#( dynamic: max & puck )

[everybodylieslieslies]

tag drop two.

[hughesybear]

Max Sasson 🤝🏼 Jonathan Lekkerimäki: scoring their first NHL goal in an underwhelming effort by the Canucks

Canucks thoughts 12/14/2024:

This team is so perplexing. How can they follow up their best performance of the season with whatever this game was? We can speculate about the locker room dynamics and the Pettersson/Miller thing all we want, but the inconsistent focus that this team has displayed throughout this season is a point of concern. Tocchet’s comments about “three, four, or five guys who are struggling to get emotionally invested in the game” are pretty damning.

When the Canucks are at their best, like they were against the Panthers, they are suffocating in the neutral zone and quick to capitalize on the mistakes and turnovers that their unrelenting pressure creates. When that communication breaks down, they struggle to make controlled entries or regain possession through their forecheck in order to consistently stack heavy shifts against the other team. Teams have caught on to the Canucks’ propensity to rimming pucks around the boards in the defensive zone, and the Bruins were able to pick off too many of those attempted passes with ease. The numerous icings against the Canucks throughout this game are emblematic of the difficulty they had with recognizing when they had the time and space to make a play.

Why are they having such trouble consistently executing the plans of the coaching staff? I think part of it is the lack of puck-moving ability in the defence personnel outside Hughes and Hronek (when Noah Juulsen is in your top-4, something has gone terribly wrong), but part of it comes with adjusting reads to break out of the dump-and-chase pattern. Being able to hold onto pucks and make those offensive blue line plays while figuring out how to communicate those decisions throughout the five-man unit will be key to ensuring the Canucks don’t put out another performance like this in front of paying customers again.

Maybe Derek Forbort is the key to the Canucks. We’ll see the defensive depth get tested heavily in the next game against the league’s leading two scorers. Should be fun!

[austronauts]

Hi

I don't know if you do this kind of stuff, but I've been following (stalking a little, sorry) your blog for a bit now, and I was wondering what your favourite Geno moments are and if you are willing to share them?

If you're not comfortable with this, then you can ignore this.

omg i wOULD LOVE TO SHARE and first of all thank you for finding my stream-of-consciousness shitposts on this blog worthy of your time 😭😭😭

i do have so many favorite geno moments and, although i'm sure i'll forget a bunch of them because i haven't had my coffee yet, they are:

so. simply - geno was the first hockey player i ever EVER fell in love with. The way he skates with almost a languorous looming grace that belies his speed and strength? the way he's capable of seemingly appearing out of nowhere to effortlessly dance his way through a battalion of defenders to slot the puck in the back of the net? I don't know exactly what it was or how to put it in words. but the moment I saw a random pittsburgh penguins game on tv, i just felt this pang of something that made me want to learn everything about him.

his pierogi making session for local tv lmao. he's SO LANKY AND YOUNG AND SARCASTIC AND FUNNY AND FLIRTY HERE. the way he chops the cabbage takes me tf out

the local CAR COMMERCIAL the pittsburgh penguins filmed that is literally the most cringe thing i have EVER SEEN. max talbot's terrible facial hair? and the way geno doesn't say a single WORD - just looms with a terrifyingly awkward smile hanging off his mouth. it makes me cackle everytime. i ADORE HIM.

"Has big taste"

I don't have the exact photo rn - but the photo of him making out with a girl where he is fucking. wearing. a SIDNEY CROSBY T-SHIRT. you just can't make this shit up about them.

the time where they interviewed geno about being snapped by paparazzi making out with his then gf on the beach, and geno simply responded "yeah and i looked HOT. GOOD FOR THEM"

The Spittin Chiclets (cw: Barstool sports) interview with Sidney Crosby - sooo many funny stories about Geno are told here. The one about Geno not knowing the names of his teammates makes me laugh the hardest.

THE TIME EVGENI BOUGHT HUMAN-SIZE ALIEN V. PREDATOR FIGURINES AND PLACED THEM OUTSIDE TO FLANK BOTH sIDES OF THE ENTRANCE TO HIS HOME AND LEFT THEM FOR YEARS TO RUST . AND HOW HE NAMED THE BIGGER ONE OVI AND THE SMALLER ONE KUZNETSOV. also this entire video is SO CUTE

I adore the first minute of this video and have watched it so many times. PLEASE. the way he - almost affronted - exclaims "BECAUSE I NICE GUY. YOU SEE MY FACE? AND IM LOOKIN GOOD!"

oh god i just unlocked another early memory. this must have been the year where ovi and geno had beef? but in every pens v. caps game, ovi would check geno SO aggressively and i would get SO PROTECTIVE OVER my 6'3" hulking russian man lmao. i guess it's not a favorite moment per se but that entire season undoubtedly cemented my protective love for geno

the time geno wON THE HART TROPHY and dedicated it to sergei gonchar. you can see the emotions in gonch's eyes. and to see how fuckin NERVOUS geno is. i want to EAT him.

the time geno was preparing for his Dapper Dan trophy speech and he is SO. SO. NERVOUS. and then teh way he gets up there and just starts speaking in russian as a joke then giggles. GODDD he's so unbelievably precious. GOD. he even slides a few jokes (at talbot's expense, of course) into his speech

I genuinely love Geno's sense of humor and his sly deadpan sarcasm and love for fucking with his teammates lmao. The story about how his teammates used to invite Geno out to dinner when Geno was new to pittsburgh kills me? how Geno always responded "da" or "$" ...and didn't show up when he responded "da" and showed up when he responded "$"? THIS MAN!

Related to #13, the way bullying is Geno's love language fills my gremlin heart with delight. In all the videos with Sidney - the dynamics of their interactions are so consistent. Sidney - earnest appreciation. sincere supportive vibes. Geno - AHAHAaaHAA SIDNEY BOOOOOOOOOO sidNEY WHY YOU DO THAT AHAhahaHAHAAH I WIN SIDNEY YOU SUCK BOOOOOOOOO Sidney - [helpless giggling and honking laughs because sidney genuinely believes geno is the funniest person on this planet.

The time Geno thanked himself for the assist on the Penguins' instagram post congratulating sidney's 1000th career game

The time Sidney cried during the 1000th game tribute video and said "I'm going to cry" or something along those lines and Geno just simply said "Yeah me too." THEY. THEM.

Also - in spite of his deadpan sense of humor and love for irony and sarcasm and trolling - the way he has always. ALWAYS always aLWAYS always ALWAYS ALWAYS made it clear that he only ever wants to play with sidney, and that to him sidney is the best.

i KNOW im missing so much but these are the top geno moments that swim around in my brain 24/7 :-)

[angelhummel]

your glee/degrassi posts made me curious: which degrassi characters do you think are similar to the glee characters? i'd compare spinner and puck for example.

Oof not sure now I feel about that lmao. I have sooo many wildly fluctuating thoughts on Spinner that they all kind of average out into "he was ok" lmao. God honestly Spinner vibes for Finn more than Puck like aww I was a big dumb loser with no direction in high school, guess I'll become a cop/join the army (: I mean Puck too lowkey but that was just doubly dumb bc he was basically doing it for Finn like ?? calm down alksjfsdklgs

Plus there's so many more Degrassi characters than Glee characters so I feel like one Gleek is worth six Degrassians lmao

First of all Finn and Rachel want what Jay and Manny have, let's just say that. Super talented destined for stardom singer actor girl and her bf who works on cars and plays drums?? Janny outsold

Also with Jay and Alex I get Pucktana vibes. The ultimate lesbro lmao

Also Brittana are Palex and i dont ship either of them like the seemingly dark and brooding Latina lesbian with the soft spot for the preppy blonde bi cheerleader... Those dynamics look familiar

Quinn, I hate to do it to her, but a little Becky a little Darcy... Churchy good girl with the shitty parents who are oblivious to her struggles. Maybe also a little Jenna just for the teen mom thing but Puck could never and would never stoop so low to be a KC. Maybe also a little Fiona for Quinn??

Umm Karofsky and Riley are the same character. I think the only reason I like one and hate the other is bc Max could act :| Sorry bout it

I already went on record saying that Miles Hollingsworth is just fanon Sebastian Smythe alksjfslkfjs

Mercedes and Liberty a very little bit?? Mainly when it comes to Rachel/Emma & Manny acting like they were always such close besties when it's like ?? 75% of the time yall were hating on her!! Umm Terry for superficial body image issues lol. And ugh I don't know how I feel about this but maybe a little Clare?? Like in regards to keeping her faith and her relationship to sex etc etc

Actually I can very clearly see Kurt and Finn as Marco and Spinner bc I imagine s1 Finn would rather choke to death on a piece of food than let a gay guy give him the heimlich <3

Oh duh Kurt and Tristan. bc Finn and Owen (: But also bc they both have very theatrical personalities and similar arcs with body image issues and also they're both iconic

Artie is like JT and Toby's son idk

Kitty gives me early Holly J mixed with early Becky vibes

Tina maybe. Ellie and Ashley vibes :x I'm sorry alskfjslkfhs. And also superficially Leia in that they are both Asian and the show didn't care about them (:

Brittany is Lola (derogatory)

Whew that feels like a lot lmao but that's all the ones I can think of right now!! Lmk what you think!

[katatty]

How did you start shipping Tybalt & Puck? Also I would love to hear some uni ships! Favorite SSU / LFT / ALT ship?

Thank you for the questions! I hope you don’t mind long answers, haha

Tybalt and Puck came about quite naturally to me, in Veronaville I would usually play Hermia with Mercutio and keep Juliette with Romeo (at least initially) and so they were just kinda... the odd sims out? (And Miranda too I guess, but I prefer shipping her with people from outside of Veronaville.)

Tybalt I have always liked playing as gay and Puck just seems, idk, like someone who would have the kindness and patience for someone like Tybalt. (Puck is literally his only friend at the start of the game!) I’m not sure they would last beyond teenagerhood, especially once they go to college and experience more of the world outside of Veronaville, but I have just always really really liked them together! (If you’re interested I answered another question about them a few months back that goes into more detail about how I imagine their dynamic).

I love the uni sims, I could talk all day about them! I play a lot of them as being some form of queer - because they have less “lore” attached to them than the basegame premades it feels like you can get a lot more liberal with how you interpret them, I guess? (Not that you can’t do this with the basegame sims, and I know a lot of people do, this is just my personal taste)

For SSU, I really like Brittany Upsnott/Allegra Gorey and I really like Heather Huffington/Martin Ruben. Neither of these pairings actually ended very well in my uberhood, lmao, but I like them regardless! I also really like the concept of Allegra/Heather although I’ve never actually played this, @yakumtsaki did a cute story about them forever ago I loved

For LFT, Frances Worthington/Guy Wrightley! I like them both being from wealthy families and can see them as a power couple, plus Guy is just so nice he can maybe help Frances with some of his snobbishness, lol. I really like Jasmine and Zoe from the Shifting Paradymes together, too. They’re just both so cool and have so much in common, they work great together. I especially like the way @strangetomato writes them

For ALT, I love Max and Mitch together, how can anyone not. I also really like Roxie and Jonah, they seem like one of those really shallow couples you don’t expect to last but they just got along so well in my game, I never got around to splitting them up and eventually they’d been together so long I just didn’t see it happening. I liked Delilah O’Feefe and Emily Lee as a couple too, although they recently broke up </3 and Emily is engaged to Allegra Gorey now <3

I also really like pairing uni sims with the premade teens, those are some of the pairings I’m super passionate about. Ripp Grunt and Jimmy Phoenix are a couple in my game, and I’m deeply obsessed with the totally bizzare pairing Lilith Pleasant/Ashley Pitts. I had Tank and Stella together breifly in my game and although it didn’t really work out (he got too freaked out by the whole thing and transferred to SSU), they are a super facinating ship & I liked your post about them a lot!

[st-louis]

Max Pacioretty has been excellent for the Vegas Golden Knights, but it’s inarguable that the trade has been a coup for Marc Bergevin and the Montreal Canadiens. Tomas Tatar has fit seamlessly on Montreal’s top line to replace Pacioretty’s production and that says nothing about the real centrepiece of that trade, Nick Suzuki.

