NHL Season 08-09

[Bweigelt]

While I agree with your assessment of the Atlantic Division, I just thought I'd point out the pens still have sykora, he's just day-to-day with a groin injury. Their secondary scoring should be fine, I'm more worried about their transition game with the loss of Gonchar and Whitney. Letang and Goligoski are fine when they have time, but what happens when they need to make that first pass while Philly's big bodies are about to put them through the boards.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, Philly losing to their AHL team in the final game at the spectrum. It means nothing but I still find it Hilarious.

[Bregor]

In other news, is anyone else doing fantasy leagues this year? my team is siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.
C - Olli Jokinen / Joe Sakic
LW - Dany Heatley a.k.a. The Murderer / Simon Gagne
RW - Daniel Afreddson / Nathan Horton
Forwards - Teemu Selanne / Keith Tkachuck
D - Scott Neidermayer / Chris Pronger / Zdeno Chara / Brian Rifalski
G - Roberto Luongo / Chris Osgood

Backups - Steve Stamkos / Milan Michalek / Alex Goligoski / Manny Fernandez

Love Heatley/Alfreddson and your defensemen, how many teams in your league? I just drafted in a 10-team league, we have a weird setup because we all used to do ESPN ages ago and we tried to mimick it in a custom Yahoo league:

F - Joe Thornton, Ryan Getzlaf, Olli Jokinen, Shane Doan, Milan Hejduk, Jonathan Cheechoo, Ryan Smyth, Marco Sturm
D - Andrei Markov, Joe Corvo, Pavel Kubina, Dustin Byfuglien
G - Marc-Andre Fleury, Jose Theodore
Bench - Tim Thomas, John-Michael Liles, Eric Fehr

I felt pretty smart myself since Byfuglien is a wing with D eligibility in Yahoo. And Fehr is my 50-star sleeper to emerge as another goal-scoring threat after Ovechkin/Semin (I'm a Caps fan if you couldn't tell.)

[Sepukku]

Love Heatley/Alfreddson and your defensemen, how many teams in your league? I just drafted in a 10-team league, we have a weird setup because we all used to do ESPN ages ago and we tried to mimick it in a custom Yahoo league:

F - Joe Thornton, Ryan Getzlaf, Olli Jokinen, Shane Doan, Milan Hejduk, Jonathan Cheechoo, Ryan Smyth, Marco Sturm
D - Andrei Markov, Joe Corvo, Pavel Kubina, Dustin Byfuglien
G - Marc-Andre Fleury, Jose Theodore
Bench - Tim Thomas, John-Michael Liles, Eric Fehr

I felt pretty smart myself since Byfuglien is a wing with D eligibility in Yahoo. And Fehr is my 50-star sleeper to emerge as another goal-scoring threat after Ovechkin/Semin (I'm a Caps fan if you couldn't tell.)

Your team is okay, you got freaking robbed on forwards though. I'm GUESSING Fleury was your first round pick, maybe Joe Thornton? I try to steer away from the Sharks and their players. That team is just radiates a poison cloud of underachieving. Fleury is a solid goalie, should give you 35-40 wins at least. I'm in a 10-man league. We were supposed to have 12, but 2 didn't sign up in time. I picked 5th or 6th, middle of the pack, I can't remember.

[Bregor]

I picked 7th in our league, went Thornton first and Fleury second. It was kinda early for Fleury but I really wanted him, and Datsyuk, Kovalchuk and Hossa were gone. In round 3, Rick Nash and Mike Green went right before I picked, so I took my 4th round guy in the 3rd (Getzlaf) and settled for Jokinen in the 4th. Looking at how our draft shaped up, a lot of goalies went later than I thought, so I probably would have taken Alfredsson in the 2nd round if I had to do it over again.

[Dolmen]

Reaffirming the stereotype that Canadians like hockey, the country's national sport.

You're a genius, tyche.

Technically it's lacrosse. (There was some bill that went around in 94 over it)

Also, go Habs!

[Norelco]

go MTL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lol on LS we got a MTL fan(me) 2 canucks fan and 1 RW fan. There is someone from Toronto but he prefer not voting for his local team (I wonder why )

Can't wait Friday for MTL @Buffalo

CRUSH THOSE SABRES!

