50-PERCENT CAPACITY IN PHOENIX: THE NHL 2022-2023 SEASON THREAD (INC AVALANCHE HANGOVER & SALARY CAP SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)

Alternate title:

DO YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE MONEY? SURE WE ALL DO. A FUNGIBLE LOW-TEIR PLAYER MAKES 4M A YEAR: THE NHL 2022-2023 SEASON THREAD (INC AVALANCHE HANGOVER & SALARY CAP SHENANIGANS. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)

Analysis via Dom Luszczyszyn

"Erik Gudbranson signs four-year, $16 million deal with the Blue Jackets

What the hell?

Fit grade: C
Contract grade: F-"

Can’t wait to see the exciting theatrical conclusion of “Waiting For Gaudreau”

still hung up on the nic deslauriers deal.

vaguely defensible as a fourth-line depth option if you -- and god knows the flyers always do -- want muscle for a season. but for four years? at almost $2m per? and he's 31! who were they bidding against??

a whole lot of bad contracts got offered today, as ever, but -- however minuscule in the grand scheme of things -- that one has no chance of paying off even in year one

It's actually incredible. I misread it originally as 2 years $4M total and thought WTF?! but then realized it was for four years at $2M per year. Crazy.

Gudbranson actively damages your team. I'm still mad about trading draft picks for him: https://www.nhl.com/news/panthers-trade-erik-gudbranson-to-canucks/c-280805120

johnny columbus? wtf

So far, I feel the real winners are the teams that didn’t make moves today.

rip the flames

fucking rough

with the retirement of zdeno chara announced, that leaves, by my count, just one player who shared the ice* with wayne gretzky: joe thornton.**

*was at least on a roster during 98-99.

**if thornton doesn't get a professional tryout offer, he'd likely announce retirement as well i'd guess.

he'd = he'll

with the retirement of zdeno chara, there are no active players who have faced the maple leafs beyond the first round of the playoffs

i had not anticipated the retirement of pk subban. i guess he's probably got a bright future in the media

He kinda fell off a cliff didnt he? I thought he was gonna play for 20 years

tbf i can imagine playing for the devils might sap one's love of the game

He also has a rich outer life but still

https://theathletic.com/3646056/2022/10/01/seattle-kraken-team-mascot/

Just

I for one welcome this eight year Barzal extension with the Isles.

Great Leafs joke in The Handmaid's Tale's second episode of S5 (from Bradley Whitford's Commander Lawrence, one of those memorably bizarre characters who, even as the show falls apart around him, continues to walk through his own TV show different than one everyone else is in):

"We figured you'd want to get back to Canada, move on with your life...take in a Leafs game...I hear this might finally be their year."

Anyone else catch the Maple Leafs dig on The Handmaid’s Tale last night?? 🤣 pic.twitter.com/3LEzTUljGS

— Geoff Rohoman (@RadioRoho) September 15, 2022

the virtual ads on the boards are very weird even when they're working properly

also: torts 1-0

Canucks blow 3 straight multiple-goal leads, all in regulation, to start the season. cool cool cool

Fwiw the new Coyotes college home does look cool and seems very loud, awoooo. The first goal was scored by someone at ASU named Doan, awoooo.

An incredible play from Larkin results in the game tying goal for the @DetroitRedWings 🤯 pic.twitter.com/mkcKDfGTXG

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 18, 2022

they lost in OT tho ;_; but still a fantastic run of play

Should have gotten Matthew McConaughey in character from the Beach Bum to model this

CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE

☀️🌴🏒 » https://t.co/1scA7KeX0m pic.twitter.com/KH4Cdwon1m

— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) October 20, 2022

orangeandteal.xls

kings . . . thanks for coming oot

FTR i am bearish on the kings

NHL Iron Man record ✅
400th career goal ✅

What a night for Phil Kessel 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Et1SZlhHJ0

— Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) October 26, 2022

will never not love two-time stanley cup champion phil kessel

fuck brad marchant

torts first place

might be some Philadelphia sports magic in the air

who will be first to score at MULLETT ARENA

awooo

They are giving away mullets to the crowd. The lack of a goal horn is noticeable though. Can you not just play one of the hundreds of goal horns on YouTube.

Isles have started off the year 28 for 28 on the penalty kill btw

penguins have been rapidly disabused of their decency via the western canada tour

i mean fine, oilers/flames back-to-back and second/third in four days is rough, but . . . the canucks are begging to be buried

yikes pens. too bad they didn't get VAN a few days sooner.

thought columbus would be better this year - not so far

well that is the worst northwest road trip, in 55 years, the penguins have ever had. because it's now possible to lose to seattle

Really rough stretch for the Pens. Sabres actually looking great offensively so far.

the pens have played maybe 3 good periods last 6 games. rough indeed. that said, some of the cellar-dwellers like kraken and sabes have looked good for longish stretches so far this year. great for overall league competitiveness i guess.

Am enjoying the parity so far.

I don’t like that alternate jersey for the Sabres, it looks a lot like the Preds design, but worse. The alternate neon green Dallas jersey is really cool though.

