Hockey Randomness

Postby **columbia** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 2:16 pm

About that nasty German guy, who was assassinated in Prague...

Postby **Gaucho** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 2:28 pm

Heydrich.

Postby **Tomas** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 2:47 pm

About that nasty German guy, who was assassinated in Prague...

Oh, so Anthropoid movie with Cilian Murphy and Jamie Dornan? (Incidentally, I kid you not, during the promotional interview with Good Morning America some idiot brainless morning journalist lady asked "“How was is different, Jamie, than your “50 shades” role?”)

That makes sense, because the village where Nazis killed all the men (Lidice) to "revenge" Heydrich killing is actually near Kladno.

Actually, there is already one movie about this – 1964 black-and-white “The Assasination” (or “Atentat” in Czech). The movie ends with a 20-minute long scene of the German attack on the church:

That church was 2 minutes from my college in Prague.

Enjoy!

Postby **Tomas** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 3:23 pm

Jagr: unable to practice, unable to play, minimal chance he will recover this season:

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=

Postby **NTP66** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 3:33 pm

lololol

Postby **crusherstasiak** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:33 pm

Edm has had 88 fewer PP's than Colorado

Postby **columbia** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:47 pm

Edm has had 88 fewer PP's than Colorado

It’s harder to get PPs, if you don’t work.

Postby **shmenguin** » Sun Mar 18, 2018 8:24 pm

why hook someone when you could skate around them instead? slow teams are going to struggle getting power plays. which is also why sid hasn't been drawing penalties lately. if he has the puck, he ain't moving anymore.

Postby **shafnutz05** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 12:37 pm

Patrik Laine is one of the best players in the league, IMO.

Postby **shmenguin** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 1:33 pm

I just watched a Laine highlight vid this morning. His shot is horrifying. It doesn’t even travel. It just teleports into the net.

Postby **meow** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 2:28 pm

I might get raked across the coals for this, but I think Laine as a less stoppable shot than OV. OV straight up bombs it. It’s a hard, heavy shot that can overpower a goalie. Laine shoots it small and accurate. Saying he teleports it is a great adjective.

Postby **shmenguin** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 2:41 pm

ovechkin is the best goal scorer in hockey history. no argument from me.

Postby **Ad@m** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:00 pm

I’m hoping Laine scores an ENG in the Jets the last game, to break a tie with OV and win the rocket trophy.

YouTube · Postby **mikey** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:05 pm

ovechkin is the best goal scorer in hockey history. no argument from me.

Mario?

Postby **Silentom** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:06 pm

#MelnykOut billboards are up

YouTube · Postby **mikey** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:09 pm

Gonna be awfully tough to fire an owner...

Postby **columbia** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:10 pm

Bob Nutting says hold my beer

Postby **shmenguin** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:24 pm

ovechkin is the best goal scorer in hockey history. no argument from me.
Mario?

i get how cross era comparisons are murky waters, but i just can't imagine ovechkin not putting up 100 goals a year in the 80's. and when he actually used to skate, the numbers would have been off the charts.

but i get it. if it's the 80's, then he doesn't have the same trainers, the same technology, the same equipment, the same workout regiment, the same context to propel him to where he is now. i get all that. but man...i just can't approach this the same way you do with historical comparisons. he's a lot better than the people who were potting 50 on the reg back then. and yes - i think he's a better scorer than lemieux was. is he better relative to his peers? i guess not? but i don't think that's really an iron clad qualifier either.

i dunno...there's no definitive best practice for these evaluations, imo. and i feel ok saying he's the best.

Postby **Morkle** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:32 pm

I've often wondered that - put a guy like Ovi in the 80's and how far does he go. Honestly, if he took all his skill, training, - he'd kill it.
I think a lot of the 70's/80's had teams full of cans that the generational talent just abused. Can't say that now even with the worst teams with how much science/technology has impacted it.

YouTube · Postby **mikey** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:49 pm

Well, we all should know my feelings on this pretty well and good at this point...I stand with them.

That said, what if we flip the coin...Mario Lemieux, with new knowledge of training, new ways to correct back issues, new non-wood sticks, not having Jax Erixon dry humping him up and down the rink for 35 minutes a night...you think Nikita Kucherov is even in the range of his rear view with his 93 points? No way.

Mario quit, didn't play a game for like four years...walks into a league where teams are scoring 2.75 goals per game as a 35 year old cancer survivor and scores 35 goals in 40 games or whatever it was with 76 points. He finished top 20 in the NHL in goals after not picking up a stick for four years and even so, he only played half the games that everyone else did...he was on pace to score 67 in a league that only had three guys score over 45...

