2015 Blackhawks Salary Dump NHL Offseason Thread

http://thehockeywriters.com/projecti...s-for-2015-16/

The idea of McDavid, the so-called 'Once every 10-year' player, not winning the Calder Trophy isn't that far-fetched. Penguins megastar Sidney Crosby took the league by storm in 2005-06 by scoring 102 points and living up to the billing that he could help transform the lowly Pens into a playoff contender. Crosby lost the Calder race that season to Alex Ovechkin, who piled on 106 pointswhile playing on a Washington team that had a decent supporting cast

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I laughed.

Eomer_sl said:

I don't think there's much question that Washington was the better team in 2005. The standings for that season reflect that. Pittsburgh was pretty terrible for years prior to Crosby coming in. Washington had actually been a pretty good team in the early 2000's, save for 2003-04.

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The standings show something. That both teams performed terribly. You basically point out that the Caps did a complete firesale right before Ovechkin was drafted. As for the talent surrounding them, well...

Crosby played with: Lemieux, Recchi, Leclair, Gonchar and Palffy (not to mention other present/future regular NHLers in Whitney, Orpik, Talbot, Scuderi)
Ovechkin played with: Zubrus, Willsie, Clark and Pettinger, with Heward and Muir leading the way on D

As someone on Japers noted, Ovechkin scored as many or more goals sliding on his back/ass (the Phoenix goal) than 19 other skaters who dressed for the Capitals that year. Caps may have finished higher in the standings, but both teams were dumpster fires (worst 2 in goal differential in the East by a large margin over anyone else). Sid just had far more talent around him his rookie year.

Eomer_sl said:

Lemieux played a quarter of the season, he hardly counts. I'll give you Gonchar, he was still in or near his prime. Admittedly when I go and look at the actual rosters, I'd have to agree that Washington's was actually pretty thin, I'd forgotten they'd blown it up prior to the lockout. I wouldn't agree that the Pens were any better though. They had some decent players like LeClair (37), Palffy (34) and Recchi (38) but all three of those guys were getting extremely long in the tooth, even if Recchi went on to play half a dozen more seasons. Leclair and Palffy were out of the league the next year. Ryan Whitney was shit most of his career, coasting on power play points he got from playing with Crosby. Scuderi was just breaking in to the league and didn't really contribute much.

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The fact that Recchi played that much longer blows my mind. That's nuts. They also had a young Ryan Malone on that team that potted 22 goals. Long in the tooth or not, Recchi and LeClair potted 20+ goals, and Palffy had 11 in only 42 games. I'll grant Lemieux didn't play that many games, but even having him around for a quarter of the season and around to even talk to and learn from is almost immeasurable compared to how little the Caps had.

To be honest, looking at the rosters/stats the thing that sticks out the most is that neither team had a goalie under 3.25 GAA. Not one. Game was so different even just 10 years ago coming out of the lockout from how it is now. I'm not calling it another dead puck era by any stretch, fuck the Devils forever for that...but man.

Eomer_sl said:

The number of power plays the first season back from the lockout was ridiculous. Hell, it's a HUGE part of the reason the Oilers made it to the finals. They had Pronger quarterbacking a very good power play (Pronger, Spacek and Stoll all had phenomenal one timers with Smyth in front of the net and Hemsky along the boards to pass), and there were many playoff games with 10-20 PP's per game, between both teams. It was kind of ridiculous. Even strength scoring hasn't changed all that much since the lockout, it's mostly a decline in powerplays that's resulted in the decline in scoring.

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Definitely, and it's been a large dropoff. I'm all for stuff getting called tighter in the playoffs, but when you look at some of the series this past year the lack of penalty calls was unreal. Just in the 1st round the Caps/Isles series when compared to the Rags/Pens the disparity was huge.

I'm all for good defense, but I don't like the return to the clutching/grabbing/legal interference that goes on almost constantly again. One type I hate is the little flyby interference a D man will do while their partner is retrieving the puck deep in their zone. At times the interference completely interrupts any forecheck pressure the opposing forwards could have put on. I understand the desire to protect D men from big hits this produces sometimes, but it gets fairly ridiculous and obvious for it to go uncalled they way it does at times (especially in the playoffs).

Lodi_sl said:

I completely agree. Watching how often the Kings used this method when they were playing well was extremely frustrating.

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Detroit has quite mastered it as well.

Ishad_sl said:

I'd like to thank that stupid cockfag Eddie olczyk for making the hockey populace believe this bullshit.

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Oh come on, it might be less true now, but Babcock's Wings (especially with Lidstrom) were pretty well known for it. I remember a hilarious photoshop Pensblog did during either the '08 or '09 Finals with Babcock's face on the Emperor's body with the quote "I'm afraid that the interference shield will be quite operational when your forecheckers arrive" or something to that effect. It was hilarious.

Ishad_sl said:

You can't group clutching and grabbing with legal interference, edzo always called the wings legal interference "subtle interference" because he didn't think it should be legal.

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I don't think there should be any real "legal interference". Using obstruction to blunt a team's forecheck should be a penalty in my mind.