NJDfan1711

I didn't watch enough Sharks games to know if he was truly protected by some better d-men on his team, so I'll take your word for it. However, fans of a team losing a player, whether it be in a trade, through free agency, or what have you, have always reacted positively to losing said player, since the beginning of time. It doesn't matter if the Penguins traded Crosby tomorrow for Pavel Zacha, fans would find a way to say it was the right move. I did see that Braun was a -14 last year, but I'm not someone who puts a lot of emphasis on +/-. It's only June 18th, but this might be post of the year.

Braun's a pretty good player, and I think a 2nd and a 3rd is a fairly even price to pay for him - the fact that the Sharks overpaid for Karlsson and put them in potential cap trouble probably means nothing to the Flyers. The Sharks are a Western Conference team, so I can't really blame them for not giving a sh!t about "letting them off the hook".

This thread is hard to read.

I think that's spot on. Kreider's still young enough to be considered a core piece, and Namestikov doesn't have any real ties to the team. I wonder what Vesey brings back in a trade after 3 consistent, yet pretty uninspiring seasons. He improved a little bit this year, but I'm not sure that he ever becomes a 50 point player. He's young enough where he could put together a 25-25 season I suppose, but he seems like he's a 3rd line guy. Best thing he's got going for him is his age and his durability.

While that's 100% true, that's not exactly compelling or reassuring silver lining.

I don't know that it's a given by any means that they land Panarin. For one, there's lots of other teams he himself could be interested in, secondly, there's lots of other teams that maybe he isn't interested in but the teams have flexibility and room to add him so they make him an offer, and three, the Rangers don't exactly have a ton of room themselves. This year they still have to sign Buchnevich and Trouba, and next year if they plan to keep any of these guys they'll have to sign Kreider, Namestikov, Strome, Vesey and Fast.

You can't do that. If Ray chooses Kakko, I think a lot of us will be disappointed, but it's just something we'd have to roll with. You could end your fandom with/of Shero. But not the team.

I never thought we were going to get Karlsson, and I'm not really sad if he's off the board. The guy actually doesn't impress me all that much. I'd rather have a shut-down stay-at-home-defenseman at the moment than someone who is gifted offensively. We're going to have that in Smith eventually, and cases can be made for Severson and Butcher at the moment.

True that. I mean, like I mentioned before about moving, if I ended up in Colorado somehow, and the Bolts won the Cup, I'd probably be like "Good for them", and a little happy for them. Would I still root for them? Probably not in the same way that I do now, but I wouldn't mind them winning over some other teams that I either hate or could care less about because to me they're just unknowns. I guess that's the main difference - there are of course several teams I hate because they're big rivals of ours, but the others, they're essentially all randoms that mean nothing to me, save for one only for the fact that I happen to live here at the moment.

I love this, and I basically subscribe to that, BUT, when you're away from your favorite team, and there's another one in close proximity to you, it's hard to not get a little attached. I think for me it was easy to embrace the Bolts a little because they were essentially non-threatening to my Devils fandom. Not in our division? Check. Not a good team (at the time)? Check. Not really a great hockey fanbase (at the time)? Check.

That's the main reason I don't think players would be on here. To be honest, it's what's made me think that this place may one day die off, because there's not enough young blood to keep it going, but who knows, maybe the current bunch of us will just keep posting for the next 30-40 years when we're in our 70s and 80s lol. We don't need no young whippersnappers.

I was going to say it's obvious Dano doesn't, based on all of the sh!t that has been talked about him and his voice sounding like someone gargling glass lol.

In regards to the whole '2nd favorite team' thing, I will say this - most know how I feel about the Lightning - I've lived in FL for 20 years, and because I'm a hockey fan, I support the local team when I can. If I go to a game on a random Tuesday in November against someone other than the Devils, I'll root for the Bolts and even rock a t-shirt. Twice a year, for the last 20 years, I've gone to every game when the Devils have come here, and I've rocked my Devils jersey. I'm a Devils fan first, a hockey fan second, and Bolts fan third. If I were to move to another state, I'll still always have a soft spot for the Bolts, but I'd support that local team when I could, as long as they're not playing the Devils. For now though, if the Bolts were to play someone in the playoffs, there's no one else I'd be rooting for besides the Devils of course. If they played the Bruins, there's no way in hell I'd want the Bruins to win. If they played the Sharks, there's no way in hell I'd want the Sharks to win. That just doesn't make sense. They wouldn't be my second favorite team if I wanted someone else besides the Devils to beat them.

Not really sure what you're suggesting...trade the guys (for what?), and then assume we suck again next year and end up with a top 3 or top 5 pick for one of the guys you mentioned? I don't think that's wise because you're assuming too many things - 1, that the guys we will get in return for Hall and/or Vatanen will be great players, when we already know Hall and Vatanen are - 2, that we will actually finish in the top 3 or 5 and get said pick necessary for one of those guys - and 3, if we did draft one of those guys, that shortly down the road he would be as good or better than advertised.

True - the only problem I see with that though, is that you're only leaving two points on the board respective to the rest of the league, and on almost any given night, at least 15 of those teams don't matter because they're in another conference. You could even make the argument that the other division doesn't matter either. What I mean by this is that if you're the coach of team A and you're in the playoff hunt, sure you want to get 3 points whenever possible, but the idea of "leaving 2 on the table" pretty much goes out the window once regulation ends, because obviously both teams are going to OT, and therefore both have left at least one point on the table, together. Whether the game ends there in OT, then one team could have only left 1 point on the table while the other leaves 2, or even if it goes to a shootout then one team leaves 2 and the other leaves 3, but the point is that neither one of them are alone. I could see this being more effective in helping raise competition if one of the teams were isolated and sort of head the spotlight on them in terms of giving up potentially valuable points, but that's not the case.