#<< me and like the entire sens roster i think

[stromer]

brady's simply got so much love to give, and i, for one, think that's arguably the best thing about him

[sergeifyodorov]

I know 4 nations is still a couple of months away but if you specifically were the gm choosing the roster right now, what would your team Canada look like? (I am also curious about the other teams but don’t want to overwhelm you) I always love hearing your hockey thoughts!

ooh sarahhhh LOVE this q... also lowkey thank u for only asking about Canada b/c i have not thought about the other rosters at all. to be honest

ok lets get into it

(13 F, 7 D, 3 G)

Forwards:

Already named to the roster: Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Brad Marchand, Connor McDavid, Brayden Point

I'm not entirely sure if I had complete control I would pick Marchand, who is both a) pretty far past his prime (even if he is one of those guys who doesn't really age like other players do) and b), not entirely That guy, but I digress. Eight more forwards to name.

Mitch Marner: Easily the best Canadian player not on this list. Since there's no salary cap for the roster and you can go wild by just picking Everyone Good, the most important note of roster construction in my mind is special teams; on any given team you should have ~2 units each of PP and PK, so eight-ish PP forwards and four-ish PK forwards. Some guys don't really do either, so it's always an extra asset to find a guy who is good at both. Mitch Marner is good at both. (And also good at basically everything else.)

Sam Reinhart: I don't like saying it, but I will

Mark Schiefele: I also don't like saying it

Dylan Strome: Here's where it gets interesting. No, I promise this is not a purely narrative choice, although I understand why one might think that. I shrimply love me a smart playmaking centre (yes his points totals are probably inflated by the Caps' really high oish% for him, but he is firmly Very Good and, even as a 4C, should be firmly considered for the 4N.)

Travis Konecny: Legitimately one of the best penalty killers in the league, and also just an all-around threat. Also also a lot of the guys who tend to be picked for 4N are natural centres (e.g. Sidney, NateMac, CMD, Pointer, Reinhart, Schiefele, and Strome are all centres) so it's nice to not have to worry in his case about if he's going to have to move to wing or not.

Connor Bedard: Oh my god I want to see what this kid can do with offensive deployment on wing and actual good teammates

John Tavares: Departing from my usual "don't pick players who are floating into their mid-thirties if you can possibly avoid it" to say that Guys. Johnnifer is still Good. Like, still really good. Chugging along at a point a game and very, very good in the faceoff dot (58%) type of good.

Seth Jarvis: Also firmly underrated IMHO; just because he is a little guy and a bit of a dork doesn't mean we shouldn't, like, remember that He's Good. Because he is.

Reserves: Steven Stamkos (always a power-play threat), Mat Barzal (competent teammates question part 2), Claude Giroux (we all know what his deal is)

Defencemen:

Already named to the roster: Cale Makar

Oh, boy, are we not great at this whole "developing defencemen" thing. Let's see who we can put together.

Josh Morrissey: Basically Morgan Rielly but a little better, I think? Solid shooter, Of-D, etc etc.

Thomas Chabot: Severely undernoticed considering that the Sens have been shit and ass the entire time he's played there. Not his fault, though. Also there's no other Francophones on this list I feel so we should really fix that. What IS Quebec Doing?

Brandt Clarke: Okay, we can have a little "developing defencemen." As a treat.

Evan Bouchard: Why are you booing me? I'm right.

Chris Tanev: Chris Tanev

Brandon Montour: There are probably one or two better options but I like him more TO BE HONEST. Picking the forwards is like a careful examination of PK ability and faceoff percentages and primary points per minute. Picking defencemen has been entirely vibes. I'm very, very sure the L and R balance is just Not There.

Reserves: Maveric Lamoureux (queb AND developing. dual threat), Devon Toews (considering literally everyone will beg for the makar-toews pairing), Shea Theodore (I guess)

Goaltenders:

Lol and Lmao, even

Logan Thompson: The man is the Capitals' starter, helped win Vegas a Cup, and is also lowkey hot sexy and hot and sexy. Starter!

Joey Daccord: Swiss, Canadian, and American, so I'm sure we could convince him to come to the dark side. (Especially since the USA has holy-fuck level goalie depth. Jake Oettinger is a third-stringer.)

Marc-Andre Fleury: Look, this forward core is good enough that it can win us a game 7-6 if we really need it to. I just think he's fun.

[stereax]

hi, i have a question if you don't mind. beside cap space and contracts numbers, is there a limite to the number of emergency loan a team can have? (about the sens)

Hi anon! I never mind!!! Honestly I get super duper excited whenever anyone hits my inbox because it makes me feel like I'm doing something good sooo... Okay, enough about me, meet me under the cut! 💜

The first thing about emergency loans is that their use is dependant on cap space. The Sens have three emergency loans right now - Tyler Kleven, Nikolas Matinpao, and Jacob Bernard-Docker. All three are right side defensemen (RD) replacing Thomas Chabot, Artem Zub, and Erik Brannstrom. Chabot is notably on LTIR. LTIR is complicated as hell and I don't want to hit you with the specifics of it. There are jokes of "capologists" in certain organizations (notably the Leafs and Canucks) whose main job it is to navigate the cap. But there are a few important things you need to know.

Chabot's salary is $8m. In theory, since Chabot is now on LTIR, the Sens can call up players with up to $8m salary regularly, and not as emergency recalls. The thing is - if you've read my waivers primer - that emergency recall keeps players waiver-exempt (at least, for a while). So a team in a situation like the Sens prefers to start by using emergency recall, when they can, and then shift into regular recall. This is why Chabot was only placed on LTIR on the 27th - Bernard-Docker was called up as an emergency recall first. Then, when Zub and Brannstrom were injured, Kleven and Matinpao could come up and Chabot could go on LTIR while preserving Bernard-Docker's waiver exemption, which is important because otherwise he isn't waiver exempt and the Senators don't want that.

Also, when Chabot goes on LTIR, he is no longer considered a "roster" player. This is important for call-up reasons and contract numbers on the roster. See, the main "rules" of emergency callups are as follows:

1) If the team has no cap room (must be at least $875k) with which to call up a player,

2) And someone can't play and the team plays with fewer than 18 skaters and 2 goalies for one game as a result,

3) Then you can use emergency recalls to call up players on an emergency basis with cap hits up to $875k,

4) But when the players get healthy those emergency recalls MUST be sent down.

So no, there's theoretically no limit to the NUMBER of emergency recalls, as far as I can tell. Theoretically, you can play an entire team of emergency recalls, but that would require every player on your team to be severely injured and you'd probably end up using your LTIR space to deal with that instead. And also be actively tanking at that point.

But the thing is - emergency recalls do NOT come with a cap hit. They, themselves, do not count against the cap. That's the point of the emergency recall, after all.

I think that's it! I love talking about the Sens because there is literally always something going on with those boys, so thank YOU for the ask! If something isn't clear, let me know and I'll re-explain it 💜

[elegantcoffeedream]

Seth Rogen, Hollywood’s Favorite Comic Stoner, Says It’s Time To Take Cannabis Legalization Seriously

Seth Rogen, Hollywood’s Favorite Comic Stoner, Says It’s Time To Take Cannabis Legalization Seriously

Weed Whacking: Rogen, who launched his cannabis company, Houseplant, in 2019, says the biggest myth about legalization is that it is not a serious cause.

Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Sitting in his home in Los Angeles just after noon on a Monday, with a bright shaft of sunlight filling the room, Seth Rogen lights a joint.

“I don’t make any illusions as to how weed fits into my life,” says Rogen. “I’m a person who smokes weed all day, every day.”

For some people, smoking a joint in the middle of the day would derail focus and productivity, but the 39-year-old Rogen describes marijuana as an essential tool to his everyday functioning—like eyeglasses or shoes. (His father told the New York Times that the “miracle of marijuana” helped his son deal with attention-deficit disorder.)

Cannabis has been a constant co-star for the actor, screenwriter, director and producer known for hits like Superbad and Pineapple Express, but pot is also a business partner as Rogen and his childhood best friend and writing partner Evan Goldberg cofounded the Canadian cannabis brand Houseplant in 2019.

High Life: A decade before launching Houseplant, Rogen cowrote and starred in the stoner comedy Pineapple Express.

(Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

Audiences have been laughing with Rogen for 20 years as he’s played nearly 100 roles in film and television where he is either getting high, about to get high or helping someone else get high. But with Houseplant, he’s proving that he’s taking weed seriously as a business venture and as a platform for criminal justice reform. Rogen says it’s now time for Americans to take cannabis more seriously, too.

“It really bothers me that people downplay its importance and downplay how meaningful it is to some people's lives,” says Rogen. “There’s always been lies that have been told to control weed, it’ll make you go crazy, it’ll make you lazy, it’ll do this and do that. Right now, I think the biggest lie is that it’s just not important, and there are more important things to be talking about.”

Rogen says cannabis is deserving of a reckoning as a relevant topic worthy of a national discussion. And it’s certainly getting that now, as 18 states have legalized adult use, 37 medical use. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, along with Sens. Cory Booker and Ron Wyden, introduced a draft federal legalization bill, and cannabis is slated to grow into a $100 billion industry by 2030. Stoner jokers no longer seem able to contain an industry with annual sales that will soon rival coffee.

“Over the last couple years, I’ve spent as much time working on this company as I have on films. It’s as exciting as anything I’ve ever worked on.”

“It’s important because the entire reason it’s illegal is based in racism and we're all living with the lies of racist men from 100 years ago,” says Rogen. “Truthfully, there is no reason that weed is illegal other than to control minority populations.”

Rogen hits his joint, rolled with Diablo Wind, a sativa strain with 26% THC, and continues: “It is a huge part of American society and culture,” he continues. “It's a huge thing, and it’s disappointing how slow the country has been to evolve.”

While there are seemingly an endless number of celebrity-backed weed brands, some are clearly leveraging a famous face to sell bud while other celebrities are involved in the companies. Rogen falls into the latter camp.

“Over the last couple years, I’ve spent as much time working on this company as I have on my films,” says Rogen. “It’s a direct reflection of mine and my partner's creative sensibilities, and it’s come from a lifetime of putting thought into weed and loving weed. It’s as exciting as anything I’ve ever worked on.”

Superbud: “For me, I like to open like a tin and find as big a bud as humanly possible and go over to my wife and say, ‘Well, look at this,” says Seth Rogen.

Courtesy of Houseplant

Last week, Houseplant announced that it was ending its partnership with Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth after three years and will focus on expanding its footprint in the U.S. Houseplant’s products will stop being sold north of the border by the end of September. Houseplant CEO and cofounder Michael Mohr, who is Goldberg’s cousin, says the company plans to relaunch in the Canadian market at some point but its attention for now will be on the U.S. market.

Today, Houseplant only sells cannabis in California, where it launched sales in March 2020. Its menu of products includes seven strains—all of which Rogen has tested himself. Houseplant will launch prerolled joints and a THC-infused seltzer in the coming months. And soon, the company will look to expand to other states with an eye on Nevada, Illinois, Michigan and New York.

Houseplant is still a startup. It has two distinct businesses—Houseplant, which sells cannabis, and Housegoods, which sells pottery, ashtrays and lighters, designed by Rogen. (He throws clay in his garage studio and creates impressive pieces.) Both sides of the business each bring in revenue in the seven figures, but under $10 million.

Rogen says legalization is inevitable but still part of him seems to bristle at the fact that his schtick is being adopted by an ever-expanding roster of characters who don’t love weed as much as he does. The philosopher jester even takes a swing at Charles Koch, the billionaire philosopher king of the libertarian movement who recently announced that he will be spending $25 million by the end of next year to support marijuana legalization.

“I’m sure if I were to sit down with the worst people on the planet, maybe we’d find out we both like pizza or something,” says Rogen. “It's always disappointing when you find your interests are aligned with someone you find to be despicable. But it’s showing the collapse of the lies and is an indicator that it’s impossible to move forward in a way that you consider to be remotely based on facts or reality and not think weed should be legal.”

Rogen’s goal with Houseplant’s products is refreshingly simple in an industry awash with brands pushing pot as a cure-all wellness product. He says he wants to sell some of the best stuff out there. “When I say it’s actually the weed that I smoke all day and night, it’s true,” says Rogen. Houseplant doesn’t grow its own, but rather curates bud from small-batch, high-end indoor growers across California.  

High Design: Housegoods sells upscale ashtrays and vases designed by Seth Rogen.

Courtesy Houseplant

Some of Hollywood’s elite have purchased his home goods, including Charlize Theron, while Lena Waithe, the creator of Showtime series The Chi, has purchased Rogen’s cannabis. When asked what sells better, his company’s flower or pottery, he doesn’t hesitate.

“Weed is better, for sure,” says Rogen. “Honestly, no one would buy a vase if you could go to jail for it.”

