2010-2011 NHL Season Thread

[Richybear]

The only bad thing with Souray is he's making Redden money, and definitely isn't worth it at all.
He had one awesome season in Montreal, cashed in on it, and got the hell outta there.
Now he couldn't hit the net if it was soccer-sized.
Plus his attitude is piss poor, and you don't need that around a young team trying to rebuild.
I'm sure they'll have a hard enough time as it is trying to convince Hall, Eberle, Paajarvi to stick around in a few years without Souray opening his stupid mouth about not liking the city. Was great to see the Management stick to their guns and boot him Ari Gold style when he tried to skate with the team like nothing had happened. *insert "GTFO!" .gif here*
Kadri played well last night, but if he wants to make a Brian Burke team, he'll have to eat roid sandwiches, and punch people using his skates as knucks. They already have Burke's quota of "One 20 goal-scorer-potential per team" filled with Kessel.

[Bregor]

ESPN and Puck Prospectus released their VUKOTA power rankings for the upcoming season. You need to be an ESPN Insider to read it, but here are the rankings:

1. Washington
2. Vancouver
3. Detroit
4. Chicago
5. Boston (wat)
6. New Jersey
7. Pittsburgh
8. San Jose
9. Buffalo
10. Philadelphia
11. Los Angeles
12. New York Rangers (double wat)
13. Minnesota
14. St. Louis
15. Dallas
16. Ottawa
17. Phoenix
18. Colorado
19. Calgary
20. Anaheim
21. Nashville
22. Tampa Bay (triple wat)
23. Montreal
24. Florida
25. Carolina
26. Columbus
27. Atlanta
28. New York Islanders
29. Toronto
30. Edmonton

[Thoronas]

lol Washington as #1. Detroit or Vancouver maybe but Washington? Naaaaah

[Richybear]

LOL @ Oilers still in last.
San Jose is #8, which will quickly be changed once playoffs start.
Tampa being ranked so low shocks me though

[vagus]

19. Calgary

What? and before TB?

[Bregor]

lol Washington as #1. Detroit or Vancouver maybe but Washington? Naaaaah

LOL @ Oilers still in last.
San Jose is #8, which will quickly be changed once playoffs start.
Tampa being ranked so low shocks me though

It's for the regular season. But yeah, Tampa being so low was the one thing that stood out to me.

[Selamis]

Hawks got their rings last night:








Estimated worth of $30,000

[Anton]

1. Washington
2. Vancouver
3. Detroit
4. Chicago
5. Boston (wat)
6. New Jersey
7. Pittsburgh
8. San Jose
9. Buffalo
10. Philadelphia
11. Los Angeles
12. New York Rangers (double wat)
13. Minnesota
14. St. Louis
15. Dallas
16. Ottawa
17. Phoenix
18. Colorado
19. Calgary
20. Anaheim
21. Nashville
22. Tampa Bay (triple wat)
23. Montreal
24. Florida
25. Carolina
26. Columbus
27. Atlanta
28. New York Islanders
29. Toronto
30. Edmonton

Really? They predict Taylor hall to lead Edmonton to the bottom? Toronto finishing worse than Atlanta? Why is Chicago 4th, I wasn't aware they still had a team left. Why is Vancouver 2nd?

What kind of drug induced list is this? Does it even snow at this guy's place? I bet he just went "Ovechkin plays for... uh... oh yea Washington" and put them as #1

Khadri's one of the few people on the leafs who clearly doesn't have a brick between the ears. He's fast, soft hands, and has a lot of potential. Today's NHL is alot more forgiving on small talent, hey at the worst he beats his guy and draws hooking penalties.

Fine I'll be the forum's Toronto guy, but dont expect me to like it

http://upsetfan.com/images/Upsetfanapril3.jpg

[Bregor]

Really? They predict Taylor hall to lead Edmonton to the bottom? Toronto finishing worse than Atlanta? Why is Chicago 4th, I wasn't aware they still had a team left. Why is Vancouver 2nd?

What kind of drug induced list is this? Does it even snow at this guy's place? I bet he just went "Ovechkin plays for... uh... oh yea Washington" and put them as #1

Khadri's one of the few people on the leafs who clearly doesn't have a brick between the ears. He's fast, soft hands, and has a lot of potential. Today's NHL is alot more forgiving on small talent, hey at the worst he beats his guy and draws hooking penalties.

