Running 2022-23 NHL thread

I can’t see how the Ilses make this deal without assurances that Horvat signs.

 

You think they are going to admit to discussions? Horvats agent has 5 other clients on the Islanders. We’ll see.

 

The Islanders have been unwatchable for the last month. I don't think there's much there there, but with that old core and Lamoriello in the last known year of his contract, they've got little choice but to go for it. We all know his/their style works in the playoffs and they have a goalie who can carry them.

 

This whole era might be a bit of a fluke. They were going to miss the playoffs before the pandemic ended the '19-20 season. Got hot in the bubble and were solid but not great in the shortened '21 season--good enough to easily get into the playoffs, but nobody saw them coming this close to dethroning the Lightning. Easy enough to blame last season on the crazy travel and multiple COVID stoppages, but it's been more of the same this year. Barring a dramatic turnaround, it'll be three straight full-ish seasons where they were meh. It's very cool they got the dramatic playoff runs, but this is probably closer to who they are and were the whole time.

 

Leave it to the NHL and ESPN to make the skills competition boring. They stretched out the contests so there was no flow. Instead of doing one contest at a time, they did preliminary rounds and finished them later in the night.

There was a confusing goalie/shooter thing and instead of running the breakaway challenge all at once, they mixed the competitors in one at a time. It’s usually silly fun, but this one was over produced.

 

I haven’t watched in years, but isn’t it always boring?

 

Not this boring. No one looked like they wanted to be there.

 

Gotcha. And yeah, they haven’t wanted to be there for years, which is why the league started suspending guys a game if they didn’t go.