As for his reputation being intertwined with cannabis, Rogen, who smoked a joint with Conan O’Brien during one of talk show host’s last episodes before retiring, says he’s proud.

“It’s something I’ve always championed and something that I'm very happy to be associated with—it’s something that is an intrinsic part of my life, my day-to-day functionality,” says Rogen. “Of all the things to be tied to, I’m fucking thrilled that it’s weed.”

[ashestoashesjc]

Bad Witches (0.3)

Some towns sleep more than they’d care to admit. They claim to be the town that never does, but they sleep. They bustle until the wee hours when even the traffic lights must catch shut eye. (This is the leading cause of late night car accidents, in fact). But not in Riverwake. No matter the hour, Riverwake is alive and in motion. At the peak of dawn, the rumble of mechanized street cleaners is something of an alarm: A new day is here. The only challenge is survival. The road is now adequately shiny.

On a day this beautiful, a person would be mad to waste even a second of it inside. This is why when the coven meets at their favorite restaurant, Giorgio's, for cocktails and gossip, they ask for outdoor seating, beneath a veil of dark gray umbrellas.

After the waiter brings around the first tray of flutes, Bev flags him down and whispers in his ear. When he returns, he has a pitcher filled to the brim with a hazy, dim yellow. He places it at the center of the table and walks off to attend to other diners.

Shrugging, Bev says, "Save him some trips."

During a third round of mimosas, Kate off-handedly mentions her father-in-law and his rocky relationship with his son, but that he thinks gifting Dan membership to their familial country club is effective enough as tension relief. Dan's typically too busy to take advantage of it, she says.

"But you still want to," says Bev, drinking from her orange-tinted glass.

"I didn't say that," says Kate.

"You didn't have to," Bev says, swatting at the air, "Does anyone else hear that buzzing? What is that? Do you think a WASP snuck in?" The other witches attempt to stifle their giggles.

Turning bright red, Kate leans back into her seat, clutching at her glass and bringing it closer to her face so as to slightly cloud the next words she mutters, "I can invite guests, by the by."

The witches' ears perk up.

"You know, I don't think I've ever been to a country club," Matt says, "The wealthy have historically neglected basic hand-washing techniques. Seems like a petri dish, but in a higher tax bracket.”

"I'm from the country. And I've been to a club. Does that count?" Haley asks, still nursing her first mimosa.

"What should we wear?" Bev asks.

Kate sets her glass down to refill it from the orange pitcher, "Dress for spring."

So, they do. The next morning, they are all casual shorts and solid-colored polos and white visors. Only, it's a month away from the dead of winter and it's the middle of Massachusetts. Bev, Matt, and Haley stand outside of the given address and, with their miserable shaking, resemble a group of very posh street urchins.

Kate arrives in a cozy-looking fur-lined parka and upon seeing the other witches' bewildered expressions, snuggles affectionately into the mink hood, "Teach you to mock me."

The other witches follow Kate into the almost intimidatingly large, red-bricked building. What are presumably wings stretch nearly a kilometer in each direction.

"One of you couldn't have ch-checked the weather before leaving the house?" Bev admonishes, one shiver away from legally qualifying as an icicle.

"T-throwing a lot of stones in that g-glass igloo, aren't you?" Haley asks.

The combination of central circulated heating and at least two fireplaces (one in the den closest to the club's entrance; one in the more formal of the two dining areas) nearly melts the witches as they linger with Kate at the front desk.

"Okay, we're approved," Kate says, shaking hands with the attendant behind the desk, "Just don't touch anything."

"Damn. There goes my Grand Theft Itinerary," says Bev.

Looking at her sternly, Kate says, "Don't even joke about that. They will absolutely kick us out."

The witches huddle at the end of the entrance hall, dissecting the list of offered activities. Bev is interested in exactly none of them, but does wish to examine their stock of spirits. Matt begins spraying himself with hand sanitizer the moment he notices how many of the items have a "Group Activity" label.

A woman in a calf-length Houndstooth coat walks past the group but stops to gaze at Kate's jacket, fawning over its charm and subtle glamour. She asks if Kate also bought her coat from Nordstrom. She then asks if Kate plans to play in a tennis match later.

Kate happily confirms that, yes, she will be playing. They chat for a little longer and Kate is still smiling when the woman bids her farewell and walks further into the club's interior.

"How are you going to play?" Matt asks, pointing to the tennis poster pinned to the cork bulletin board at the lobby entrance, "It's Doubles and three of us will likely solidify if we venture outside."

"Oh, we're still playing tennis. Do you know how much I had to bribe the babysitter to come on such short notice?" asks Kate, "They have a heated indoor court," she says, taking off her coat to reveal a sensible, pale beige skirt and thin, rust red pullover.

"Oh, they're fancy fancy," says Haley.

Kate finds the sports center in the left wing, guided by the rambunctious sound of middle aged aerobics. It is a vast gymnasium filled with varied exercise equipment and a bounty of helpful regimens: elliptical trainers, stair masters, Homeless Person Avoidance Training, medicine balls, etc. There's even a rock climbing wall mounted in the back. There are no cables attached to it for fear that people may actually wish to use it, but it has its scenic benefits. She then sees the tennis court, a green square girded with a chain link fence. She spies the sign-up sheet on a plastic folding table at the entrance and begins scrawling her name.

As she flourishes the Barston-ending 'n' and admires her penmanship, an unexpected voice takes her by surprise.

"You're in the way," says the voice and Kate notices that it belongs to the robust, older gentleman looming behind her. He is accompanied by a smaller, leaner fellow and together they look like a before and after advert for malnutrition.

Kate nearly leaps out of the man's direction when she notices her folly. "Sorry! I wasn't paying attention."

"Never seen you here before," says the shorter, wheat blond man.

"Yes, I'm a new--" begins Kate, holding out her hand in anticipation of a handshake.

"Who's your husband?" interrupts the other man, a gray halo of hair situated on the perimeter of his scalp.

"I'm not sure how--" starts Kate, slowly lowering her hand.

"That's how you got in, right?" he asks as he bends down to add his own name to the roster, "Bring the 'Girls' for a 'Fun Weekend' at the country club and then fuck off to whichever Wellness Spa you crawled out of?"

"That's--" Kate tries to interject.

"We promise not to beat you too badly later, okay?" the blond interrupts as he saunters off, followed shortly by his friend.

She is left standing alone at the front of the sports center, not entirely sure she has correctly interpreted the preceding events. In her mind, she loops through their meeting again and again, wondering what she did wrong. When she does realize that she, in fact, ‘Just Got Dunked On’, grim is not the right word to describe the aura she emanates. It's pretty close, though.

Kate staggers into the common area and, seeing the rest of her coven lying haphazardly across an island of recliners, plops into one of the vacant chairs. Her entire demeanor is a haggard sigh.

Trading concerned looks, the witches aren't sure who should handle this. They play "Rock, Paper, Sigils" while Kate slumps further into the padded leather. The agreed upon worst candidate for helping someone through distress is also apparently really bad at games of chance because when she loses, Bev swears under her breath.

Bev very tepidly strokes Kate's back and whispers, "Now, now. Emotions are..." she gulps, "Perfectly normal. I have them all the time." She retches.

Taking Kate's hand, Matt asks, "What happened?"

A full body sigh later and Kate appears to have summoned the drive to retell the tale. By the time she's through, the witches bear the expressions of those personally wronged. How dare anyone make fun of Kate? And not even behind her back like a decent person. WASPS have feelings, too.

"You should've led with that," says Bev, cracking her knuckles, "I'll kill them."

Matt nods, "I don't know about getting someone else's blood on me, but yes, murder seems in order."

Haley can't believe what she just heard. She really can't. She stopped listening halfway through to stare at someone she thought might be her Little League coach. But why would they be here, ten states away in this country club common area? It just doesn't make sen-- Oh, no, that's someone else, nevermind. Oh, god, now everyone's looking at her. Make something up, make something up.

"Like a flock of crows in V-formation," says Haley. Nailed it.

"You guys... you have no idea how much this means to me," says Kate, a welling in her eyes, "I know with you by my side, Bev, we can--"

"Oh, yeah, no, I don't want to play," Bev corrects.

Clearly disappointed, Kate's face sobers a little, but she looks to Matt with hope.

"Sorry, me either. I didn't mean to mislead you," says Matt, sincerely apologetic.

Kate feels as though the dinghy she just acquired footing in has capsized beneath her.

Haley smiles.

Kate looks to her nervously, but the smile only widens. "Have... you ever actually played tennis?" Kate asks.

"Sure, I played a little at home," Haley says. Kate sighs.

"Of course, we had wooden rackets and the strings were made from goat guts, but how different could it be?" Haley asks. Kate sighs again and internally resigns to her fate, but still intends on having a very fun, very non-competitive time.

On the court, shortly before their starting match, Haley tests the weight of the carbon fiber racket. She tosses it from hand to hand and gives a few practice swats. Once, she sends the racket flying, leaving her to run to the middle of the court and retrieve it.

Their first few matches - one with a couple from Denver and the other with the woman they encountered in the lobby and her "chiropractor" who is definitely only half her age because it helps to be young and limber in his profession. Definitely - are nothing to write home about. Haley's home, in particular, is where you should not be writing to. Because they would not be very impressed with her performance. But after getting used to how light this inferior plastic racket is, the aerodynamics of its slender frame, the whistle of its whip through the air, she feels a touch more comfortable.

This comfort is promptly squished like a windshield mosquito when their next opponents enter the fence. Kate's heart falls when she recognizes the sheen of one man's head and the smarm on the other's lips, but her face is unflinching steel.

"Didn't think you'd still be here," the blond says, his eyes a sneer.

The walking comb over assumes his place across the court and, beginning to stretch, says, "They wanted to lose to real men. I don't blame 'em."

Haley exhales. The match begins.

For the first set, the court is a frenzy of movement. Rhythmic thwacking echoes across the gymnasium. The squeaking of sneakers, the breathy grunts upon each impact, the flicked beads of sweat as they dart to strike the racket. All four are giving it their all.

But Kate and Haley are just too accurate. Too fast. Too relentless in their fury.

Nearing the end of their third set, Kate and Haley have dominated the game, easily leading over their opponents' hefty score of one. What was only meant to be a playful diversion sees the girls one favoring play away from taking the whole kit 'n' caboodle. Reigning victorious. But, like, in a fun, non-competitive way.

This is what it all comes down to.

"They would be good at this," huffs the gray-haired man to his partner, "Chicks and tennis." He serves the ball, and Haley, in her distraction, swings and misses. A green blur zips by her head.

The gray-haired man chuckles, "I think that's our point."

"One of them even looks like Serena," his blond partner wheezes hoarsely. They burst into ill-concealed snickers.

"One more round?" Kate asks, bouncing a tennis ball.

"One more round," Haley concurs.

They trade the tennis ball back and forth with their opponents, the net flapping with every pass. For a few tosses, they are very light swings, measured and contained. But in one of her connections with the ball, Kate applies a considerable amount more force to the racket. The tennis ball responds with equal vigor, shooting from her racket's wired face and careening toward the other side of the court.

But it never hits either of the men's rackets. Or makes contact with the ground. It simply floats and whirls at a standstill just past the net.

No one moves a muscle.

The silent stillness of the moment is broken when the blond man appears to muster the confidence to approach the green rotation. He seems to have descended from glaciers with the time it takes him to close the gap. Mere inches away, he stares up at the tennis ball in the exact way that you're not supposed to stare at the sun.

He lifts his hand and reaches slowly upward with an extended finger.

The ball, still in a rapid spin, yet frozen in mid-air, comes undone and pelts the blond directly between the eyes. He goes to the ground and rolls onto his back, his scream slightly muffled by the hands now covering his face.

Exclaiming his name, the gray-haired man runs over to kneel and assist his partner.

Focused on tending to his friend, he is blissfully unaware when, under Haley's intense stare, his shoestrings loosen and then intertwine, lacing together.

"I think that's our point," says Haley.

The man clambers to a stand and starts off toward her with a warning, huffy "Why, you little..." before tripping and spilling to the ground like a freshly slingshotted Goliath.

The blond, a red burn at the center of his face, goes to help him, but his shorts sink quickly to his feet and he falls in a tangle to the green mat.

"That's set," says Kate.

"And match," says Haley.

They grasp hands in a high five and make their way to the fenced door.

As they exit the court, Haley shouts back to the groaning men, "And I would love to look like Serena! She's a goddamn Amazon!" Even after they've exited, Haley can still be heard shouting, "An Amazon!"

They've made it halfway into the main house when they run into Matt just outside of the kitchen, wearing a black apron, stamped with the country club's logo.

"Why are you--?" Haley begins before Matt raises a hand and cuts her off with a sharp breath.

