RegDunlop

Never played fantasy, but back in the day, my older siblings were really into APBA. Apparently they are still making sets, and there's even a hockey one.

Yeah, like that Montreal guy. What was his name again? P.J. Stock? I don't like this deal, but James and Lee make a good point.

Yeah that's a much "cheaper" way to use the PPS because you only pay the call up fee. I hadn't thought of that.

Yeah I'm not saying it's a bad idea or anything - I do like the innovation here. It's just that the way I see it, the situations where I use it will be pretty limited.

Yeah I have a long-term injury on one of my teams and I'll be using IR, not PPS. Because PPS necessarily comes at a cost (the cost of dropping a player), I see it as a very, very exceptional thing. I had Strome a couple of seasons ago when he was sent down, and I wonder whether I would have even used it then. Taking a couple million off the books in order to have that 12th forward for a couple of months probably wouldn't have been worth it.

Sweet! Speaking of the Pens, anyone who hasn't seen this save against Columbus must watch it right now. Never seen anything like it: https://streamable.com/yedjd

LOL - no stripes on these bad boys.

Don't take it personally, Rainman! I'm just bitter because the Habs' window is closing this year (while Price is still at 6.5) and our GM seems to be more interested in shopping for tight pants and hair gel than a 1C (or a 2C, or a 3C for that matter). ...and no, I don't have Demko but I wish I did!

Bahaha - someday, Rainman, someday... many years from now. Maybe when Thatcher Demko has a few seasons under his belt.

Prices are nuts. When Habs tickets went on sale, I spent $110 per seat to sit in the fourth row of the 3rd deck for a meaningless December game against Calgary, and would have spent even more had the game been against a "premium" team (Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Toronto, Boston... basically our rivals and the teams with the big names on them). I'm not a huge jersey purchaser (I always wear the same one - Roy's from '93), but I do like that the Adidas jerseys have a normal shape. The ass bib on the RBK jerseys was really weird.

Realize Bergevin is an idiot and fire him.

Argh. This is very frustrating news. I had two big food-related targets in PCFL RFA bidding this year. I wanted Pasta, and if I couldn't get him, then I wanted Breadman. I ended up getting Panarin. At the time, I thought it wouldn't be so bad, because Pasta could be bridged, and at least I'd get two solid years of my new guy playing with Kane. How things have changed...

And nice improvements year-to-year for Severson. What do people think his ceiling is?

Tavares would be nice. I'm half-kidding with Jagr, but he did lead a Claude Julien team to the Finals. Just sayin'.

Curious to see what the plan is. They've got $9M to spend, which is great, but Christmas is over and only "misfit toys" are left on the shelves. Speaking of which, here's an idea. While they're not signing centres, why not bring in Jagr, put him next to Plekanec, and see what happens? I personally have been wanting to see a late-career Jagr don the bleu-blanc-rouge for a long time. Maybe it finally happens this year? To paraphrase Kermit the Frog, "someday we'll find it, the Kladno Connection, the lovers, the dreamers, and me..."

I see it as Weber and Alzner, Petry and Benn, and then the other guys (Schlemko, Streit, Davidson, and Jerabek) all rotating through the last two spots until something sticks. That top four is definitely cause for concern given how inconsistent Benn was at times. I guess for spots five and six it would be Streit and Jerabek getting most of the minutes and, in a best case scenario, not being completely terrible.

I agree with Veg - this has been true for a while and it's the problem. Montreal has spent much of the last 25 years trying to build a team that looks like the '93 champs, on the assumption that if you have a superstar goalie, it doesn't really matter that you have no talent up front. Problem is, that's not a successful model anymore - the days of guys like Roy, Hasek, and Vanbeisbrouck carrying mediocre teams to the finals are long gone. That said, I don't think we can argue with the Price signing too much - I bet Holtby gets something similar in a few years, and it's kind of in line with the 8.5 Lundqvist got a few years back, accounting for inflation (and the difference in talent). We must get rid of Bergevin, though, because if he can't build a winner with Carey only having a cap hit of 6.5, he's not going to be able to do it when Carey's eating up 4 million more (this last comment may also apply to Price's PCFL owner, but that's another story).

We've been asking that question here in Montreal for 20 years...

Anything that helps with scoring is a good move! I like it.

Yeah that was also my view (as an outsider, anyway) - Julien got fired, but the problems are more to do with the GM and his personnel decisions. I'm just hoping that's not the Montreal "homer" take on things.

LOL - I also miss Ryan O'Byrne, but you can't change history. Are there any Bruins fans out there who can weigh in? How is this playing in Boston, and was Julien really the problem?

Maybe Bergevin could remind the Avalanche that they owe us a lopsided deal for a star player?

I like Veg's take - Danault does benefit a lot from his linemates. He's a guy who's good at playing with guys who are good - can't break a game open on his own. I'd like to see Galchenyuk and Duchene as centres #1 and #2, and have Tomas Turtleneck move into a full-time shutdown role.

Good riddance to Therrien's "rim-it-around-the-boards-and-hope-to-win-possession-in-the-neutral-zone" breakout system. I can't wait to see what breakouts look like when there's uh... what's it called? Oh, yeah... passing!

Isn't "Goon" pretty much the John Scott movie? The Scott thing was fun, but part of what made it fun is that he triumphed despite the NHL doing everything they could to stand in his way. It'd be pretty hard to repeat that kind of story, I think.