missives from the abyss
marc-andre fleury said it's been hard to smile and uh yeah dude has it ever
It’s the inaugural Sunday/Monday thing, because that’s what this is now. It’s got a release schedule (real)!
Here’s your news.
the news
Coming out of my cage watch: They finally did it. Jack Eichel is no longer a Buffalo Sabre! He was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights, along with a third, for Alex Tuch, Payton Krebs, a second, and a top ten protected first. This is great for a number of reasons, of course, but first among them is that Eichel can finally get his neck surgery, which should be happening this week. Another thing about this that is neat is that Alex Tuch, who grew up a Sabres fan, seems to actually want to be in Buffalo. Score.
Regarding The Blackhawks: since our last issue, a lot has happened. Kyle Beach came forward as John Doe 1 and did an absolutely enraging and heartbreaking interview with Rick Westhead on TSN. Gary Bettman had a disaster of a press conference, Kevin Cheveldayoff had a much less disastrous press conference. Stan Bowman and Joel Quenneville resigned. Duncan Keith and Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane have continued to make tremendous asses of themselves. The Bill Guerin/WBS Penguins thing is ongoing, and also bad, and the Penguins put out a pretty scummy victim blaming statement about it. I don’t know what else there is to say. It all sucks. It’s so heartbreaking. It’s so tiring.
Dogwatch: the Caps dog is a beautiful boy, and he’s finally met the old caps dog! The Minnesota Wild dog is outgrowing his bed. Finally, some rare sightings of the Bolts dog and Preds dog. Also, this is not about Anthony Mantha’s (WSH) dog, but she does feature.
Also:
Who says referees can’t play?
In which Morgan Geekie (SEA) endears himself to the world
In which Sergei Ovechkin teaches the Capitals how to play hockey
Clickbait voice: they were enemies, then their skates got stuck together. You won’t believe what happened next.
And, a new record for Scott Wedgewood (ARI):
a preseason piece written in week four or whatever is still ok? right??
We’ll finish this by playoffs. Probably.
More very real hockey analysis for the 2021-2022 NHL season:
The Chicago Blackhawks
This whole thing sucks so incredibly bad. Oh, the hockey team’s on ice performance? Yeah, that sucks too. Hawks management, since departed, swung for the fences this summer with Seth Jones and Marc-André Fleury, and they moved on from franchise cornerstone and general shithead Duncan Keith. “Captain” Jonathan Toews also returned from his year off with illness. They traded Brent Seabrook’s contract to Tampa for Tyler Johnson and some other stuff. Lots of big changes, but it hasn’t worked out. Maybe now that Fleury has a non racist (and unironically very cool) mask, he’ll be better (even though his original mask was supposed to be the non racist one). Hm! Jeremy Colliton got fired on Saturday, which is probably good, since the team sucked and there was a lot of weird tension with Dylan Strome. Again, maybe this will help. The Hawks are 1-8-1, so it could hardly be worse.
Predictions:
Jeremy Colliton is extremely fired. Probably by Thanskgiving. (I wrote this two weeks ago it counts).
Marc-André Fleury will move at the deadline.
The Philadelphia Flyers
Cam Atkinson plays for the Philadelphia Flyers and Jake Voraček does not. Weird. Nolan Patrick is also gone, as previously discussed, and instead, the Flyers have a lightly used Ryan Ellis. Martin Jones is here now, and oh boy is it ever working out. The Flyers are third in the metro division, which is once again pretty competitive. Keith Yandle, fresh off a buyout in Florida, is with the Flyers now too, though without his friend Kevin Hayes, who is currently on LTIR. And finally, in one of the splashiest moves of the summer, GM Chuck Fletcher came down with a bad case of Big Defenseman Horny, and traded away a first and some other stuff for Rasmus Ristolainen. For the first time in his career, he’s got a +/- higher than -1, though it’s only been 8 games. Good job, hope it continues.
Predictions:
Carter Hart will be good again.
Gritty will be charged with felony assault for pizza-pie-ing a corporate lawyer in the face as part of some weird promotion.
The San Jose Sharks
Say what you will about GM Doug “Wheelin’ and Dealin’” Wilson, he at least made attempts to fix his own messes in the offseason. The Sharks finished 6th of 8th place in a second shortened 20-21 Covid season, displaying occasional moments of brilliance in a season that frequently felt like a slog for both the fans and the players. Deliberate attempts to rectify this included adding veteran depth like Andrew Cogliano (from Dallas) and Nick Bonino (from Minnesota), buying out Martin Jones (now in Philadelphia), and giving some of the developing rookies a shot at the show. It also turns out that some of the “bad vibes” haunting the Sharks may have just been a toxic coworker since they now rank 4th in the Pacific, even with a game of musical plague chairs keeping head coach Bob Boughner and top players Erik Karlsson, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Timo Meier, and Kevin Labanc out of the lineup.
Predictions:
The Sharks go back to doing individual goal songs and one of the rookies picks “Baby Shark” for theirs.
