IBFT

I *hate* the sens, hate hate hate them, but come on, Heatley is a ****ing joke. Ive disliked him ever since he murdered someone and got to be a glorified hero when he was traded to a canadian team, instead of pound him in the ass prison. But now, not only is he a shitty person, he's a shitty ****ing teammate. Go to ****in hell, dude, stay in ottawa with the coach you hate.

Madden to the Hawks for one year O_o

Garon to columbus, 1.2 for 2 years.

the team doesn't look that bad, either. Bronze medal, here we come!!!

I have tunnel vision when it comes to sports. I don't care how everyone else suffers, just my teams:) Just lookin ahead, it has a feel that sid, geno, staalsy, and flower will be carrying the team in '10, which is better than most teams will have, granted.Interesting eastern conference deal today, between the NYR and MTL:Scott Gomez, Tom Pyatt, Mike Busto(should play poker imo) <=> Chris Higgins, Ryan McDonagh, Pavel Valentenko now all NYR needs to do is get rid of Redden to get rid of all their ridiculously bad contracts, huh?

I realize this is getting way ahead of myself, but the one thing that worries me is next years cap might come down a considerable margin, so being right up to the cap could hurt us/them/the pens. Doesn't matter in Billy's case, obviously, since its a 1 year deal, but I don't think anyone else on the team will sign for 1 year.

they can just pick him up next week when TB goes backrupt.

I dont know how many people watch US Football, but is Pierre McGuire the canada version of Gus Johnson? The guy would have a stroke over old ladies knitting.

Was kind of disappointed, tons of rumors swirling early/mid day and then really nothing has happened other than the pronger deal. When I first read that Pronger was going to the Flyers my heart sank. Gave up a ton though. I think they have to move Briere, so they're really hurting their scoring, and, on top of that, I think some of their current top blueliners are overrated. In a way, though, Pronger will fit right in with the way the flyers play.

I dont know if this gets covered later in the thread, but Kaberle's NTC expires starting at 7pm tonight (Draft night). Unless 590 was mis-reporting.

The Staal penalty wasn't there. The Holmstrem penalty (it was holmtrem, right?) iirc, was Holmstrem falling, and in the process of falling, he grabbed the jersey of a penguin player and pulled him down to the ice. It was definitely the more offending of the two infractions (mainly because, as has been stated, staal did NOTHING, his stick never touched anyone for hooking (which is what the call was, right?) It was just the most wtf call I've ever seen, especially given the fact that they were calling no penalties.

I pick on Hal Gill because I live in Toronto and the poor guy took so much shit from the TO media. He was part of one of the most overpaid blue line units, ever, and he was misused. His lack of speed bothers me, but he's smart and tenacious, and yes, he's good on the penalty kill. My one problem is, he creates a lot of SH situations because of his lack of speed/agility, lots of holds/hooks, etc... But all in all, I'm real happy to see someone so dumped on get a ring. Brian McCabe would be next on that list, if it weren't for the fact that I want the pens to win the cup every year. I agre

I realize there's more to Kunitz game than just scoring, but I think if you're going to be on the first line with Sid then you're going to have to put up some scoring. I mean, I appreciate what a Matt Cooke brought to the table, he was all physical presence, very little offensive ability. I think of Kunitz as a more refined, skilled Cooke, and he'll need to step up, especially playing with the calibre of players he will next year. I just looked it up on ESPN, and I think their stats are a little messed up, but he's ~20 goal scorer. I think he had 7 in 20 with the Pens at the end of this y

Thats something I wanted to ask, who do you guys see on the wing next year? Does Kunitz stay with the pens? 3.5 for him is high, imo. He really did nothing in the playoffs, minus his one big goal in the CAR series.Adams (played pretty well imo), Fedotenko (played well), Billy Guerin, LUCIFER (Satan), Sykora (bye bye) are all UFAs.on teh blue line, I know that with his new deal, Golo is probably one of the top 6 and that probably means the SLOWEST MAN IN THE HISTORY OF THE NHL (Gill) is probably gone, but I'm really hoping that Scuderi doesn't want too much. Outside of that one horrible tu

Im sorry, I think I probably had my homer glasses on calling him a sure-fire #1 C on other teams, but the guys ceiling is incredibly high. As has been stated, he's amazing defensively. His offensive game will come (and hell, I think part of his problem is he's playing with 3rd line wingers). He still needs to work on his face offs, also. But he has one thing that can't be taught, developed or learned: Size. He's big, powerful, well-balanced. And as Zach said, he's young. How long is his deal, btw? 4 a year is a bargain for his skill set, imo.

