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For a few years, the Leafs had a ton of cash invested in their blue line and it wasn't all that great. Probably not this bad, though.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

From what I have seen Wiz has a lot more heart than Gomez or Stajan. His problem is that his body can't handle his aggro playing style. I predict he will give his all for CBJ but will be injured a lot.

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Were those the McCabe/Kubina/Kaberle/Berg years? Yeah...pretty bad. Sadly, even they had better goaltending than Mason behind them.



Still, it's a price tag that's just so inordinately beyond their skillset it's ridiculous. Wisniewski is a great puckmoving defender with plenty of grit, but he's not big enough nor sound enough defensively to be a #1 guy, and they're paying him to be as much. It's crazy to follow Wiz's career path--he went from being picked 156th overall to being dealt for a Sammy Pahlsson rental to being dealt for a 3rd rounder, then dealt again for a 2nd and conditional 5th, to signing a 33-million-dollar deal. Unreal.

On a side note, Rick Nash just needs to shut up. Howson was a real douche putting him behind the 8-ball like he did, but for Nash to come out and say the impetus behind his trade request was to help the Jackets' rebuild is just making him look that much worse.

Berg didn't play with Kubina, but yeah those 3 combined with combinations of Hal Gill, Komisarek, Jeff Finger, Beauchemin, White(though he was never making big coin), Phaneuf. They had some talent but were paid large dollars and never really put it all together.

Toskala and Raycroft were better than Mason? I don't know if I would agree with that, though this is Mason's worst year by far...

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Jack Johnson should end up in the AHL or bought out well before Wiz. Wiz's deal looks like a steal in comparison... heck, it'd be a steal at $12m in comparison to JJ's deal.

Clitsome was better than JJ and he was waived.

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Injustice? Cobain died and Eddy Fucking Vedder lived to haunt us with his shitty fucking voice, trite lyrics and his Eddy Vedderness.



- Ancient Chinese Proverb

I simply don't know how they're doing it, but the Jax have been winning ever since dumping Carter and Vermette, and replacing Grant Clitsome with Jack Johnson. I'm guessing this means Todd Richards will get a chance to coach this team next year, which is fair.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck- ... 43635.html

No comment.

5'7" goaltender Shawn Hunwick signed by the Blue Jackets as an amateur tryout out of Michigan. He had 5 years at Michigan, made team as a walk-on, only became starter at age 23 in 4th year. He'll be in the Jackets' lineup tonight.

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Injustice? Cobain died and Eddy Fucking Vedder lived to haunt us with his shitty fucking voice, trite lyrics and his Eddy Vedderness.



- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Posted a story about him in the Avs forum (the story there lists him at 5'6"!!!). Good luck to him, but he couldn't be playing behind a worse D.

...and they don't win the lottery the first goes to the Oilers....again.

The draft system needs some revamping you need to start getting docked in the lottery for recent first.

As it is now, it's barely only a lottery. The fact that it only applies to the very first pick, and limits movement among seeds to the point of absurdity, really undermines the goal of making tanking undesirable.

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It doesn't only apply to the very first pick, it applies to a single team who doesn't make the playoffs. The lottery team moves up a max of 4 spots. If anyone outside of the top 5 wins, they move up 4 spots and the first pick doesn't change hands.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Fair enough, you know what I mean -- much of the time that is the first pick anyway because of the weighting. But yeah, it is the most conservative lottery possible, designed really to barely impact the effect of tanking. It is still completely, 100% worthwhile to do as poorly as you can once the playoffs (or any success in them) no longer seem realistic.

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If I recall I believe the NBA's lottery system is far more volatile...the Nuggets NEVER won the damned thing despite a decade of utter incompetence.

By your wording it seemed like you were certain so that's why I pointed it out, not just to get all technical on you

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

I just think there should be a limit to the number of years you can be rewarded for being in the bottom five. People love to talk about how the Pens rebuild is the model to follow and I just can't wrap my head around being the worst team for a good four years is a good plan.

Agreed. Even with the lottery(50% chance of the #1 pick if you finish last), a team getting 3 #1s in a row is pretty absurd.

That was as much their financial situation as anything. No team with the Leafs resources should be in the bottom 5 for a long time.

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

You know, because Malkins and Crosbys are available in consecutive drafts all the time.

The Penguins franchise nearly died. If the 2006 and 2007 drafts occured after the 2003 draft instead of the 04/05 ones they would have. Picking M-A Fleury, Jordan Staal, and Patrick Kane three years in a row would've sunk that team. Fuck, picking Fleury only can be somewhat justified by the fact that they got their two franchise players the next two years and could afford to waste a #1 overall on a somewhat above average positional player (as in, he's a starter).

I'm working on a project to re-do the 2003 Draft. While it was an amazing draft, the order was incredibly whacky.

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Injustice? Cobain died and Eddy Fucking Vedder lived to haunt us with his shitty fucking voice, trite lyrics and his Eddy Vedderness.



- Ancient Chinese Proverb

Of course Pittsburgh got lucky with that, and they won a weighted lottery to get Crosby too. Still...

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Thanks Chuck, E.L. and Harmy!

Atlanta got Stefan, Heatley, Kovalchuk, and Lehtonen picking 1, 2, 1, 2, in four straight years. Pittsburgh most definitely got lucky.

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Injustice? Cobain died and Eddy Fucking Vedder lived to haunt us with his shitty fucking voice, trite lyrics and his Eddy Vedderness.



- Ancient Chinese Proverb