#i know i know the leafs fan feeling bad for the b's HOW FUNNY

[zozo-01]

baby zo is shooketh. adult zo is shooketh.

my heart really aches for this bruins team and fans.

[reilleclan-blog]

The fact Sasuke Uchiha was equivalent to a school ooter and ALOT of ppl saying he was right is very hilarious. (Also I'm a fan of Sasuke I just hated the shippuden part of him cause he was sounding so fucking dumb when he's fighting Naruto)

Sasuke was so scared of love that he wanted to kill his "bff" over it cause Naruto never stopped loving him. "Never gave up on him" or "cut him off" the most love Sasuke ever felt was with Naruto that's why he was constantly reminded of his family and Itachi when he was with Naruto. Sasuke had to hate Itachi so he could be able to redeem his family so he was alone but Naruto would remind him of the good and the bad of what happened with his family . That's why he was so adamant on killing Naruto. He wanted to be fully alone cause// Sasuke was disguising his fear of love with the idea that he wanted to avenge Itachi and shit but to be fair Sasuke was lied to his whole life so I still understand why he went crazy asf and wanted to kill danzo but afterward he had to direct his anger towards something else so it was towards the leaf village. (He eliminated his brother's biggest enemy but he still chose to fight the leaf// that turned into him wanting to become "hokage")

Also to pivot back to the topic of Sasuke wanting to become the "most hated" or "take on all the hate" he was essentially trying to make himself into the next Madara and we see how that was turning out cause he was literally living it. Becoming the most hated is pointless when u are already surrounded by ppl that are trying to love u, but Sasuke again was terrified of it it's as if he thought he couldn't deserve that love as well. Like in the animation he is pained his face he makes trying to "not believe" Naruto and believe he could be back in the good graces of the leaf or feel loved like Naruto keeps telling him.

And then when they think they are both dead after their big fight , Sasuke looks and acts relieved that him and Naruto are together but dead. Naruto was the one freaking out about being dead while Sasuke isn't even trying to figure it out he's just chillin with Naruto lol. In a way, when he thought they were both dead Sasuke seemed like he was missing Naruto once he vanished (i guess when Naruto woke up)

Also Sasuke always freaks the fuck out everytime Naruto basically says "I WONT STOP LOVING U" and Sasuke is just like "PLEASE STOP LOVING ME LET ME BE ALONE" that's basically what it was. Platonic or romantic love I like the ideas of both. I have no preference towards shipping. Ship, laugh love.

Another thing I'm gonna say is so many ppl hate Sakura either they are misogynistic or they think she's a terrible character. 1) most of the shit ppl hated Sakura for was literally the SAME SHIT Naruto and or Sasuke had done in the show but no one cared when them two did said thing.

2) Sakura was never ever planning to kill Sasuke she would never have it in her to ever do that to him. Literally the first time Sasuke is leaving the leaf village Sakura is trying to say anything to make him stay and since she knows he's not gonna stay she just tells him "let me come with u" and it's like Sakura was smitten with love(cough cough* like Naruto). And funny enough ppl love to bring up how Sasuke found her annoying but he constantly said the same shit about Naruto ... why b/c they BOTH LOVED SASUKE. They both loved Sasuke just in very different ways and ppl don't talk about it at all.

ppl talk about how Sakura and Naruto both wanted Sasuke back but never notice how they show their love so differently. Sakura could never fight Sasuke, Naruto was ready to fight Sasuke no matter the cause NARUTO STATES THAT HE WOULD BREAK EVERY BONE IN SASUKES BODY IF IT MEANT HE WOULD DRAG HIM BACK TO THE LEAF VILLAGE . Sakura would've just either let him kill her or joined in b/c she just loved him that much.

Anyways um yeah that's it I guess if u get mad over this imma just block u idc. I just wanna post about my hyperfixation don't dtm please also I'm surprised ppl don't talk about Sasuke being in confinement. Lol also Sasuke is neurodivergent 😴

[crystalelemental]

PokeFair Select Scouts (January 2024)

If you have 5k paid gems to burn, you may be looking at these PokeFair Select Scouts like hey, this seems pretty worth it. A selection of anything in the Strike, Tech, or Support roles? Crazy. Some who don't spend routinely may be considered. But with only one pick, who is best to get?

Striker Pool Is it just me, or have we not gotten many Strikers lately? I feel like that's going to change with the introduction of High Score and all that, but it still feels Tech dominated.