Suzuki notched 13 goals and 41 points in his rookie campaign but it feels like he’s just scratching the surface.

The right-shot centreman is a dynamic force who has all the ingredients to be a high-end playmaker in the top-six. Suzuki’s biggest strength is his intelligence — this powers his vision as a setup man, his tremendously advanced two-way game and the layers of deception and craftiness he implements as a puck rusher to overcome the fact that he isn’t the fastest straight-line skater.

Suzuki is poised beyond his years and has the all-around tools to thrive as an impact pivot.

The 21-year-old facilitates zone exits and zone entries at a high-end rate and ranks among the 78th percentile of NHL forwards in passes that lead to shot attempts, per Corey Sznajder’s tracking. Coming back from the March pause in the bubble playoffs, he started to dictate the flow of games and saw his ice-time rocket to 19:11 per game.

Heading into this season, we should be able to bank on an increase in ice time, better luck at five-on-five (Suzuki’s on-ice shooting percentage is just 6.4 percent) and wingers with a higher offensive ceiling (he’s currently lined up with Jonathan Drouin and Josh Anderson, with Tyler Toffoli a new addition that could see time there).

Montreal has long yearned for an explosive offensive centre to key their offence and Suzuki looks like he isn’t far off from being that answer.

[x]

me, scrolling down after seeing the headline and upon seeing the main article image: 😌

and the article doesn’t even mention the fact that he’s quarterbacking the first unit power play now (i guess that could be folded into the general time on ice increase but).

[infolisstar-blog]

Add 35 lbs to Your Deadlift & Squat in 15 Minutes Listen, it’s not what you think. I’m not going to tell you about a new technique to try or costly special equipment or even some underground secret training program.

It really has to do with one simple but life-changing thing: UNLOCKING your tight hips. I was blown away by what I’m about to share with you and so let me explain.

The ‘power zone’ as I like to call it lies at the center of the human body. Sure, the arms and legs are super important for any person or elite athlete, but the source of true power resides within the hips.

Talk to any coach or trainer the world over and they will agree with this simple assessment: All athletes from hockey to football, baseball to tennis, soccer to powerlifting rely on the explosiveness that their hips and glutes possess.

Without the ability to bend, jump, twist, dive, run or move effectively, an athlete is dead in their tracks, literally.

So what is the common thread that ties most athletes together?

Some might say speed, power or even strength, but the answer is actually much simpler than that. I’m talking about the athletic position or ready position found in most sports.

Imagine for a moment the linebacker in football, the shortstop in baseball, the goalie in hockey or the powerlifter on the platform and how their body looks. They all stand ready in a position of strength to either tackle someone, catch a ground ball, stop a puck or lift maximum weight.

For example, what does the powerlifter do just before the squat or deadlift? They move into a strong, athletic position as they mentally connect to every muscle in their body so that they can create as much power and force on the bar as possible.

None of them would ever stand casually in an upright position seconds before having to perform. Why is that? Because they would not be able to generate ANY power from that position.

An athlete in almost any sport will stand with feet shoulder width (or wider) apart, knees flexed, butt back and torso tilted forward. They are balanced, grounded, strong and ready for anything that comes towards them.

From this position, anyone can react quickly, explosively and with tremendous power. If at any time the muscles in the hip area are compromised, athletic performance is undoubtedly affected and not in a good way.

When it comes to acceleration and speed, the hips are at the epicenter of power. Even though the squat or deadlift with maximum weight may not look very fast, the lifter is telling their body to move as fast as they can to move the load.

So when I assessed how much I sat every day on the computer and realized even though I train hard 5 days per week in the gym, my hips were in terrible condition. And knowing how critical the hips are when it comes to generating ultimate power, it was time to seek out a professional who could help me out.

I knew that if I could lengthen my hip flexors and undo all of that damage from sitting so much over the years, I could become more explosive and lift more weight.

In only 15 minutes I had done not just static stretching (like most warm-up programs) but proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), dynamic stretching, 3-dimensional core stability exercises, mobility exercises, fascia stretching and even some muscle activation movements.

Immediately after performing all of these exercises, I felt READY. Ready to move. Ready to lift. I truly felt more powerful and energized than I had in years.

So what did I do? I went ahead and did some deadlifting. I literally added 35 lbs to my max lift after only doing this routine once. My hips were awake. The circulation through my ‘power zone’ was flowing and I felt incredible.

I know this sounds too good to be true but it is absolutely a night and day difference. Granted, this routine would need to be practiced daily for the results to continue but I couldn’t argue with the immediate results of this 15 minute routine.

[waynekelton]

Excellent Two Player Games on iPhone, iPad and Android

Some of the greatest things in life are better shared. Two player games offer the most direct chances for head-to-head competition or connection. No misty-eyed sentiment there, just a fact. One mind probing the ingenuity and exiguity of another through games.

Maybe you like to play in person on the same screen, or even on different devices via local multiplayer, or instead online with asynchronous multiplayer. A test of reflexes or planning? The games below run the gamut, with variety enough for all kinds of people and situations. Give them a try the next time with a fellow gamer. You won’t be disappointed.

What are the best two player apps for iOS & Android?

Santorini

Fort Sumter

Tides of Time

Morels

Uniwar

Words with Friends 2

Burgle Bros

Onitama

Neuroshima Hex

Glow Hockey 2

Ready Steady Bang

Patchwork

Santorini

Developer: Roxley Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $4.99

The problem with many 'dedicated' two-player games is that sometimes the game can only entertain you for so long - playing with the same person constantly means that you end up learning their ways and instead of tense, drawn out affairs it can be easy to see who's winning quite quick;y. Santorini, an excellent port of a board game of the same name, side-steps most of these problems by not only offering a tactically engaging base game (where you won't know who's won until they've won), but also near-infinite replay-ability in the form of powers.

Your goal in the game is to try and build up a tower to its third level and then place one of your two pawns on that tower, but your opponent is doing the same. Each pawn HAS to move and build every turn, and three-story towers can be capped by an opponent, denying you your winning move. It becomes an intricate dance and a contest of tactical prowess as you try and manoeuvre yourself and your opponent exactly where you want them. The inclusion of game-altering special abilities only serves to make things more intense- you're unlikely to tire of this one anytime soon.

Fort Sumter

Developer: Playdek Platforms: iOS & Android Price: $6.99

Playdek's Fort Sumter: Secession Crisis tackles the introductory moves to the American Civil War in a quick, 15-minute hand of cards between two players. Your job is to position yourself for the most political influence possible as you prepare for the inevitable outbreak of the war. But Fort Sumter manages all this in an elegant little game that takes the card-based intrigue of Twilight Struggle and streamlines them, and the result is a two-player experience that's easy to learn and allows for a lot of nuance in every game. 

Morels

Developer: Mossbark Games Platforms:  iOS Universal, Android Price: $4.99

The physical version of Morels (also known as Fungi) was a very casual and fun card game for two people. It's only drawback was that it took up a fair amount of room, but thanks to Mossbark's excellent digital adaptation, that's no longer a concern. If Pass & Play and even online multiplayer modes, all of the best traits of Morels have survived into the mobile port.

Especially good for couples, Morels is very laid back, but also paced and easy to play. You won't need to remember anything too complex, and it's an excellent time-waster if you're travelling together or are just looking for some quick  and easy post-dinner entertainment at home. 

Uniwar

Developer: Spooky House Studios Platforms:  iOS, Android Price: Free with non-invasive IAP

Uniwar is an ambitious turn-based strategy game which proudly wears its influences on its sleeve. It has the conquer-the-map tension of Advance Wars as well as the creative asymmetry of different player races: the fleshy Terrans, chitinous Insectoids and metallic...Robots. The abilities and interactions across these units are rather lively and varied, walking the fine edge between ‘interesting’ and ‘unbalanced’. Hotseat play is simple as can be, with quite a few maps offered, and there’s also online play.

Words with Friends 2

Developer: Zygna Platforms:  iOS, Android Price: Free

Words with Friends has been around almost as long as smartphones themselves, and it’s still a golden way to spend the better part of a day or longer. Yes, it’s like that other classic board game, and there’s a delicious subtext of who-spells-what-when. (Words score points but also...score points, making associations, repartee, even a kind of conversation). It just works on multiple levels, from a pure gameplay perspective but also in terms of social pay-out and connection. Oh, and on the gameplay front, it’s worth noting that advanced play involves so much more than just scoring the most impressive single word on a given turn. It also means thinking about positioning, letter draws and pacing, bonuses: basically long-con strategy stuff. Words with Friends is an oldie but a goodie, and a surprisingly handy way to keep in touch with friends.

Burgle Bros.

Developer: Fowers Games Inc. Platforms:  iOS, Android Price: $4.99

Co-op games are great, but even the greats tend to be best either purely solo or with the max player count. Burgle Bros, however, is unique in that it shines especially with two. With two, the joint is cased twice as fast, but hiding is much harder. To quickly reprise the game for those unfamiliar: players explore each floor’s tiles till they discover the safe, crack the combination, retrieve the  and advance to the next level.

Patrolling guards and alarms will make things difficult, and if any player runs out of stealth points they risk getting caught and getting sent to the slammer. Some of the game’s more advanced tactics and interactions really only come into their own with a dynamic duo. Yes, gadgets and treasures along with character abilities combine but the real clincher is the pathing and alert system. Guards can be re-routed by tripping alarms, so the best teams take heat for each other. Two-player stealth doesn’t get much better than this.

Onitama

Developer: Asmodee Digital Platforms:  iOS, Android Price: Free (with expansions, content packs as optional DLC)

Onitama is a game primarily about not losing. Sounds like weak, roundabout praise, I know, but what this means in practice is thinking many steps in advance, reasoning recursively to move from point B to point A, something surprisingly difficult. Woah there, let's back up a little and actually talk about the game. Onitama is a two-player abstract game played on a two-dimensional square grid, much like chess. Players win by either capturing their opponent's 'King' piece or alternatively by moving their own respective King onto the other player's start space. The twist is how movement patterns work, for they are dictated by cards which can be used once, then eventually become playable by the opponent. There are only five given movement pattern cards (of a larger set) in a specific game, and this larger flow between good positioning and a good hand of cards makes the game quite intense. The app is free and as well-polished as any of Asmodee's releases.

Neuroshima Hex

Developer: Portal Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $4.99, 2.99

This one features asymmetrical factions trying to control the board by selecting two of three tiles (six-sided hexes, that is) each turn. The post-apocalyptic setting and wildly divergent playstyles of the groups make it an unusually colorful strategy game, but these flourishes of variety do nothing to detract from the game’s balance. The base game only includes four races, but that alone is plenty to start with and the rest are available as paid DLC. Tile-laying madcap fun.

Glow Hockey 2

Developer: Natenai Ariyatrakool Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $0.99, Free.

Arcade- or action-style two player games are the epitome of beer-and-pretzel fun. Crystal clear consequences, nothing to overthink or overanalyze just quick wrists instead of quick wits. Pure impulse and reaction make for some reliable fun, and Glow Hockey is a passable digital dupe for Air Hockey, minus the constant click-clack of the pucks. The physics are satisfying, the controls responsive. It works well in an understated and way that is impossible to hype, but it still entirely worth recognizing.

Ready Steady Bang

Developer: Cowboy Games Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $0.99, Free.

A western showdown at sundown. Quick-draw, one-shot, one-kill. Ready, Steady, Bang is this experience, over and over, with variable countdown timing and a variety of death animations. Technically there’s also a short ‘campaign’ mode vs. AI with ironclad timing thresholds, but the meat of the game can be reduced to a single perfectly timed gesture. Dead simple, quick and satisfying. Just don’t be the other guy. 