Don't get me wrong, Ovechkin is an all-time scorer...bigly. But Lemieux could score in ways that Ovechkin can't. Ovechkin has a rocket, he can one-time pucks. He can't score shorthanded and frankly, he struggles to beat goalies when in alone...famous moments of Marc-Andre Fleury robbing him in the playoffs aside, he doesn't have Lemieux's ability to make a goalie consider quitting hockey with a move...

Lemieux's famous moments are breakaways and 1v1 situations where he destroys Shawn Chambers or Ray Bourque...he was 6 for 8 in career penalty shots.

Ovechkin is just 2 for 12 in penalty shots and just a 31% shooter in the shootout.

When you're talking greatest goal scorer in history, you better bring a lot more than a one timer from the left circle. You need to score a myriad of ways in a myriad of situations. Lemieux could do it all and he could still put it away off a moving puck as well as anyone...

I'd also want to vet Bobby Hull fully before committing to Ovechkin too...

Postby **NTP66** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:50 pm

What mikey said.

Postby **Ad@m** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 3:58 pm

Lemieux could score in ways that Ovechkin can't.

When you're talking greatest goal scorer in history, you better bring a lot more than a one timer from the left circle.

This

Postby **shmenguin** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 4:14 pm

Well, we all should know my feelings on this pretty well and good at this point...I stand with them.

That said, what if we flip the coin...Mario Lemieux, with new knowledge of training, new ways to correct back issues, new non-wood sticks, not having Jax Erixon dry humping him up and down the rink for 35 minutes a night...you think Nikita Kucherov is even in the range of his rear view with his 93 points? No way.

Mario quit, didn't play a game for like four years...walks into a league where teams are scoring 2.75 goals per game as a 35 year old cancer survivor and scores 35 goals in 40 games or whatever it was with 76 points. He finished top 20 in the NHL in goals after not picking up a stick for four years and even so, he only played half the games that everyone else did...he was on pace to score 67 in a league that only had three guys score over 45...

Don't get me wrong, Ovechkin is an all-time scorer...bigly. But Lemieux could score in ways that Ovechkin can't. Ovechkin has a rocket, he can one-time pucks. He can't score shorthanded and frankly, he struggles to beat goalies when in alone...famous moments of Marc-Andre Fleury robbing him in the playoffs aside, he doesn't have Lemieux's ability to make a goalie consider quitting hockey with a move...

Lemieux's famous moments are breakaways and 1v1 situations where he destroys Shawn Chambers or Ray Bourque...he was 6 for 8 in career penalty shots.

Ovechkin is just 2 for 12 in penalty shots and just a 31% shooter in the shootout.

When you're talking greatest goal scorer in history, you better bring a lot more than a one timer from the left circle. You need to score a myriad of ways in a myriad of situations. Lemieux could do it all and he could still put it away off a moving puck as well as anyone...

I'd also want to vet Bobby Hull fully before committing to Ovechkin too...

i think OV now and prime OV are also very different players. like sid, he just doesn't move around much anymore compared to the old days (but at least sid can dust this off and wear it around every so often).

but of course there were several variations of lemieux also - the 80's version was going to score on a breakaway. it was a joke how easy it was. but once goalies actually started being useful, it didn't play out that way. point being that lemieux didn't crack the cheat code with breakaways. he struggled just like everyone else once goaltending changed.

none of the above is THAT linked to the original point, but i wanted to mention it because...i dunno.

i like how you framed the argument, though. this isn't about what player X would do 30 years ago. It's about what player Y would do today. and with Mario, it's a promising theory. he would have been in better shape. his back wouldn't have crumbled. he would have watched his shifts on the bench and improved in real time. and he may have put up numbers we can only dream of. his dominance in 2001 is also compelling.

...but i'm still blocked by the fact that modern players are simply better. they had it handed to them, but it is what it is. and not only does this skew at he individual level, but at the macro level, teams are better. the competition is better. goalies are a different species. which makes OV's achievements unique, IMO. the infrastructure is now preventing outliers like lemieux and gretzky.

Postby **slappybrown** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 5:16 pm

and now in this thread weird goal scorer takes from le shmengy

shmengster, chill out

Postby **shmenguin** » Mon Mar 19, 2018 7:57 pm

Based on last year, I didn’t think there would be super stiff competition for a 3 peat. Sure, it was still unlikely, but TB missed the playoffs, NSH barely made the playoffs, Winnipeg was theoretical, Vegas...ha, Boston was stuck in the middle class and Washington was going to start declining.

The last part is true but god dammit if all those other teams didn’t pull some black magic ish in the offseason. This is going to make the playoffs more enjoyable, I think. Washington felt like the cup finals. It made that series more stressful and the Ottawa series just plain offensive on every level. Now we get to just see what happens and not be burdened by expectation. So with that said...screw it. Let’s beat the flyers this year.