NHL and other ice hockey discussion

[samarchepas]

Fucking... what happened tonight. Wow. We are the new Leafs.

Losing 7-4 after having a 3-0 lead...ouch!
I've said it before and I'll say it again, being 11th in the West right now and the obvious mess the management of the Canucks is lately, don't be surprised
if Gillis and Tortorella get fired at the end of the year. Firing Vigneault,hiring Tortorella and trading the team's #1 goalies and trying to trade Kesler.
If you feel that your boss is destroying your company, will you feel safe working there? Of course not. Lack of leadership does that.
The Canucks still have a good core, they better fire Gillis ASAP before he destroys the team even more.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Fucking... what happened tonight. Wow. We are the new Leafs.

The Islanders??? Really????

[samarchepas]

The Islanders...WITHOUT Tavares...

[Godfather]

Losing 7-4 after having a 3-0 lead...ouch!
I've said it before and I'll say it again, being 11th in the West right now and the obvious mess the management of the Canucks is lately, don't be surprised
if Gillis and Tortorella get fired at the end of the year. Firing Vigneault,hiring Tortorella and trading the team's #1 goalies and trying to trade Kesler.
If you feel that your boss is destroying your company, will you feel safe working there? Of course not. Lack of leadership does that.
The Canucks still have a good core, they better fire Gillis ASAP before he destroys the team even more.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in this organization. Amazing to go from a cup contender 3 short Springs ago, to this... There are rumors flying like crazy. Some say Tortorella has lost the dressing room, others say Gillis is entirely to blame for having no direction or making any moves to make us younger/better, and others again say it's ownership who has caused all these poor decisions or held back the GM from doing what he really needs to. Personally I'm worried it's all three... It's impossible to get rid of ownership when the franchise value is so strong, and I'm not sure they're going to eat ~$15 in contracts given to Torts and Gillis if one or both are fired.

So basically... we're fucked

[samarchepas]

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in this organization. Amazing to go from a cup contender 3 short Springs ago, to this... There are rumors flying like crazy. Some say Tortorella has lost the dressing room, others say Gillis is entirely to blame for having no direction or making any moves to make us younger/better, and others again say it's ownership who has caused all these poor decisions or held back the GM from doing what he really needs to. Personally I'm worried it's all three... It's impossible to get rid of ownership when the franchise value is so strong, and I'm not sure they're going to eat ~$15 in contracts given to Torts and Gillis if one or both are fired.

So basically... we're fucked

Most fans in the east pretty much when Tortorella got hired by the Canucks. I've seen him with the Rangers and the Lightning, he still coaches like in the old NHL, loses his team and gets fired after a while.
Gillis IS to blame too for bad moves and no direction as you said. The management part is hard to tell, MAYBE the owner got tired of "nearly winning the Cup" and told Gillis to fire Vigneault.
Torts and Gillis contracts...should be pocket change for a Canadian team (They will lose more money with tickets if they DON'T make the change)

[Godfather]

There are even stronger rumors than that. The most interesting are that Gillis did not want to hire Torts in the first place, wasn't given the green-light to trade Luongo last year due to salary retention (which now we're doing anyways), and wasn't permitted to trade Kesler at the deadline for what he was worth (Aquilini's wanted insane value). I hope that's not true... but there are too many rumors for it not to have some truth to it.

Still.. Gillis blows, he's done nothing but make bad trades (mostly with Florida for some reason 7 now). The problem is that Gillis and Torts both have around 4-years left at $2 million each. That's nothing compared to the valuation of the team ($700 million per Forbes) but it's also not pocket change for any organization in term of micro/short-term economics. Especially when the sell-out streak is over and people are pissed.

[Godfather]

[samarchepas]

There are even stronger rumors than that. The most interesting are that Gillis did not want to hire Torts in the first place, wasn't given the green-light to trade Luongo last year due to salary retention (which now we're doing anyways), and wasn't permitted to trade Kesler at the deadline for what he was worth (Aquilini's wanted insane value). I hope that's not true... but there are too many rumors for it not to have some truth to it.

Still.. Gillis blows, he's done nothing but make bad trades (mostly with Florida for some reason 7 now). The problem is that Gillis and Torts both have around 4-years left at $2 million each. That's nothing compared to the valuation of the team ($700 million per Forbes) but it's also not pocket change for any organization in term of micro/short-term economics. Especially when the sell-out streak is over and people are pissed.