Nooo! Go Sabres!

I'll be there tomorrow night in section 316. It's my Birthday tomorrow!

[Bweigelt]

I picked 7th in our league, went Thornton first and Fleury second. It was kinda early for Fleury but I really wanted him, and Datsyuk, Kovalchuk and Hossa were gone. In round 3, Rick Nash and Mike Green went right before I picked, so I took my 4th round guy in the 3rd (Getzlaf) and settled for Jokinen in the 4th. Looking at how our draft shaped up, a lot of goalies went later than I thought, so I probably would have taken Alfredsson in the 2nd round if I had to do it over again.

Getzlaf was a freaking steal in the 3rd round. Ryan's going to put up 100 points this year or close to it.

[Abraxas]

The Rangers do have the better goalie of the three teams, but that really doesn't mean to much if the defense doesn't do its part. Sadly, the Rangers have the worst defense of the three.

Wade Redden's occupation is interesting. He gets paid to make defenses worse than they are. Every year, I had high hopes for him. I liked him years back, but every year he would let me down. He's very overrated

[Oxyminus]

The Rangers do have the better goalie of the three teams, but that really doesn't mean to much if the defense doesn't do its part. Sadly, the Rangers have the worst defense of the three.

Wade Redden's occupation is interesting. He gets paid to make defenses worse than they are. Every year, I had high hopes for him. I liked him years back, but every year he would let me down. He's very overrated

2007-2008 season Goals Allowed:

NYR - 199
Pitt - 216
Phil - 233

2006-2007 goals allowed:

NYR - 216
Pitt - 246
Phil - 303

Rangers have the worse defense of the three teams? I don't see it. they got rid of their worse defenders (malik and strudwick) staal is turning into a legit, elite, stop guy. Girardi continues to develop, Kalinin is adjusting well, and Mara and Roszival are both very solid. Rangers didn't bring in Redden to be the anchor of the defense. they brought him in to man the point and create production from the blue line that they have never really had since Leetch was traded away. the key to the rangers defense is few teams in the league play a better TEAM DEFENSE scheme. all 5 players are involved, and its a total team effort. big names? nope. but solid, solid, solid. we may not have the best offense, but i will take to the bank their defense is better of the division

[Colm]

In other news, is anyone else doing fantasy leagues this year? my team is siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.
C - Olli Jokinen / Joe Sakic
LW - Dany Heatley a.k.a. The Murderer / Simon Gagne
RW - Daniel Afreddson / Nathan Horton
Forwards - Teemu Selanne / Keith Tkachuck
D - Scott Neidermayer / Chris Pronger / Zdeno Chara / Brian Rifalski
G - Roberto Luongo / Chris Osgood

Backups - Steve Stamkos / Milan Michalek / Alex Goligoski / Manny Fernandez

Doing a 5-man autodraft league, I got:
C - Crosby / Datsyuk
LW - Daniel Sedin / Thomas Vanek
RW - Jason Pominville, Nikolai Zherdev
D - Mike Green / Brian Rafalski / Lubomir Visnovsky / Scott Niedermayer
Goalies - Brodeur / Nabokov
Bench - Brad Richards / Miroslav Satan / Paul Kariya / Ryan Miller

Thinking I might drop Zherdev and Sedin, but I'm debating. Lots of talent in the free-agent pool still. Andrei Kostitsyn, Milan Michalek, Dustin Byfuglien (I love flex players) on LW, Alexei Kovalev, Martin Erat, Erik Cole on RW, among others. Thoughts?

[Thoronas]

Sedin is good for at least 70 points. Any of your other choices good for that much?

[Bweigelt]

I would think playing with Bernier who seems to gel with the sedin's very well, daniel should hit 35 goals and 85 points easily.

[Dalek]

Leafs hand the red wings their first official loss of the season. datsyuk and co., meet balls.

they are aiming low this year but thats still kinda funny..

[Bregor]

Getzlaf was a freaking steal in the 3rd round. Ryan's going to put up 100 points this year or close to it.

Not sure about 100 points but I agree he's a steal, the PIMs and +/- is what drew me to him. I'm doing this league with a bunch of guys I played hockey with in the '90s, and a couple fair-weather Penguins and Flyers fans, so I wasn't sure if they knew how good Getzlaf is.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with Cheechoo's two goals tonight, if he's back my forwards look a lot stronger.

