Good... If Clucks is gone for the 'nucks then thats just one less obsticle standing between the Flames and the division title.

At 12/14/05 01:17 AM, da_pope wrote: Good... If Clucks is gone for the 'nucks then thats just one less obsticle standing between the Flames and the division title.

Yeah, but the biggest obstacle is their overconfidence.

At 12/14/05 04:14 AM, Coop83 wrote: Yeah, but the biggest obstacle is their overconfidence.

I'm not being cocky... Right now the Flames and 'Nucks are battling it for first in the division and know that they don't have a true starter it'll be easier for the flames to pull ahead.

Hockey Sucks!

Hockey cant even hold candle to Baseball, Americas True Sport!

LETS PLAY BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At 12/15/05 04:38 PM, da_pope wrote: I'm not being cocky... Right now the Flames and 'Nucks are battling it for first in the division and know that they don't have a true starter it'll be easier for the flames to pull ahead.

I wouldn't say that. A lot of goalies rise up to these kinds of challenges in order to prove they're worthy of being a starter, especially when they're not well known. I wouldn't write the Canucks off.

At 12/15/05 04:50 PM, DancingTurkeyGod wrote: I wouldn't write the Canucks off.

Oh, I'm not writing them off.
I'm just saying that it'll be easier to pull ahead.
(hopefully)

I'll join, I've only recently picked up a favorite team, I used to be a "casual" hockey fan but now... Anyway, my favorite team is the Los Angeles Kings. Thank god I drafted a lot of them for fantasy hockey.

im praying Luongo gets traded. I need some fucking points from him

Colorado or Vancouver seem to be possible destinations

At 12/15/05 04:49 PM, birdlover10 wrote: Hockey cant even hold candle to Baseball, Americas True Sport!

How many steroids scandals have there been in Hockey, compared to baseball?

At 12/15/05 09:37 PM, cheesebizkit wrote: im praying Luongo gets traded. I need some fucking points from him
Colorado or Vancouver seem to be possible destinations

I'm only praying he lands in Denver. Then I would be Oh so happy :)

At 12/16/05 08:21 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Colorado does seem like the reasonable destination. There's been goalie problem after goalie problem there. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up on a division opponent, namely Carolina or Atlanta.

Colorado needs him and may well be willing to trade for him.

The image of Luongo playing for the 'Canes has danced across my mind and is, quite frankly, scary. Unless you are a 'Canes fan, that is.

The 'Canes, with Eric Staal leading the offensive charge and Luongo between the pipes. That's the basis of a potential cup winner there.

At 12/16/05 08:29 AM, -Gooch- wrote: I've been impressed with Eric Staal. I remember back when our fantasy league was just beginning when somebody traded for Staal, and a couple of people thought that was a bad move. I guess not. He's just been explosive on offense this year.

You mean the NGHL? If you do (and I think you do) then that someone was me. Though my team isn't the best out there, Staal and Svatos have been the best producers for my team all season.

At 12/15/05 04:49 PM, birdlover10 wrote: Hockey Sucks!

Hockey cant even hold candle to Baseball, Americas True Sport!

LETS PLAY BALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, there were over half a dozen grammatical errors in that post. Secondly, Hockey is more exciting than Baseball, especially with this season's rule changes that encourage more scoring. Third, even though Baseball is America's pastime, Football is America's true sport; Any Ohioan could tell you that. Lastly, not everyone on Newgrounds is an American; The founder of this club is a Canadian, and Ice Hockey is Canada's national pastime.

That reminds me - has anyone else noticed this trend:
America's national pastime is Baseball, and the term "Yankees" refers to both a Baseball team in New York City and the general population of the United States (or at least the population above the Mason-Dixon Line).
Canada's national pastime is Hockey, and the terms "Canucks" and "Canadiens" refer to Hockey teams in Vancouver and Montreal, respectively, and to the population of Canada. I'm pretty sure "Canadiens" are French-Canadians in the province of Quebec and "Canucks" are the entire population of Canada (but sometimes just the French-Canadians). I haven't heard of any cases like this outside of North America, but it can't be just us naming professional sports teams after our own people's nicknames.

At 12/16/05 08:43 AM, -Gooch- wrote: That was you that pulled the trade? I guess you're not kicking yourself after that decision. Who did you end up giving up for Staal, anyways? I kind of forgot that part.

VPoY Dropped Staal to waivers on October 10th, I picked him up from waivers the very next day.

I could classify Scott Thornton that way, but now that he has Joe Thornton on a line with him and Cheechoo, I'm thinking that he'll start to rack up some points. Getting an assist in three straight games leads me to believe that I'm glad to give him another shot on my fantasy team.

I've noticed the differnce in Cheechoo, but since he's the only player with a game tonight, I'd like to see him score about 10 points. (though I'd settle for about 5)

At 12/16/05 09:19 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Hell, I'd settle for anything right now. Though I've been getting better production for the past week or so, I'm almost two-hundred points behind the leader. If I want to even have a shot at getting into the top ten in this league, some guys are really going to have to step up and score a lot of points.

