Yes, the runner up for the Lady Byng (and someone who has finished top 10 for the award in 3 of the past 4 years) is a piece of shit. It's unfortunate, but zero chance that was intentional. Spurgeon was going directly towards the net where the puck was, while two players (Dvorak and Eriksson Ek) were circling back towards the net. Dvorak sort of accelerated coming out of that turn, and Spurgeon tried to split Eriksson Ek and Dvorak on his way towards the net. He clipped Dvorak, and that sucks he got hurt, but it was a complete accident. Here is the play being discussed:
Pretty impressive how quickly the Wild went from a team that looked stuck in neutral to a team that looks like they're gonna stay good for a while. Kaprizov coming over was obviously a big part, but they also did a nice job upgrading their goaltending. Rossi and Boldy look like great picks. They still have to navigate the big jump in Parise/Suter's buyouts next year, but most of that should be taken care of by letting Rask and Goligoski walk, who likely won't be huge losses anyway.
I'm still not sold on the goaltending in the short-term. Certainly an upgrade from where Dubnyk was late in his Wild tenure, but I think the team has made Talbot look better than he has actually performed, and Kahkonen is still inconsistent. The future of the goaltending is bright though with Wallstedt in the pipeline. Getting better than expected performances out of the Kulikov/Merrill/Benn trio on defense (and add in Addison when he has been called up) has been a nice bonus.
Yeah, I don't think Talbot/Kahkonen is a great combo and the defensive corps definitely helps prop them up, but getting even decent goaltending for 4.5 million total is great front office work.
Fiala needs a raise but other than that, they are in pretty decent shape cap wise. There's very little bad money on that cap.
How Fiala gets handled this offseason is interesting, as I'm not convinced Guerin likes him as much Fiala's reputation would suggest. It might come down to having to decide to keep either Fiala or Dumba, and the front office absolutely loves Dumba (and he'd be the cheaper of the two to keep).
Hasn’t really been an attempt at payback on Buffalo. Yet. Stutzle has 13 points in his last 14 games. This was a beauty!!
forever, our incredible universal healthcare is too weak for us to go out without taking the chance the make the whole thing crumble to the ground.
Dell is a bit of a fuckstick. Irks the shit out of me when goalies pull stuff like this with the way they get protected/knowing players can’t retaliate.
That's the kind of goalie we're reduced to at this point. And with a deserved suspension we'll reach further down the goalie ladder.
What's Tkachuk's comparable on his next deal? Elite 200 foot winger (likely) coming off an above PPG season. Mark Stone? He's an RFA, not a UFA- but he's already coming off a bridge, so I don't think that's going to matter. Flames kinda seem like they're in purgatory with their cap/roster situation.
Hall just destroyed MacKinnon and Mac is bleeding a LOT edit: looks like a fluke, Hall checked Mac's stick into his own face
I was in the process of looking for tickets for Friday's Hawks/Avs game...I'm going to wait for an update now