We could watch John Tavares' (@91Tavares) second goal on repeat all night long. 🤤 pic.twitter.com/AX04cMWUCg

— NHL (@NHL) November 3, 2022

why do teams keep doing shit like the bruins signing this asshole kid?

i mean the guy's a fourth-round defenseman. he's wholly unnecessary and he makes everything you claim to stand for look like garbage

Yeah, doesn’t even sound like the league wants to even let him be eligible for a pro game, so not sure what the Bruins are thinking here

great job, bruins

(actual good job by bergeron/marchand/foligno for being publicly against it, however thoroughly couched in hockey player cliche)

yeah you don't hear pro athletes willing to criticize someone's character like they did very often. as much as I hate to praise those players.

ulf sammuelsson was right

I only caught the first couple of years of Borje Salming's career, pretty much a baseball fan after that. As I'm sure you know, they had a big emotional ceremony for him Saturday night.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl2XAruUdTk

avs, down one, had a 5-on-3 for the last 1:45 of the third — and pulled the goalie with a minute left to go 6-on-3 — and did not score

My daughter’s pee wee A team had a tie game
this weekend with like 45 seconds left and a face off in the opponents’ zone. I so wanted the coach to pull the goalie to show the kids what GOING FOR IT looks like. But he didn’t. Game ended a tie.

kings with basically a perfect road game tonight

outshot edmonton 32-23, 29 blocked shots, held mcdavid and dreiseitel scoreless with one shot each. only oilers pp was cut short when mcdavid crosschecked someone behind the play. danault-arvidsson-moore line was killer

Tracy: WE DID IT KENNETH! WE CHANGED THEIR MINDS!

Liz: NO. NO YOU DIDNT

tanking works

i haven't watched all of the edmonton-vegas series, and i'm told that the oilers (particularly evander kane) have gotten away with some pretty egregious shit

but i absofuckinglutely guarantee that pietrangelo would never have been suspended for a baldfaced attempt to injure if they hadn't been able to take nurse as well

garbage league

oh, but george parros went to princeton! gtfo

praise bob

rip canada, yet again

also rip stuart skinner

congrats to carolina for edging out vegas as the northernmost possible cup winner

It’s as if the Stanley cup is allergic to any city that is within 700 miles of Canada

the curse is spreading

apparently las vegas is very slightly to the north of raleigh

ugh what a gross selection of teams, go hartford I guess

rip coyotes

sad awooo

let’s go to the seventh

too soon

so:

dubas out
spezza resigned even before the above was announced
keefe will presumably be out whenever a new GM is named
gonna be awesome when the new coach is joel q

at what point does any of this start sticking to shanahan?

is Theo Epstein available

let's goooo (to OT forever)

entertaining game, both teams getting tons of chances

Panthers are unstoppable in OT

nm

tkachuk just running off the ice

only panthers weakness i've seen is (perhaps) the PK; fortunately for them no one commits penalties in the playoffs

i don't like tkachuk but how fucking incredible must it be to score an OT playoff goal (let alone two in a row)

I think i want LV to win fuck florida texas and the carolinas

if bob is gonna be like this it doesn't matter what you want

Yeah he was amzng today

this is putting bob in the hof

two vezinas plus whatever you want to call this is hard to deny

dallas utterly imploding

Two teams of destiny enter, only one exits with the Stanley Cup

some real horseshit from jamie benn last night

you're down 2-0 in the series and the other team scores 71 seconds into game 3. so naturally you crosscheck a guy in the face on your first shift, draw a match penalty, see your team give up a goal on the ensuing power play and go on to be shut out

and then he split without talking to the media after the game. i'm not a fan of sportswriters being all huffy because they didn't get to hear someone say 'it is what it is' but benn's the captain. that's his job. and because *he* didn't have the backbone to go out there, three of his teammates had to answer all the questions about how stupid and selfish he was. give pavelski the C this instant

Yeah co-sign on that

tkachuk is the angel of death

it's hilarious that we're (potentially, likely) one game away from the finals and the playoff goals and assists leaders are still draisaitl and bouchard. then again.

obviously jamie benn should have been a healthy scratch

maybe tkcachuk isn't *quite* ready to become the New Messier

it will be ridiculous if the vegas fans boo gary bettman but i hope they do it anyway

𝐀𝐃𝐃 𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐄 🏆🏆🏆

Phil Kessel is a three-time Stanley Cup champion!#PrideOnIce pic.twitter.com/7Uvzooz9Jq

— Minnesota Men’s Hockey (@GopherHockey) June 14, 2023

when a new GM comes in and for his first contract gives a three-year deal to 36-year-old ryan reaves, it does not bode well for toronto

also we need a new thread jimmy

Oh christ i had not seen that deal

have to say it's a bummer to see legitimately poor basketball players sign $100m contracts while the very best NHLers can maybe get $9m a year

i mean yes it's a different sport and you need more players and stuff, but i don't think the NHLPA has done a very good job at all

No they got rolled. Also kings wtf u do signing trevor lewis u cant score goals

he got sorokin re-signed, which is important, but . . . does lou even understand the salary cap? you don't have to re-sign your bottom-six forwards to seven-year deals, or your 35yo backup goalie to a four-year deal!

if parise decides to keep playing, lou will probably give him multiple years

once you're an islander, you're an islander for life

Will start new thred once i get back from holiday

The seven years to mayfield and engvall is certainly wild, although I’m assuming the strategy is that the cap is going way up in the next few years so it will look better. I guess you can’t also underestimate the friendship between Varlamov and Sorokin.

There is something to the “islander for life” mentality over the past decade though. It’s a team with very low turnover once you’ve fit in.

Debrincat to the Wings n_n

seems . . . nice for u

THE BUSTED WINDOW OF CONTENTION WON'T STAY OPEN: THE NHL 2023-2024 SEASON THRED (INC KNIGHTS HANGOVER & PANIC MOVES. HOCKEY IS THE BEST)