Everything Else

Your Friends And Neighbors – ’17-’18 Team Previews: This Buds For You

By 1760

The dichotomy of the Toronto Maple Leafs this year is probably going to drive you utterly insane. On the one hand, there’s likely no other team in the East that you’d be more excited to watch. They are loaded with young, fast talent marshaled by a coach who knows how to play a possession game. They are poised to do many big things this year, and their first three lines could honestly pour in the goals. 300 goals is not out of the question for this outfit.

On the other, the noise generated by the Leafs and more specifically their stupidly carnivorous media and fans has always been outsized by a huge margin for a team that until last year sucked to the nth degree. What’s it going to be when they’re a genuine Cup contender now? It’s probably not going to be like anything you’ve ever seen, because the last time the Leafs were this close Izzy was still in Guns N’ Roses. You’ll be sick of it by December 1st, guaranteed.

Strap in.

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS

’16-’17 Record: 40-27-15  95 points (4th in the Flortheast)  Bounced in 1st round by the Caps

Team Stats 5v5: 50.3 CF% (13th)  49.2 SF% (20th)  51.7 SCF% (7th)  8.3 SH% (8th)  .929 SV% (19th)

Everything Else

Plans/Changes For The New Season: This Is Actually Some Big Stuff

By 1562

Hey all. You may have noticed we have been dark for a little bit lately. That’s how it usually goes. The last two weeks of August are dead time anyway, and we kind of use it to recharge for what’s ahead. Friday we’ll have our award-winning, world-famous Bears roundtable, which we know you’re just dying for.

But after that, it’ll be time to kick the pig for the new season, and boy do we have plans for that.

Everything Else

Suggestion Box: Let’s Get Radical

By 1519

Most of the changes we’ve advocated here the past few days, or have been talking about for a few years, are pretty simple. They’re logical. They make sense. Which is why the NHL is never going to adopt them.

The problem with these discussions is you have to accept that there’s something inherently wrong with the game on the ice. That it’s not entertaining. I don’t know if I buy that. I don’t know that a lack of goals means boring (I say this is a soccer fan, so take it for what it’s worth). Lack of scoring does not mean lack of action. Action is the crux here.

But I could definitely see where people think hockey has a lack of action. While the game has never been faster, and teams are every so slowly stocking their roster with more speed and skill (at least some are), that doesn’t mean it’s all that fluid. A lot of games descend into one team stretch passing to a forward at the other blue line to chip in, and then basically an attempt at a cycle. It can ground down in a hurry, and far too much playoff hockey looks like this. It happens quickly to be sure, but that doesn’t mean it’s all that vibrant.

Everything Else

Suggestion Box: Do Away With Road And Home Jerseys

By 1535

Over the next few days, or maybe week or two, we here at The Lab will be suggesting things that we think could help the league. These won’t be pie-in-the-sky, go-four-on-four-all-the-time type bullshit, though we may suggest blowing up St. Louis just on general principle. We spend a lot of time around here tearing down. It’s time we tried to suggest how to build back up. Not that anyone ever listens to us. So let’s kick this pig…

As is always the case it seems, the NHL has been beaten to the punch by the NBA. As you might have seen, the NBA this year will have no “home” or “road” jerseys this season. Every team will have four to choose from, one of which will be white, and the home team will pick what they will wear first and the road team will have to then wear something that doesn’t clash. I’ve only been screaming for the NHL to do this for years, pretty much ever since the Leafs-Wings Winter Classic. And long before that.

But that doesn’t mean it’s too late for the NHL.

Everything Else

I Don’t Care About Jaromir Jagr, And I Certainly Don’t Give A Rat’s Ass About John Scott

By 2164

We here at the FFUD labs get accused of being overly negative. And it’s true, we are, and we need to work on that. When you’ve done this as long as we have, and have to watch the same stupidity over and over again–from front offices, from media, from fans–it leads one to get jaded. There are so many things we do enjoy about doing all of this, we just have to sift through a bit more than we used to to find and hang onto them.