Patchwork

Developer: DIGIDICED Platforms: iOS, Android Price: $2.99

Patchwork may be pint-sized compared to some of its juggernaut neighbors on this list, but what it lacks in player count or time commitment it makes up in charm and crystal-clear, razor sharp strategy. (Those two make for quite the odd couple) Patchwork is a variable-setup perfect information abstract for two players. Players work to fill up their empty boards by adding patches to them, of various polyomino sizing, with the ultimate goal of filling the whole swath and collecting as many covetous buttons along the way. It is almost instantly intuitive yet perplexing and sophisticated even after dozens of plays, with turns chained together or telegraphed from miles away. A sweet game that can also be a hardcore match of wits.

Other Top Two Player Mobile Game Recommendations

Tides of Time

Ticket to Ride

Potion Explosion

Lords of Waterdeep

Splendor

Istanbul

Through the Ages

Indian Summer

AntiHero

Twilight Struggle

What are your favourite games to play between two people? Let us know in the comments! 

Excellent Two Player Games on iPhone, iPad and Android published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/

[vietthaimeco]

2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 First Drive: More Accessible Performance

“Make it more confident and intuitive to drive.” That was the feedback current owners of Ford’s wild-child, track-rat, flat-plane-crank, manual-only Mustang Shelby GT350 offered when the development team went asking. Although buyers of the Shelby GT350R tend to be pretty accomplished shoes, buyers of the “base” GT350 are more likely to drive their cars daily and take them to a track much less frequently. As such, these owners tend to be less practiced and more fearful of wadding up their babies. The team kept this wish in mind as it pushed the current Mustang platform to new levels of performance while developing the forthcoming GT500, and is now rolling out a new GT500 with higher performance limits that are easier to reach. (The GT350R remains unchanged for 2019.)

Assisting with the aforementioned development was veteran race driver Billy Johnson, who’s spent three years working with the team while also racing Ford GTs and prepping the Mustang GT4 race car, which he’s campaigning this year. Billy apparently shares Randy Pobst’s knack for articulating how a car feels and helping direct changes to make it feel better.

Perhaps the lowest-hanging chassis-development fruit is improving tire grip. Tire Rack can help you do that to your car right now, but when you’re the Mustang team you don’t call Tire Rack—you work with Michelin to custom-tailor a tire for your car, and then you re-tune the entire chassis to take full advantage of the newfound grip. Let’s start with the tires.

Upgrading from Michelin Pilot Sports to Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires represents a serious performance and technology leap. The GT350R has used wider-section versions of this tire from the start (305 front/315 rear to the GT350’s 295/305), and the tires look rather similar. Both feature a broad, featureless outer shoulder for lateral bite, three shallow tread channels (the old Pilot Sports had four deeper ones), and large tread blocks. The tread-wear rating is 180, down from 300 for the old Pilot Sports. We’re told the new ones should last 12,000-15,000 miles on the street (track days will shorten their life—a lot,). The tread compound differs from that of the GT350R. To make it more street-friendly in the “shoulder seasons” (this IS a summer tire), its “glass-transition temperature” (when rubber turns from grippy to hockey-puck slippy) is lower—but never drive on them under a frost/freeze warning. The more angular sidewall profile shape and construction contributes to the way the tire performs in lateral maneuvers (and serves to protect the rims from brushes with the curb). The scant shallow treads suggest these tires would be a handful in the rain, but Mustang chief program engineer Carl Widmann swears they meet the same wet-traction standards as the old one. Ford Performance-engineered tires wear an “FP” mark on the sidewalls that buyers need to insist on when replacing their tires. Frequently. (Tire Rack price: $1,822.74 for a set.)

Working up from the tires, the spring rates are stiffened 10 percent in front, where the anti-roll bar remains unchanged. In back the spring rates soften by 6 percent to coordinate with a larger, stiffer, hollow rear bar (now 24mm, up from 22mm). The Magneride shocks are completely retuned to suit these changes and the new tires, and also to take advantage of improvements in the software and algorithms that have simply come with the march of progress.

One more chassis enhancement: The electronic programming of the stout Brembo brake system is totally recalibrated. It can now dynamically alter the proportioning from front to rear and side to side to a greater extent than it used to, which is said to improve the way the car feels when braking into a corner.

The Shelby GT350’s one big non-chassis-related update is to aerodynamics. To help boost the confidence of drivers whose tracks include longer straights and higher-speed bends and sweepers, front and rear aero-mods help to better settle the car at speed. In front, the main upper grille opening is blanked off more. They basically realized the cooling pack didn’t need as much air as it was getting, and the surplus air was just getting trapped under the hood and causing lift. There is still a hint of front-end lift at speed, but less than before. In back there’s a new “s’wing”—a hybrid spoiler/wing that leverages lessons learned on the GT500 program in a rolling ground-plane wind-tunnel in North Carolina. Think of it as a spoiler with two big vents that allow the highest velocity air to slip straight through, reducing drag, while the rest rides the s’wing surface to develop positive down-force.

This basic s’wing helps plant the rear quite nicely, but if you want it planted with deep roots on the fastest tracks you’ll spend another $850 for a handling package. It includes an aggressive Gurney flap that bolts to the stock s’wing via four simple torx-head screws (removing this gas-mileage killer is worth a couple highway mpg on the drive home from the track). Also included are a pair of front strut camber plates that allow for easy swapping between tire-preserving street alignment and a max-cornering negative-camber track setup.

Naturally the cars we were invited to drive on the 1.5-mile Champion Motor Speedway course at suburban-Detroit’s M1 Concourse had all the performance goodies dialed up to max-attack mode. I drew first drive in a white-with-blue-stripes GT350 on a 50-degree morning. Sure enough, until these tires warmed up I experienced entry understeer and/or power oversteer in several of the track’s 11 turns, but after about a lap and a half they warmed up and started biting harder and harder with nary a stomach-knotting squirm or wiggle. This did encourage me to charge deeper into each turn, and even to roll onto the gas more aggressively on the exits.

I’d be lying if I claimed to detect the savvier brake proportioning, but my confidence did indeed build quickly on what is still a fairly unfamiliar new track to me, so perhaps Widmann and team can hoist the “mission accomplished” banner on that customer wish. One thing that happily remains utterly unchanged is the frenetic sound of this uniquely big-lunged flat-plane V-8 in sport-exhaust mode. Without any of the fourth-order “wuffle” that traditional V-8s make, the resulting sound is akin to a pair of Suzuki Hayabusa motors shouting in unison down a sewer pipe. Long may this glorious sound echo down these stainless, sport-tuned sewer pipes.

The GT350 is on sale now starting at $61,435—just $3,295 more than the 2018 model, and according to Tire Rack, $449.28 of that is the tires.

2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 BASE PRICE $61,435 VEHICLE LAYOUT Front-engine, RWD, 2-pass, 2-door coupe ENGINE 5.2L/526-hp/429-lb-ft DOHC 32-valve V-8 TRANSMISSION 6-speed manual CURB WEIGHT 3,750-3,800 lb (mfr) WHEELBASE 107.1 in LENGTH X WIDTH X HEIGHT 188.9 x 75.9 x 54.2 in 0-60 MPH 4.1 sec (MT est) EPA CITY/HWY/COMB FUEL ECON 14/21/16 mpg ENERGY CONSUMPTION, CITY/HWY 241/160 kW-hrs/100 miles CO2 EMISSIONS, COMB 1.18 lb/mile ON SALE IN U.S. Currently

The post 2019 Ford Mustang Shelby GT350 First Drive: More Accessible Performance appeared first on Motortrend.

source https://www.motortrend.com/cars/ford/mustang/2019/2019-ford-mustang-shelby-gt350-first-drive-review/

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Two Russians sign, Sid stymied; Stone, Stastny stoked; Jackets, Jets jacked and more (Apr 15)

  Ramblings: Two Russians sign, Sid stymied; Stone, Stastny stoked; Jackets, Jets jacked and more (Apr 15)

***

In early December I traded Vince Dunn for Nazem Kadri in my keeper league. At the time, I wanted the depth forward as it would keep me in the hunt. I also wanted a playoff guy and Kadri was a lock for the playoffs, whereas clearly Dunn and his St. Louis Blues were, uh…done. They were bottom dwellers at the time. And as a bonus, Kadri had a great second half last year and although that was due to playing with Mitch Marner (which wasn’t going to happen again this year), I figured there would still be an uptick. Well, that entire transaction has derailed and I feel like I gave up a good quality young defenseman for nothing. With Kadri’s track record of dirty hits, he’s going to miss time and likely lots of it. So as a playoff asset, he’s done. And he never had that second-half uptick so he really didn’t help the bottom of my roster very much, either.

*

Dante Fabbro’s ice time on Saturday dipped from 11:45 to 9:11. I wonder if that means Matt Irwin or Yannick Weber draw in for him next game. Fabbro still hasn’t seen a sniff of PP action in six games of professional hockey.

*

Well it’s done. A week ago I didn’t expect this to happen. Not even when I had my “interview” with Nikita Gusev’s agent a couple of weeks ago. I thought this would come in the form of a signing in late June, or an announcement in August. But things have moved quickly over the last week and Vegas has actually signed Gusev to a one-year entry-level contract. The 26-year-old has dominated the KHL – and the international stage – for a couple of years now, and he’s ready to step into the lineup right away. Not only that, but he is actually eligible to play, since he wasn’t signed as an unrestricted free agent. It would surprise me if this happened in the very next game, as teams tend to give players such as this some time to get to know the system. But I don’t think they’ll wait too long. He could have an Artemi Panarin-type of impact. Vegas already has their first two lines in stone (or “Stone”, if you will):

William Karlsson – Jonathan Marchessault – Reilly Smith

Max Pacioretty – Paul Stastny – Mark Stone

Which means that if Gusev were to get into this lineup, he would knock out Tomas Nosek and play on a line with Cody Eakin and Alex Tuch.

Out of curiosity I searched my files for the oldest thing I wrote on Gusev and I found a few interesting things:

1. I had him ranked 18th in my Top 20 Forwards from the 2012 Draft to own in a keeper league, from the 2012 Fantasy Prospects Report.

2. In the draft write-up for that year in the FPR (before the draft took place), we had the following words on Gusev:

Nikita Gusev – LW (CSKA, MHL)

Nikita Gusev was the diminutive offensive star of the 2012 U20 WJC who has been passed over in two drafts already. There are plenty of knocks against Gusev – mainly his size (5-9) and his nationality (Russian) but given his dominant performance for Team Russia where he tallied nine points in seven games there is certainly some upside here. He thrived on a line with Lightning prospect Nikita Kucherov and given that Tampa Bay’s GM Steve Yzerman has shown no hesitation in selecting Russian talent, it would not be surprising to see Gusev end up with a lightning bolt on his chest. His puck control, creativity and vision are elite and even if he is not willing to transfer to North America right away, he is certainly worth a flyer in this year’s draft.

Upside: Top line playmaking winger (Marty St. Louis/Claude Giroux-esque), 25-40-65+

3. In 2012 for The Hockey News.com, I wrote the following:

If he were “Joe Smith” from out of the OHL, and was 6-0, 175, then this dynamic player would have been one of the five or six highest forwards drafted. Instead, he’s Nikita Gusev from out of the KHL and he’s 5-9, 163. He’s already been passed over in two drafts. But TB made a great pick using a seventh rounder on him. He’s a long-term project and “boom or bust”. He’ll either be a high-scoring star, or we’ll never see him in the NHL. Only the deepest leagues should consider him, as he is several years away.

*

I have since included Gusev in every FPR since, so seven editions and counting (because he will be in this one as well – out June 1st).

*

It was the Mark Stone – Paul Stastny – Max Pacioretty show as the 1B line has turned into the first line and the 1A line is now the clear-cut second line. What an add all three of these players turned out to be. This has been a battle of the big-name adds with Stone, Stastny and Pacioretty up against Erik Karlsson and Gustav Nyquist. Both teams spent big, but one team will be out first round.

Stastny and Stone each had five points, while Pacioretty was in on just two. Shea Theodore, unheralded, but he snuck three assists in as well.