"I went to the restaurant to sample their Chateaubriand," he says, pulling the apron strings over his head, "But someone mistook me for a waiter and one thing led to another, and I report for duty at 9 am."

Slinking down the hall to join them, Bev says, "That's really going to confuse your students."

"Where have you been?" Kate asks.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you guys about," she says.

Occasionally looking over her shoulder to ensure she's not being followed by any of the club's staff, Bev leads the coven to the rear section of the expansive building. Despite the recently watered ficuses, it doesn't appear as though this area of the club receives much visitation.

Taking another cursory look, Bev waves the witches into a room and closes the door behind her. Once she flicks the light on, an old ballroom comes into focus. The dusty, white grand piano, tucked in the room's corner, has uneven keys. The floor is cedar coated in a thoroughly scuffed varnish.

At the center of the room is a freshly painted and ornamented circle, surrounded in thick, off-white candles.

"You've been busy," Kate says.

"Since we got here, I've sensed a mass of souls, trapped just beneath the floorboards," says Bev.

"I felt it, too," says Matt, "I suspected it was just the unease that comes with being in a country club."

"There's that, too," Bev says.

Bev stomps on the floor and a chorus of weak groans ekes up, "That's at least 30? Maybe 40 unhappy ghosts." She locks eyes with Kate, hesitates for a moment, and says, "We have to do something." 

Kate, all out of sighs for the day, brings her hands together and lets them go with a deep breath. "Okay," she says, "What do we do?"

There's no boom box available to blast "Wannabe" while they work, so their preparation lacks a distinct Spice, but they each have their jobs and they each complete them with an expected diminished enthusiasm.

Once Kate's finished lighting the candles, Haley flips the light switch and they take their positions.

Because it was her idea, Bev heads the ritual, and thus initiates the throaty, guttural chanting. As she nears the end, like a musical round, another witch starts from the beginning. And the cycle continues until, thrumming like a locust swarm, the coven is in overlapping cacophony.

As their chanting increases in volume and an impossible wind whips their hair to and fro, the candle flames grow into angry blazes. And in an instant, they extinguish.

And the room goes dark.

Then, suddenly, light returns as a host of faint, blue-white specters encircle the witches. As a few seconds pass and they regain more human forms, a great variety of age among them, the "Leader" of the group, a weathered man in an eagle feather-adorned headdress, nods to the coven. One by one, their forms dissipate. Soon, they've all faded, leaving one little girl, clutching a small toy bunny. She waves at the witches and too disappears.

The candles flicker back to life.

"So good of you to release them," Kate says, laying her hand on Bev's shoulder, "The afterlife will be kind to them."

"Right. Release," Bev says, tapping Kate's hand.

From outside of the ballroom there comes a scream. Looking a smirking Bev in the eyes, Kate pulls her hand away and makes for the door.

The chaos encapsulating the country club can be heard in its full intensity the moment Kate cracks the door open.

It's difficult to decipher exactly what is transpiring: a typhoon of well-clothed, well-fed patrons bounds in every direction. They wail and beg and stumble over each other, flown after by a roaring cavalcade of translucent figures.

The witches watch as the little girl who thanked them earlier flies through the bottom of a couple's table and into their roasted duck, chasing them with scornful, flailing drumettes as they scream for mercy.

Kate's face gets in the way of her palm.

"You know, I saw a hand sanitizer dispenser in the bathroom," says Matt, "Maybe this place isn't so bad after all."

[satoshi-mochida]

Samurai Shodown will launch worldwide for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June, followed by Switch in Q4 2019 and PC at a later date, publisher Athlon Games and developer SNK announced. It will feature Japanese voice-overs and support English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Pan-American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese subtitle language options.

The Unreal Engine 4-powered fighting game is a reboot of the classic series set between the events of Samurai Showdown V and the original game. It will feature 16 total fighters, including 13 returning characters and three brand new characters. Additional characters will be released via post-launch downloadable content.

Here is the official fact sheet:

About

After more than a decade, Samurai Shodown is back! SNK is rebooting one of its most successful series, carrying on the legacy of past titles with a new game that retains the same thrilling battles of past titles in a graphically advanced package. Samurai Shodown’s gameplay is driven by the tense atmosphere of being one strike away from death, and the exhilaration of defeating an opponent with overwhelming power and attacks. Taking place between the events of the original game and Samurai Shodown V, the new game carries on the legacy of the one true weapon-based fighter.

Key Features

Exhilarating Weapons-Based Combat – Samurai Shodown carries on the legacy of the tense battles the series is known for, where players are always one strike away from death, and one powerful attack away from victory.

Evolving the Presentation – Using the power of Unreal Engine 4, SNK is able to modernize the unique atmosphere and setting of past titles in a gorgeously artistic package that achieves a detail and graphical quality like never before.

Unique Cast of Returning and New Warriors – Samurai Shodown welcomes back iconic characters from past iterations, including the swordsman Haohmaru, his rivals Ukyo and Genjuro, the shrine maiden Nakoruru, and fan-favorite Galford. The starting roster will include a total of 16 characters—13 veterans and three newcomers to the franchise.

All New Gameplay – Carrying on some of the key fighting mechanics that made the series popular, such as the Rage Gauge, Rage Explosion, Sword Clash and more, Samurai Shodown will also include several new techniques, including a powerful, one-time use attack from each character called the Super Special Move.

Revolutionary New AI System – Titled Dojo Mode, SNK has developed a proprietary AI system that learns from player patterns and creates a specific Ghost clone from that data. With this system, players can fight against their own Ghost or take on the Ghosts of top players in mock battles.

The public will be able to go hands-on with the game for the first time at PAX East 2019, which runs from March 28 to 31 at the Boston Convention Center. SNK will also host a panel, “Samurai Shodown: Resurrecting a Legend” on March 30 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. ET featuring producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, original Samurai Shodown director Yasushi Adachi, and several other staff members from SNK.

Get a new trailer and 44 minutes of Gematsu-recorded gameplay footage below, as well as our preview of the game and interview with producer Yasuyuki Oda, director Nobuyuki Kuroki, and game designer Joshua Weatherford.

PAX East 2019 Trailer

44 Minutes of PlayStation 4 Pro Gameplay

Navigation

0:20 – Story Mode Introduction: Galford

2:04 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Earthquake

4:49 – Story Mode Battle: Galford vs. Haohmaru

8:05 – Story Mode Introduction: Haohmaru

9:48 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Galford

12:09 – Story Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

17:02 – Story Mode Introduction: Nakoruru

18:52 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei

21:27 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Jubei (Rematch)

24:35 – Story Mode Battle: Nakoruru vs. Earthquake

29:13 – Battle Mode Battle: Haohmaru vs. Genjuro

32:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Earthquake vs. Charlotte

36:42 – Battle Mode Battle: Genjuro vs. Jubei

41:39 – Battle Mode Battle: Galford vs. Charlotte

Preview

I played about an hour or so of the new Samurai Shodown and it felt good—really good. I have stated this in the past, but I am not big on fighting games. I am generally not good at them and tend to only play for fun with friends. That being said, I went into playing Samurai Shodown without really caring much about it. But after some hands-on time with the weapons-based fighter, I am actually kind of hyped?

Samurai Shodown is being treated as a reboot to the long-running series. Story-wise, it is set in 1787, after the events of Samurai Shodown V in 1786 and before the events of the original Samurai Shodown in 1789. While the Kansei reforms have been enacted by the newly appointed Matsudaira Sadanobu, a mysterious dark force is looming on the horizon, prompting the warriors of Samurai Shodown to gather and set out on individual journeys and fight for their own beliefs. Each character character has a different story.

The game has a roster of 16 characters, 13 of which are returning from previous games. They are Charlotte, Earthquake, Galford, Genjuro, Hanzo, Haohmaru, Jubei, Kyoshiro, Nakoruru, Shiki, Tam Tam, Ukyo, and Yoshitora. The other three are completely new characters who have yet to be announced. I played as a few characters during my session, including Galford, Haohmaru, Nakoruru, and Jubei. As for stages, the stage selection screen appears to offer 13 total options.

Playing round after round of Samurai Shodown, I learned that no two characters are alike and that a single strike has a ton of pull, as one hit can deal massive damage and significantly turn the tide of battle. The game is built atop various mechanics, starting with the “Rage Gauge,” which fills up the more you are hit. When the Rage Gauge is filled entirely, your attack power increases, special moves become stronger, and you can use a “Weapon Flipping Technique” to disarm your opponent. You can also deplete the entire gauge to activate a once-per-match “Rage Explosion,” which enables the use of a “Lightning Blade” attack in which the character leaps forward and uses a quick strike that deals heavy damage. Each character also has a “Super Special” attack that, like Rage Explosion, can only be used once per match. Each Super Special plays out a character-specific scene that reflects their personality or style. Nakoruru’s, for example, captures her resolution to protect Mother Nature while also illustrating her displeasure of fighting. The commands to activate these techniques are simple and the same across every character, which means that there is no need to memorize complicated commands for different fighters. Finally, there are also “Sword Clashes,” which occur when two attacks perfectly clash, prompting you to mash the attack buttons to retain your weapon and send the opponent’s weapon flying.

I picked up on the game’s systems quite fast as I played, and even went toe-to-two with producer Yasuyuki Oda. (Though, I think he went easy on me.) The systems are incredibly easy to grasp, but the real challenge comes in utilizing them correctly while timing your strikes and preventing your opponent from dealing significant damage. It felt like there is quite a lot of strategy involved, and it is something that I found myself wanting to learn and master. Playing as Galford, I got the upper hand on Oda in our first match as he was so used to Galford’s behavior when playing against game designer Joshua Weatherford that he did not expect me to react in certain ways. (Or at least that is what I was told. I still just think he went easy on me!)

In terms of game modes, Samurai Shodown offers the classic Story Mode, an offline Battle Mode (which in itself includes modes such as Survival), an Online mode to compete against players across the world, a Practice mode (which includes Tutorial and Training modes), a Gallery Mode to view player-unlocked movies, artwork, and background music, and a new Dojo Mode in which you can upload and fight against your own “ghost data” or the download and fight against the ghost data of other players.

Dojo Mode is an entirely new asynchronous online mode, which according to SNK utilizes “deep learning technology” to have the game’s artificial intelligence learn from your techniques and habits during offline mode gameplay to create a “ghost AI” character that both you and other players can fight against online. An “Ironman Challenge” mode in which players can try to fight 100 ghosts in succession is also being implemented. SNK even has a patent pending for Dojo Mode. Unfortunately, SNK is not saying more about Dojo Mode for the time being, one of the reasons being that the mode is essentially built off player data, which the team does not currently have.

Visually, Samurai Shodown is an eyeful. From graphics to menus, everything is decorated in a traditional Japanese aesthetic—as is appropriate for its Edo period setting. That setting and visual design make the fighter stand out as something truly unique from the rest of the crowd.

Samurai Shodown is by no means the most well-known name in fighting games, but with the release of this spectacular-looking reboot and its participation as a main title in the upcoming Evo 2019 tournament, I really hope that it gets more recognition. I really want to pick this one up and learn its ins and outs.

Interview

This is the first new Samurai Shodown game in over a decade—the last new one being Samurai Shodown Sen for Xbox 360 and arcade in 2008. What was now the time for something new?

Nobuyuki Kuroki, Director: “There are various reasons, one being that when I was at SNK back in the day, I always wanted to work on Samurai Shodown more and more. I did a little bit of work on the Samurai Shodown 64 series. But there’s also just the fact that there has been a major focus on eSports recently, and I feel like this game in particular is very unique and will stand out on the eSports scene. And in general it’s just an iconic series for SNK, and we’ve had a lot of fan requests from the community to bring it back.”

Speaking of eSports, I think it’s safe to say a lot of people didn’t expect Samurai Shodown to be a main title for Evo 2019 in August. With the game due out in June, are you worried there won’t be enough time for players to learn how to play at a sufficient level?

Yasuki Oda, Producer: “I’m a little worried. (Laughs.) I’m a little bit worried that it might not be the top-level play that you’d see. But I also think that the system in general is just so simple and easy to pick up that people will jump right into it. And you might see a lot of people come out of nowhere that haven’t been on the scene before, who resonate with this game that’s so different from other games, and make a new entrance.”

Joshua Weatherford, Game Designer: “I personally think that the systems are not just simple, but also difficult to master. So it’s that perfect balance for me in game design. One thing that we like to point out is that we were very careful to stay as close to the roots as possible for some of this stuff. So you know a lot of times whenever you see modern fighting games, they’ll change the move sets around, cut some of them out—almost none of that happened here. We kept everything in—we just tuned it a little bit to be more balanced for modern fighting games—but there’s very few cases where you have a character that’s lost half of there moves or something like that. So people who know Samurai Shodown from the past, who know a specific character—they’re going to be able to jump right in, in my opinion.”