So let me say that the fact that Jaromir Jagr can at his age, be a useful if not plus-plus NHL player is quite amazing. His metrics really do standout, and it probably will be a while before we see someone who does the same thing at his age. Not that someone couldn’t stay in shape that long–hell, Hossa would have done it if his skin would allow–but is the motivation really there when you’ve made so much money and maybe won all that you set out to win.

Here’s the problem with Jagr’s production, though: None of it has mattered in years.

Everything Else

Let’s Talk Ourselves Into Sam Gagner…If Bill Daly Will Let Us

By 1250

Before we delve into whether or not Sam Gagner would be a good pickup for the Hawks–they’re apparently batting their eyelashes at each other from across the free agency bar (that’s what people do when they’re attracted to each other, right? I really have no idea), we should let rip on Bill Daly and the NHL.

First off, let me say that I’m still somewhat surprised that Bill Daly remembers how to breathe throughout a particular day, given the powers of his mind. Today he came out and said the NHL still has not ruled on what Marian Hossa’s cap status or injury status or just status will be. I cannot, with every writing skill I’d like to think I have, express how universally stupid this is.

First off, it’s completely unfair. The Hawks need to know if they can put Hossa on LTIR in training camp or not. Otherwise they have no idea what they can sign this summer and where they have to be when camp opens.

Everything Else

This One’s Easy

By 2392

We only know one half of the participants in the Stanley Cup Final, which will start Monday (and starting it on a holiday seems a bit weird to me but at this point I’m beyond studying it too hard). The NHL only needs to know half though, because they can once again, finally, put the most deserving player in the position of face of the league.

It is time for the hockey world to come to terms with PK Subban.

Everything Else

The NHL Is Out To Lunch, And So Is YCP

By 17895

Man, am I fucking sick of writing posts like this. But the NHL, it’s rock-stupid/ignorant players, the league’s insistence on pretty much letting them be that, and the supposed-watchdog organization riding shotgun seem pretty fucking insistent that I and many others have to keep doing so.

To recap the news, though you probably know it already, Ryan Getzlaf got caught calling someone a “cocksucker,” a homophobic slur whether you like it or not, the NHL fined him the change he found between his couch cushions, he came out after Game 5 and delivered the most insincere, backhanded apology one could muster, one so lacking in any emotion or regret even Jay Cutler thought it was patronizing, and You Can Play released a statement that was so soft and passionless it’s a wonder the paper it was printing on didn’t actually piss down its leg. So a good weekend for all around.

Everything Else

Even A Stopped Clock

By 1573

Around these parts, an opportunity to shit all over anything the league, or particularly Gary Bettman, says or does for regarding anything surrounding the overall trajectory or vision of the NHL at a large is rarely missed. And though there was a great deal of public “outrage” over his words when he stated “assume we’re not going” as the NHL’s participation pertains to the 2018 PyeongChang South Korean Winter Olympics, this is ultimately the right decision for the league.

Everything Else

The Problem With Replay

By 1712

I suppose the only way last night’s offsides debacle really matters is if the Wild win the division by a single point, and that somehow matters in the playoffs whether the Hawks lose in the first round to an opponent whom they wouldn’t have played or if they lose to the Wild in Game 7 in Minnesota (because that’s oh so likely to a Boudreau team). But I’ve hated the challenge system in every sport since they instituted it, and it’s important to see why.

Both MLB and the NHL went to the “challenge” system to essentially mimic the NFL’s system. But that in itself is ridiculous, because the NFL system was basically adopted so the NFL could abdicate responsibility. It was either terrified of slowing down the game or that it couldn’t make the right decisions, or at least to restrict when they would go to video review. Sure, no one wanted a game where there was a delay of 30 seconds while a video review took place.

But that wouldn’t happen. What takes longer? A video review official taking one look at a controversial play and deciding it needs to be reviewed, or a team employee doing it, radioing down to the coach, who throws a flag, who then has to explain to the ref why he’s hurling laundry onto the field (and from now on they should throw a dildo), only for the ref to then go and review the thing with the aforementioned replay official?