General Hockey Talk - Injuries, signings, factoids + other news from around the league

OK, I'm going over to the Le Breton thread, then.

So all the John Scott stuff was pretty great at the ASG. I admit, I watched the entire thing, mainly because of him. As James Gordon on Twitter said, "What a nice moment that the NHL fell as backwards into."

I said all along that the NHL would've been smart to embrace this from the get-go. And they should keep the voting for the captains the exact same for future years, but they just won't be able to help themselves from f'ing things up. They had this fun story this year, and hated every second of it, to the point that they banished a guy to the AHL to try and shaft him.

Keep the fan voting...fans can try to sabotage other teams by voting on goons, fans can get behind a really great story, etc etc. It's great fan engagement, and they're going to yank it away.

They'll keep the fan voting, but regardless of how good the john scott story was, that type of story won't happen again, even if another goon gets voted in, people won't get as behind him as they did with John Scott. It's best for NHL to tastefully take care to prevent a situation like this again.

I haven't watched the actual all star game yet and I will as I want to see John Scott play in it but it's the rest of the all star game that bored me. It's turned into a circus show. The skills competition felt so staged it takes anything serious out of it. I don't really care about the whole thing anymore. I'd scrap it.

Flo The Action wrote:I haven't watched the actual all star game yet and I will as I want to see John Scott play in it but it's the rest of the all star game that bored me. It's turned into a circus show. The skills competition felt so staged it takes anything serious out of it. I don't really care about the whole thing anymore. I'd scrap it.

Too much money to lose out on for the NHL. At least here in the states, it was the highest rated NHL All Star game in years.

I do think they can improve the skills competition, that breakaway challenge is just not good (was entertaining in Ottawa though). I'd rather keep the 3-on-3 but try different teams instead of just the divisions battling each other.

Michallica wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:I haven't watched the actual all star game yet and I will as I want to see John Scott play in it but it's the rest of the all star game that bored me. It's turned into a circus show. The skills competition felt so staged it takes anything serious out of it. I don't really care about the whole thing anymore. I'd scrap it.

Too much money to lose out on for the NHL.  At least here in the states, it was the highest rated NHL All Star game in years.  

I do think they can improve the skills competition, that breakaway challenge is just not good (was entertaining in Ottawa though).  I'd rather keep the 3-on-3 but try different teams instead of just the divisions battling each other.  

It turned out to be a "perfect storm" for the NHL. The 3-on-3 was a success in itself and they probably were able to showcase that to some extra viewers that were tuning in to see the John Scott show.

The Florida/Washington game is nuts. Florida getting outshot 27-14, yet leading 4-0. The Caps are 0-8 on the power play.

lol montreal

Two things are being exposed there:

#1: They're a mediocre team without Carey Price (this is not news to anyone outside Montreal); and,

#2: Michel Therrien is a bad coach.

None of my friends are watching the games anymore. And they're die hard Habs fans.
Shows you that winning is everything.

LeCaptain wrote:None of my friends are watching the games anymore. And they're die hard Habs fans.
Shows you that winning is everything.

Well, to be fair, they had really high expectations for their team this year, so it hurts to see them plunge off a cliff. I wouldn't be watching anymore, either, if I were a Habs fan.

tim1_2 wrote:lol montreal

Two things are being exposed there:

#1: They're a mediocre team without Carey Price (this is not news to anyone outside Montreal); and,

#2: Michel Therrien is a bad coach.

He sucks at motivation. When things go bad he just stares into space. I was still following the Habs somewhat when they first hired him and I thought it was a horrible choice for that franchise. So I was really, really surprised when they hired him again.

Everybody in the hockey universe (especially the media) were sucking Bergevin's Richard when he was hired.  

The contracts for Pacioretty and Gallagher are pretty good, but that Plekanec one, Markov, Eller...erg.  And then they have to try and resign Weise this summer....  Oh, and PK's making $9M, but there was no way to avoid that really.

Oh, and Bergevin gave Therrien a 4 year contract. His worst move, by far.

tim1_2 wrote:Everybody in the hockey universe (especially the media) were sucking Bergevin's Richard when he was hired.  

The contracts for Pacioretty and Gallagher are pretty good, but that Plekanec one, Markov, Eller...erg.  And then they have to try and resign Weise this summer....  Oh, and PK's making $9M, but there was no way to avoid that really.

Oh, and Bergevin gave Therrien a 4 year contract.  His worst move, by far.

PK is earning his contract in goodwill. Very popular player with the fans. Not that filling the seats was a problem there.

tim1_2 wrote:

LeCaptain wrote:None of my friends are watching the games anymore. And they're die hard Habs fans.
Shows you that winning is everything.

Well, to be fair, they had really high expectations for their team this year, so it hurts to see them plunge off a cliff.  I wouldn't be watching anymore, either, if I were a Habs fan.

Yet we don't win against them. Pathetic.

This was hilarious!
http://www.ottawareport.com/atip-find-air-canadas-tips-canadians-travelling-to-ussr-for-summit-series/

My mom worked as a buyer for the Beriozka stores mentioned in the article. Back in those days a foreign traveler would be able to shop at these "Valutnye" stores which only accepted a special form of Russian currency that was only available to foreign travelers (they would exchange their dollars for these special rubles). Shopping at a regular store would have been a shock to the North American system, most likely.

I love the part about "Visitors ... should not sell clothing or other personal items" -- it was well known that tourists would sell American Jeans (like Levis) for about 200 roubles (the exchange rate at that time was 0.82 roubles on the dollar, and the jeans probably cost about $10). So this was an extremely lucrative way to make some money by the tourists. Our neighbor in Italy said that some of his friends visited Russia and would wear several pairs of jeans (in increasing sizes) which they would then peel off and sell in a small lane not far from their hotel.

As for gum (which you could not buy in Russia), kids would frequently scrape the gum spat out by tourists right from the sidewalk, then boil it and chew it. Not kidding or exaggerating. I was lucky in that we lived near the American embassy and we had our gum supplied -- unchewed -- by the diplomats' kids we played with. Very common to trade various war memorabilia (medals, for example) for gum.

Yannick Weber wille be hitting the waiver wire today, according to Elliotte Friedman. Will he cleare?

Karlsson tied for 2nd in scoring. Wow. If Kane had been indicted or if not for having the ROTY on his line Karlsson could be in the lead.

wprager wrote:Karlsson tied for 2nd in scoring.  Wow. If Kane had been indicted or if not for having the ROTY on his line Karlsson could be in the lead.

Can Karl's still win the hart? Would be great if he pulled a Carey price from last year.

Edit: we already know we'll have to pay him 10+ mill on his next contract so might as well have him win it all. I hope we have a new owner by he time his contract is up.