Joe Thornton only got two minutes for this, but look for a suspension to be announced soon I’m sure:

{youtube}sgWdoMuZKrw{/youtube}

*

Great fight between Evander Kane and Ryan Reaves late in the third.

{source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ryan Reaves and Evander Kane drop the gloves in Game 3 <a href="https://t.co/Ypuy3QqAmI">pic.twitter.com/Ypuy3QqAmI</a></p>— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) <a href="https://twitter.com/BradyTrett/status/1117649589488640000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2019</a></blockquote>

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>{/source}

*

There was a Deadline Deal this year that I must have missed. You know, the one where the Islanders went back in time and traded Jordan Eberle 2018 straight up for Jordan Eberle 2012?

Eberle has had a great postseason so far, with five points. A bit of a late surge to juice up that UFA contract this summer. He’s been playing with Anders Lee and Brock Nelson, but Sunday Mat Barzal was bumped up to that line in place of Nelson, in a move that piled all the hot players onto one line. The three of them have now combined for 12 points in the three games.

Can the Islanders shut Sidney Crosby down for four games? It doesn’t seem like it’s possible, but here we are. Crosby is still looking for point numero uno. Jake Guentzel, Patric Hornqvist and Nick Bjugstad are the other key offensive players with goose eggs after three games.

Jared McCann was back in the lineup for the Penguins, but he wasn’t put on the Crosby line. Trying to shake things up a bit, Coach Mike Sullivan went with:

23.8%

HORNQVIST,PATRIC – MALKIN,EVGENI – MCCANN,JARED

20.2%

CROSBY,SIDNEY – GUENTZEL,JAKE – SIMON,DOMINIK

16.7%

CULLEN,MATT – RUST,BRYAN – WILSON,GARRETT

14.5%

ASTON-REESE,ZACH – BJUGSTAD,NICK – KESSEL,PHIL

  Now with their backs against the wall, I would go with Crosby/McCann/Guentzel, Malkin/Kessel/ZAR, Bjugstad/Simon/Hornqvist, Cullen/Rust/Blueger. But I’m no coach.

*

Not only was Nikita Kucherov out of the lineup for the Lightning due to his suspension, but the team was also without star defenseman Victor Hedman. He’s out with a – gasp – unknown injury. Unknown to us, I mean. I’m pretty sure it’s known to him and the Lightning. The Blue Jackets were without Markus Nutivaara, who was injured by Kucherov in the hit for which he was suspended.

But whatever the reason, the Blue Jackets dominated the Lightning again and have seized a 3-0 series lead in what has easily been the shocker of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Columbus took five or six weeks to get the new roster to mesh and things have come together just in time. On paper, back at the end of February, the Jackets looked awesome. But they needed a two-time Vezina winning goalie backstopping them and they didn’t have that. Until mid-March. That was when Sergei Bobrovsky’s alarm went off and he arrived for the 2018-19 season.

I also think the arrival of Oliver Bjorkstrand as a top-six player has helped. It’s like adding one at the deadline. Bjorkstrand has 26 points in his last 40 regular season and playoff games – 18 of them are goals. That’s a 36-goal full season pace (pretty tough math there). So not only did this team add Matt Duchene and Ryan Dzingel in February, but they also added an improved or more comfortable 36-goal man in Bjorkstrand. Will this be enough to win one of the next three games? And I say “three” instead of four because if Tampa claws back to a Game 7 they’re not losing it.

Another advantage – Torts is rolling four lines. The top line is getting 17 or 18 minutes, and the fourth line is getting 13 minutes. For Tampa this is more like 20 minutes and 10 minutes.

*

Erik Cernak, not really an offensive defenseman but more of a two-way guy, leads the Lightning with three points.

This is the first time Tampa Bay has lost three games in a row this season. Also the first time Columbus has one three playoff games in a series.

*

Nikita Gusev wasn’t the only Russian star to sign with an NHL playoff team. Columbus signed Vladislav Gavrikov, a defenseman who played with Gusev on SKA St. Petersburg. There were also questions as to whether or not Gavrikov would sign, too. Funny enough – the Jackets have two defensemen hurt and had to actually dress Adam Clendening Sunday. Gavrikov is 23 and he moves into the Top 100 on my Fantasy Prospects list for defensemen. His upside is minimal (mid-30s) but he’s close to a sure thing when it comes to making it into the NHL. At least, as much as one can be a sure thing. You can read our scouting report on him here.

*

Kevin Hayes was demoted to the fourth line and promptly scored a goal en route to a Jets win.

Jordan Binnington only faced 29 shots, but six of them were goals. But the Jets poured it on early, with 13 shots in the first and 12 in the second. However, despite just four shots in the third, Winnipeg scored three of them. The first indication that Winnington is indeed human.

I noted (above) the ice times of different lines for Columbus and Tampa. It’s worth noting that Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice had his fourth line play just 7:30, other than Hayes who played 11 minutes. Jack Roslovic and Mathieu Perreault just 7:30 each. I don’t believe the Jets can go deep if that’s what they think of their bottom forwards. I don’t think it’s Winnipeg’s year, but I think they’ll get there some day soon.

And I think Connor Hellebuyck will be the guy to take them there. A good “buy low” in my eyes. I think this was just an off year.

*

In one of my leagues I have a decent playoff team carrying over from the regular season, but I didn't think I could win because the goalies on my team that made the playoffs aren't great ones. I'd much rather own a Rask or a Vasilevskiy. But my goalies – Sergei Bobrovsky and Robin Lehner – aren't doing so bad after all.

*

Playoff data is rolling for Frozen Tools, simply change the relevant drop-box from Regular Season to Playoffs. Eric Daoust has also added TOI charts, which look pretty awesome. You can check out TOI and Points charts here in the Chart Generator. But Eric is also putting these charts where relevant. For example if you were looking at Kevin Labanc and you wanted to compare him to Timo Meier, click the Info/Analysis tab and type Meier’s name in the box. Besides the comparable stats one over the other, there is also this TOI chart game by game:

  *

See you next Monday.

          from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-two-russians-sign-sid-stymied-stone-stastny-stoked-jackets-jets-jacked-and-more-apr-15/

[goarticletec-blog]

Tkachuk, Gaudreau tie career-highs as Flames ignite to roll past Vegas

New Post has been published on https://www.articletec.com/tkachuk-gaudreau-tie-career-highs-as-flames-ignite-to-roll-past-vegas/

Tkachuk, Gaudreau tie career-highs as Flames ignite to roll past Vegas

Johnny Gaudreau equalled a career-high with four points on Monday night and with it all coming in the first period, he put his name in the Calgary Flames record book, too.

Gaudreau’s goal and three assists, complemented by Matthew Tkachuks two goals and two assists, helped the Flames take over top spot in the Pacific Division with a 7-2 rout of the Vegas Golden Knights.

Calgary is even in points with the San Jose Sharks, but have one more regulation/overtime win.

“He’s a dynamic player and he’s a very creative player and he sees it,” said Flames coach Bill Peters of Gaudreau. “There’s not a whole bunch of them that have the ability to slow the game down and buy time for guys to get open and he’s got it.”

Calgary blew the game open early, jumping out to a 5-0 first period lead. Gaudreau became the 10th player in franchise history — and first since Olli Jokinen (Feb. 14, 2011) — to register four points in a period.

Vegas goalie Malcolm Subban looks at the scoreboard. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press )

Gaudreau’s handiwork began 2:36 into the game when he set up Tkachuk, who also tied a career best net. Tkachuk whipped a 20-foot wristshot past Malcolm Subban for a power-play goal.

Gaudreau made it 2-0 at 6:49 on the play of the night, ripping a shot over Subban’s glove to complete a tic-tac-to passing sequence with linemates Elias Lindholm and Monahan.

“Smart play by a smart player,” said Gaudreau, describing Lindholm’s play that began the sequence. “He’s 20 to 30 feet ahead of us and he has a one-on-two, pulls up, finds [Monahan], next thing you know it’s a two-on-two then I’m coming in the play and it’s a three-on-two. For him to have that awareness, he’s pretty smart.”

Gaudreau pounced on a turnover in the Vegas slot and set up Monahan’s one-timer for a 3-0 lead at 10:59, then capped off his record-tying period by setting up Monahan’s second of the period and team-leading 12th goal.

Calgary’s Sean Monahan had a big night with two goals and an assist. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)

“He’s a big-time threat to take the puck to the net and then when he pulls up and delays, you’ve got guys with good timing coming late, that’s when you see all those seam passes and East-West passes,” Peters said. “All of a sudden the goaltender is out playing the shooter and it’s a long lateral pass and he can’t get across.”

TJ Brodie and Sam Bennett rounded out the scoring for Calgary (12-8-1), which plays Vegas again on Friday at T-Mobile Arena.

Nick Holden and Max Pacioretty scored third-period goals for the Golden Knights (9-12-1), who won 6-3 in Edmonton on Sunday

“It’s hard to believe that this happened tonight, the way we played last night but that’s hockey,” said Vegas coach Gerard Gallant. “It’s pretty disappointing and I hope they’re disappointed because they didn’t show up.”

For the Flames, who lead the league with six third period comebacks, Monahan says it was nice to play from in front for a change.

“It’s fun, obviously, when you’re putting the puck in the net and you’re winning like that. That’s the best part of hockey,” said Monahan. “This is a team, I think we needed a win like that.”

Second-year Czech goaltender David Rittich made 20 saves to improve to 7-1-0. It was the second start in a row for Rittich, 26, who is getting more playing time with veteran Mike Smith struggling.

Subban went the distance for Vegas, finishing with 25 stops. After going 13-4-2 as a rookie last season, Subban has lost all four starts this season.

“I don’t have any answers for you right now, but we’re supposed to be a fast team and it’s probably the slowest we played all year,” said Vegas winger Reilly Smith. “It put us behind the 8-ball and really lost that game for us early.”

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[thegloober]

The top 75 players to watch in NCAA hockey

News

The men’s season begins soon, so our prospect expert is counting down all the players with bright futures. If you like mobile defensemen, this is your year

Quinn Hughes|Scott W. Grau/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Another NCAA men’s season is upon us and once again, I had too many names for my top-75 list. But that’s a good problem to have because it means the level of talent in the college game is still going strong. This year seems particularly fun if you like skilled defensemen and the top name on the list should be no surprise.

Once again, here are my rules for the rankings: These are the top 75 players I am excited to watch for this season. I skew towards freshmen and sophomores because they are new and tend to have higher upsides. I almost exclusively list players drafted by NHL teams already (or kids who are up for the draft this year), but I have included a couple top free agents to keep an eye out for. I do not try to be fair in terms of how many schools are included – though if I’m not mistaken, the Atlantic Hockey conference gets its first shout-out this year. But it was earned. Also, I’m not trying to be fair in terms of NHL rights. Philly, New Jersey and Vegas all seemed to do well this year, but again; those franchises just drafted players I’m interested in. With all that out of the way, let’s get to the list.

Quinn Hughes, Michigan: The masterfully mobile defenseman and Vancouver Canucks first-rounder has a national championship on his mind and should be a Hobey Baker favorite.

Cale Makar, UMass: Another ultra-skilled defenseman, the top Colorado Avalanche prospect is likely going pro as soon as the Minutemen are done this year.

Oliver Wahlstrom, Boston College: The freshman winger brings a ton of scoring power to the Eagles and represents part of the New York Islanders’ great 2018 draft class.

K’Andre Miller, Wisconsin: Two-way skill and great athleticism make Miller one of the most intriguing freshmen in the country. The New York Rangers nabbed the D-man in the first round.

Scott Perunovich, Minnesota-Duluth: He led the Bulldogs to a national title last year, so what does the mobile D-man do for an encore? That’s the fun surrounding the St. Louis Blues pick.

Cayden Primeau, Northeastern: My pick for last year’s most pleasant surprise, Primeau was one of the best goalies in the college game. Now the Montreal Canadiens pick returns with a possible world junior spot in line.

Jay O’Brien, Providence College: The Philadelphia Flyers went high on O’Brien in the 2018 draft, now the prep school center gets a chance to use his two-way game against top competition in Hockey East.

