Reports are that the Blackhawks are talking to 40 year old goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Um. That wasn't great the first time around.

Maybe they want him as a coach. I could see that.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Understand that Gay, I was saying Hayes can put up Stalbergs goal numbers if NOT his speed.

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Hayes needs to stay on his skates and off his ass. If he can clean that up he will be fine.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

Going to assume 2C goes to Pirri with a very rare chance of Leblanc. That leaves the 3rd and 4th line wings open. I'd like to see Morin and Hayes given a fair shot in training camp and not just automatically plug in shit for brains Bollig or Carcillo on the 4th line. Keep them as "we'll play you when someone is hurt" players. This is all assuming we don't sign one more forward.

Overall, I've been very happy so far this off-season. I wanted Bolland gone and Bickell, Roszival and Handzus back. Took care of Leddy's contract and it looks like Kruger's will be done soon. Would of liked to keep Frolik but didn't have strong feelings about it.

Word is that the Hawks are talking to Khabibulin about coming back to Chicago. Another move I would approve of. Get a veteran goalie to back up Crawford while Raanta gets every game starts down in Rockford for a year.

I forgot about Smith. Surely his time to be an every day NHL player is now.

I totally agree about keeping Carrillo and bollig on the roster but only dressing them when someone is injured or needs a breather. They have no business on any line otherwise.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

@NHLBlackhawks: The #Blackhawks have agreed to terms with goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin on a one-year deal.

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Dear christ.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Crawford was gonna be the guy anyway. This lets the young guy get lots of starts in Rockford. You just need him to start the occasional game.

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Stay off the roads.

are you fucking serious

Hawks are going to have to be careful with Rozsival. You're probably looking at 55 games max from him, with more than a few long layoffs over an 82-game season. I guess Handzus at a million is okay, but I see 13th forward in his future.

Stalberg is going to wither and die on the Predators. This is going to be fun.

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With the bags of money Clarkson and Clowe finagled I feel much better about Bickell. Fucking Clarkson got paid.

David Clarkson is like the king of scoring 25 goals, 24 of them having ricocheted off his ass.

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shit he could be an offensive star there.
Didn't the average like just over 2 goals a game and near the worst of the NHL?

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

I'm not sure that anyone could be an offensive star in Nashvilles system. Their style, along with Phoenix, is horribly dull to watch.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

CH summed up Stalberg perfectly when he referred to him as a "bum slayer"

Yes, they tied the Panthers for worst offense in the league. Stalberg will get goals because someone has to--especially in a shit parade of a division that features the Stars, Jets, Avs, and I dare say the Wild--but think for a moment about Stalberg's tendency to float his way into the doghouse. Here's a guyyyy who pissed off Joel Quenneville, generally regarded as a moderate-tending-toward-players' coach, so much that he was scratched for Brandon Bollig, the useless turd to end all useless turds. IN THE PLAYOFFS.

Now, transfer that to Barry Trotz, who, being as entrenched in his organization as Al fucking Arbour only without ever actually having done anything, will send messages to anyone and everyone he feels isn't 110% committed to running his same old left-wing lock/dump-and-chase that have powered the Predators through their dynasty of generally losing in the first round of the playoffs. I've even come to suspect that he's such a shitty coach to play for that temperamental players' brainfarts, when they happen, are actually worse than they'd be under a less rigorous coach: look at the boner Sergei Kostitsyn had against the Oilers this year, where he drifted to the bench without a fucking clue on earth where Sam Gagner was (hint: flying toward the net to score short-handed). This clip could be the crystal ball that shows Viktor Stalberg's future.

EDIT: to be fair, the Kostitsyns were both fucking retarded Chernobyl babies who would have washed out of the league eventually, and I don't think that will be Stalberg's fate, but I do think we shouldn't get our hopes up about him ever being more than a guy who cleans up on awful teams and then looks lost against good ones. There will be ample opportunity for him to do both, but instances of the latter will preclude further instances of the former.

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Wow, that clip was awful.

I won't miss him, I'm just thinking he will add value to the Preds awful offense.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Anyone heading out to Johnny's Ice House this week for prospects camp? Games begin Wednesday. I'm going Friday morning, possibly even Thursday. Danault, McNeill, Shalanov, and Stephen Johns are there among others. So is the new goalie.

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The motto of the B&B section:

I honestly don't listen much-Reared On The Score Thu Jan 28, 2016 9:38 am

I so wanted to go this year but I'll be out of town tomorrow through Saturday

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http://www.hockeyprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=1553


.

I think hockey prospect forecasts are more reliable than baseball. But I could be talking out of my ass.

