The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

[ImTellinTim]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

All the luck and scoring the Wild had been getting while Dubnyk was quietly being not very good has finally dried up. Sad.

[gopher_guy]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

I don't mind the Hawks dynasty they have built.

Try being in the same ****ing division as them.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Try being in the same ****ing division as them.

The way they've built their team is fine though. Not like what I had to see for over a decade with Jays stuck behind Yankees who'd spend like 250m on teams every year and buy who they want.

And at least in hockey,these teams are beatable. As good as Hawks are and amount of cups won, they aren't unstoppable and LeBron like faves each year where you can pen them into finals each year for almost a decade straight.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

The Wild are cratering 4-6 weeks earlier than expected. What gives?

[ImTellinTim]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

The Wild are cratering 4-6 weeks earlier than expected. What gives?

Later than expected. We usually do this in January. Playoff losses haven't exactly been cratering. I mean, we lose to Chicago.

As to why? I dunno. It's the same players. I don't have an explanation other than I never thought they were clearly playing at a first place level. Lots of 5-4 kinds of games. Bit of a combination of luck correction and a dip in form. It doesn't really change my opinion I shared earlier in the season that we probably won't beat Chicago even if we end up with home ice.

What I do know is that I prefer to have the 2-seed basically locked down at this point in the season as opposed to the usual alternative of having to pull a win streak out of the *** in the last 2 weeks.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Later than expected. We usually do this in January. Playoff losses haven't exactly been cratering. I mean, we lose to Chicago.

I was poking fun at Boudreau's playoff history moreso than the Wild.

It doesn't really change my opinion I shared earlier in the season that we probably won't beat Chicago even if we end up with home ice.

Is anyone? Certainly nobody in the West looks capable.

I have a strange hankering to watch a Minnesota/Nashville series. I'm probably the only one.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Sens-91pts,75gp
Leafs-87pts,75gp
Bruins-86pts,76gp
Lightning-83pts,75gp

3 of those teams make playoffs. Sens most likely in, but could Leafs and/or Bruns pass them? Bruins most likely win ROW tiebreaker vs all teams, Lightning most likely lose tiebreaker vs all teams. I'm just hoping Leafs can hold on. This year at least I'd rather lose in 4 games rd1 over miss out in playoffs by 1pt so that the young guys get that playoff experience.

Magic number is at 11pts for Leafs! 12 for 3rd in Atlantic.

Oilers already clinched, but if someone told you the Leafs and Oilers would make playoffs this year and Kings,Wings wouldn't, you'd laugh so much. Canes now longest playoff drought. Ironically, the drought goes back to winning the cup when beating Oilers (who hadn't made playoffs since then either,until now).

[TheMatrix31]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

I was poking fun at Boudreau's playoff history moreso than the Wild.



Is anyone? Certainly nobody in the West looks capable.

I have a strange hankering to watch a Minnesota/Nashville series. I'm probably the only one.

You're not the only one. I've kinda grown to hate the Predators.

Oilers finally make the playoffs after 10 years of losing on purpose. Joke franchise. I hope they get annihilated in the playoffs.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

You're not the only one. I've kinda grown to hate the Predators.

Oilers finally make the playoffs after 10 years of losing on purpose. Joke franchise. I hope they get annihilated in the playoffs.

I think you severely underestimate the sheer incompetence of the last decade of Oilers management.

[DrJones]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Jagr finally outlasted the Red Wings' playoff streak.

Ah, 1990. I was 17.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/igTQoCBwp-4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[pietasterp]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Jagr finally outlasted the Red Wings' playoff streak.

Ah, 1990. I was 17.

Yeah, now that it's over, I'm more disappointed than I thought I'd be. I've been saying for years they should forget about the streak and just worry about rebuilding the roster for the long term, and I still believe that. I'm just a little taken aback that I care as much as I do that I don't get to watch the Wings get unceremoniously dumped out of the first round. It's become like a spring tradition - setting the clocks forward, cleaning out the house, the Masters, and watching the Wings lose a first-round series.

Oh well. Hopefully this will be the beginning of a new (better) era for the Wings.