Ryan Poehling, St. Cloud State: He used to be the youngest, now he’ll be one of the most effective. The Montreal Canadiens pick is a great two-way center.

Riley Tufte, Minnesota-Duluth: Raw when the Dallas Stars drafted him, the 6-foot-6 left winger should be an all-out force up front for the defending champs as a junior.

Ben Brinkman, Minnesota: Not many true freshmen roam college bluelines, but Brinkman has the skill and composure to make it happen. He’s up for the 2019 draft.

Wade Allison, Western Michigan: Coming off a serious knee injury, the talented power forward is crucial to the Broncos’ success. He’s a Philadelphia Flyers pick.

Ian Mitchell, Denver: Fantastic freshman campaign saw the smart, offensively-inclined blueliner put up 30 points for the Pioneers. With a lot of talent gone, they’ll need the Chicago Blackhawks pick.

Reilly Walsh, Harvard: The New Jersey Devils drafted him as a raw puckmover but Walsh put up 20 points as a freshman. He’ll be even better as a sophomore, which is scary.

Sampo Raanta, Minnesota: Incoming freshman has electric speed and a great shot. Originally committed to Wisconsin, the left winger and Colorado Avalanche pick could make noise with the Gophers.

Benton Maass, New Hampshire: The sophomore offensive defenseman got off to a hot start as a frosh; can the Washington Capitals pick hit another level this year?

Will Lockwood, Michigan: Injuries have plagued his NCAA tenure, but a healthy Lockwood would be huge for the Wolverines. The Vancouver Canucks pick is a tenacious two-way threat.

Jack McBain, Boston College: Jumping from Ontario Jr. A to Hockey East will be a challenge for the Minnesota Wild pick, but the big body and scoring potential makes him intriguing.

Morgan Barron, Cornell: One of the bigger surprises in college last year, big Barron put up nice offense and will contribute more as a sophomore. He’s a New York Rangers pick.

Jack Dugan, Providence College: A late-bloomer who tore up the USHL last season, Dugan is a Vegas Golden Knights prospect with skill and great skating acumen.

Filip Larsson, Denver: Starts the season on the shelf, but once he’s healthy, the Detroit Red Wings pick will give the Pioneers great protection in the crease. Larsson was a beast in the USHL last year.

Ruslan Iskhakov, UConn: A smaller right winger with a dynamic skill set, Iskhakov makes his North American debut this year. He’s a New York Islanders pick that continues UConn’s Euro pipeline.

Logan Hutsko, Boston College: Another breakout player from 2017-18, Hutsko returns to the Eagles as a Florida Panthers draft pick. Ultra-skilled, the center has already conquered some big injuries.

Shane Bowers, Boston U: Ottawa fans are already wincing that Bowers went to Colorado in the Matt Duchene trade. The all-around center finished third in Terriers scoring last season as a freshman.

Jeremy Davies, Northeastern: Part of that wicked Huskies team that won the Beanpot, Davies is a talented offensive defenseman who can really move the puck. He’s a New Jersey Devils selection.

Blake McLaughlin, Minnesota: A home state kid who blitzed the USHL last season, McLaughlin is an Anaheim Ducks pick with great hockey IQ and puckhandling skills on the wing.

Jonny Tychonick, North Dakota: The brash and talented Ottawa Senators pick can really make things happen with the puck on his stick and he’ll be a great addition to the North Dakota blueline.

Jacob Bernard-Docker, North Dakota: The yin to Tychonick’s yang (they’re buddies), JBD is also an Ottawa Senators selection, but he brings more of a two-way game to the back end.

Brandon Kruse, Bowling Green: The talented, playmaking left winger was a revelation for the Falcons in his freshman year, finishing second in team scoring. The Vegas Golden Knights snapped him up in the draft.

Jeremy Swayman, Maine: Shocked many when he elbowed his way onto Team USA’s world junior squad. But the talented netminder and Boston Bruins pick had a .921 save percentage for Maine as a freshman.

Josh Norris, Michigan: Now an Ottawa Senators prospect thanks to the Erik Karlsson trade, Norris brings great athleticism and a two-way game. The sophomore will be key for a Michigan team trying to make noise again.

Mario Ferraro, UMass: The other talented and mobile sophomore on the Minutemen blueline, Ferraro is a San Jose Sharks pick. He actually had more points than Makar last year, albeit in more games played.

Aarne Talvitie, Penn State: This is a real personal fave because Talvitie was great at the 2017 world junior summer showcase. Now, the skilled and sturdy Finn comes to North America. He’s a New Jersey Devils pick.

Demetrios Koumontzis, Arizona State: Returning to the state he played two years of U16 hockey in, Koumontzis is a Calgary Flames pick with a dynamic skill set. The left winger played Minnesota high school hockey last year.

Adam Fox, Harvard: His rights have been traded to Carolina and it’s hard to see Fox coming back for a senior year, so this could be the last stand for the smart blueliner with great power play skills.

Clayton Phillips, Minnesota: The talented puckmover jumped into the NCAA early when the Gophers needed him last season, now the Pittsburgh Penguins prospect will return for his first full campaign.

Mikey Anderson, Minnesota-Duluth: Part of the Bulldogs’ excellent defense corps, Anderson has high hockey IQ and doesn’t make many mistakes. He’s a Los Angeles Kings selection.

Peter DiLiberatore, Quinnipiac: The Bobcats have a lot of youngsters coming in and DiLiberatore brings tons of potential to the defense thanks to his skating ability. He’s a Vegas Golden Knights pick.

Max Gildon, New Hampshire: The big, talented Florida Panthers pick had a great freshman campaign for the Wildcats. Gildon led the defense in scoring and finished second overall on the team with 23 points.

Wyatt Kalynuk, Wisconsin: Maybe a bit under the radar, but Kalynuk is coming off a great freshman campaign that saw the Philadelphia Flyers pick lead the Badgers defense in scoring.

Jakov Novak, Bentley: The first Bentley kid ever to make this list, Novak is a big, powerful dude who also had Michigan interested in his services. The left winger was selected by the Ottawa Senators this summer.

Nicky Leivermann, Notre Dame: An offensive defenseman who played with Casey Mittelstadt in high school, Leivermann is a Colorado Avalanche pick coming off a solid BCHL campaign.

Jack Gorniak, Wisconsin: A rarity in that he was drafted straight out of Wisconsin high school, Gorniak is a Montreal Canadiens pick who brings great energy and speed up front to the lineup.

Slava Demin, Denver: The two-way defenseman helped Wenatchee win the BCHL championship last year and now he’s headed to Denver. Demin was drafted by the Vegas Golden Knights.

Tanner Laczynski, Ohio State: A talented producer with a lot of grit, Laczynski had 47 points as a sophomore, so expect more big numbers from the Philadelphia Flyers pick this season.

Jack Adams, Union: The 6-foot-5 right winger will get more dangerous as his college career progresses and his frame fills out. Big-time scorer in the USHL is a Dutchmen sophomore and Detroit Red Wings pick.

Dylan Samberg, Minnesota-Duluth: Big defenseman who can skate still developing his offensive game, but it’s hard to beat the experience of a national title as a freshman. He’s a Winnipeg Jets pick.

Jack Rathbone, Harvard: Modern-style offensive defenseman enters his first year of college after a great prep career at Dexter. Rathbone is a Vancouver Canucks pick.

Mattias Samuelsson, Western Michigan: He’s got size, smarts and an NHL pedigree thanks to father Kjell. Look for Samuelsson to be solid for the Broncos as a freshman. Drafted by the Buffalo Sabres.

Jake Oettinger, Boston U: Could have gone pro this summer, but Oettinger is back in net for the Terriers with team glory on his mind. The Dallas Stars pick is big, cool, and he controls his rebounds.

Jachym Kondelik, UConn: Another European on his way to Storrs, Kondelik is a beguiling 6-foot-7 center with nice hands who just needs to iron out his skating. The Nashville Predators took him in the 2018 draft.

Matej Tomek, Nebraska-Omaha: After a false start with North Dakota, Tomek is back in college with the Mavericks, where he’ll get the chance to reprove himself. He’s a Philadelphia Flyers selection.

Jacob Bryson, Providence College: The Buffalo Sabres pick is a smaller playmaking defenseman who wore a letter as a sophomore and returns as an alternate captain for his junior year with the Friars.

Spencer Stastney, Notre Dame: Another personal fave of mine, Stastney always seemed to make something happen when I watched him last year. The physical freshman D-man is a Nashville Predators pick.

David Hrenak, St. Cloud State: The big netminder logged world junior duty for Slovakia last year and the Los Angeles Kings nabbed him in the draft. Sophomore will be key for the Huskies.

Jon Gruden, Miami: The son of a coach (the hockey one), Gruden enters his freshman year with Miami as an Ottawa Senators draft pick. The left winger has smarts and nice offensive potential.

Chase Pearson, Maine: Named captain as a sophomore, the Detroit Red Wings prospect returns as junior with the ‘C’ on his jersey. Pearson blends size and skill to make things happen for the Black Bears.

Jack Drury, Harvard: Another kid with NHL pedigree (dad Ted and uncle Chris), Drury is a hard-working two-way center who enters his freshman year with the Crimson as a Carolina Hurricanes pick.

Jasper Weatherby, North Dakota: The big dude had a monster BCHL year for champion Wenatchee, averaging nearly two points per game in the playoffs. The late bloomer is a San Jose Sharks pick.

Joey Daccord, Arizona State: Let’s not sugar-coat it: Daccord faced a ton of shots last year and this season will likely be the same. Fortunately, the Ottawa Senators pick is pretty good at stopping them.

Jack St. Ivany, Yale: The talented, playmaking defenseman enters his first year with the Bulldogs after a nice USHL career. St. Ivany is a Philadelphia Flyers selection.

Noah Cates, Minnesota-Duluth: Another Philadelphia Flyers pick, Cates has great hockey smarts and will help the Bulldogs’ forward corps with his scoring potential.

Dante Fabbro, Boston U: This has gotta be Fabbro’s last year in the NCAA and the two-way defenseman will do so as captain of the Terriers. He’s a Nashville Predators pick.

Jordan Harris, Northeastern: A new-school offensive defenseman coming out of the prep ranks, Harris is a Montreal Canadiens selection who joins a Huskies team that still has talent, despite some attrition.

Linus Weissbach, Wisconsin: The quick and energetic winger from Sweden finished third in Badgers scoring as a freshman. Let’s see what the Buffalo Sabres pick can do as a sophomore.

Kale Howarth, UConn: He’s a towering specimen at 6-foot-5 on the left wing and coming off a solid campaign in the BCHL. Now we get to see what the Columbus Blue Jackets pick can do in Hockey East.

John Leonard, UMass: Under the radar in his USHL days, Leonard broke out as a freshman for the Minutemen and led them in scoring. That prompted the San Jose Sharks to scoop him up in the draft.

Andrew Peeke, Notre Dame: The two-way defenseman with great size returns to South Bend for his junior season and does so as captain. Peeke is a Columbus Blue Jackets prospect.

Keith Petruzzelli, Quinnipiac: Last year was a bit of a nightmare for the skyscraper goalie, but he was just a freshman. Now the Detroit Red Wings pick returns with a chance to make amends.

Tomas Vomacka, UConn: Adam Huska is still in town, so Vomacka will have to fight for starts, but the Nashville Predators pick has a pretty good resume of his own and the Huskies can run a platoon if need be.

Ty Taylor, New Hampshire: Under the radar, but Taylor put up excellent numbers for BCHL Vernon last season. The Tampa Bay Lightning drafted him and now the goalie heads to the Wildcats.

Jimmy Schuldt, St. Cloud State: A steady, two-way defenseman who will once again vie for the Hobey Baker, Schuldt is also a coveted free agent who turns pro this spring.

Nico Sturm, Clarkson: Another free agent that NHL teams are keeping an eye on, Sturm is a big, talented center and Clarkson’s new captain. He’s a junior this season.