Moving on to characters, The King of Fighters XIV had a very generous starting roster of 50 or so fighters, compared to the 16-character roster of Samurai Shodown. Do you feel like that might be too little?

Weatherford: “Not really.”

Oda: “We’re not really worried about that honestly, because The King of Fighters is a team-based fighting game—three-versus-three, so you need a full team of three characters. So in my opinion, when you take one-third of that roster, you get about the amount in this game, so it works. Also, there’s not really a single clone character—that’s always been one of the things about Samurai Shodown. Even Hanzo and Galford, two ninjas that should play alike, play nothing alike. A couple of motions might be similar, but very few characters are actually similar to other characters. So all of them really stand on their own.”

And you guys aren’t showing the three original characters right now, but can you give us a hint?

Athlon Games representative: “No! We’re not answering that. (Laughs.)”

Hey, get out of the room! (Laughs.)

Weatherford: “They’re really cool, that’s all I’ll say. All three of them are really cool.”

Woo, big giveaway there. (Laughs.) Anyway, while we’re still talking about characters, given the rising popularity of guest characters, is there a possibility that we’ll see fighters from other franchises appear in Samurai Shodown?

Oda: “Yeah, we’re definitely interested, especially in finding a character that really fits this kind of gameplay.”

Say there were no restrictions on which guest character you could include, who would you choose to add to the roster?

Kuroki: “Oh man, that’s hard… Luke Skywalker.”

Oda: “(Pulls up an image of a Mobile Suit from the Gundam franchise on his phone.)”

Weatherford: “For me, I’d want TOEI Spider-Man. I love Spider-Man and I want something that’d fit this, so there’s actually a tokusatsu Spider-Man—like old school, giant robots—made back in the ’70s… None of these could ever actually be in because of licensing issues. (Laughs.)”

Oda: “If I’m thinking about swordplay, I’d like to put in Aragon from The Lord of the Rings.”

How do you plan to draw in beginners or players who don’t normally play fighting games?

Kuroki: “I think it really just comes from the basic fighting system of the game. Single strikes are so useful and damaging that you could win even if you land a lucky strike against a high level player.”

I think that’s what I did against Oda-san…

Oda: “(Laughs.) Well, we also made sure that all the super moves are the same inputs for each character. So as long as you know one character, you can easily jump into another character. Which is very different from say, The King of Fighters. That’s very difficult to keep up with everyone’s supers.”

Well, that about wraps up our time. Thank you for speaking to me! I wish you a successful public debut at PAX East 2019!

[kondo-hijikata]

Value Me, please! 😍

Pairing: Established Kondo/HijikataRating: TSummary:You’ve heard of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, now get ready for the start of something better… (aka that one time Toshi gets drunk and somewhat romantic confessions happen) [AO3]

.*The Romance of Isami and Toshi*.

The night had gone perfectly–beautifully. Flawlessly, even…until Kondo used the words Shieikan and five years later in the same sentence.

Then it was disbelief, followed by exasperation, ire, and outrage.

Kondo saw each emotion blaze over Hijikata’s face within a span of seconds and it took everything he had to stop the grin begging to pull across his lips. It was rude to make fun of someone else’s agitation, after all, and especially under these circumstances.

“No!! No, no, no, no!!” Hijikata barked, his slurred voice raising with each repetition and eyes snapping shut as he shook his head with furious intent. A wobbly lurch skewed his shoulders, his left hand lifting with the (now thankfully empty) sake cup and his right hand slapping on the tatami while he leaned in to intrude on Kondo’s space.

Or, perhaps, Hijikata thought it would be an intrusion–something aggressive that would help get his point right across. Kondo had other feelings about such proximity and they were far from threatening…but he decided to let this superbly inebriated individual beside him run his mouth just a bit longer.

Long lashes parted to once more reveal glassed-over eyes, shining like gemstones in the warmth of golden candlelight. “Shieikan, my ass. I’m sayin’, that just ain’t gonna do, Kat-chan!!”

Finally allowing himself the luxury of huffing a soft laugh, Kondo reached across the way; fortune had it that Hijikata was sufficiently distracted by his desire to rail into him and thus, offered no protest when the cup was carefully taken from his hand. “Toshi, shh, you’re getting loud…”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Kondo remained ever-conscious of their surroundings. Hijikata and he were safe in his room at the dojo, but they were also only two out of many residents here–and those other residents were more often interested in the affairs of others than not. It would be no surprise to find the likes of Sano and Shinpachi…perhaps even Gen-sen and especially Souji…all cramped in the hallway with their ears pressed to the wall. Finding the thought more amusing than irritating, Kondo exhaled a choppy breath.

“Loud? I’m loud?” By now, Hijikata’s lips parted and his brows raised, taking on a purposeful dumb expression that was obviously out of mockery.

“Your face may freeze like that, you know.”

“Well…Kondo-sensei…” Unaffected by the prior teasing jibe, Hijikata’s tone lowered and he began shaking his head, with lesser enthusiasm this time.

“Oh, it’s sensei now, huh?” Kondo chuckled and at last surrendered all the way, letting the corners of his lips pull out to his cheeks and allowing himself the smile he’d so badly wanted for too long by this point. “Guess I really am in trouble.”

“Maybe if you…” A pointer finger thrust unto Kondo’s chest, “listened to me, then I wouldn’t have t’–” Hijikata hiccuped. “–to yell.”

“Toshi!” Kondo protested gently, “I am listening. I have been!”

“Yeah, yeah.” The hand that had jabbed became the hand that dismissively waved, and Hijikata turned back in annoyance. Idly, he looked at his empty palm and perhaps wondered where his cup had wandered off to.

Kondo’s lashes fell for a moment and he breathed out through his nose. Truth be told, he was paying attention, but it hadn’t come without some struggling–a problem that could be directly attributable to the shade of rose that dusted its way clear across Hijikata’s face. The blush managed to soften his elegant features even further, and against the kiss of flickering light, there was little more Kondo could think of than how beautiful he looked.

That wasn’t a new revelation in the slightest; Hijikata carried with him the effortless embellishment of beauty that seemed to radiate from him like an aura at all times. But something about tonight��well, it was different–amplified. Maybe it was because after years of speculation, Kondo had at last become acquainted with the taste of Hijikata’s lips on his, and the way the pleasantness of his scent could distract him in a heartbeat, and what it felt like to have him in his arms…

It was on that thought when Kondo slipped a hand behind Hijikata, drawing him close so they fit together, sitting side by side against the wall. The back of Toshi’s head pressed to his shoulder as if it were already second nature, and Kondo smiled to himself when Hijikata leaned further to him, like he was settling in.

Despite how it might have looked, he could still detect the presence of some tension remaining. A more devious man may have allowed it to work out on its own–and it probably would have–but as for Kondo…

“I was listening,” he insisted again. The arm he’d wrapped around had left his hand against Hijikata’s abdomen and he tapped his fingers there. “I’ll listen to you talk all night if you want, in fact.”

“Don’t go patronizin’ me.” It was an airy, pissed off reply–how typical. “Forget it.”

“I’m not patronizing you. Look, I can even tell you why you’re mad at me. It’s because I–”

“Who’s mad!” Hijikata interjected, clearly angry.

“Oh, Toshi,” Kondo laughed without meaning to. He’d never find humor in someone else’s anger, but Hijikata was intoxicated and fuming uselessly over the order of the world once more. It was true that Kondo had transcended the constraint of classism by adoption, but facts were facts; he was still a farmer at heart, just like Hijikata. They were born of the land and that’s how they were fated to live.

Naturally, he’d intended to speak further, but was interrupted yet again when Hijikata snapped his face toward him.

“See? You’re laughin’!”

“It’s not–”

“Kat-chan, we absolutely cannot stop here at this, this damn rundown dojo. We gotta…” Hijikata closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, “keep on runnin’.”

Ah, of course. A little dreaming never hurt anyone and it was this kind of talk that had formed the bond between them to begin with. With a nod, Kondo supplied, “You’re right. We can’t stop until I’m a general.” And then, he cheerfully added, “Like Kanko, yeah?!”

“No.” Seriousness painted Hijikata’s tone when his lashes parted again and as he stared Kondo directly in the eye, he nearly sounded sober. “For the last time, you’re not hearing me. A general ain’t enough.”

Kondo blinked and the grin he wore quickly fell from his face.

“You better listen up and listen good.” The flirtatiousness, the good vibes of the evening, the enamor that had been openly displayed by Hijikata’s expression since they started drinking…it all disappeared into thin air with that last statement. “I won’t rest until I make you a daimyo.”

Staring perplexed at Hijikata, Kondo remained quiet until he slowly repeated, “…A daimyo.”

Hijikata turned his face forward again and stared out across the room. “I hated medicine peddlin’ but medicine peddlin’ was something that I could at least do. And I could do it well. Damn well, even.” A pause. “Still, I gave that up and moved in here.”

Kondo felt Hijikata stiffen against him, heard his voice grow even quieter. “Because Kat-chan gave me a place to belong…because Kat-chan is…” His tongue slipped out to wet his lips. “Because I wanna…” His chin fell in a single nod then when he finally decided on his words. “We gotta keep going forward together.”

And then, beneath his breath–and probably not even intending to say it aloud at all–Hijikata added, “I bet my entire life on you.”

Silence filled the air then and Kondo’s chest stilled.

He was no expert, hadn’t a damn clue about any of this in fact, but knew that what he’d just heard…it wasn’t typical.

Memories of his birth mother were barely on the cusp of Kondo’s reach, as she’d died when he was so young, but he remained certain of his conclusion. Because it had been from his biological father whom he’d learned loyalty and responsibility. And when he was adopted into the Kondo family and could say he had the privilege of having a mother again, things were really no different at all… Loyalty and responsibility were still at the forefront, at least for him. Shusai would pick up strays to add to the dojo roster and sometimes cavort with geisha, and his wife, Fude, would nag about it all.

Married but separate… Living together but also living alone. Even his brothers had been wedded off and had children of their own. They both seemed happy when they all met up last time, but how they spoke of their lives suggested that other things had seeped into the cracks.

“Eh, she just badgers me all the time…”

“The kids are troublesome, y’know…”

It seemed the whole world was pairing up and pairing off, all to cater to the demands of society. And Kondo knew Shusai had such expectations of him after taking him into his family, yet…

Out of all the relationships Kondo bore witness to, he’d never heard anyone say the words that had left Hijikata’s mouth just now–never had an inkling that any of those couples might share in something that deep.

He came to this understanding, despite his own reality. He and Hijikata had both had feelings for each other for so long, but the physical component had been a relatively new development. It’d been ages of pining before his hands had the liberty of roaming beneath Hijikata’s yukata and vice versa, before he could come to know Hijikata’s body as well as he knew his mind.

But maybe that’s why Kondo had realized that what he’d heard meant something significant–because their relationship was born of fondness and not necessity.

Fondness.

It was rumored that the foreigners ruining this great country said strange things to each other–deeply embarrassing things like, “I love you” and other wild professions of affection that freely left the tongue.

Kondo couldn’t imagine it. But he considered now that if there was a proxy for those words…if there was anything that could possibly take their place, “I bet my entire life on you” was as good a candidate as anything.

And if foreigners felt anything like the way Kondo felt now, well… He wanted nothing in common with them, but perhaps there was a sliver of merit to some of their strange customs.

Maybe his birth parents and adoptive parents, maybe his brothers and their wives had their own special ways of showing affection to one another that could produce the same feelings. But he resolved that this remained different, rare.

And that warranted a deserving reply.

“Toshi,” Kondo finally said and reached forward with his free hand to cover Hijikata’s, and then entwined their fingers. “I’ll run with you. All the way.” Hijikata shifted slightly but Kondo kept speaking, cocking his face so he could whisper in his ear. “All the way…right to the top. Right to the stars.”

Hijikata’s digits folded inward then, and he closed his eyes with a nod. His lips twitched into a tiny satisfied smile as his spine relaxed, sinking a little lower until he could rest against Kondo’s shoulder again.

“We’ll be more samurai than anyone born in the samurai class.”

“…More samurai than samurai?”

“Aa. That’s gonna be us, Toshi.”

“The hell does that even mean?”

“I’ll show you.”

“Heh. Guess you finally decided to open them ears, Kat-chan,” Hijikata mumbled, “It’s about time. But I do have another thing to say, since I got your attention.”

“Mm?” Kondo stroked his thumb along Hijikata’s. “What’s that?”

“I am drunk as hell right now.”

Kondo smiled so hard his eyes closed and he laughed softly again, this time without guilt. “Among so many other things, Toshi-san.” He pressed a kiss to the top of Hijikata’s head. “Among so many other things…”

For a long while after, they stayed like this in quietude. And it was during that time of silence after Hijikata dozed off in his arms when Kondo decided the story of the rest of his life.

