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November 5, 2024 Pregame

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Asking Shane Pinto stupid questions

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hug thy goalie!!!

New Beginnings | Breakaway presented by Bell S5 E10

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asfdhfj tim

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multi-tasker

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jake + kennedi's wedding

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oh my god. oh my god. this is the best thing i’ve ever heard. if only sid knew how to use powerpoint, he would be all over this.

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Oh my god

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Random question for my fanfic writing friends:

When you go to AO3, what’s your total word count?

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PHI vs BOS 11.02.24 | "He’s 6’3 220. A significant size advantage over Konecny, although TK is certainly verbally equipped [laughs]"

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mack & delly hanging out   — VAN vs SJS   —   11.02.24

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another iconic suzufield celly...

nick's ppg — NYR @ MTL 10.22.24

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ully and an empty net | november 1, 2024

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coach claude | november 1, 2024

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Any more analysis about Boston team wise or specific player wise?

Anon, you have given me a platform that I am going to use to push my agenda.

Let's talk about my favorite college player and the steal of the 2025 draft.

This is Casey O'Brien, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. She's a captain this season, a center, and the combination of her cage placement and her earrings on the ice gives me anxiety. For reasons I do not understand, she has never been a USA Hockey darling - she's gotten some camp invites but has yet to appear at the senior level (outside of a very brief appearance in one Rivalry Series game), which is why her draft stock is so bad. Because, for whatever reason, she hasn't played the national team politics game.

So what's there to like about her?

I've talked before, in the context of the NHL and the PWHL alike, about things you can develop in the pros, things that come along with age, and things that you need to hope you come to the pros already knowing how to do. It's one of the reasons I liked the Jett Luchanko pick so much: the hardest things to teach (puck IQ and fearlessness) are the ones he has already developed at 18. Anything he needs to work on with his game will come along naturally - the kid is only 18. His speed and strength are both gonna keep going up for another decade. Contrast this with Jamie Drysdale, whose biggest hole in his game is that he freezes when he touches the puck. And that might take years to coach out of him. It's also my biggest problem with Fillier - she used to be a dynamic, instinctive player, and somewhere in the last two years, she lost that.

I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that O'Brien has one of the highest game IQs that I have seen at the NCAA level. Watch her over a full 60-minute game, and she is always exactly where she needs to be. As of my writing this, she ranks second all-time in NCAA program assists and is closing in on the record of 208. One of the reasons I suspect she hasn't gotten as much attention as her teammates, or the other members of her draft class, is because they score goals and she gets assists, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the role that a good playmaker takes on the ice. She can score when she needs to, but your favorite 50-goal scorers aren't getting those numbers without someone who can get them elite chances. O'Brien is also a face-off striker, which is critical in, well, any zone. You never want to start on the backfoot.

Her one flaw isn't much of one at all - she's small. She's really small for a center, clocking in at 5'4". That's half a foot shorter than Heise and Knight, who are more typical power forward centers. But, as with Kendall Coyne, being undersized gives you an explosive acceleration that bigger players don't always get as they drag more weight behind them.

So, we're looking at a high-IQ center who wins faceoffs, excels at setting up scoring chances for her teammates, and is smaller than her position usually dictates. Bonus points if she's undervalued relative to her peers and... goddammit I'm describing Claude Giroux aren't I.

If you have not been personally victimized by the Philadelphia Flyers, first of all, I envy you. Second of all, this is Claude Giroux, longtime captain who we sent to a farm upstate (Miami, technically, then he escaped the farm and went home to Ottawa). G, while starting to show a little rust with age, is one of the most dominant playmakers of this era. Since moving permanently off the wing ten years ago, his career face-off rate is 57.4% - Patrice Bergeron, considered one of the best centers of all time, retired at a 58.2% clip.

G is also on the smaller end. The NHL website lists him at a very generous 5'11" - having seen him, I think he's closer to 5'9". While he can't physically overpower opponents the same way a bigger center can, he has that speed and acceleration advantage, which also contributes to his agility. G's ability to turn on a dime is what lets him always get to where he needs to be, which we see with OB.

So, if G is this good... why is he always put in the A-tier conversation, and not S-tier? Part of it is that, for a playmaker to thrive, those teammates need to execute those plays, and Giroux had the misfortune of playing for the Flyers, whose roster-building skills are best considered incompetent. Yes, I said best. OB has never had this problem, thus allowing her to put together 73 points in 41 games last year (1.78 PPG). The other reason G is so underrated? He had the misfortune of being in the same era - and division - as Crosby and Ovi, the two best snipers of their generation and two bona-fide Hall of Famers. His less-flashy, more cerebral skillset receded into the background against their instant stardom, the same way that OB has dropped on draft lists against consensus 1OA Abbey Murphy, a USA Hockey darling with a reputation that precedes her.

Whoever gets OB in this draft is getting the steal of the year. She can quarterback a power play, clear space in the D-zone, and set up your Spooners, your Poulins, your seeing-eye snipers. GMs... leave #26 open. You're gonna need it.

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im so sick of bobrovsky frankly