Seth Barton, UMass-Lowell: A two-way defenseman with nice size, Barton joins the RiverHawks from the BCHL. He was drafted by the Detroit Red Wings after getting passed over in 2017.

Joseph Woll, Boston College: The Eagles netminder heads into the junior year of a pretty solid NCAA campaign and they’ll need him to use his size and talent again. Woll is a Toronto Maple Leafs pick.

Christian and Cole Krygier, Michigan State: They’re twins, so I’m cheating and putting them together. Christian (New York Islanders) and Cole (Florida) both play a rambunctious game on the blueline that will be fun for Spartans fans to watch.

Tags: NCAA, previews, prospects

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About the Author

Ryan Kennedy

Ryan Kennedy is the associate senior writer and draft/prospect expert at The Hockey News. He has been with the publication since 2005 and in that span, Don Cherry, Lil Jon and The Rock have all called his house. He lives in Toronto with his wife and kids where he listens to loud music and collects NCAA pennants.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/the-top-75-players-to-watch-in-ncaa-hockey/

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON'S CORNER: VINNI LETTIERI PLAYS BIG PIECE OF WOLF PACK PLAYOFF RUN

Vinni Lettieri BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings CROMWELL, CT - Prior to his departure for the AHL All-Star Classic in Ontario, California Vinni Lettieri was in a good spot as the final 22 games of the regular season. The last stretch commences in a home and home divisional pair of games with Springfield starting Friday at 7:15 pm at the XL Center. Lettieri returns along with teammate Joey Keane and head coach Kris Knoblauch as part of Atlantic Division winners of the 2020 AHL All-Star Classics. Lettieri popped in two goals the first came on a breakaway 2:13 into the first period for the Atlantic Division squad. The second was vintage Vinni off wing slapshot on a cross-ice feed from Providence’s Jack Studnicka 26 seconds into the action against the North Division. Then Joey Keane scored the next goal a little over two minutes later en route to a 5-2 win. He would also add an assist on the night. Now that all festivities are over Lettieri gets back to the task at hand. Practice is the key to his growth and progress. A few weeks ago in Cromwell, he and Keane spent a half hour or so taking extra shots and in one sequence hit the post three times in a row and he tossed his stick up in the air in baton tossing fashion. “That was one day because it's every day. To get better you have to do it every day. Joey and I do it a half-hour or so and it's important because it helps me to know where I am now and where I wanna go, work every day. It's always good to work with someone on those one-timers and Joey has been really good at it. Our powerplay has to improve, so we put in the extra time.” He has admitted his season was a slower start than he would have liked, but on and off-ice work has helped his game improve. “I have watched videos that have given me of Artemi Panarin (Rangers), ex-CT Whale Jonathan Marchessault (Las Vegas) and David Pasternak, (Boston the NHL’s leading goals scorer). It's learning how to hold onto the puck to make a better shot just not shooting randomly. So it's just one thing that changes everything it’s a combination of things. It's not a pattern that I see its learning each game is different. Using the coaches and all the other resources plus my teammates have helped make me a better all-around player,” remarked Lettieri. Panarin, the Rangers leading scorer and who has a high-end skill set is not a bad guy to pattern some of your game after. “Watching how he holds the puck in preparing for a shot is something, it's one of the little things of the game you learn. Pasternak’s shoots so well from any area he’s at its amazing. Marchessault, he seems to be everywhere and he is really dynamic and has great acceleration,” said Lettieri showing his keen scouting skills. Over the roller coaster past few weeks haven’t left Lettieri having seen the valley of the last two seasons. “For the better part of the year we have played the same way and stuck to our game plan and it’s a long season nothing is perfect. Yes, we could have played better in some ways, but overall I like this group and think more often than not will come out on top,” As they prepare for a weekend with Springfield a year ago same building he was adamant about making the playoffs three days the captain was traded and the team never recovered. This is obviously a very different group. “We certainly want it, but that is always important that we have to focus and continue to grow and get better and those things will take care of themselves.” AHL NEWS -Two pieces of new AHL arena news coming out of the AHL All-Star Classic. The San Jose City Council Tuesday night approved the expansion of the Solar4 American Ice Center that will become the new home of the AHL San Jose Barracuda. The arena located in central San Jose 3.6 miles about from the SAP Center aka Shark Tank where the Sharks and their AHL affiliate have shared the building for the past five years since the creation of the AHL Pacific Division. The upgrade slated to start this April that will see the complex go from four to six sheets of ice including a 4,200 seat competition arena that is to be completed by April 2022. The arena sits on a 21.2-acre site that also includes Excite Ballpark, home to the high, Class A eight-team California League San Jose Giants. The building has been the only secondary off-site training facility for the Sharks and Barracuda. The facility is also home to the collegiate varsity club hockey squad, the San Jose State Spartans (ACHA Division-2) and local high school hockey. This new facility combined with the AHL coming 32nd team, the expansion Palm Springs, CA team the affiliate for the expansion NHL Seattle team further solidifies the western growth of hockey both NHL, AHL and soon collegiately. -The West will also be solidified by the announcement from outgoing AHL President and CEO Dave Andrews that the Vegas Golden Knights are actively seeking to buy a current AHL team and move them to the Las Vegas area. The arena would be in nearby Paradise called, the Orleans Arena that was home to the ECHL Las Vegas Wranglers from 2003-20014. The building is 7,773 seats- a perfect AHL size building but would have to undergo a serious overhaul of its operating systems to be ready by the fall of 2020. Now, which team would they purchase? The most likely candidate could be Rockford whose arrangement with the Chicago Black Hawks ends after this season. In that scenario, the Golden Knights would purchase Rockford and then move the team to Las Vegas. Meanwhile, the Golden Knights have the Chicago Wolves as their farm team would vacate that arrangement. That could allow the Black Hawks to skate into an arrangement as the Wolves' new parent team. The Wolves are one of the few independently owned teams left in the league in which 19 of the 32 teams are NHL O & O (owned and operated) and is one of the best attended and promoted teams in the league. When Wolves were firstborn in the old IHL under its present owner Don Levin the two were arch enemies. 20 plus years have passed. Rocky Wirtz, not his father Bill is running the team I can see a marriage being formed with the Black Hawks. There are some other possibilities, but Andrews's comments at the State of the AHL press conference made it clear it was more of a matter of when--not if--the AHL would be in the Las Vegas area. “I think that at some point there will be an (AHL) team in Vegas, or (the Golden Knights) will own a team, but would have to happen pretty soon.”  Andrews remarked who is as cautious as NHL President Gary Bettman is regarding announcements or speculations about team transfers, relocations or disbanding. NOTES: -Wolf Pack GM and Trumbull native, Chris Drury added another piece to his executive resume as he was named to the GM post of Team USA that will play in early May at the World Championships in Zurich, Switzerland. -Now that the NHL and AHL All-Star breaks have concluded temporary roster moves for that time period have ended and movement has begun once again. Goalie Adam Huska who went 1-1 with a 1.53 GAA win and Lewis Zerter-Gossage who scored his first ECHL in his two games were returned from Portland officially Monday. Maine’s goalie Francois Brassard in a paper transaction was released from his PTO with the Wolf Pack. Conversely, officially recalled on Wednesday by the Rangers was goalie Igor Shesterkin, but I don’t think this is the last time we will see him. If Alexander Georgiev is not traded by the NHL Trade deadline (February 24th) he would likely be returned by then. The Rangers could keep him in New York till their officially eliminated from playoff contention presently the Rangers are in the seventh spot for the wild card 10 points back. Expect Shesterkin to be here when the Wolf Pack start the Calder Cup playoffs and with Igor, the Wolf Pack’s chances for a long run are significantly improved. -Other notables from the AHL All-Star Classic were two former Quinnipiac Bobcats Sam Anas (Iowa) with two goals and Brogan Rafferty (Utica) with a goal and an assist. Ex-Pack and Sound Tiger Matt Ford (Grand Rapids) scored twice. -Lias Andersson’s suspension was officially lifted and was formally reassigned to HV 71 (Sweden-SHL) for the rest of the season. -Ex-Wolf Pack Dale Weise was recalled back to Montreal from Laval, Jarred Tinordi son ex-New Haven Nighthawk Mark Tinordi was recalled by Nashville from Milwaukee, Jansen Harkins, son of former Whaler Todd Harkins was recalled to Winnipeg from Manitoba and Max Jones, son of former New Haven Nighthawk/Senators Brad Jones goes from San Diego to Anaheim. -Goalie Callum Booth (Salisbury Prep) was assigned to Atlanta (ECHL) by Charlotte. -Former UCONN Husky, Karl El-Mir was sent from Indy (ECHL) as the future consideration of a trade made last week with Greenville (ECHL). -Ex-Sound Tiger John Persson signs a deal with Brynas IF (Sweden-SHL) for the rest of the season and for 2020-21 leaving SaiPa (Finland-FEL) who were having a poor season. -Ex-Sound Tiger assistant coach Matt Bertani is an assistant coach with Team South Korea at the IIHF U-20 Division II Group B tournament being held in Gangnueng South Korea till February 3rd. -We'll be seeing a goalie named Stauber a few times over the next few years. Jaxon Stauber, son of the former Wolf Pack and Nighthawk netminder, Robb Stauber has made a commitment to Providence College (HE) next year 2020-21. The 6’3 undrafted netminder played one game with Minnesota- State Mankato Mavericks (WCHA) before suddenly returning to Sioux Falls (USHL) for this season who are the defending USHL Clark Cup champions, where he was the playoff MVP last season. Father Robb just completed his AHL honorary captain duties at the AHL All-Star Classic in Ontario, California at the Toyota Center, Sunday and Monday. -Easton Armstrong, son ex-Pack great Derek Armstrong played his first two WHL with Regina picking up a one shot on goal. Read the full article

[yesfullywaywardstudentme]

Add 35 lbs to Your Deadlift & Squat in 15 Minutes

Coach Chris from CriticalBench.com shared a cool article with me on how he increased his deadlift without changing his routine or modifying his technique. Check it out!

Add 35 lbs To Your Deadlift in 15-Minutes

by Coach Chris Wilson, CriticalBench.com

Listen, it’s not what you think. I’m not going to tell you about a new technique to try or costly special equipment or even some underground secret training program.

It really has to do with one simple but life-changing thing: UNLOCKING your tight hips.

I was blown away by what I’m about to share with you and so let me explain.

The ‘power zone’ as I like to call it lies at the center of the human body. Sure, the arms and legs are super important for any person or elite athlete, but the source of true power resides within the hips.

Talk to any coach or trainer the world over and they will agree with this simple assessment: All athletes from hockey to football, baseball to tennis, soccer to powerlifting rely on the explosiveness that their hips and glutes possess.

Without the ability to bend, jump, twist, dive, run or move effectively, an athlete is dead in their tracks, literally.

So what is the common thread that ties most athletes together?

Some might say speed, power or even strength, but the answer is actually much simpler than that. I’m talking about the athletic position or ready position found in most sports.

Imagine for a moment the linebacker in football, the shortstop in baseball, the goalie in hockey or the powerlifter on the platform and how their body looks. They all stand ready in a position of strength to either tackle someone, catch a ground ball, stop a puck or lift maximum weight.

For example, what does the powerlifter do just before the squat or deadlift? They move into a strong, athletic position as they mentally connect to every muscle in their body so that they can create as much power and force on the bar as possible.

None of them would ever stand casually in an upright position seconds before having to perform. Why is that? Because they would not be able to generate ANY power from that position.

An athlete in almost any sport will stand with feet shoulder width (or wider) apart, knees flexed, butt back and torso tilted forward. They are balanced, grounded, strong and ready for anything that comes towards them.

From this position, anyone can react quickly, explosively and with tremendous power. If at any time the muscles in the hip area are compromised, athletic performance is undoubtedly affected and not in a good way.

When it comes to acceleration and speed, the hips are at the epicenter of power. Even though the squat or deadlift with maximum weight may not look very fast, the lifter is telling their body to move as fast as they can to move the load.