When he was done, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms would have nothing on The Romance of Isami and Toshi. His hand held Hijikata’s a little tighter.

That was a promise.

And a threat.

[youcouldmakealife]

PSOTW: Andy/Derek, Dan; adjustment

For the prompt: Derek and Andy doing long distance after Andy is traded and Derek is still playing.

(The Sens are still in the negotiation stages of a potential move to LeBreton Flats, which I refer to here, but holy fuck, please move to the actual city of Ottawa, that would be good for ticket sales and also not the seething resentment of an entire fanbase. I will not start on how Melnyk’s greed has actually lost him millions of dollars in the biggest dose of karma ever. I WILL RESIST. Anyway, this is assuming by the 2021/2 they’d be there, which is...generous, considering the speed of construction in Ottawa, but go with it.)

It’s strange that Andy knows Dan’s schedule so well he’ll know the second he’ll be free. Post-game he heads out around the same time as they do, the commute short now that the Sens have moved to LeBreton. Traffic the way it is, he’ll probably walk it, because it isn’t too cold, so he should have gotten home about ten minutes ago.

All Andy has to adjust for is the hour difference. And being over 2000 kilometres away. That one’s more of an adjustment, along with a roster he barely knows anyone, which he hasn’t had to deal with since his rookie year; weather that reminds him of what he grew up in, though Ottawa’s made him soft, because he doesn’t remember it being this cold; living alone, which he hasn’t done in years. 

Phones, which he’s used to avoiding, but has gotten glued to: texts constantly from a lot of the team -- former team -- and Derek in particular. Calls: Derek again, a couple times a day, short ones, then at least every other day, when they get a chance, long Skype sessions in front of their respective laptops. He’s lucky their phone plan has Canada wide calling, or him and Derek would be out a lot of money right now. He’s still got his Ottawa number. He doesn’t know if that’s going to change. It’s all — it’s an adjustment.

��How do you do it?” Andy asks.

“Hi Andy, nice to hear from you,” Dan says. “Do you mean with Marc? Or when I got traded?”

“The diver,” Andy asks. He kind of wants to know the answer to the other as well, but not as much. Changing cities is — well, an adjustment, like he says. But he keeps finding himself looking over to tell Derek something funny and needing to text him instead. Waiting for Derek to tease him, or make those awful smoothies in the morning, or tuck his feet under Andy’s thighs while they watch TV. Instead he’s eating what he likes, watching TV with his own feet tucked under himself, not getting teased, feeling very alone. “And hi.”

“Hi,” Dan says. Andy can hear him grinning. “Derek didn’t tell you what I answered the last three times he asked me?”

“Derek asked you?” Andy asks. “Three times?”

“I think the first time was a genuine question and since then he’s just been complaining,” Dan says. “But yeah. More than three times, honestly. Practically daily. I think Michaud is going to scratch him the next time he interrupts practice being all tragic.”

“I miss you guys,” Andy says.

“We miss you too, buddy,” Dan says. “Cary is pretty much unbearable without you.”

“You say he’s unbearable all the time,” Andy says.

“Like you don’t say it too,” Dan says.

“I miss him,” Andy says.

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I know. Better than anyone.”

Andy bites his lip from saying that Dan doesn’t, that Lapointe’s only two hours away, that they play each other five times a season, while Winnipeg and Ottawa already blew through their two before Andy was traded. It’s hard for them to see each other, not impossible, and Andy doesn’t think he’s ever hated being on a team in playoff contention more than he does right now, because he’s not sure when that’s going to end. Then they have the summer together and it just starts all over again.

“So how do you do it?” Andy asks.

He’s disappointed when Dan doesn’t have any magic fixes, ways of making this bearable, but he’s not surprised.

[highbuttonsports]

Sen’s Training Camp around the corner, what’s to look forward too?

   There's a lot of change going on around the Ottawa Senators this off season, which is exactly what one would expect after a last place finish. Still, sometimes change comes with goodbyes. The Senators had to say goodbye to Cody Ceci a few weeks back, and earlier in the off season they welcomed an entirely new coaching staff into the organisation. That's the nature of change in the NHL. People. Sometimes they leave, and sometimes they're the new faces in town. Well, now the Sens have a bit of both going on as a result of a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks that saw Zack Smith, who played his first game on the Ottawa Senators' roster back in the 2008-2009 season, be sent to Chicago in exchange for Artem Anisimov. No one was pointing the finger at Zack Smith and blaming him for being the reason why the Sens performed so poorly this past season, but nor was he the kind of player who everyone looked at with the expectation that he would be the guy to carry the load and get the team out of the whole that they had dug themselves into.

Simply put, Zack Smith is an NHL journeyman who brings... competence. He had one great season where in he scored twenty-five goals – his career high – as well as setting a career high in points with thirty-six. What I'm saying is that the Blackhawks didn't acquire him to be a big time impact player. Zack Smith isn't that kind of player. He's a reliable, North-South guy who can take face-offs, play the penalty kill, and will go to the front of the net, as well as provide some supportive offense from time to time. There is a debate to be had as to whether or not he's over paid, but that's neither here nor there. Zack Smith is the kind of player that every team wants to have, but only in their bottom six forward group. Don't take that as an insult, because someone has to play that role, and I have nothing personal against Zack Smith. He's been solid for the Sens for a good decade of hockey, and while never really stood out to me as a top guy, he also never stood out to me as a player who was a problem. There weren't constant defensive errors, constant stupid penalties, and there didn't seem to be any drama involving him. Smith came to work and did his job as best he could. Easy to see why the Blackhawks would want him for their bottom six.

So what about Artem Anisimov? Well, he's about a month-and-a-half younger than Smith, so the Senators aren't seeing any significant age difference. He's a couple of inches taller, but historically hasn't been as inclined to throw his weight around as much as Zack Smith, so perhaps that size doesn't mean very much. But Anisimov has certainly been more productive offensively throughout his career than has Zack smith, totalling 347 regular season points, which is 154 more than Zack Smith's career 193 regular season points. Granted, Anisimov has played more games than Smith – 703 to Smith's 612 in the regular season – but that's still a higher rate of points per game production. Smith shows a big difference over Anisimov in the number of penalty minutes that he picks up, with 693 in regular season play, as opposed to Anisimov's 204. There are a couple ways to look at that of course. One person might suggest that Zack Smith is simply a more gritty, tough, hard nosed player who is ready to fight when the time comes to drop the gloves. But another person could just as easily suggest that Anisimov is simply the more disciplined, level headed player who will give up less powerplay opportunities to the opposing team on any given night.

In a head to head comparison of these two players, it seems that the Senators may have won out on the overall skill level of Artem Anisimov, but Zack Smith isn't exactly devoid of talent, and he brings what we can call a physical edge to his play. In the end, its hard to ignore what was likely the real motivation behind this trade: money. Artem Anisimov has a higher cap hit than Zack Smith does, but over the next two years is owed less actual dollars, which makes this exchange sensible for both teams. The Senators are a team who have... let's diplomatically say the Sens are playing with a very conservative budget for the time being, with more talk this off season having involved the cap floor than the cap ceiling in Ottawa. Chicago are the exact opposite, having to shed salary in order to be cap compliant. So, in the process of both teams reaching for their salary cap goals, the Senators improve the offense of the team, while the Blackhawks add some toughness and physicality. So did the Sens win in terms of the trade in a vacuum? I suppose. But did they win in terms of the grand scheme of being an NHL team. No, because both teams got exactly what they needed.

So welcome to Ottawa, Artem Anisimov, I hope you enjoy your time here, however long that may be, and that you can be part of some positive change in Ottawa. Goodbye Zack Smith, and thank you for working your ass off for the Sens. I'm sure your new team mates in Chicago will love to have you there. As a Senators fan, this trade honestly makes me a little sad. Not because Zack Smith is gone, as frankly I think its probably better for his sake to leave. Remember, the Senators are statistically the worst team int he league from last season, so he shouldn't exactly be sad to leave this place at his back. Rather, I'm sad to see my team as a salary dumping ground. That's not to say that I expect Anisimov will do nothing but keep us above the cap floor. I'm sure he'll do as well as he can here, all things considered. But being the pessimist that I am, its just hard for me to see this trade as anything other than the Sens pinching pennies. I'd love to be proven wrong, but I think this team will never again spend to the cap under the current ownership, and wont truly be competitive for years to come. But hey, maybe Anisimov's arrival is just the start of some positive change.

- Brett Ibbetson 

[andlikelions]

Like This & Like That

In the not so distant past I was frantically shuffling through nursing school with my eye on a promise that the choice I had made would provide security for my family and a colorful career for myself. I have never put more trust into anything before, and much of it felt entirely blind. It’s very unusual for me to blindly go all in without clear definition of what will be the product. I am historically a control freak.

I came from a very regimented structured program and university that very strongly advocated for its nursing graduates to move into either education, administration, military, or intense hospital nursing. It wasn’t a spoken rule by any measure but certainly that’s what seemed to get everyone all warm and fuzzy. My peers listed off their hopes of working in the Air Force, becoming neonatal intensive care unit nurses, neuro-oncology nurses.. wound care nurses.. the things you probably picture nurses to do with their skills and education. I’ll never forget what a graduating senior said to a group of us new sophomores who hadn’t had clinical experience yet, “if you don’t enjoy your medsurg clinical you probably shouldn’t be a nurse”. Daunting. It crippled my good friend right out of nursing school and normally that’s what would’ve happened to me too.

The pragmatic higher thinking part of my adult brain overrode that silly statement. I think my life experience up to that point was able to see beyond oversimplifications like that. So I continued to trust and invest all the while getting older, deeper into debt, and further involved in existential questions of my my purpose and my abilities as a woman and a creature.

I stand where I am now in awe and disbelief. Since I graduated and passed my boards I haven’t been able to fathom the unveiling of opportunities. People have been coming to me to request I apply to work with or for them including at the Plainfield Health Center, the Vermont Department of Health as a nurse epidemiologist, in multiple areas of multiple different hospitals..

Overwhelming isn’t the word. Joyful? Proud? I don’t know what the word is. I am in awe and amazed at my accomplishment. I truly did not believe I possessed the ability to create a new branch and path in my family’s story.

Nursing isn’t rocket science, but it certainly is rigorous in several ways including what felt like the ultimate test of character. Academically challenging for sure, but it was so much more than that. Prior in my life I’ve gained praise for my demeanor and dedication, not the case in nursing school. I felt, as we all did, that we were not worthy of the title we were after. I craved proving my will to myself. It’s sort of sadistic in a way.

Now that it’s all over and the death of my daughter has broken me down to my core, I feel as though I’ve been granted a new beginning. It really feels like starting all over again. Being reborn only this time I trust myself a little more. I’m reborn with skills and tools and have strong value. I also determined the senior with all of her nursing wisdom was wrong. We are not all cut out for hospital nursing as we all shouldn't be.

Five or so months ago I couldn’t have ever pictured going back to work. I couldn’t picture healing myself let alone others, I couldn’t picture doing my laundry or minimally cleaning my house let alone maintaining infection control protocols in a hospital. If I woke up and Grace ate, the day was a success.

It was around Thanksgiving time that I spoke with my employer and conveyed that very message in a heartfelt monologue. Their response surprised me and left me feeling so not pressured to make up my mind. They kept me on the roster so that I’d still receive benefits (under FMLA) and offered to help me find work in another area of the organization IF that’s what I wanted. Otherwise they expressed a sincere willingness to offer recommendations and write referrals.

At that point I looked into their job openings and thought how impossible it would be to find a match. A match to what? What even was I? I was a brand new nurse, in thick grief, what could I offer? I couldn’t align myself to people around me, conversations felt so foreign and awkward.

The very first day I browsed job postings I saw an opening for a triage nurse at Montpelier Integrative Family Medicine. Well that’s too good to be true, working for a place that is willing to get creative and think outside the box but also be independent of way out there eclectic naturopathy. It is what it’s name implies, it’s integrative. No way. I talked with my liaison from the hospital who made some calls and found that in fact it was too good to be true. Understandably a triage nurse needs prior experience.

Time went on, I applied to a couple of other positions that didn’t appeal to me but felt an obligation to put in some effort. In mid-February another job at Montpelier Integrative opened up. It was full time though and that didn’t sound remotely possible to me. Being away for 9 hours per day, 5 days per week? Couldn’t do it.

Meanwhile I went back to my old position at the hospital. My coworkers were as inviting and welcoming back as they could possibly have been, and the support was all I could ask for. The nature of the work mixed with the crazy hours on the other hand. I just could not set aside the interference of my circumstances playing on a reel through my mind. It kept me from being able to think in any depth and certainly kept me from being able to retain the volumes of details and contexts that I needed in order to even mildly effectively move through my day. Big fat no. Couldn’t do it.