I had a season high ninth place earlier this week. I'm about 170-180 behind 'Legendar Team Aapo' and I don't think I'll catch him, but I'm still going to play, as there is a chance of me actually making some ground up over the next few months.

Congratulations on 2000 posts, everyone :D

At 12/16/05 09:42 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Two problems with that hope right now. Lang's injured, and Prospal hasn't scored a goal in eleven games. If Prospal can catch fire, and Lang could return from his groin injury, I think that I might be able to start catching people again. Until that happens, I'm just going to have to sit back here in fifteenth place.

I'd drop Prospal and try to pick someone who's had some decent stats thus far. It worked for me, when I dropped some players (Eric Daze for Eric Staal), but there are others out there.

At 12/16/05 09:54 AM, -Gooch- wrote: I can't just go off and drop Prospal. He's been a key asset in getting me my points that I currently have now. I believe that he'll snap out of things eventually, so I think holding onto him would be the wise decision instead of dropping him.

He is going through a rut at the moment. I am suffering the same with most of my players (including Staal), but that's hockey. A shred coach needs to know when to drop a star to let a rookie have his moment of glory.

Then again, I could go shopping him around and proposing trades to people.

well, avoid the TexasHockeyMassacres, as they're inactive.

At 12/16/05 10:10 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Like you said though, that's hockey.

Hockey is a very streaky sport. I'd be very surprised if whole teams get the skids like fantasy teams do, though.

At 12/16/05 10:16 AM, -Gooch- wrote: I honestly thought that they were regressing back to the 1992-93 season, where they lost seventy-one games.

Well, I'd never say that the Sharks will go back there. They've got a great goalie in Nabakov and he'd never lose enough to let it get that way.

I'd be embarassed for any team if they ended up getting more losses than that in one season.

That's ancient history now, what with the NEW NHL and the way the salary cap has leveled it out. There won't be as many 100-point teams out there, but there will be a lot of teams who have close to .500 records and are making a final fortnight scramble for those last places in the playoffs.

I can't see teams losing that many games, because all the contests are so close now.

At 12/16/05 10:32 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Honestly, I would've expected a lot better out of St. Louis. They've always been one of the teams to try and keep Detroit in-check. Now look at them. They've had their struggles. Seeing Patrick Lalime getting waived just symbolized how much of a terrible season they're having right now.

I'm putting StL's bad ruin down to the loss of Coach Quenville (to the Avs) has cost them dearly.

Maybe their GM hasn't been earning his bucks, losing out on Chris Pronger. Him and Big Al Macinnis were the mainstay of the Blues, keeping them up in the division.

At 12/16/05 11:08 AM, -Gooch- wrote: As for Pronger, you could tell he grew unhappy with the organization over time. It seemed as if they had no other choice to deal him off.

They knew their 2 big stars weren't coming back, yet they didn't sign any good replacements

At 12/16/05 11:20 AM, -Gooch- wrote: No they didn't. They should've thought about doing that if they knew they were going to lose their two best defensemen. Then again, it's hard to replace the caliber of a player like Pronger, and a lot harder to replace that wicked hard slapshot that MacInnis possessed.

Maybe they are just waiting for a losing seaosn to get hold of the next of the Staal family. Apparently, he's a big defenseman who's like Pronger.

By the way, are you going to end up voting on the Newgrounds BBS Awards this year? I thought I'd bring that up, since I didn't think I've seen you cast your vote yet.

I haven't yet. Give me a link and I'll give some thought to it

From the WTF file tonight:

Sidney Crosby has been named one of the Alternate Captains of the Pittsburgh Penguins, along side Mark Recchi today. Its not the first time Crosby has been given a large leadership role like this. He wore the "A" for the Rimouski Oceanic in the QMJHL last year. Personally, I think that although Crosby is very talented and is the future of the team, it is too early in his career to give him the "A". Although, it does speak volumes about the faith the organization has in his potential. Frankly, I'm just shocked.

Sidney Crosby named Alternate Captain of Pittsburgh Penguins

At 12/16/05 08:57 AM, Coop83 wrote: VPoY Dropped Staal to waivers on October 10th, I picked him up from waivers the very next day.

At 12/16/05 09:19 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Hell, I'd settle for anything right now...

14 posts and 2+ hours later...

At 12/16/05 11:24 AM, Coop83 wrote: Maybe they are just waiting for a losing seaosn to get hold of the next of the Staal family. Apparently, he's a big defenseman who's like Pronger.

At 12/16/05 11:33 AM, -Gooch- wrote: Interesting. Or maybe that guy who played Gunner Staal on the Icelandic team in the second Mighty Ducks movie will come along, and they'll get him. XD

Damn boys... take a breather, let someone else take a shift.

I don't know of any team more banged up than my Philadelphia Flyers. They've got 9 of their 23 regular starters out currently and they just got Forsberg back. I tell you it's going to be a rough go for them over the next month or so, but watch out when their players start to get healthy. If there's any upside to this situation is that the Flyers know they have an excellent farm club in the Calder Cup winning Phantoms as they basically have carte blanche to bring up whomever they need to take a spot of an injured Flyer. Without these guys performing at the pace they are I don't know how the Flyers couldn't be in the cellar.