[Sepukku]

Get Kovalev, at least 80 points, chance for 100 if hes healthy. A lot of his points will be on the power play too.

[Abraxas]

2007-2008 season Goals Allowed:

NYR - 199
Pitt - 216
Phil - 233

2006-2007 goals allowed:

NYR - 216
Pitt - 246
Phil - 303

Rangers have the worse defense of the three teams? I don't see it. they got rid of their worse defenders (malik and strudwick) staal is turning into a legit, elite, stop guy. Girardi continues to develop, Kalinin is adjusting well, and Mara and Roszival are both very solid. Rangers didn't bring in Redden to be the anchor of the defense. they brought him in to man the point and create production from the blue line that they have never really had since Leetch was traded away. the key to the rangers defense is few teams in the league play a better TEAM DEFENSE scheme. all 5 players are involved, and its a total team effort. big names? nope. but solid, solid, solid. we may not have the best offense, but i will take to the bank their defense is better of the division

i stopped reading after you said Roszival was solid.

and you can't post goals against stats after you made a post saying the Rangers have one up on all of the teams in the ATL by having Lundqvist, which i agree with. while team defense plays a factor into it, i'm willing to bet that the difference in GA is Lundqvist bein a better goalie than the other two.

Staal is about the only good defenseman the Rangers have. Roszival plays when he wants to, and when he doesn't, look out. Paul Mara? Girardi?

yea, they have the least skilled D of the 3, imo.

and nice job quoting stats from when the flyers were the worst team in the league. im strictly going off of last year.

[Oxyminus]

i stopped reading after you said Roszival was solid.

and you can't post goals against stats after you made a post saying the Rangers have one up on all of the teams in the ATL by having Lundqvist, which i agree with. while team defense plays a factor into it, i'm willing to bet that the difference in GA is Lundqvist bein a better goalie than the other two.

Staal is about the only good defenseman the Rangers have. Roszival plays when he wants to, and when he doesn't, look out. Paul Mara? Girardi?

yea, they have the least skilled D of the 3, imo.

and nice job quoting stats from when the flyers were the worst team in the league. im strictly going off of last year.

Roszival is solid. the biggest knock on him is for a guy who is 6'2", he's not nearly as physically imposing as he should be. but he is calm in his own end, and does not make frequent boneheaded plays.

last season Lundqvist had a 2.23 GAA, Biron had a 2.59, Nittymaki a 2.91, and for sake of the conversation of the three teams as a whole, Fleury had a 2.33. so yes, the man between the pipes does make a difference, but it does not tell the whole story.

and yes, I concede, i did put the side-by-side stats, ill advised in trying to display my point. last season the rangers allowed the 5th least goals in the league, and 9th least in 06-07. what im trying to stress is that while the technical "defense" may not be the best in the league, "defensively", including the 3 forwards on the ice, and the system they play, they are without question one of the better teams in the league, and better than philly. not every team has the luxury of being able to dress the likes of lindstrom, neidermeyer, pronger, phaneuf, bouwmeester, and so on, on a nightly basis. are Girardi and Mara the best defensemen in the leagaue? nope, but they work very well in Renney's system. Girardi has been getting better at taking the body, and has always been at the least, smart, and makes the unflashy, but right play in his end. Mara, who was already big, is playing smarter in his end, and is getting quicker, big key for a guy with his size.

I concede the rangers blueline does not flash big names, outside of Staal who is becoming the anchor of the defense for years to come, but as an entire team unit, they are an extremely good defensive team.

[Thoronas]

Vancouver smoked the flames so bad last night. It felt so good watching that game. I hope they can stay this solid throughout the season. It'll be interesting to see how we'll do against a top team like Detroit.

[Abraxas]

look at what the maple leafs did

[Thoronas]

look at what the maple leafs did

It was all part of their plan to make other teams completely write them off then they'll surprise them with how good they are. The Canucks did that this season as well

Also did anyone get to see the Def Leppard concernt on TV in Detroit. I laughed my ass off when the lead singer took the Stanley Cup and put it Upside Down(!) on its pedestal.

Edit: Hurray for youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npwMdSWSeZI