Part in bold, dunno about you, but if I was a season ticket holder and the team doesn't make changes, I'd SERIOUSLY reconsider about getting my tickets next year. 8 millions is not much if you think about it. (Its a LOT of money for us, I know )
You'll know by next year if the ownership cares more about money than the fans and their team.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Hey GF, someone is paying for the mess with the Canucks...they fired the concessions staff

http://vansunsportsblogs.com/2014/03...cession-staff/

[Teh One Who Knocks]

Adam Proteau - The Hockey News




I’ve never had a problem admitting one of my pre-season predictions was wrong. And man alive, was I ever wrong about the Colorado Avalanche this year. Like anyone else with functioning retinas, I could see the Avs had an astonishingly talented collection of forwards, but their defense concerned me enough to peg them as a non-playoff team.

Well, the regular season is more than 80 percent complete and all doubt about Colorado has had a flamethrower taken to it. The Avalanche not only are bound for the post-season, they’re also tied with the San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference standings, a single point behind the defending Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks and just two wins and five points behind the league-leading Blues. And although stars such as Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog and Ryan O’Reilly have been instrumental in that success, I’m here today to pay respect to the man I believe is the key force behind Colorado’s stunning turnaround from the worst team in its conference in 2013-14 to one of the league’s most dangerous.

That would be head coach Patrick Roy, who is the clear frontrunner to win the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best bench boss. You can make an argument that any one of Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, Anaheim’s Bruce Boudreau and St. Louis’ Ken Hitchcock are deserving of recognition, but Roy still stands out as the cream of the crop.

The Hockey Hall-of-Famer has been better in his rookie NHL coaching season than anyone could have imagined. His legendary competitive fire hasn’t singed or stunted the growth of any of the Avalanche’s young players. In a league where special teams can make or break a franchise’s ability to win, Roy has found a way to scratch and claw out victories despite not having a power play or penalty kill ranked in the top 10. He’s made them into as solid a road team (20-9-2) as they are in Denver (22-9-3). And after they stumbled through a tough December in which they went just 5-5-4, the Avs have lost two straight games only once.

You don’t see that type of win/loss about-face just because your youngsters are maturing. You get that with structure, adaptation and confidence. That comes from the coaching staff. In this case, that comes from Roy.

It’s tough to overstate how remarkable Roy has been this year. Icons like him don’t normally make this smooth a transition to the coaching side of the game. Neither do former goaltenders: if he does win the Jack Adams, Roy will be the first ex-NHL netminder to do so. (Jacques Martin was a goalie, but never in hockey’s top league.) And he’ll have done it working with the NHL’s third-lowest payroll.

The Avalanche are to some degree still learning who they are, but under Roy, they’re no longer questioning what they are: a slick, smart squad that can run up the score on an opponent as easily as it can play (and win at) a low-scoring game. Roy has done in six months what his predecessor Joe Sacco couldn’t do in four years. Any way you slice it, that’s impressive.

Roy’s cockiness has and always will rub some people the wrong way. However, it’s rubbed off on the Avs, who are much better for it. And that’s why, if he doesn’t hear his name announced as this year’s Adams Award winner, it will be as big a robbery as the kind he’d routinely make when he was stopping pucks for a living.

[Godfather]

Good article for sure. It's partly an underdog story, but it was also about time some of the high draft picks stepped up to the plate and took the reigns. Roy seems to be more than capable of drawing that out of them, they'll be very dangerous in the playoffs.

[Godfather]

The Avs will steep competition this year though. Other than Boston and Pittsburgh, the East for whatever reason nowhere near as strong. The top 6/8 teams in the league are all in the Western Conference. The current 3rd seed in the East would be in a tight race for a Wildcard spot out here

Not to say a Western team will win the Cup ... I haven't followed Boston at all, but the Penguins look strong and Fleury's new goalie coach has him playing incredible again.

[Teh One Who Knocks]

... I haven't followed Boston at all

9-1-2 in their last 12 games...and 6 wins in a row after thumping Montreal last night

[samarchepas]

9-1-2 in their last 12 games...and 6 wins in a row after thumping Montreal last night

Budaj is a good backup...but I'm sick of having him as the starter every night
Since Price is injured, the team is having BIG problems with scoring goals (He should be back soon)

[samarchepas]

Price comes back (wasn't great, but that was to be expected, its been almost a month without action for him)
And...that was probably the most insane comeback I've seen in years!!! It was 4-1 Sens with a little more than 3 minutes to go.
Tied the game with 0.3 seconds to go and won in OT!