[slickdtc]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Dry your tears with all those banners in the rafters!

It will be weird, but we've been building to this with the Wings for like 4 years at this point

The Flyers were a postseason shoo-in for the first half of my life. Lockout happens, and suddenly we miss a few times and I finally appreciated the pre-salary cap years. It's like one of those "be careful what you wish for" deals. The lockout needed to happen, salary cap needed to be put in, allows the better run organizations to shine, but damn it was nice seeing the regular season as a formality.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

The Flyers were a postseason shoo-in for the first half of my life. Lockout happens, and suddenly we miss a few times and I finally appreciated the pre-salary cap years. It's like one of those "be careful what you wish for" deals. The lockout needed to happen, salary cap needed to be put in, allows the better run organizations to shine, but damn it was nice seeing the regular season as a formality.

Ya, lockout ruined alot. NHL wanted to balance things out for lower markets, and while it looked like a good idea in the 1st season after lockout with Canes winning, that was the only real high point in their franchise history, it's all gone downhill big time since.

Leafs were hurt more than any franchise with the lockout. Their team had been built on FAs,vets and trading picks,and for first half of 00s, it worked. Lockout came, changed the game, and suddenly the game was now geared towards building through draft,young players,fast game. Took Leafs about a decade to even recover and we're now finally seeing it.

NHL really should've implemented the cap a year or two AFTER the lockout happened. Suddenly implementing a cap on teams who had many preexisting contracts was horrible. No break at all for them.

[pietasterp]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Dry your tears with all those banners in the rafters!

It will be weird, but we've been building to this with the Wings for like 4 years at this point

The Flyers were a postseason shoo-in for the first half of my life. Lockout happens, and suddenly we miss a few times and I finally appreciated the pre-salary cap years. It's like one of those "be careful what you wish for" deals. The lockout needed to happen, salary cap needed to be put in, allows the better run organizations to shine, but damn it was nice seeing the regular season as a formality.

Agree with everything you said other than a very slight quibble with the assertion that a salary cap allows better run organizations to shine. I think it favors a different type of strategy, but not necessarily a "better" one. Pre-salary cap, poorly-run franchises could simply make the mistake of spending themselves into the ground, which is not good for anyone, and all a cap did was (somewhat) take that potential mistake away. Good organizations may have spent more, but they also spent wisely. Post-cap, the strategy for team-building changed, but in general, the well-run organizations in the pre-cap era became the well-run organizations in the post-cap era.

Having said all that, I agree a salary cap was probably a good thing on the whole for the league, but I don't say that with any strong conviction.

[slickdtc]

Re: The Official 2016-17 Regular Season Talk Thread

Agree with everything you said other than a very slight quibble with the assertion that a salary cap allows better run organizations to shine. I think it favors a different type of strategy, but not necessarily a "better" one. Pre-salary cap, poorly-run franchises could simply make the mistake of spending themselves into the ground, which is not good for anyone, and all a cap did was (somewhat) take that potential mistake away. Good organizations may have spent more, but they also spent wisely. Post-cap, the strategy for team-building changed, but in general, the well-run organizations in the pre-cap era became the well-run organizations in the post-cap era.



Having said all that, I agree a salary cap was probably a good thing on the whole for the league, but I don't say that with any strong conviction.

You're right on that. Flyers handed out a 9 year, name your price deal to Bryzgalov post-cap so there's plenty of mistakes to be made. Cap kind of minimizes the effect of a massive whiff like that, but it is still severe.

They had one or two buyout/amnesty things after they added the cap, didn't they? And again after the second one, right? So I can't buy in to Maj's theory that they should've waited and let teams shed some years off salaries before installing the cap. Let's be honest: teams like Toronto and Philly wouldn't have changed their ways. Hell, Flyers really haven't been disciplined in the front office until Hextall became GM. Now we have a slew of good defensive prospects coming up (some drafted under past GM), but the way he's allowed them to develop has been key. Not rushing them or trading them away. That's the key to success in the NHL.

It also helps to draft a generational talent. Crosby, McDavid, Matthews. We took JVR at #2 or #3 overall... Ugh!