Evander Kane will not return to the San Jose Sharks when his 21 game suspension for submitting a fake Covid vaccination has passed.
The Anaheim Ducks
For the other California success story, things are finally looking up for the Ducks. They rank 3rd in the Pacific after missing the playoffs for 3 years straight, after having a very quiet offseason and making almost no big trades. Hot streak contributions come from the usual suspects (Adam Henrique, Rickard Rakell) and [checks smudged handwriting] Troy Terry? Sure! The Ducks have been drafting relatively high and very well in their quiet years, and those years are paying off with Gen Z Ducks (Ducklings?) Trevor Zegras, Isac Lundestrom, and Jamie Drysdale racking up decent minutes in the first 13 games of the season. With no big roster or coaching changes, the Ducks seem satisfied to let everything play out according to their rebuild plan.
Predictions:
Dallas Eakins will be tossed around as a Jack Adams candidate but will not win due to anti-California bias.
John Gibson 4 Vezina.
The Florida Panthers
The Florida Panthers, as of today, have not lost a game in regulation and lead the NHL in points [hold for Vibing Panther]. Sam Reinhardt signed a one year deal, which is turning out very well for both him and the Panthers (9 points in 11 games). Joe Thornton also signed a one year deal in the Sunshine State, hoping to finally take himself out of the Old Guy Without A Cup conversation (sidebar: Thornton is 42, and after the Panthers waived Keith Yandle for a buyout the next oldest Panthers player is Patric Hornqvist, a spry 35). Andrew Brunette has taken over as head coach just as Sasha Barkov, Sam Bennett, and Sergei Bobrovsky are all day-to-day with various ailments. This could hobble many a well-built team, but the Panthers seem poised to roll on ahead with Spencer Knight (of that game fame) now minding the net and sicko mode scoring from Anthony Duclair, Aaron Ekblad, and Jonathan Huberdeau. Regardless of which team in the state you pull for, the era of Florida Hockey is upon us. Soak up the sun, y’all.
Predictions:
If Alex Ovechkin and Leon Draisaitl were not currently scoring goals like curing Covid depended on it, we’d have said Anthony Duclair would be an Art Ross contender but as predictions go he’ll finish as a top 5 scorer in the league.
Joe Thornton convinces Bill Zito to sign Patrick Marleau at the February deadline (shhh let me have this).
how’s our driving?
Every week, we’ll revisit ten of our unconfirmed/denied predictions to see how we’re doing
At no point will more than 5 players under 26 play concurrently for the Washington Capitals
Because of injuries, people born in disturbing years, like “2001”, played Monday night. Seriously though, Connor McMichael was born when? Brett Leason, Daniel Sprong, Martin Fehervary, Vitek Vanecek, and Aliaksei Protas were also there, all of whom are under 26. Leason scored his first NHL goal.
Brett Leason became the third rookie to score a goal for the Capitals in 2021-22, trailing only Anaheim (4) for the most among all teams. #NHLStats: media.nhl.com/public/news/15…Oh yes Brett Leason! https://t.co/Zm2XXhVepT
Washington Capitals @CapitalsJack Eichel will take up podcasting
He did not. However, apparently part of the external pressure to get the trade done when it got done was that he had a Sportsnet interview scheduled and no one wanted him to “go off,” so to speak. We’ll give ourselves half credit.
Kevyn Adams will be undeservingly fired for whatever dismal return the Sabres get after trading Eichel, as he will have further tanked his value through podcasting
The return was actually fine. Was it anything like the weird pipe dream Calgary thing that somehow included Matthew Tkachuk, a first, and a bunch of other stuff? No. But let’s be real, that wasn’t real.
Regarding Vegas, I don’t want this to happen but LBR, they’ll trade for Eichel somehow.
Lol. Lmao. Haha. Yeah. Anyway.
Boone Jenner will host his first successful Halloween party as captain.
Halloween has come and gone, with zero evidence to either support or reject this prediction. Boone, where is your leadership? How can you be the captain of a National Hockey League team and not have Halloween pictures?
Mike Smith will turn 40.
Mike Smith hasn’t played since October 19. While it seems we’re still on track for a 40th birthday in March, it’s not clear.
Someone will clock Tony DeAngelo again
Hasn’t happened yet, that we know of, but he did get a misconduct Saturday night for shooting a plastic rat because he got mad about losing.
Connor McDavid will discover the true meaning of Christmas, will also score exactly 154 points.
Look at this goal from the other night and tell me this guy isn’t feeling it. Just incredible shit. Can’t believe it. Good job Connor! He’s scoring at a 180 point pace, so there’s plenty of room for him to fall off and still meet our (apparently laughably low!) 154 point mark.
Patrik Laine is fixed now and will score 30+ goals
We may have cursed him. Laine was off to a good start, with 3 goals in 9 games, but is now out 4-6 weeks. Oops. Get well soon.
There will be a New York Post article declaring Ryan Reaves “The People’s Captain” within 48 hours
This didn’t happen. He also only played like 7 minutes during that game and was practically invisible.
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