No, I agree with you, though a lot of people are going to get clowned if the Panthers' crop of prospects doesn't pan out. SOOO BIG can't-miss Markstrom has already looked like a shit sandwich more often than not, and I'm not convinced Shore, Gudbranson, or Matthias are anything special.

As for the Hawks lacking superstar prospects, I'd say cough-cough Brandon Saad, but again, that's to be expected when you don't draft high, and with superstars already on the team and winning championships (ergo, not drafting high), role-players are what you really need anyway, lest you become top-heavy and exposed like the Sharks or Wild. I would much rather know that if we need a third-line wing who would be a second-line wing elsewhere, we can reliably have that guy when we need him, to say nothing of high-upside fourth-liners who are more than the usual "just bodies" who populate most fourth lines.

As for late-round finds, they're terrific, but we have to remember that it all kind of evens out in the end. It was awesome to find Andrew Shaw in the fifth round of his third draft. At the same time, they had the seventh overall pick once and it was Jack Skille, or more recently, the eleventh and Kyle Beach. While yes, it's great to get NHL production from a guy whose draft position says "stays in junior over age and goes to the ECHL," they have to supplement good early picks or else you're just trading one quarter for four nickels. Fortunately, I feel that Bowman has done a very good job drafting in volume, something he gets to do when he's made to jettison key players from championship teams.

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Though let me add that I can't be too confident in the Hawks being ninth if the Predators are sixth. With fucking what? Same as it ever was, the Preds are a relentless assembly line of replacement-level players who plug into lineups and phlegmatically forecheck well enough to be a pain in the ass without ever distinguishing themselves. Unlike the Blackhawks' model, their developmental reliability is not to be lauded, inasmuch as it hasn't fucking won them anything but a first round series where Shea Weber was allowed to assault Henrik Zetterberg. And while I realize that these little capsules can't provide much longform analysis, I expect more than "some forwards had pretty good years" if you're going to tell me this farm system is in the 80th percentile of a 30-team league.

Yes, Seth Jones, but we really need to slow our roll on Seth Jones. I think people have gotten so enamored of a big black guy whose dad played basketball that we've lost sight of some very basic fundamentals of hockey development, viz. that defensemen require so much aging that they should practically come with oaken casks, and that as such, defensemen taken right out of the gate often do not contribute to their teams immediately, sometimes only contributing in the way of trade returns, others not at all, making them risky propositions when you are in the position to draft first (or close) and need the most help soonest.

Cam Barker went 4th overall as a can't-miss, and even with patient development, he will go down as an all-time bust. Conversely, Chris Pronger (2nd overall) will go down as a generational talent, but the Whalers abandoned ship on him fast because he was young and stupid, flipping him for Shanahan after two years, who himself was promptly flipped to the Wings for who the fuck cares, after which point the Whalers organization itself was flipped to who the fuck cares. The Blues passed on Jordan Staal, Toews, non-goalie Backstrom, and Kessel to take Erik Johnson at #1, who underwhelmed on bad teams, fell out of a golf cart, and went to the Avs for a package of guys who elevated the Blues to fringe contender. He's still no damn good, really.

So when people were howling about him falling to 4th, I wasn't fazed in the least. And now people are gushing that Weber and Jones will be unstoppable for years to come, and between those two + Rinne, no one will ever score on the Preds again? as if there's not something like ten years between the two guys and their primes will not come close to aligning? What bullshit. Jones will either do his time in Milwaukee as all Predators must for what seems like forever, or the Predators will feel obligated to uncharacteristically send a top draft pick right to the show, where it's quite possible that as a 19-year-old defenseman with first/second-pairing minutes, he will be repeatedly undressed like an easy date, as most 19-year-old defensemen are against grown men. Perhaps you remember 2010-11 Nick Leddy, who, even with Hjalmarsson or Campbell there to hold his hand, was more often than not a shitshow. This could go less than well.

So what I'm getting at here is fuck the Preds and their drudgery, and if they're better at developing players than the Hawks--and the Wings, who are just fucking unreal at this point--just because Seth Jones waits in the wings and "some forwards had good years," I will come on the ice after a Predator scores a hat trick and eat the hats.

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@ChrisKuc

Blackhawks agree to terms with forward Marcus Kruger on a two-year contract.

Glad they got this finalized.

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Later Carcillo!!!! Enjoy LA.

They got a conditional pick back. Now Bollig will be all alone as the useless guy on the bench. Maybe Beach can join him and hopefully never play.

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That's my purse! I don't know you!

I don't think he is terrible but clearly does not fit Q's plans. Bye Bye.

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Good move. Would have taken a gatorade bottle filled with flu virus for Carcillo.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014