My employer said they would extend my leave again, but this time the resources were sort of exhausted so I would need to be hired into a new position by the end of March or else they’d have to let me go. I decided it was time to dig into Montpelier Integrative a little more. And I thought about my criteria. One of my criteria was to not work crazy hours.. but I also had to weigh being able to walk at lunch time (rather than swallowing lunch whole while trying to chart on my patients), I could have Ashton and Grace come visit for lunch. Another factor that had to be seriously considered was weekends and holidays. The profession I got myself into works around the clock in all elements of weather, to not worry about holidays in an office setting was certainly a perk.

I thought and weighed and rearranged all that I could to try and think up a scenario that would fit the best and what I decided was that I hoped to work no more than part time.

I submitted my application on a Monday, by Thursday HR had contacted the practice to see what the status was. They already had plans to interview me. What?! Don’t get my hopes up, it may not be what I dreamed, in fact it probably is not, and furthermore the position I applied for was full time. My hope was to get an interview and see if there was any flexibility.

They called me for an interview the following week. It’s in a great location, near downtown as opposed to isolated just off the highway with no real great place to walk during a break.

I realized that I don’t get nervous for interviews at all anymore. I don’t know when the shift happened but I don’t get caught up in my head stressing about it, not beforehand or during.

The office has a weird layout but it’s doable. They at least talked emphatically about a plan to renovate soon. Change. I like it.

Two nurses interviewed me, one is an office nurse who would be my partner, she’s been working there for about 8 months. Prior to that she was an ED nurse at CVMC and also worked as a float around the hospital. She was intimidating. But intimidating means something very different to me now. I’m an adult, I have value and skills, I am a mother, I have accomplished a lot, the feeling of being intimidated is only a feeling not a quality or trait of mine. The other nurse is the practice manager. She’s intense but the kind that made me feel she could be trusted to have her nurses backs if push came to shove. She’s very alpha female but with more of the feminine traits- understanding and compassionate- and less of the masculine domineering ones.

Early in the interview she said firmly that the position was full time, I saw no opening or invite for negotiation. So from that point on in the interview I didn’t do much of anything at all to sell myself, I turned it around and wanted to be sold the position. I felt like my sacrifices had to be worth it and wanted proof of it.

They were really into me despite my secret reservations, I could tell they were interested in my experience and my aura. They talked about the position as though it were already mine using phrases like, “this is what you’ll be doing”. They gave me a tour and introduced me to the other nurses and the provider who I would be working for.

I left kind of bummed. How could I reconcile 40 hours per week? I spent a few days minimally thinking about it. I had sort of written it off, especially after one night when I decided there was no way I could part with my counseling visits. I sort of forgot about it.

I went back to the drawing board and was far far less inspired. I just had an interview at the only place I could envision being a nurse at this point in time and have all but turned it away. How was I going to find a fit? Nothing felt right.

I put my thoughts together and finally decided to send the hiring nurse an email. She told me to contact her by email with any questions. I wrote thanking her for her time and for the opportunity but that I didn’t think it were possible for me to walk away from the routines I have developed to help me cope. As I wrote it, I found myself reeeeaaally wanting her to find a way to make it work for me, but for how firm she was in the interview I felt like it was no use. I typed it in there anyway “if there is any adjustment that can be made to fit my life in where I need it…”

I had it all typed and ready to send. Ashton was beside me, and so I started reading it to him for a final check before I sent it off to its doom. Just as I got to the second paragraph my phone rang. It was Gail, the office manager.

I didn’t know what to say, but I did because I had just rehearsed it for the last hour. She was giddy with excitement, she had several ways of describing how much they wanted me to come work with them. She was far more emphatic than she was in the interview. I said, “I just have to be honest, I can’t leave counseling and other commitments that I have made to myself”, she said, “I am a flexible manager and I will make anything you need to work, work. Don’t you worry about that”. I also said we finalized a plan to take a trip to Austin in 3 weeks. Done. She said she’ll list it as a condition of being hired. I accepted the offer. I took a $1.24 pay cut, which was a surprise, I was expecting a more dramatic drop in pay. I don’t lose benefits, I don’t change organizations.. I qualify for short term disability now, I qualify for 28 days off per year..

I don’t know exactly what I need, but I feel like I’m doing the right thing. Grace is in daycare 3 days per week as it is. I asked Ashton if he could bring Grace to me for lunch on her off days. I’ll be able to see her when she wakes up, I’ll be able to have dinner with her, and weekends and holidays, and all the while I’ll be able to establish some financial stability for us. A major major factor was benefits. In the current political climate keeping health insurance means even more to me than income.

Here we go, my life is about to change again. I hope to create a lens or filter that works for me to enjoy all aspects and not feel like any one area of importance to me is negated. Especially Grace. I think the routine will help for me to concentrate my time with her even more than I do now. Sort of like putting the oxygen on myself before others. I can do it. I can find balance, I just have to be willing to see it and know that it won’t always feel the same. I have to be vigilant about planning vacations and using my time off wisely.

I feel that this will anchor me in a way that I need right now. I need mental exhaustion in a different way.

I welcome more change, and am open to growing and learning.

Nothing ever has to be permanent, and it doesn’t ever have to be one or the other.

[newseveryhourly]

WASHINGTON -- For decades the vice-presidential selection process has had an air of cloak-and-dagger to it. The party's nominees would say little about their thinking, the would-be running mates would reveal even less, and an elaborate game of subterfuge would unfold that mostly captivated political insiders and usually had little bearing on the election.But a convergence of forces has transformed Joe Biden's search for a running mate on the Democratic ticket. His pledge to pick a woman immediately limited the pool of potential candidates and intensified the competition; that decision, coupled with Biden's garrulous tendency to think aloud about his options, have remade the tryout period into an unusually public audition, and the coronavirus outbreak ensured that it is taking place entirely online and on TV.And Biden himself has increasingly pushed into the political foreground the overwhelming reason that his choice may be the most consequential in decades: the expectation, downplayed but not exactly denied by the Biden campaign, that the 77-year-old would be a one-term president. If that turns out to be the case, his running mate now could well be leading the Democratic ticket in four years."I view myself as a transition candidate," Biden said during an online fundraiser last week, likening his would-be presidential appointments to an athletic team stocking its roster with promising talent: "You got to get more people on the bench that are ready to go in -- 'Put me in coach, I'm ready to play.' Well, there's a lot of people that are ready to play, women and men."The ramifications of Biden's choice will be profound. Even if he loses in November, his decision will all but anoint a woman as the party's next front-runner, and potentially shape its agenda for the next decade, depending on if she is a centrist or someone more progressive."Joe being 77, I think people are going to look to see who is the person who could be the next president," said Harry Reid, the Democratic former Senate majority leader, calling Biden's decision the most significant "in any election cycle I've seen."Former Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri was even blunter about what is at stake: "You're writing your ticket to be the first woman president."There are other factors that have made Biden's decision so momentous. Tara Reade's allegation of sexual assault against Biden has ensured that whichever woman he selects will be his principal surrogate battling those claims, while leaving many Democrats, men and women, convinced the party must put forward a female nominee in 2024.And given President Donald Trump's penchant for race-baiting, the disproportionate impact the virus is having on communities of color and the political loyalty of black women, many leading Democrats believe Biden will select a black or Latina running mate."It boils down to whether he has a Hispanic woman or a black woman," Reid said.Biden has been careful to avoid providing a definitive signal on whether he would seek reelection should he win this year. But his references to serving as a transitional figure in the party, and the yearslong public health and economic recovery that the virus may require, have left many Democrats with the belief that, at age 82 in 2024, he would pass the party's torch to his vice president."I don't want to wish ill on anyone, and I love Joe Biden, but we'd be electing somebody in his late 70s," said former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, referring to the November election. She said of the vice-presidential competition: "This is really auditioning to be the next leader of the Democratic Party."Many Democrats believe a gut politician like the former vice president will pick somebody whose measure he has taken. But that is not to say that Biden, who in recent weeks has reaffirmed his commitment to picking a woman, is immune to political considerations: He will weigh the turnout lift he might get from picking a woman of color alongside the potential regional upside from selecting a Midwesterner.Privately, Biden's aides have started to reach out to Democrats who know the contenders to solicit their views. They have also had some party leaders talk directly with the former vice president about how he ought to be thinking about his decision, according to Democrats familiar with the conversations.Biden himself has talked publicly about potential candidates to an unusual degree. He has chatted with Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and held personal phone calls with Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who answered bluntly "yes" when asked on MSNBC if she would accept an offer to be Biden's running mate. Advisers to all four women acknowledge privately that they are keenly interested in the vice presidency.At the same time, the former vice president and his top advisers are being heavily lobbied.Stan Greenberg, a longtime Democratic pollster, has laid out a case to Biden's inner circle that he should choose Warren to consolidate support across the Democratic coalition and drive up turnout among younger people and liberals, according to people familiar with Greenberg's overtures.A polling presentation Greenberg shared with the Biden campaign cautioned that as of early April, supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders were "dangerously not" united behind Biden's candidacy. Greenberg suggested that a strongly progressive message on the economy would resonate with those people.Sara Nelson, the head of the Association of Flight Attendants and an increasingly prominent leader in the labor movement, said she and other progressive union leaders had communicated a strong preference for Warren to the Biden campaign."She brings more progressives to the ticket than anyone else," Nelson said.While Warren remains in close touch with progressives, she is also engaged in outreach beyond the left and has been contacting numerous lawmakers to discuss coronavirus legislation in recent weeks. Those contacted include Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, Biden's most influential supporter in the chamber.Warren last week also called a number of Democratic lawmakers designated by the party as "front-line" members -- those facing the toughest races in 2020 -- to offer help with their reelection campaigns. Both she and Klobuchar have issued a number of endorsements for vulnerable lawmakers in recent days.The three senators Biden competed against in the primary have vocal advocates in and around his orbit.But they also have their detractors. Some Democrats worry Warren is too liberal for Biden and point out that choosing her could disrupt the party's prospects to control the Senate given that Massachusetts has a Republican governor who could temporarily appoint her successor. A number of progressives are uneasy about the moderate Klobuchar. And Biden's wife, Jill, has been open about how angry she was over Harris' biting attack on him in the first debate last year.A number of Biden allies are advocating lesser-known Democratic women. One of his top supporters has made the case to him for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, a Latina who served in Congress and as the state's health secretary, experience that could prove invaluable during a pandemic. Lujan Grisham's sister died of the same cancer that claimed the life of Biden's son, Beau.Another close friend of Biden has urged the campaign to consider the former national security adviser Susan Rice, a black woman who has never run for office but who has deep governing experience.Lujan Grisham and Rice have done nothing publicly to pursue the post. In contrast, Stacey Abrams, the former candidate for governor of Georgia, has recently embarked on a sustained media tour to pursue the vice presidency, openly encouraging Biden to choose her in a manner that has startled even some of her admirers.Heitkamp said Biden's age and the seriousness of the times all but demanded he make "a governing pick," rather than select somebody for a perceived political lift this year."Given Joe's age, this has to be someone capable of stepping in and being president of the United States," she said, alluding to "the lesson John McCain learned" when he picked the lightly experienced Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008.For the contenders, this is a competition for the vice-presidential nomination very much worth having.Should Biden win and not seek reelection, the Democratic nomination might not be up for grabs for another 12 years -- an eternity for the party's many ambitious up-and-comers. Then there is simple probability: Fourteen of the country's 45 presidents previously served as vice president: (In 1961, Lyndon Johnson, who had his staff research how many vice presidents ended up in the Oval Office, explained to Clare Boothe Luce: "I'm a gambling man, darlin', and this is the only chance I got.")Whoever gets the nod, Biden officials say, it will not be until this summer. Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, a chairman of the campaign, said he hoped Biden would wait to make his selection until after both the candidate and the vetting committee he appointed had the chance to interview potential running mates in person."I would not want him to make a decision like that without meeting and having some real face-to-face conversations," Richmond said. Asked about the very public nature of the competition, he said: "The trying-out on TV, I think, is normal. The actual campaigning for it is a little different, but we're in different times and people make their own decisions."Indeed, beyond the lack of in-person meetings with the prospects, Biden's deliberations have been constrained in other ways. Lawmakers who might ordinarily be pressuring him on behalf of their colleagues -- or, for that matter, against them -- say the selection of a future vice president remains a distant concern compared with the virus crisis.Rep. Kathy Castor of Florida said that Democratic lawmakers from her pivotal state had been floating one of their own as a contender: Rep. Val Demings, a former Orlando police chief who served as an impeachment manager.But more proactive lobbying had mostly been on hold, Castor said. Demings paused plans for a ramped-up national travel schedule when the pandemic set in."Val Demings would make an outstanding vice president," Castor said, adding of her Florida colleagues, "We've had those discussions, but it's all emergency response right now."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/3dbLtLC

[thisdaynews]

'The biggest nightmare Perez ever possibly imagined'

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/the-biggest-nightmare-perez-ever-possibly-imagined/

'The biggest nightmare Perez ever possibly imagined'

DNC Chair Tom Perez has become the target of discontent in his party over his management in the lead up to 2020. | Elijah Nouvelage/Bloomberg via Getty Images

2020 elections

Democratic lawmakers sound off on the party’s presidential free-for-all — and the dilution of their own power to choose a nominee.

