers were wrong to bridge J.T. Miller, one on how Jimmy Vesey is a great example of the Rangers mitigating selling the farm in draft picks by signing NCAA free agents, and one on how Brandon Pirri is one of the best bang-for-buck players in the NHL this year.

 

[OYDK]

Max Domi showing hints of following in his dad's footsteps last night. Nasty uppercut dropped Kesler and legitimately seemed to knock him silly for a bit.

Surprised they let him back in the game to be honest. He seemed to be trying to tackle the ref after the fight which is a clear sign that he was unaware of the situation, and was probably knocked cold for at least a couple seconds.

[youtube]ThR6Vas-RTw[/youtube]

 

[It's Damn Real!]

I dunno if I'd go that far, but he can handle himself. That's for sure. Dad probably taught him to defend himself well from a young age. But don't expect this to become a regular thing for him. He has nine fights in his entire professional career between the NHL and OHL to date.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

I skip ONE Leaf game and Sedin gets hammered by Kadri, there's fights left and right and the Leafs win 6-3.

 

[Jeff Deliverer of Mail]

Should Kadri get three games for that hit on Sedin? That's about as borderline as your going to get. It was a blindside hit, Sedins head did get hit after his shoulder, no injury on the hit and his helmet flew off. Watching the video from ice level, it looks nasty and I'd be furious if I was Sedins teammate. But in super slow motion, his shoulder gets hit first to show it was a legal hit even though it was a blindside one.