Mashup: [Some Title, Does Anyone Still Care?]

That’s less than I was paying for my 10 meg plan. lol

I haven’t looked at Blackers stats but after a slow start he seems to be playing very well. Maybe just an adjustment down the depth chart by Jake, Ranger and Kostas.

Yea Stanley Cup contenders every year. And it helped our scouts a lot that almost every kid in Canada (at least the ones I knew) wanted to be a either a Toronto Maple Leaf – or Montreal Canadien (barf – I just lost my supper!)
Don’t know what happened to Orr – maybe no Leaf scouts in Parry Sound?

Bill Watters ‏@RealBillWatters
Players’ salaries 11/12,1.85 Billidn.A 182 day NHL schedule elicits a 10 million dollar per day loss for each cancelled day in the schedule.

Makes me want to weep??   What do you think I’m doing right now?   lol

Let’s go Mooseheads

Toronto Sun ‏@TheTorontoSun
NHL lockout puts Vancouver Canucks head coach back under his parents’ roof. http://bit.ly/Ujm06K 

Allan Walsh ‏@walsha
Why? NBPA and NFLPA action led to quick agreements RT@SiriusXMNHL: Bill Daly: “Decertification would be a death knell to the season”

I thought then, and still believe, that telling the world — especially the Toronto hockey market — that you’ve landed the top player in the draft isn’t the best first step in player development. Undue, or at least avoidable, pressure is at least a threat to a teenager’s development. Historically, expectations in Toronto start at the unrealistic, so there’s little sense inflating them. As one former NHL GM said: “It was just about the dumbest thing you could do and why Brian did it I don’t know.”
I sampled a few scouts this week and asked them a couple of questions:
1. Could Reilly have been on top of a team’s list?
2. If there were a do-over of the draft, would Rielly move up based on his play this season and what seems to be a strong comeback from his ACL patch-up?
There seemed to be a split on question No. 1.
Said one Western Conference scout:
“I’d say Rielly might have been (the overall No. 1) for an organization based on what he had done before. I liked him more than Ryan Murray(the Everett defenceman who went No. 2 overall to Columbus). He has more upside, more play-making offensive ability. Murray will be a good player but the creative part of the game, that’s Rielly’s strength. Murray would be the sound defensive player who would allow a player like Rielly or Ryan Murphy to go do his thing. And I see Rielly as a better risk-reward bet than Murphy — the upside with Rielly might be higher and there’s less risk of him not being able to help you. I’d say No. 1 overall (for Rielly) is defensible.”
Another Western Conference scout who had Rielly further down his list last June said: “I liked him but I would have had trouble taking him at No. 5, never mind No. 1.”
I heard more of the skepticism about Burke’s claimed ranking of Rielly rather than support, but if it’s plausible to any other organization then it was plausible, period.
On question No. 2 there was something close to the consensus.
One representative scouting report from a western regional scout went as follows:
“(Rielly) has been really strong. He was great in the (Subway) series against the Russians and he’s better and better as the season goes on. He’s a great skater, right at the top of his class, and you get a sense that he’s not 100 per cent back. That’s going to take a full season. A lockout doesn’t hurt him at all. The fact that he can play at this level as he builds the leg strength back up is better than trying to do it (in the NHL). Based on what he’s done so far this season, I’d have him ahead of Murray. Significantly. If he was the Leafs’ No. 1 overall on their list, I’d say congratulations, that’s a good pick.”
Brian Burke, please forgive me for ever doubting you. I still don’t think you did Morgan Rielly any favours but, in these awful times, nobody stands to benefit from the NHL lockout more than the Leafs’ first pick.
In fact, he might be the only one to benefit other than the lawyers.

The man knows defenders.

The man knows defenders.

The man knows defenders.  lol