re: Unofficial NHL Season-Long Thread: Puckheads Unite!

Well-reasoned post per usual, Baloo. I generally agree. One thing you said is what's kind of having me unsure:

quote:

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You are what you are at this point.

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The key there is "at this point". Last night, we were missing Dubinsky, Anisimov, Letestu, Calvert, Bobrovsky, Murray and Jack Johnson (also Horton, but it looks like his career might be over, so I'm not really including him as part of this team on-ice). That's generally been par for the course for the past three weeks or so. There was a stretch one-two weeks ago when we were missing $32 mill of a $59 mill roster.

You mention we'll need a 100-point pace the rest of the way to get to 93. I did the math and it's even worse: we'd need a 103-point pace the rest of the way. Starting now. And Dubinsky's not coming back until at earliest after two more games. Bob's questionable for the two games this weekend, but not a sure thing. If we drop both of those games, we'd need a 106-point pace over the final 65 games of the season.

This is a good team when healthy. But I still don't think it's a great team. Can a good team average a 106-point pace for that long? It's difficult for a great team to do so. LA finished with 100 points last year. Chicago finished with 107. No teams in the east besides Boston and Pittsburgh finished with more than 101. I don't know if we have the horses to get there. At the same time, it's frustrating, because we honestly might. This team when healthy might be able to do it. But I just don't know.

I have a sick feeling we'll finish the year strong when healthy, but the start was too little, too late, and we'll end up somewhere in the 85-90-point range and the No. 10 overall pick or something.