Tom Perez isn’t facing blowback only over his management of his party’s unruly presidential primary field. He also has 280 constituents in Congress, some of whom are sounding off publicly.

The Democratic National Committee chairman is the face of presidential debate rules that will allow a meditation guru to take the stage next week while a red state Western governor watches on TV. Against that backdrop, a collection of Democratic lawmakers are still aggravated with Perez after he yielded to the party’s base last year and agreed to dilute their power as superdelegates — a problem Perez is still trying to defuse in private meetings with Democrats.

Story Continued Below

Perez, complained Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly, has made Democratic members of Congress “second-class citizens in our convention.”

“As a result, I don’t think he has a reservoir of goodwill here among my colleagues in the Congress. And I think he’s lost a lot of stature,” Connolly added. “If you don’t have a reservoir of goodwill, no one’s going to back you up when you have disputes. … That puts him in a very exposed position that is one problem away from being terminal.”

Connolly’s irritation with party headquarters is more pointed than most but shared by a significant bloc of Democrats, according to interviews with more than a dozen House and Senate lawmakers, some of whom serve in party leadership or are close to party leaders. Several lawmakers said they felt shunned by the DNC and fret the party is headed toward a brutal election cycle with serious divisions over the best way to oust President Donald Trump.

Others were more forgiving, saying Perez and his team at the DNC are making the best of a no-win situation. Whichever side lawmakers fell on, they agreed that Perez’s job has become utterly thankless — and that he’ll be the prime target of the party’s anger if things take a turn for the worse.

“It’s got to be the biggest nightmare Perez ever possibly imagined,” said Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Of the juggling act to determine which of the two dozen candidates qualified for the first debates, Durbin added: “I don’t think there’s any way to handle this well … at the end of it, I can bet that half of those [candidates] will be unhappy.”

The DNC defended its superdelegate changes and debate criteria by saying it gives “the grassroots a bigger voice and make our primaries and caucuses more accessible by reforming our party’s nominating process.”

“I, along with Chair Tom Perez, recognize the critical role our elected officials play in this process and will continue to engage all of them, including members of Congress, as we work to ensure our party continues to be the party of the people,” said Waikinya Clanton, senior adviser to the DNC.

Not far from anyone’s mind, of course, is the unceremonious ouster of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz. The Florida lawmaker was pushed out ahead of the 2016 Democratic convention, a move orchestrated by many members of Congress. There is no similar desire to oust Perez at this point; in fact, many Democrats said they’re sympathetic to his plight.

“We’re family. We had a good fight. They won, we lost,” said former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric Richmond (D-La.), wholambasted the DNClast year over its change to superdelegates. Richmond is now co-chair of Joe Biden’s campaign. “But it was a family fight, and you move on.”

But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worried, or that Perez is off the hook. Concern in the party falls into three categories: The culling of the field via polling and fundraising requirements; the refusal to dedicate a debate to the topic of climate change, an idea endorsed by many Democratic lawmakers; and thewatering downof superdelegates in response to grassroots activists.

With superdelegates now holding less sway over the nominee, the power of their endorsements dropped correspondingly.

“It was a mistake. I’ve been around long enough to see the Democratic Party and its nominating process go from [being] dominated by the political establishment to eliminating the political establishment to trying to come to the middle” after 2016, said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). The previous setup gave superdelegates a modest amount of influence over the process, he said, and “added some stability.”

Asked for his views of the DNC’s performance, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said he’s unlikely to attend next year’s convention in Wisconsin after speaking at the last four.

“I’m not going to be a delegate,” the Missouri lawmaker told POLITICO. “I mean, I can watch it on TV.”

Not all Democrats have hard feelings over the superdelegate showdown.

“There may have been some initial grumbling about the superdelegates process, but I think people recognize it’s strengthened our party,” added Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). “It’s restored some of the public’s confidence in the way the DNC operates.”

But the changes have sparked new disputes, including over how to ensure the party’s historically large field produces a nominee who can beat Trump.

Some congressional Democrats aren’t bothered by the teeming roster of candidates; others worry the debate stage risks looking like a circus. Caught in the middle is Perez.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said the party is doing “about as well as they can given the very uniquely complex and somewhat baffling nature of the race.” And while Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz said “there’s no way to satisfy everybody,” he warned the DNC against tactics that are too heavy-handed. The party set the bar for qualifying for the first debates at 65,000 individual donors and 1 percent in polls, numbers set to double for debates later in the year.

“The field will winnow. And I don’t think that it’s worth it for the DNC to be involved in the winnowing,” Schatz said. “I don’t find it concerning or alarming to have 20 people running for president. I think it’s great.”

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock is the biggest loser under the current formula, and he’s complained loudly about missing the first debate. His lone congressional endorsee, however, wasn’t as worked up.

“I’d love him to be on the debate stage, but if in fact he didn’t meet the criteria that the DNC set up, that’s that,” said Montana Sen. Jon Tester, adding that it would be “crazy” for the party to tweak the rules in response to grumbling.

For other Democrats, it’s less about what the DNC is doing now and more that they feel Perez has done little to repair relationships with members of Congress that frayed during the superdelegates clash.

“To disenfranchise those who are really invested in this party … is not the right thing to do,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, who has not heard from Perez recently. Still, he believes Perez is doing a good job with the debates.

The DNC made Clanton a senior adviser for outreach to members about the 2020 election. Perez has also held private meetings with Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and hosted a meeting open to the entire House Democratic Caucus about the changes to superdelegates. The DNC is also consulting with leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus on how to engage communities of color.

The DNC’s vice chair, Rep. Grace Meng of New York, serves as the conduit between congressional Democrats and Perez. She told POLITICO that Perez has implemented several steps to strengthen the DNC’s relationship with House Democrats.

There are now weekly check-ins between the DNC and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to coordinate talking points. Meng circulates a monthly newsletter to lawmakers on developments at party headquarters. And the DNC now alerts lawmakers when committee leaders are holding events in their districts, something that hasn’t always happened in the past, she said.

Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley has spoken directly to Perez about making climate change a prominent topic in the debates after the DNC rejected requests for a climate-only debate. Merkley said Perez is working to assuage his concerns, “but it’s not like I have it in writing.”

Yet with Republicans feuding among themselves on a near-weekly basis, many Democrats are in no mood to air their own dirty laundry. “You think you’re going to talk about Democratic infighting [with] me?” said Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who nearly ran for president himself. “Wrong day, man.”

Read More

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Quinn Hughes Debut, Habs/Jackets, More Hits Options (Mar 29)

Happy Quinn Hughes day!

The seventh overall pick in last summer’s draft made his NHL debut on Thursday. He was paired with the recently resurgent Luke Schenn (more on him shortly) in just over 15 minutes of icetime. For fantasy owners who were lightning-fast in adding Hughes to their lineups, he recorded his first NHL point by assisting on Brock Boeser’s second-period goal.

Hughes did much of the work on the goal, hopefully giving us a preview of things to come:  

BROCK BOESER TALLIES THE REBOUND AFTER QUINN HUGHES MAKES A BEAUTIFUL MOVE! FIRST NHL POINT FOR HUGHES!#Canucks pic.twitter.com/PNPnx5DQEy

— Hockey Daily (@HockeyDaily365) March 29, 2019

  No first-unit power-play duty for Hughes (yet), as the Canucks went with a four-forward first unit with Alex Edler on the point as per usual. However, 3-on-3 overtime with Hughes, Boeser, and Elias Pettersson was a sight to behold. Amazing stuff.

Of course, you can check out Hughes' Dobber Prospects profile, where Cam has lots more to say. 

By the way, Edler has five goals and 11 points over his past 12 games. Hughes will probably supplant him one day on the Canucks' first power-play unit, just not today. 

With Thatcher Demko in net, the Canucks’ roster on Thursday provided a real glimpse into the future. Demko stopped 37 of 39 shots in earning his second win in three games. It looks like the Canucks will alternate between Demko and Jacob Markstrom the rest of the way, so plan accordingly.

After bouncing around with several teams and even a stint in the minors, Schenn may have found a home in Vancouver, at least for next season. He’ll never be an option in pure points leagues, but he might be worth a grab if you are zeroing in on your hits category in roto. Over the past week Schenn has 28 hits in four games, more than any other player. Schenn and Hughes already know each other from Schenn’s Toronto days, when Hughes’ dad worked for the Leafs.

I have to say that if you think Jonathan Quick is washed up, he looked very impressive in this game. Quick stopped 36 of 38 shots, which included some beauty saves. Quick was pulled from his last start on Tuesday after allowing five goals on 11 shots in one period against Edmonton, so this was a nice bounce-back start for him in spite of not earning a win.

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In the matchup of the night, the Canadiens and Blue Jackets faced off for what might be the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Under a ton of pressure considering what they have to lose this offseason, the Jackets pulled through with a 6-2 win over the Habs. In case you’re already planning your playoff pool, the two teams are now tied for the final playoff spot with 90 points, although the Jackets also have the all-important game in hand.

Oliver Bjorkstrand was the Jackets’ scoring star, scoring twice on four shots on goal. Even though he’s being used on what might be considered Columbus’ third line with Alexander Wennberg and Boone Jenner, Bjorkstrand has been heating up with five goals in his last five games. The Jackets play on both Saturday and Sunday, so Bjorkstrand should be considered a streaming option for those days. As should many other Blue Jackets on what is a fairly deep (at least on paper) scoring attack.

After being held without a goal in 12 consecutive games, Artemi Panarin now has goals in back-to-back games. The Jackets can ill-afford another scoring slump from Panarin.

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The Panthers might be out of the playoff race, but that isn’t stopping Jonathan Huberdeau. The Panthers’ winger scored two goals on six shots on goal in a 5-2 win over Ottawa. Huby now has eight multipoint games during March to go with nine goals and 21 points over his last 12 games. Too bad I’ve been eliminated in the league that I own him in. Don’t you just hate it when your players cash in after you’ve been eliminated?

Evgenii Dadonov is another Panthers’ forward who has picked up the pace. Over his last 12 games, Dadonov has 17 points (4g-13a). Playing on a line with Huberdeau and Aleksander Barkov might have something to do with it. Dadonov has now surpassed last season’s point total and is just four points shy of his first 70-point season.

The Senators certainly can’t blame Brady Tkachuk for this loss. The younger Tkachuk brother scored his 20th goal of the season while firing 12 shots on goal and dishing three hits in 22 minutes of icetime. We’ll have to wait and see what order of pick the 31st-place Senators hand over to the Avalanche. If you believe in the theory of opportunity cost, the Sens would not own Tkachuk had they decided to keep their 2019 pick instead of their 2018 pick as part of the first Duchene deal. Hey, I’m just trying to be positive for Senators’ fans here. We’ll have to wait and see how everything unfolds.

On the other Sens’ goal, Colin White provided some highlight-reel material:  

COLIN WHITE WITH A GORGEOUS INDIVIDUAL EFFORT!#FlaPanthers pic.twitter.com/eQVoyj9dSv

— Hockey Daily (@HockeyDaily365) March 29, 2019

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Another forward who provided a big boost to shots on goal totals everywhere was Dylan Larkin. The Wings’ forward fired 12 shots of his own, with two of them going in. Larkin now has the first 30-goal season in his career.

Larkin’s linemates also had strong games. Tyler Bertuzzi scored two goals and added an assist, while Anthony Mantha recorded three assists. Mantha now has six points over his last three games. The Wings play on Sunday, which makes Mantha another possible streaming option, likely in the shallower pools.

Rasmus Ristolainen was held out of the lineup for a second consecutive game due to illness. The Sabres’ workhorse defenseman has been held without a point with a minus-9 ranking in his last nine games. Even multicategory single-season leaguers could consider dropping Risto at this point if more immediate help is needed. If this is actually an injury, then the non-playoff Sabres might consider shutting him down.

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If you own Mathew Barzal, you’ve been waiting for a goal for a while. As in over a month. Fortunately, the Isles’ center broke his goal-scoring slump and added an assist in a 5-4 win over Winnipeg. Barzal had gone without a goal in his previous 19 games. He isn’t one to pile up the goals, as his 18 goals this season is just four fewer than his total last season. However, he is well short of his 85-point rookie season from last season. This could be the result of having to play the tougher matchups this season versus last season, when John Tavares was still in the fold.