Let me know if any of your teams are this banged up or worse. I doubt it's just a strange coincidence that people are getting hurt more often in this faster pace hockey. I mean there was injuries before the rules changes, but it seemed that in a slower, more defensive style of play people had a greater feeling of when a hit was coming and if they couldn't escape it, they'd prepare themselves for it (excluding the hit on Moore of course).

Hrm, i'm currently watching the Caps game right now, and well they don't look like the team i saw a few weeks ago... It makes me sad...

At 12/16/05 08:00 PM, mighty_potato wrote: Frankly, I'm just shocked.

I completely agree. But yet again, we don't see what happens in the locker rooms, nor all of what happens during practice.

At 12/17/05 02:01 AM, DancingTurkeyGod wrote: I completely agree. But yet again, we don't see what happens in the locker rooms, nor all of what happens during practice.

Oh, no doubt. I also think that while Mario was out, he probably stepped it up in the locker room which is probably playing a large role in this decision. Either that, or they want to try and get fan's attention in Pittsburgh again before the team moves.

hoo boy, It's been killing me to be banned and watch a discussion consisting of more than two posts go on.
Well, tonight the Ducks fell in a shootout to the Kings, which sucks because the Ducks dominated the Kings from the end of the 1st and on.

Garon just stoned the Ducks, making 45 total saves. Jiggy was solid too, except in the shootout where he was rotten.

As for fantasy hockey, I too am having troubles. Although things are on the upswing, I've just surpassed another player and am only a few points behind the now inactive TexasHockey Massacres. The Staal drop was clealry a mistake, but it was my first fantasy league and I still didn't quite grasp eveything, so the drop was immensley foolish. But don't look for any more givaways next season, coop >:)

A big problem for me now is that Labarbera has been pushed to the side since Garon is playing so well. I'll probably swap him for a forward or another goaltender soon.
And another big problem is Kieth Tkatchuk, who carried me past Gooch and Purple Nurple. He broke some knuckles in tonight's game against the Hawks and he'll be out ANOTHER 4-6 weeks.

But I do have Lemiux, who picked up an assist in his first game back and can only improve as the penguins(hopefully) start to win again.

At 12/13/05 02:14 AM, -Gooch- wrote: True. Belfour can be a streaky goaltender at times.

I wouldnt quite put it as streaky. To me that means he has a streak of good games and then a streak of bad. It may seem that wyab ecause that is the way the Leafs are in general, but Belfour himself is more floppy than that. Bad game, good game, bad game, good game kind of thing. He just seems streaky because everyone once and a while someone other than McCabe does something on defense.

As far as Tellqvist's experience, you're right on that, too. He just needs more of it, and he'd be more comfortable carrying the load for Toronto. He just might become the next David Aebischer. Let's just hope he doesn't end up playing like Aebischer's playing this year.

Aebischer stepped it up, and the just lagged off. I see Tellqvist doing good things once he gets some experience (as you said) under his belt. I see him as a tender with HUGE potential. He isnt the next big goaltender, but he will hold his own in the NHL for sure. He just lacks experience, and gets shaky because of it. We have all seen him play very well, and I think most would agree that with experience he can play even better than the best we have seen from him.

At 12/17/05 05:26 AM, Myst_Williams wrote: He just seems streaky because everyone once and a while someone other than McCabe does something on defense.

*He just seems streaky because every once and a while someone other than McCabe does something on defense.*

That typo was more confusing than the others. Thought I'd fix it. I am tired. It is 5:28am. Heh.

At 12/16/05 11:33 AM, -Gooch- wrote: http://www.newground../topic.php?id=395960

Thanks, I've posted my nominations now.

At 12/16/05 08:00 PM, mighty_potato wrote: Sidney Crosby named Alternate Captain of Pittsburgh Penguins

Well, they're just trying to give the team a boost right now. That ansd replacing the head coach might just get them to win some games.

At 12/16/05 08:01 PM, phileeguy wrote: 14 posts and 2+ hours later...

Damn boys... take a breather, let someone else take a shift.

I was bored at work and Gooch was making a decent conversation with me, so it kinda snowballed from there :)

At 12/17/05 03:43 AM, VeryProudofYa wrote: As for fantasy hockey, I too am having troubles. Although things are on the upswing, I've just surpassed another player and am only a few points behind the now inactive TexasHockey Massacres. The Staal drop was clealry a mistake, but it was my first fantasy league and I still didn't quite grasp eveything, so the drop was immensley foolish. But don't look for any more givaways next season, coop >:)

Yeah, I had to swallow my pride myself, dropping Eric Daze for that move. I always said the Daze was underrated. If he had a better team under him, he could come up with the goods. The Hawks gave him a better team and look how he bombed.

I'm going to try to be available for the draft next time, so I can have a good look at the talent out there.

At 12/17/05 05:27 AM, Myst_Williams wrote: *He just seems streaky because every once and a while someone other than McCabe does something on defense.*

A good point made... eventually, Myst.