2016-17 NHL season running thread

I'm being greedy and hoping for nine more. But yeah, this needs to be the year they break through to the conference finals at least.

 

I'm wondering how many days it will take for Nail Yakupov to drive Ken Hitchcock bat-shit crazy.

 

I thought it was more than that. He missed a big chunk of time with one of them, if I remember correctly. At some point, you have to wonder if he needs to stop playing.

 

It's his third.

 

Yeah. I got that from Evil's post. Just saying I am surprised because I had thought it was more. It isn't just about the number of concussions, but the severity.

 

Red Wings fan here. This is the last season at Joe Louis Arena, which could be even more depressing because the talent drain that has plagued the team for a solid decade now has reached critical mass with the loss of Datsyuk to the KHL. As usual, Holland has compensated by throwing bad money at any decent player who is willing to sign a free-agent deal with Detroit and screwing up the NHL development of prospects who could provide similar production for a third of the cost. Just this week, the Wings couldn't find roster spots for Teemu Pulkkanen and the hilariously named Martin Frk, then lost them on waivers for nothing to Minnesota and Carolina, respectively. Meanwhile, they found room for Steve Ott, which makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

EDIT: I freely admit that most of my disappointment about Frk ending up in Carolina is rooted in my inability to use all of the great headline puns I had stored up while he was languishing around the minors for years, as the Wings are notorious for doing with their prospects.

Shameless plug: As a side project, I do a little Twitter thing I call Hockey Today 140 (@HockeyToday140), which consists of one-tweet recaps of all the day's games. A good TL;DR version of the preceding day in the league.

 

How many concussions did Lindros suffer before he hung it?

 

Yes, the one where Penguins fans continue to say that Dave Steckel went out of his way to headhunt. Which simply wasn't true. He also missed a huge chunk of season after a hit by someone from the Lightning. Can't remember exactly who it was.

 

Out of his way might be strong, but he sure as hell knew what he was doing.

 

Now Jack Eichel down at practice and unable to put weight on his left leg, per the Buffalo News beat writers...

 

Welcome to Toronto, Auston Matthews. First NHL goal, first NHL hat trick and all before the game was half done.