Playing on the top line with Barzal, Jordan Eberle scored two goals and added an assist. Eberle might have decent value at this very moment based on where he’s being used, but he’s also staring at his first sub-40-point season (lockout-shortened 2012-13 not included) in his career.

It’s finally happened: Ryan Pulock is on the first power-play unit. At least he’s sharing it with Nick Leddy anyway. Pulock had a nice roto game, recording three assists (one on the power play) while taking seven shots on goal in nearly 26 minutes. He’d been held without a point in his previous eight games, so you might want to get him back for what’s left of the season if you decided to move on.

In a losing cause for the Jets, Adam Lowry and Brandon Tanev each had three points. Lowry had been held without a point in his last nine games, while Tanev had not recorded a point in his previous seven games. Tanev has some sneaky roto value, as he fired six shots on Thursday, and he has 23 hits over the past week (four games). However, whenever I’ve thought about picking him up, he seems to be mired in a point drought.

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Connor McDavid scored his 40th goal of the season in style:  

CONNOR MCDAVID! ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS, BETWEEN-THE-LEGS BEAUTY! HE IS NOT HUMAN!#LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/w4Ix4CelYD

— Hockey Daily (@HockeyDaily365) March 29, 2019

Leon Draisaitl also scored goal number 47, which puts him just two behind Alex Ovechkin in the Rocket Richard Trophy race and of course the race to 50 goals. Both McDavid and Draisaitl have now hit 100 points and are in the top 5 in scoring. You’d think that would set the Oilers up nicely for a playoff spot, right? Of course not. You need an entire team, not just a couple of top-end players. The same theory applies in fantasy.

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With two more goals on Thursday, Alex DeBrincat has 40 goals. That places him in the top 10 in goal scoring. Not bad for a 21 year old in his second NHL season who many teams thought was too small. DeBrincat is not averse to slumps, though, as he entered this game without a point in five consecutive games.

Tomas Hertl scored a goal and added two assists, giving him 34 goals and 68 points in what has been a true breakout. A 70-point season is easily within reach.

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If you’re also into baseball, hope you enjoyed Opening Day and the start of fantasy baseball! For more fantasy hockey information, or to reach out to me directly, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-quinn-hughes-debut-habsjackets-more-hits-options-mar-29/

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Training Camp Notes; Karlsson Traded; Rankings! – September 14

  Well, given all the goings on in the last week, there has been some updates to the 2018-19 Dobber Hockey fantasy guide over the last week. If you have a copy already, be sure to grab the latest updates. If you don’t have your copy, no better time than now!

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A few items from training camp yesterday.

It looks like Tyler Ennis will get first crack a line with Auston Matthews and William Nylander. As always, this is the first day of camp and subject to change. He’ll have fantasy relevance if he can remain there for any length of time and will be fantasy irrelevant if he doesn’t. My bet is on the latter.

Tyler Bertuzzi was skating on a line with Dylan Larkin and Anthony Mantha for Detroit while a kid line was assembled of Filip Zadina, Joe Veleno, and Michael Rasmussen. Notable here: Zadina was not skating with one of the team’s top two centres. He’ll have to play his way there and given the track record of usage from Detroit rookies be it under Blashill or Babcock (Larkin notwithstanding), that’s a concern.

Victor Rask is out indefinitely after undergoing hand surgery for an accident in his home. Rask was one of the players used on the top PP unit last year with the top line, as had Elias Lindholm. Does this open the door for Svechnikov?

J-G Pageau was injured during physical tests but the nature and severity of the injury is unknown. An update will be provided Friday.

It looks like Paul Byron is good to go for the Habs while Andrew Shaw is still possible to start the year on time.

No further concrete update on Gabe Vilardi as the Kings say he’s still week-to-week.

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Speaking of the Sens… my take on the fantasy impacts of Erik Karlsson being traded to San Jose yesterday.

Beyond what I wrote there, it’ll be hard to see how much fantasy value there will be on this roster post-trade deadline and next year. Both Matt Duchene and Mark Stone are probably going to be gone. Once they’re traded, the roster will not look much better than the Sabres rosters of a few years ago. Keep that in mind if you’re in head-to-head leagues and thinking about grabbing guys like Bobby Ryan or Thomas Chabot. Assuming both Duchene and Stone are traded, this roster is going to be an utter wasteland in March of 2019 and the entire 2019-20 season.

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Dallas announced a long-awaited extension as Tyler Seguin earned an extra eight years with an AAV just under $10-million. He is now signed through his age-35 season.

Seguin was set to be a UFA after 2018-19.

The initial inclination is to scream overpay here, but this is what he’s done in Dallas over the last five years (from Hockey Reference):

At least 70 points every season, 1 of 3 players to do so (Sidney Crosby and Nicklas Backstrom)

173 goals, third-most in the league

211 assists, one fewer than John Tavares

384 points, tied with Backstrom for sixth-most in the league

Coming up next year as a UFA at the age of 27, he was going to get a barrel of money, and he’s earned every penny. All that’s left now is playoff success in Dallas.

Whether he’s worth it or not in cap leagues, I’ll leave that to Alex MacLean.

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I’ve finally published my rankings. A little later than I wanted but we’re done.

The rankings below were published at Fantasy Pros. A few notes on that:

These are based on Yahoo! standard leagues, which means goals, assists, PPPs, shots, hits, and plus/minus.

There are some players here with different eligibility than from Yahoo!. Nathan MacKinnon is C/RW on FantasyPros, for example. I did my best to account for them.

You should be able to view overall as well as by position.

Here you are:

2018 Fantasy Hockey Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR ™ – Expert Consensus Rankings ADP – Average Draft Position

    Now, before people get angry, I want to clear up some thing about these rankings:

These are going to be tinkered with, namely the overall rankings and where everyone fits together. The positional ranking is more accurate at the moment. 

I still haven’t gotten to my goalies. Don’t worry about those rankings. I’ll get to those on the weekend.

A lot of roles are still undefined. For example: I have Tyler Bertuzzi on the third line in Detroit when it looks like he might be on the top line; Justin Faulk is still slotted as PP1 for Carolina; Kailer Yamamoto is in my projection as playing half the season with Connor McDavid and one-quarter of the season with Leon Draisaitl. There are a lot of players whose rankings could change significantly in the next few weeks depending on news coming out of training camps and exhibition games.

I adjusted post-Karlsson trade but still have to work a few things out. Namely, I'm just waiting for defence pairs and PP combinations. Someone like Vlasic could get a big boost. 

I have largely ignored plus/minus. Heavily-used defencemen on what should be bad teams –Rasmus Ristolainen, Nick Leddy, Alex Edler, to name a few – moved down the rankings a lot because of a likely significant negative in the plus/minus column. Other than that, they haven’t been considered for players. I do this because it’s a largely random stat. Think of it this way: Anze Kopitar (+21 last year) played roughly two-thirds of his 5v5 minutes with Alex Iafallo (+10) and roughly three-quarters of his 5v5 minutes with Dustin Brown (+31). Look at the spread in plus/minus between Brown and Iafallo, who spent most of their minutes with Kopitar. I just find it a waste of time.

As I mentioned in my rankings on Tuesday, I take positional scarcity into account based on 12-team leagues starting 3LW/3C/3RW/5D/UTIL. Different positions should have different expectations. For example, the top-50 right wingers in my data set project for 1115.43 goals while the top-50 left wingers project for 1149.53 That makes one goal from a left winger worth a little over 1.03 goals from a right winger. It’s a small difference, but when you consider your wingers could score hundreds of goals, and then you account for small differences in every other category, it starts to add up. So, all stats equal, a right winger is more valuable than a left winger and a left winger is more valuable than a centre. Elite-tier defencemen are also more valuable than they’re given credit for given the mediocrity of the middle tier (shout out to Laidlaw). That’s why wingers will rank higher in my rankings than those of some other people.

I haven’t tiered these yet. I will tier these eventually.

These are adjusted for age, so guys on the wrong side of 30 are going to take a hit while guys in their prime (22-27) will shine.

Power play points can change a lot for a lot of players. Example: Dylan Larkin is projected just outside my top-200 players. The reason for that is his PP production for his career has been abysmal, posting 20 PPPs in 242 games (seriously), and that’s with 150+ PP minutes in each season to date. Were he to manage, say, 20 PPPs in 2018-19, that moves him just outside the top-100 players. Same with Connor McDavid; if that Oilers PP turns itself around and McDavid reaches his PP potential, he’s number-1 in my rankings, even when considering positional scarcity.

With all that out of the way, let’s talk about some of these guys.

One thing I want to focus on is players that I’ve ranked higher or lower than the consensus on Fantasy Pros. There aren’t a lot of guys whose rankings are posted yet, but it should give you a good idea of who I’m personally high and low on.

  Higher Than Consensus

Vladimir Tarasenko

All summer I’ve been saying that Tarasenko will be undervalued going into 2018-19 and it appears this is the case. The underlying issue, of course, is whether his shoulder is completely healthy following surgery in April. Think of it this way: last year was a down year for Tarasenko, I think most people would agree on that. In standard Yahoo! setups, he was still a top-30 player. If you can draft him in the late second or early third round, do it.

  Vincent Trocheck

Even if you’re someone who thinks that Trocheck could regress by 10 points or so this year, his ability to contribute across the board should be coveted. The year before, he was a top-75 player with just 54 points and a minus-13 rating because of his power play points, hits, and shots. If he’s healthy, he’s not losing his role with Florida. I’d be fine with drafting him in the third round but you can probably get him in the sixth.

  Joe Pavelski

It was just a year ago I was saying that Pavelski was overvalued. Now I think he’s undervalued. Crazy the difference a year can make.

If Joe Thornton can be anywhere near as healthy and productive as he was a couple years ago before the knee injuries cropped up, Pavelski has 25 goals and 35 assists locked up. He probably does even if Thornton isn’t healthy thanks to the additions of Evander Kane and Erik Karlsson. Pavelski adds loads of hits and shots, which is why he’s valuable for me.

  Kyle Palmieri and Nico Hischier

Even if he’s not on the top line, Palmieri’s PP points, hits, and shots make him very valuable. With just 44 points in an injury-shortened season last year, he returned ninth-round value. He’ll be available in that round or later.

I truly believe Hischier is a superstar in the making and he has the MVP of the NHL on his left wing. With additional PP minutes coming his way, I think when April rolls around, people are going to wonder how they passed on him this year.

  Colton Parayko

A 30-point defenceman who can put up the peripherals that Parayko can is valuable. That’s what made Ivan Provorov so valuable last year (though he was a 40-point guy). Parayko still hasn’t hit his ceiling fantasy-wise and maybe never will with Pietrangelo around. He can still be a 40-point defenceman though, especially with that revamped St. Louis offence.

  Lower Than Consensus

Mitch Marner

Marner is on the precipice of being an elite playmaker and a superstar in this league. The issue is that he doesn’t provide much in hits and isn’t a huge shot volume guy. He does shoot a fair amount, but not to the level of guys like David Pastrnak or Rickard Rakell. I have him projected for 75 points but without huge shot volume or hits, he’ll be hard-pressed to return third-round value.

  Nikolaj Ehlers

Let’s get this out of the way: Ehlers is truly one of my favourite players to watch in the league. If he picks up the puck in his zone and gets up to full speed, there’s almost no one more fun. That said, like Marner, he doesn’t hit much. He also doesn’t get top PP minutes, which caps his upside significantly. In order for a player who doesn’t post big hit totals to return near a top-75 pick, he needs either A) a healthy amount of PPPs or B) a healthy plus/minus. I’m not relying on plus/minus to return value on an early-round pick.

  Nicklas Backstrom

I will say I don’t have a particular problem grabbing Backstrom in the seventh round or whatever because he’s pretty safe. If he and his line mates are healthy, he won’t plummet to 50 points or in that neighbourhood. But he doesn’t hit much anymore, and he’s never been a volume shooter. That means unless he gets extremely lucky production-wise, he doesn’t have league-winning upside. Guys like Brayden Schenn and Vincent Trocheck do.

  Alex Pietrangelo

Do people realize Pietrangelo had the best year of his career in 2017-18 and returned the value of a 10th round pick? I have him ranked where I do just because I think the St. Louis offence will be better, but I don’t feel great about the projection even in the eighth round, let alone taking him higher.

  Charlie McAvoy

I just don’t get it at all. Torey Krug is locked on the top PP unit (provided he's healthy), so McAvoy’s PP production will be minimal. He’s still young, but he landed just 1.2 shots per game last year as a rookie. Even if he increases that shot rate by 50 percent, it’s still just 150 shots in 82 games. That’s two-thirds of standard categories where he doesn’t contribute much, and I’m going to have to draft him as a second or third defenceman? Pass.

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If anyone wants individual point projections, just let me know in the comments. 

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-training-camp-notes-karlsson-traded-rankings-september-14/