I guess its the football side of me - I hate giving up young players and draft picks for older players/rentals. I think a lot of it had to do with Hossa. I was never a real big hossa fan. He's probably a big reason why they were the number 2 seed that year, allowing them to survive without Crosby for that long stretch, and he didn't completely disappear in the playoffs, but I've just never been a big fan. The only thing that was good about the trade is they got the best player involved.Any word on how Angelo Esposito is doing for atlanta? I'm assuming he isnt even in the NHL yet?

I have this deep feeling that Im gonna get flamed for this, but I think if push came to shove and the pens needed a blue chip winger, id rather move malkin to the wing and staal to second line centre. What it comes down to for me is, I think Staal would be a number 1 centre on a lot of teams, the scorer you would have to get back for him would have to be a top notch two way player.Still wish the pens hadnt done the hossa trade (I was on record as not liking it at the time it happened, just hated what they gave up for him, especially to have him walk (which was probably a good thing))))))

speaking of bargaining chips, I can't remember which outlet it was, either espn or sportsnet, saying they thought it would be a good idea for the pens to use jodan staal as trade bait for a stud defensemen.......yea, that sounds like a great idea, kids.

Crosby's gettin killed by certain toronto media, and I don't get it. Crosby waited for Lidstrom last year, on home ice, and he's half his age. If it was that important to Lidstrom, wait for the interviews (which was the issue, not the celebrating) to end, and shake hands. Otherwise vacuum the sand out of the vaginas.

Bill Mcreary was on Hockey Central today and was saying that the officiating didnt change int he playoffs and if you asked both coaches they would most likely praise the officiating. I find this odd, since Mike Babcock openly bitched and moaned about the officiating, and I'm not sure Bylsma would have been doing cartwheels about two of superstars with 200pound growths on their backs. What pissed me off was it seemed like they were only calling things they had to, like gunshot wounds, for example, and then the wings get that ticky tack wtf call on Jordan Staal in the 2nd period (was saved on

bet the house as long as you can get your money back if they wind up in hamilton.

Serge, I still go back to one of the points I made earlier - if bettman were going to have a long-term Emperor Palpatine type of fix in it wouldn't have been for Pittsburgh. In your scenario, I don't think he'd do it in any of the struggling markets. He would have made sure the rangers got Crosby and then they won the cup in 7 games. Hockey has never been as popular in the states as it was in '94.Further, I think thats Bettman's biggest problem. Stop trying to build the game in the US by putting teams in atlanta, florida, phx, etc... and build it like everything else is built in the stat

hockey is basically the hardest sport to 'fix', imo. In football, the refs, if they were fixing the game, could essentially take away score after score with penalties. In basketball, they could just give a subtle edge in free throws. In baseball changing balls and strikes for one team or the other would have a huge impact. In hockey, the refs don't generally take away scores, they can't add scores, and in this final they called basiically 0.001% of the penalties that were committed, basically saying to each team, 'we're not going to allow ourselves to be the story, even if that means getti

I think the flop is a mixture of flats and min raises (calls for the reasons stated, min raise for the fact that MP isn't folding a FD to a minraise and SB probably isn't folding any thing to a min raise).On the turn you must raise. If you just call and MP2 just calls (as he did) its way too hard to get all over MP2's stack (which covers you) if he has a 5 or a FD. it doesn't need to be a normal 'Im playing against good players' raise, just a raise, could be in the ball park of 20 or so. SOmething around a 3x bet raise. You have a full house, you're not really worried about anyone having a

Hm.1) Auto rebuy max2) I don't like the call here preflop. Either 3-bet or fold. 3) If you're going to call, I don't like donking into button with this hand. 4) I don't like your bet sizing at all. Well, I don't like you leading at all in this hand, so let me saying this: If these are your normal bet sizes, they are too small. I don't ever use the pot button, but I think between I prefer to be towards 75% of the pot, and the first bet isn't even 50%.5) You really dont have much of a read on your opponent. No PT Stats and only a few orbits. I guess if you check to him and he shoves,