Saw that Marner's camp wants the same amount.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

The Muzzin trade helps them a lot by letting Gardiner walk in free agency. Nylander's and Matthew's contract were as expected so as long at they can get Marner in between 10 and 11 they should be fine. They could always trade Nylander or Kapenen. That Marleau contract was unnecessary and looked bad the second they signed him.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Scott Darling on personal leave from the Hurricanes, sounds like he toppled off the wagon again. We really should have explored getting him from Raleigh instead of signing Cam Ward; Chicago is the only place where we know him to be drunk-proof.

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Fuck, I didn’t know they signed him to a 4/16.6 deal - I thought it was like a two-year deal for less...well, if his career comes crashing down, he should have plenty to live off of.

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Not a mult.

Oh, and in another shitshow, Carlyle out in Anaheim, and...Bob Murray will step in as interim coach...

Don’t know what direction they will head for next season, but maybe this is where Q lands?

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Not a mult.

I'm starting to think Quenneville coached his last game. If the future of coaching/field-managing is to have guys who take orders from the GM and keep a low profile, there's not a lot of room for a big personality like Q. On one hand, the Ducks are enough of a crusty old-school organization not to subscribe to that, but they're also one whose situation is such a wreck in terms of old and bad as to make ours look good.

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Starting to look like all the "replace-Q" guys were right.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

St Louis has won 11 in a row and are in 3rd place in the Central. Binnington has been playing out of his mind and Tarasenko has woken up. I know this will make CH happy.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

The team wasn’t responding to him anymore, and there is no way he would have played all these young guys. It was time.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Yup.

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Bought tickets last night for Lightning at Blues next month. It’s my Christmas gift for my nephew. And I will be at Sunday’s Stars/Hawks game. Lots of hockey in my future!

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-- source

The only person you can really point to as a beneficiary of getting rid of Quenneville is Brandon Saad. Q was fucking around with him and that put him in a graveyard spiral. But you'd have to have moderate to severe brain damage to see a team that gives up 40 shots on goal to the Devils and seven goals to the Senators and says "wow, I'm glad they made that coaching change," unless your argument is that Joel Quenneville's zone scheme would have them giving up sixty shots on goal to the Devils and ten goals to the Senators, and then we're back to brain damage.

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I guess you’re right. The folks that think the Hawks are better now have brain damage.

_________________
Hawaii (fuck) You

They're better because Toews and Kane (and Strome and DeBrincat) are covering a multitude of sins. Subtract Kane's 100-point season and Toews's renaissance from this cavalcade of blown defensive assignments and you'd have the tank-for-first-overall team so many people seem to want. You have a guy coming in insisting on playing man-on-man in a league where no one really does that. It's like Dallas Eakins coming up from the AHL and trying to swarm puck carriers all the time.

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Eakins will be the next Ducks coach after the Gulls are done in the playoffs.

One thing that may help the Hawks for a possible playoff run (lol) is Crawford's return.

The PP has gotten loads better after the Q ouster, so Colliton has that going for him.

While there are MANY that want to see Panarin back, they don't need him. They need D, D, D, and more D.

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Not a mult.

Awesome, I want the Ducks to stay bad and this will help immensely.

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Oilers waived Brandon Manning.

"So, Joel, you want bad players, do you?"
"what no"
"THEN I'LL GIVE YOU ALL THE BAD PLAYERS YOU WANT! I'LL GIVE YOU THE WORST!"
"no don't"

That was a fun chapter.

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Erik Gustafson says "hello."

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

If Q was still the coach he'd have Keith and his slap-pass and indecisive entries still manning PP1 and Gustafson would still have to earn the assignment since he had given up a breakaway 3 games ago.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Wild trade Coyle to Boston.

Was in Minneapolis earlier in the week listening to Paul Allen’s show, and he was broadcasting from Wild practice. The discussion was about the upcoming Anaheim game, and how Boudreau would not let his team lose to Bob Murray, who had fired Boudreau when he coached Anaheim. PA said if the Wild lost, that would be what greased the skids for Boudreau’s exit at the end of the season, if not before.

The Ducks won 4-0

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Not a mult.

Time to wind down this iteration of the Wild. I think Parise, Suter, and A Bunch Of Dudes have taken that as far as it's gonna go, which is six wins deep, evidently. That idiot coach isn't helping, either. I doubt we could make a trade with them, but if Jason Zucker can be as much of a pain in the ass for us as he is against us, that'd be fun, though that's the old Cub Killer theory at work again. Remember Austin Kearns? Or we could rent Eric Staal but he sucks.

Florida Panthers seem to be white-flagging, with Hoffman likely on the block. I'd take him, I wanted him over the summer when his psycho bitch girlfriend talked him out of town. I thought I read something about Huberdeau being available as a means of clearing the decks for Artemi Panarin, but he's on the books for four more years plus the rest of this one and I don't think we have the pieces for that kind of big trade.

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The discussion had Coyle as likely to go first, but they said Zucker was right there as well. They already sent Niederreiter away, so may as well blow it up.

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Not a mult.

Didn’t hear about the Jackets getting Duchene yesterday; I guess that’s what happens when you spend the day in West Virginia.

Anyhoo, with that deal, seems like a Panarin trade must be imminent.

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Not a mult.

Renting Duchene probably says that they're holding on to Panarin and going for it one last time before everyone bails.

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Devs are reporting going into fire-sale mode. I looked up their defensemen and was shocked to discover that Andy Greene is already 36. Lovejoy would be a rental but not a terribly good one. Will Butcher is only 24 and going into restricted free agency, I could see him being a "hockey trade" guy.

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Looks like Wayne Simmonds heading to Nashville for Hartman; Mark Stone to Vegas.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Excellent. Now I can go back to liking Hartzy.

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

Vegas and Nashville significantly improved their team at the deadline. Nashville's PP will greatly improve with Granlund and Simmonds. They were close to bottom-of-the-league bad and now will add two excellent PPers. And Vegas just added an elite two-way player. These playoffs are going to be fantastic.

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Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be.

Gonna go down and see the Jacket game tonight with the WinJet in town. Jacket laid a steaming wet turd yesterday afternoon, losing 4-0 to the Oil, and in the process fell from 3rd in the Met to outside looking in.

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Not a mult.

Gonna suck that I have two teams to root for now, and looking more and more like both are gonna miss the playoffs

Jackets played much better last night than they did Saturday against Edmonton - hell, they outplayed the Jets for the middle 40, but they just don't have that extra gear, and Bob has a bad tendency to let in a shitty goal at the most inappropriate time - last night, after it was tied 2-2, less than a minute into the second, he lets in a wide-open dribbler right through his legs. They just couldn't catch up after that.

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Not a mult.