So when I assessed how much I sat every day on the computer and realized even though I train hard 5 days per week in the gym, my hips were in terrible condition. And knowing how critical the hips are when it comes to generating ultimate power, it was time to seek out a professional who could help me out.

After discussing this issue with Injury Specialist Rick Kaselj, I knew that if I could lengthen my hip flexors and undo all of that damage from sitting so much over the years, I could become more explosive and lift more weight.

Rick came to our facility and put me through a series of movement patterns and exercises. In only 15 minutes I had done not just static stretching (like most warm-up programs) but proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), dynamic stretching, 3-dimensional core stability exercises, mobility exercises, fascia stretching and even some muscle activation movements.

Immediately after performing all of these exercises, I felt READY. Ready to move. Ready to lift. I truly felt more powerful and energized than I had in years.

So what did I do? I went ahead and did some deadlifting. I literally added 35 lbs to my max lift after only doing this routine once. My hips were awake. The circulation through my ‘power zone’ was flowing and I felt incredible.

I know this sounds too good to be true but it is absolutely a night and day difference. Granted, this routine would need to be practiced daily for the results to continue but I couldn’t argue with the immediate results of this 15 minute routine.

By UNLOCKING my tight hips, I was able to perform at my best and instantly gain strength in my lifts.

Rick's program is called Unlock Your Hip Flexors and if you do any kind of explosive lifting it can definitely add pounds to your max without changing anything else.

Add 35 lbs to Your Deadlift Max in 15-Minutes

[netunleashed-blog]

Amazon Echo vs Google Home: which is the smart speaker for you?

http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=35970 Amazon Echo vs Google Home: which is the smart speaker for you? - http://www.internetunleashed.co.uk/?p=35970 Few names are bigger in the connected world: Amazon for fundamentally changing the way we shop, and Google for fundamentally changing the way we search for information. With the Amazon Echo and Google Home smart speakers, these companies are now looking to revolutionize other aspects of our lives too – how we control our homes, our entertainment, and ourselves.With either Amazon's Alexa or the Google Assistant working behind the scenes, the voice-controlled Amazon Echo and Google Home audio devices look to make everyday chores simpler. Cooking timers, music playlists, smart home controls and much more can be conjured up with a voice command, and whether you're using an Echo or a Home, each has thousands of supported requests. The two can seem very similar, especially to begin with, but there are some key differences between the two product ranges – so you’d be wise to be aware of what each offers.So, it’s the future of speakers – but which is for you? Amazon Echo, or Google Home? And, which specific model suits your needs? We put them head-to-head. Amazon Echo: the different models compared Let’s kick off with the smart speaker that started it all – the Amazon Echo. Its vanilla version is likely where you’ll want to begin – it stands 14.8cm tall and sounds pretty damn good for its price, supporting Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections, with the signature blue-ring around its top that tells you when it’s listening after hearing its default wake word, “Alexa”. The Amazon Echo Dot Perhaps the most popular Echo of all though is the Echo Dot – it’s the cheapest of the entire bunch and is about the same size as a hockey puck. Its size means its speaker is quite tinny and weak, so it's better suited for rooms where music playback won’t be its primary function – but you can pair it up with a Bluetooth speaker or another audio device using an AUX jack connection, which makes it perhaps the most cost-effective upgrade you could make to an aging Hi-Fi system. Amazon's Echo Plus The Echo Plus has a more industrial look, standing taller than the vanilla Echo with exposed speaker grilling, and it doubles up as a smart home hub for connected devices, too, justifying its extra premium in price. The Amazon Echo Show The Spot and the Show are the two Amazon Echo devices to feature a screen. You can think of the Echo Spot as an upgraded Echo Dot – perfect for a bedside table, with the ability to make video calls through its circular screen. The Echo Show is essentially an Amazon Fire tablet with an Alexa speaker strapped to the bottom, letting you ask about shows available on Amazon’s services and partner apps (including the likes of BBC News), making it like a second screen for your kitchen. Amazon's Echo Spot All have access to the majority of Alexa skills (think voice controlled apps) available, though only the Plus can double up as a bridge for your smart home devices – while all Echo products can talk to things like smart bulbs and thermostats, it’s only the Plus that lets you do away with individual hubs for each additional gadget family.The boxy Echo Show aside, all Echo products are attractive – particularly the new-look fabric-covered standard Echo, and the Magic Eight Ball-like Echo Spot. Unobtrusive, they’re slightly more industrial looking than Google’s speaker option, but arguably smarter looking, too.For more on each version of the Amazon Echo, check out the full reviews below: Amazon Echo reviewAmazon Echo Plus reviewAmazon Echo Dot reviewAmazon Echo Spot reviewAmazon Echo Show review Google Home: each model compared Google’s smart speaker range is a touch smaller than Amazon’s, with just the three Google Home speakers to choose from. At this stage, none feature screens either (though these are now starting to appear from third-party manufacturers looking to work with Google Assistant). The Google Home Mini The smallest of the three is the Google Home Mini speaker. It, like the Echo Dot, is puck shaped (if a little more pebble-like with its softer edges), with its top side covered in a fabric speaker mesh. It’s available in a range of colors, with four flashing LED lights used to illustrate when it’s listening to your commands. The Google Home At the middle of the range is the standard Google Home, which looks considerably different. It looks a little like a small vase, with a two-tone color design (again with multiple options to choose from) and a sloping top side that houses a touch control panel.  The Google Home Max The Google Home Max looks much more like a traditional loudspeaker, and is the largest of the bunch. It’s boxy in design, and closer aesthetically to the Google Home Mini with its mesh speaker covering. It can stand in either a portrait or landscape orientation to suit the needs of your decor.While the vanilla Google Home is an acquired taste in terms of design, both the Mini and Max are subtly attractive, and should fit into any surroundings without much concern.To find out more about each version of the Google Home, check out the full reviews below: Google Home reviewGoogle Home Max reviewGoogle Home Mini review Keep in mind that, with both Alexa and Google Assistant, third-party speaker manufacturers are increasingly choosing to integrate the voice helpers into their products. So if there’s an audio manufacturer that you’re particularly fond of, it may be worth holding out to see if they’ve any plans to join either of the smart ecosystems – at this point, it’s highly likely that most all audio devices in the near future will come equipped with some sort of microphone and voice control system. Smart features The smart features of the Google Home and Amazon Echo lines are broadly similar – speak to them, and you’ll be able to do anything from playing back music, having general knowledge questions answered, controlling smart home gear, and setting alarms and timers. And that just scratches the surface.Both Google and Amazon are committed, long term, to improving their respective voice platforms, and each has done a good job so far of enticing third-party smart device manufacturers – from thermostat makers to smart lighting companies – to make their products compatible with each service. With a base level of commands available to each, with either a “Hey Google”, or “Alexa...” wake word uttered, control of the digital world is just a vibration of your vocal chords away. But the two take a slightly different approach to the way their abilities are accessed. Google Home’s abilities are, by default, accessible to all – barring pairing up third-party smart home devices with your Google Home system, if you’ve made a request that the Google ecosystem can understand, it’ll carry out the required response unprompted. Alexa, on the other hand, relies on the installation of Skills – individual, app-like sets of related voice commands focussing on certain topics or abilities. Handled and activated through the Alexa app on smartphones, these can range from getting information on local transport times, or even to activating voice-controlled games. There’s no right or wrong approach – Google’s is simpler, while Alexa’s encourages faster and broader development and support from third-parties.  Audio As you’d expect from such a wildly varying range of shapes and sizes, you get very different sound performance across both ecosystems, let alone when comparing competing models. Here’s a general breakdown of how they sound in relation to each other:If you can only afford the entry-level devices, and music remains a top priority for you, go for the Google Home Mini, which sounds a lot better than the Echo Dot. Unless you hook up a Dot to another speaker over Bluetooth or the 3.5mm jack, it’s just too thin and harsh to fully enjoy. If you’re looking for a small Echo speaker, your best best then is the Echo Spot, which despite its size offers a richer sound. The screen, however, massively increases its expense. When you’re moving up the size scale, Google’s Home is too bass-heavy to be truly enjoyable. It also has worse clarity than the latest generation of Echo speaker and Echo Plus. So if you’re limited to around $100/£100, the Amazon Echo may be the best choice from an audio perspective.With a slight premium in price, and the inclusion of Dolby processing, the Echo Plus sound is more dynamic than the standard Echo, as you’d hope.And, despite its looks, the Echo Show sounds better than the Echo Plus and Echo, though not so dramatically as to forgive it some of its other failings.If you’re going for pure sonic superiority between the Echo and Google Home ranges however, opt for the Google Max. Its bass is well tuned, its mids and highs well defined, and its top volume levels loud without verging into highly distorted territory. Price There’s such a range of prices across the two speaker platforms that, in fairness, there’s something for every wallet size. It’s more about what you’re expecting to get from your smart speaker of choice. Amazon, offering the widest spread of options, hits both the most affordable and expensive price points between the two brands, with the Echo Dot at the lower end and the screen-packing Echo Show at the top. Google sits somewhere in the middle. Compare the latest pricing between the ranges below. Verdict There’s no easy answer to the question of whether you should buy Amazon Echo or Google Home products. Both lines are very accomplished and, so long as you temper your expectations in line with the amount of money you’re going to spend on buying into one of the lines, all sound good enough for their price points.The choice really then comes down to the preference of ecosystem as opposed to the hardware. Are you heavily invested in Google’s services? Then Google Home is probably for you, as the two areas are only going to become ever-more-closely linked. Google’s natural language understanding is superior too, even if its voice implementation still needs some refinement.However, in terms of sheer value for money and the already vast reach of its collaborations and abilities, Amazon’s Alexa devices seem the more sensible bet at this stage. It’s a close run race, with Google’s powerful search capabilities potentially seeing it through in the long run. But there’s something to be said for Amazon’s more focussed approach – from our experience so far, Alexa currently feels like the more reliable assistant. But that could change. Either way, place your bets – you’re unlikely to come away disappointed. Amazon Alexa Easter Eggs: fun tips and tricks for your Echo speakerGoogle Assistant Easter Eggs: funny commands to try on Google Home Source link

[etechwire-blog]

Amazon Echo vs Apple HomePod vs Google Home: the battle of the smart speakers

New Post has been published on https://www.etechwire.com/amazon-echo-vs-apple-homepod-vs-google-home-the-battle-of-the-smart-speakers/

Amazon Echo vs Apple HomePod vs Google Home: the battle of the smart speakers

Smart speakers are the best first step if you want to try out smart home technology. Many are affordable, they are fun to play with and even if you decide you don’t want to talk to a disembodied voice, they still work as music speakers. 

There are three smart speaker tribes you need to choose between, though: Amazon, Google and Apple.

Google has the most natural-feeling virtual assistant and you have three sizes of speaker to choose from. Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo range is the most popular, helped by being forever splashed across the internet’s biggest retailer.

Apple makes just one smart speaker, the HomePod. It’s not cheap and is not as smart as the others. However, it sounds divine and is the one to pick if you’re worried about privacy or your personal data being thrown around like casino chips. 

Let’s start with the basics. 

Smart speakers are a home for voice assistants. Just like Siri on your iPhone or Google Assistant on your Android, you can almost treat these assistants like a person. Ask it to play a specific song, about a bit of pop culture triva or to set an alarm, and it will.

Although it’s often embarrassing to start talking to your phone in public, the same social pressures don’t exist in the home where you can be as weird as you like with your new robot pal. 

So which one should you buy? Here’s the low down on the various digital assistant speakers on offer. Let’s find out which is right for you.

Hardware

How big a speaker do you want? Google and Amazon offer plenty of choices. Small, affordable, puck-shaped speakers like the Home Mini and Echo Dot let you try out digital assistants without spending too much. But you wouldn’t use them as a hifi. 

Amazon Echo Dot

$49.99 / £39.99

It’s small, it’s affordable and kinda cute. The squared-off shape and outlet in the top mean this isn’t a fashion icon, but this is a great place to start if you’re on a budget. An LED ring around the top looks neat in action too. 