Fine I'll be the forum's Toronto guy, but dont expect me to like it

It's not a guy's list, it's the results of Puck Prospectus's VUKOTA projections, which attempt to assign metrics to a player's value in various aspects of the game. They run a simulation of the upcoming season using current rosters and these metrics to determine their records. The system is still being tweaked, it took Baseball Prospectus a while to fine tune their system and this is the first year Puck Prospectus is publishing their full results in a book, but it's the preseason and any list or power rankings are fun to debate.

EDIT: For those interested: link

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...SL._SS500_.jpg

[Richybear]

They'll send a ring to Toronto that'll say "Champoni - VERTSEEG"

[Naafeih]

Ryan Miller's Home GAA was 2.13. His Road GAA was 2.32. What do you think accounts for that .19 difference?

....Nerds.

First thing I thought of.

[Callisto]

Any Toronto fans wanna offer up a prediction this year?

..

*crickets*

...

Any toronto fans left?

...

Kadri had a pretty epic night yesterday, bet Burke sends him to the minors. Versteeg was a great pickup. Kolby Armstrong is pretty good. I'm excited because this team will do better than last year, but I just get a feeling it's still not enough for a playoff berth. The minute the leafs are off, they get scored on. Not enough error margin in the team.

And yes the Kovalev v Beauchemin fight was awesome. As was that game 2-0, 2-3, 4-3

Kadri didn't seem remotely interested in playing well until it was make-or-break, he needs to stew in the system longer. Versteeg is going to put up 25+ goals this year, I guarantee it.

[Callisto]

They'll send a ring to Toronto that'll say "Champoni - VERTSEEG"

He actually came back to Chicago for his ring, the only player no longer with the team that did, Toronto actually let him have an excused absence from their camp for two days for it.

[Callisto]

@ Bregor: Anything else of note in the Insider stuff? I disliked that almost all of ESPN's NHL coverage after the first two weeks of free agency was Insider-only, but I don't have any money to sign up for it and I think I used up my free trial years ago.

I disagree with a lot of their rankings, especially at the bottom. I really don't see Edmonton finishing underneath Florida, and NYI took a huge hit to the beginning of the season with two of their best players going down in the last week, they're most likely not going to look too well out of the gate. Calgary finishing over Nashville seems incredibly unlikely based off goaltending alone.

[BadKarma]

Really? They predict Taylor hall to lead Edmonton to the bottom? Toronto finishing worse than Atlanta? Why is Chicago 4th, I wasn't aware they still had a team left. Why is Vancouver 2nd?

What kind of drug induced list is this? Does it even snow at this guy's place? I bet he just went "Ovechkin plays for... uh... oh yea Washington" and put them as #1

Khadri's one of the few people on the leafs who clearly doesn't have a brick between the ears. He's fast, soft hands, and has a lot of potential. Today's NHL is alot more forgiving on small talent, hey at the worst he beats his guy and draws hooking penalties.

Fine I'll be the forum's Toronto guy, but dont expect me to like it

http://upsetfan.com/images/Upsetfanapril3.jpg

Are you really that far down on De Nile that you think Toronto is worthy of anything more than being 2nd to last?

[Callisto]

By 25+ I meant Versteeg will have 52 goals.

[Richybear]

And Edmonton is gonna rename Rexall Place to Taylor's Hall

[Sepukku]

28th? Does this guy realize the Islanders have Mark Eaton?

[Bregor]

@ Bregor: Anything else of note in the Insider stuff? I disliked that almost all of ESPN's NHL coverage after the first two weeks of free agency was Insider-only, but I don't have any money to sign up for it and I think I used up my free trial years ago.

I disagree with a lot of their rankings, especially at the bottom. I really don't see Edmonton finishing underneath Florida, and NYI took a huge hit to the beginning of the season with two of their best players going down in the last week, they're most likely not going to look too well out of the gate. Calgary finishing over Nashville seems incredibly unlikely based off goaltending alone.

I have Insider for fantasy and college football stuff mostly, the NHL content is meh. Not really anything earth-shattering and it's a lot of the same kinds of things you can get on TSN, just worded differently. I think this particular article is in ESPN The Magazine as well. If something is worth reading I try to post the key points here.

I disagree with the rankings too, specifically for some categories. They gave Boston a 10/10 in goaltending, citing Rask's league-best save percentage and Thomas's Vezina from two seasons ago. But I think it's pretty questionable whether Rask can repeat that performance, or Thomas can regain is '08-'09 form. Buffalo got 9/10 and I'd take Ryan Miller and a cheap caddy from the Brotherhood of Backup Goalies over Rask/Thomas any day.

And yes this projection was run before the injuries to Okposo and Streit, so don't panic yet, Leafs and Oilers fans!

[Deader2818]

Im most likely bias but I have the Kings ahead of Buffalo, Philly and Boston.