Amazon Echo (2nd gen)

$99.99 / £89.99

As ever, Amazon has nailed the mass-market angle with the Echo. It’s significantly cheaper than the Home or HomePod. Sound quality doesn’t match the best, but it does make podcasts and music radically more enjoyable than the Dot. 

(Image: © Amazon)

Fire TV Cube

$119 (UK TBC)

The Fire TV Cube is Amazon’s latest branching-out of smart speaker tech. This is a smart speaker, but also a set-top box. And as it has an IR blaster it’ll turn your TV on and off too. If you care about movies more than music, this could be the right digital assistant speaker for you.

Amazon Echo Plus

$149.99 / £139.99

Taller than the standard Echo, this more expensive model also sounds better. It also has a Zigbee interface built-in, letting it work better with some smart home gear including Philips Hue lights. 

Amazon Echo Spot

$129.99 / £99.99

This is what we imagined a smart home interface might look like years ago. It’s a digital porthole with a 2.5in screen. The Spot is a good fit for a bedside table.

Amazon Echo Show

$229 / £199.99

There’s a much bigger screen-equipped assistant too, the Show. It’s not cute like the Spot, but has a much larger 7-inch screen. You can video chat with people using the front camera. It suits the kitchen, or perhaps a house’s entry hallway.

Google Home Mini

$49 / £39

Probably the best-looking small smart speaker, the Home Mini is the budget option from Google’s range. It comes in Chalk (grey), charcoal and Coral (a reddish pink), and sounds better than the Eco Dot.

Google Home

$129 / £129

The original Google smart speaker. Home has an unusual but stylish look and a touch surface on top to let you control volume and music playback.

Google Home Max

$399

The big daddy of smart speakers, the Home Max looks like a wireless hifi rather than the kind of speaker that blends into the background. That said, the look is still neutral. It’s only the size you need to consider. 

Apple HomePod

$349 / £319

A 360-degree grille suggests how the HomePod works. There are tweeters firing out from all sides, letting you put the speaker in the middle of a room. An LED array on top displays Siri animations, which looks neat. 

Size Comparison

This is a roughly accurate look at the relative stature of all these smart speakers.

The part that might surprise here is the Google Home’s size. It’s relatively small. Only two of these products really demand some planning of your rooms, the Echo Show and Google Home Max. 

As the others have an “upright” design, their footprints aren’t all that large. The Echo Dot is the smallest of the lot, although the Home Mini is only slightly bigger. 

Sound Quality

Which sounds the best? There’s predictably a rise in quality as the size increases. 

However, there are some interesting points to note in each class. Let’s put them in bullet point form to keep this clear. 

The Google Home Mini sounds a lot better than the Echo Dot, which is thin and reedy. Music sounds bad through a Dot, passable through a Home Mini.

Amazon’s Echo Spot also sounds better than the Dot, despite being fairly small. 

Google’s Home is bass-heavy. It has worse clarity than the Echo (2nd Gen) and Echo Plus. So if you’re limited to around $100/£100, the Amazon Echo may be the best choice.

The Echo Plus sound is more dynamic than the standard Echo, as you’d expect.

Surprisingly, the Echo Show sounds better than the Echo Plus and Echo.

Amazon’s Echo Plus does not stack up well next to the Home Max or HomePod. They are several leagues ahead, justifying their higher prices. 

The Home Max is the loudest speaker, with much greater volume on tap than the HomePod. 

Apple’s HomePod provides 360-degree sound. The Home Max has conventional front-loaded drivers so you need to be more careful about placement.

The Home Max has better bass depth. 

The Apple HomePod has great clarity, and the sound quality of the Max and HomePod are generally comparable. 

The Amazon Echo Spot is the company’s budget, screen-equipped Echo.

Features

Which speaker is more intelligent?

When it first launched, Alexa’s functionality was fairly basic, limited to mundane conversations like asking about the weather or the time. As Amazon continued to develop the software, however, Alexa gained the ability to talk about calendars, sports and what we should have for dinner.

We’re not quite living in a Star Trek-esque future, where the device will understand your every command, but Alexa is advanced enough to understand multiple phrasings of the same question, for example.

Amazon has a strong track record for the past two years, sure, but it’s going up against Google, a company that’s had a strong track record in information parsing for the last two decades

Google’s impressive search abilities means the speaker has a lot of information at its disposal. Google Home can, for example, correctly guess a song that’s described in the vaguest of terms. 

Interacting with Google Assistant has the most natural feel. It understands your commands better than Alexa. You don’t have to be so careful about how you word your sentences. 

HomePod’s Siri is the least intelligent of the three. While the voice recognition works, the commands it’ll react to successfully are quite limited.

Think of HomePod as a great-sounding wireless speaker that also has some smarts and you’ll be happier.

Music and Video playback

Each of these speakers is linked to its maker’s music service. The HomePod has Apple Music. Echo devices have Amazon Music. Google Home speakers have Google Play Music. 

However, only Apple is truly restrictive. Echo and Home speakers let you ask for tracks from Spotify,  for example, but HomePod’s Siri only takes requests from Apple Music. You can use Spotify with a HomePod but you’ll have to do this the “old school” way, selecting the HomePod as the source from in the Spotify app rather using voice commands. 

You’re then using AirPlay, not the voice control you paid $350 for. Subscribing to Apple Music is almost a must for HomePod owners, and it costs $9.99/£9.99 a month. 

While there’s some parity between which software the other smart speakers can access, video content differs much more. 

Only Amazon has devices equipped with screens. Google has blocked YouTube, though, so you’re largely restricted to Amazon Video, the Netflix-a-like service. 

Both Google and Amazon’s devices allow you to play content on an external TV. Google achieves this through integration with its Chromecast lineup, while Amazon has added this functionality through its Fire TV. 

If you have a Chromecast Audio then you can simply ask Google Home to play music through the speakers it’s connected to. Meanwhile the Echo is limited to playing music on its own speaker, and the Echo Dot can only be connected to a single speaker at a time through either Bluetooth or a wired 3.5mm connection.

In theory this should give the Google Home the edge, but in practice its Google Cast functionality could be better. Once you’ve got it casting to a speaker it won’t remember that this is the case and it will default to playing music out of its own speaker unless you specifically tell it to continue to cast the next song. 

Google Home does however have the advantage of integrating with Chromecast for video. You can easily play shows from Netflix, YouTube and other supported apps using just your voice, however again in practice this could be better since you’re unable to specify particular episodes and it will default to picking up where you left off. Not bad when you’re marathoning a series, but less than ideal if you’re just dipping in. 

Productivity

Google Home integrates with a number of Google’s other services, from planning routes using Google Maps to translating using Google Translate. It will also draw from your Google Calendar, which is a handy feature.

However again, while there’s potential here, Google Home doesn’t make nearly enough use of this functionality. You can get basic directions by car on Google maps, but it can’t handle public transport and definitely doesn’t do email.

The new Amazon Echo is available with a number of different finishes.

Meanwhile, Amazon has an ever-growing list of compatible “Skills” apps including Domino’s Pizza, Just Eat in the UK and Uber, allowing you to either have your pizza delivered or request a ride over to the store to pick it up yourself. Support is good, but these apps feel like they add fun side-functionality rather than core productivity services. 

HomePod doesn’t have any third-party skills, so it’s limited to interactions based on your Apple calendar, local traffic and other piecemeal bits.

Smart Home

Of course, music and services are just two parts of the smart speaker equation. If you’re buying a Home, Echo or HomePod, you’re also looking for a smart assistant to help control the burgeoning field of smart appliances making their way into homes. 

In this area, Amazon’s Echo Plus has a distinct advantage. It has a Zigbee hub built in, which means that for many smart home products you no longer have to have a separate piece of hardware plugged into your router. 

However, this functionality comes with the caveat that functionality will be limited when using the built-in hub. Philips Hue lightbulbs, for example, can be turned on and off, but their more advanced color-changing abilities will still require a dedicated Hue hub. 

That said, it’s not like Google, owner of Nest, is hurting in the home automation department. Google Nest, for obvious reasons, is also integrated into Home’s functionality. As for Apple, it started its HomeKit program ages ago which means many devices are ready to go.

However, there are thousands of third-party devices that will work with all three smart speakers. Amazon Alexa supports the highest number of smart home devices, but the best idea is to check whether the smart home gear you own, or are considering, supports these systems. 

Shopping

A newer feature for both the Amazon Echo and Google Home is the ability to shop from the comfort of your couch via voice commands. 

Let’s start first with the more established e-tailer. Amazon offers daily and weekly specials via the “Alexa, what are today’s deals?” command. When used, the speaker will rattle off a list of products available to purchase and the price of each. At any point, you can stop the speaker and say, “Alexa, purchase <insert product name>” and Alexa will confirm your order.  If you want to see all the deals in one spot, however, you can also check out the Alexa Deals page on Amazon’s website.

Because Google doesn’t own a massive online retail store like Amazon does, Google Home has partnered up in the US with Walmart and other retailers to offer a voice shopping catalogue of its own. It’s all part of Google’s Express platform, that allows you to quickly order products from a number of other retailers like Kohl’s, Target, CostCo, Whole Foods and Ulta. Walmart will be the biggest retailer to join Google Express’s ranks.

HomePod doesn’t let you buy items with a voice command. Some may find this reassuring rather than an issue. However, you can ask Siri to add items to a shopping list. You can then check it on your phone when at the supermarket.  

Multiple Users

Both Google Home and Amazon Echo support multiple users, which is important if you don’t want to be subjected to your other half’s calendar when you ask your speaker what you’re up to today. However, the way the two speakers handle multiple accounts is slightly different. 

With the Amazon Echo you’ll have to manually switch between user accounts by saying “Alexa, switch accounts”, or “Alexa, switch to Jon’s profile.”

Google Home is slightly more clever, and will recognise different users by the sound of their voice alone. You’ll need to train the speaker to recognise each person’s voice by saying “OK Google” and “Hey Google” a few times, but after that point you shouldn’t have to worry about accidentally getting traffic information for someone else in your household. 

HomePod doesn’t support multiple users yet. It’s linked to one iCloud account, so becomes that person’s speaker. And Siri will react to whoever talks to it. Again, HomePod is the most restrictive choice. 

The Google Home Mini is the budget entry in Google’s lineup.

Privacy

Part of Siri’s limited smarts is down to its approach to privacy. Google and Amazon use data collection to learn about you. Apple uses a purer form of artificial intelligence, making it harder to create the illusion Siri knows what you want every time you open your mouth. 

Google and Amazon also log the data from any requests made and link them to your online accounts. This data can then be used to tailor the ads you see on websites, which also happens when you search for something on Google.com or amazon.com. 

HomePod doesn’t do this. Your Siri data is encrypted and randomised, and isn’t actually even linked to your Apple account. If privacy is a worry, the HomePod is a great choice. 

Compatibility

You can use an Echo or Google Home speaker with any recent phone. iOS or Android? It doesn’t matter, either will work fine. 

This isn’t the case with a HomePod. You have to have an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to get it working. Apple’s official line is you’ll need an “iPhone 5s or later, iPad Pro, iPad (5th generation), iPad Air or later, iPad mini 2 or later, or iPod touch (6th generation) running iOS 11.2.5 or later.”

Verdict

If you want to try out a smart speaker without spending much, the Echo Dot and Google Home Mini are your two choices. And Google’s is the better-sounding of the two. 

Those who want a smart speaker to act as their main hifi should consider either the Apple HomePod or Google Home Max. They sound far better than the other smart speakers. 

How about in-between? The Amazon Echo (2nd Gen) offers a great compromise between price and sound quality, and Amazon Alexa offers lots of smart home features to play around with thanks to its Skills system. 

Amazon’s smart speakers with screens are great for, say, the kitchen. However, they are also hugely held back by the politics involved, as you can’t use YouTube or Netflix on them. Make sure you adjust your expectations before buying.   

Do you prefer your music analog? Check out our list of the best turntables.