SS Red - At this point, SS Red is kinda garbage. He can still get a general on-type job done but he's a shadow of his former self.

SS Hilda - Legitimately fantastic. If you somehow don't have Fire under control, this is how you get it under control. Hilda has brutal power, would definitely recommend.

Classic Blue - If you need Rock, just Tech for SS Diantha.

N - Not as good as he used to be.

Steven - Pretty sad overall.

Cynthia - Ground is a rare type, but she's only worth talking about at 3/5, and even then is a rare "wants 5/5 for the utility."

SS Cynthia - Having a 3-person run with Lucas and SS Leon. She's in the same boat as base Cynthia, too.

Emmet - See C!Blue.

Lance - Similar to Cynthia, but hard wants 5/5 to do like anything of value.

Alder - Bug is so hard to shop for. If you got Winter Viola, this is her best partner, otherwise he's tame Hyper Beam spam.

Palmer - Funny Numbers Man. I don't know how he holds up in 3k meta, but think about how much you like off-type, because his life is 100% off type.

SS Giovanni - None of his types are needed anymore. He's slow as dirt and I hate him.

Diantha - Not all that exceptional for Fairy damage anymore.

SS Lana - Honestly the most skippable Tapu. She doesn't mesh well with SS Lusamine at all, and I don't respect her damage output because she relies too heavily on SS Acerola for the impressive showcases.

Lysandre - Needs 5/5. No listen to me. It's that bad.

SS Lysandre - Powerhouse Water Striker with a nuke of a B Move. Very, very good, so long as he can burn.

Eusine - Pretty good! Get SS Lys instead.

Emma - Arguably the best pick. Even 1/5 holds tremendous DPS, Poison is a crazy rare offensive type, and Emma's still one of the best. Team Speed control is also fantastic.

Victor - AoE Max Move. Arguably good for High Score.

Gloria - Only good 4/5 or higher.

SS Leon - Rerunning with SS Cynthia and Lucas, who are better pairs.

SS Piers - Primary electric, so unnecessary with rats, secondary Poison isn't worth talking about. Has field effects but isn't too consistent with either.

Rose - See SS Giovanni.

Personal opinion, Emma's far and away the best one here. Rare offensive typing, excellent DPS pressure at 1/5, great tools for a team like +4 team speed in one move. Emma's excellent. SS Hilda's really good too, for those who care about needing a Fire type, and SS Lys or Eusine are good for Water. There's a case to be made for SS Piers, but I'm not going to make it. Palmer was hilariously broken in 2.5k Master Mode meta, but I don't know if he's holding up in the transition. Pretty much everything else needs high investment. So many are old, and so many needed 5/5 expansions to become more relevant.

My pull will be Palmer. I've either got or don't care about everything else. But I skipped Normal Zone because I couldn't justify it, and now I can.

Tech Pool Tech has a billion options, and feels like it has the most that have never rerun. Anni Skyla, SS Cyrus, Classic Elesa; these are super rare acquisitions.

SS Roxie - Arguably the best pair on this list. Rare Poison type, solid secondary electric DPS, field effects for both, and the coveted Tech/Strike role combo. Also the outfit's really good.

SS Korrina - Hilarious boost from the "Five Stats +3" parameter in CS, and good at stealing buffs/nuking. I'm not her biggest fan.

Anni Skyla - Absolutely excellent at 3/5, but terrible before then.

SS Leaf - It's 5/5 or 1/5, take your pick. She has some good survival tools but is very, very dated at 1/5.

SS Hilbert - Excellent Bug damage that can also DPS for Fire, Ice, Water, and Electric. Solid Sp Def debuffs which are rare, too.

Lear - Big nuke man back when this mattered, currently kinda whatever. Ramps fast, though.

SS N - I like running SS N because I think he shouldn't work, but his damage output on Freeze Shock is impressive.

SS Steven - One of the most versatile pairs ever. Excellent offenses, wonderful dodge tank fast-ramping with Speed, never really used the other two but I hear Normal can do some stuff in Gauntlet with the 60% flinch rate.

C!Iris - Excellent nuke, really wants 4/5 for Aggravation in the modern meta. Not really worth it over BT Leon.

SS Hau - I think Hau kinda sucks. He has fun tools but I'm constantly unimpressed by him.

Classic Elesa - Astounding 1/5 value. Spectrum debuff on a paralyzed opponent with every hit.

SS May - Individual fast-ramp, great sync potential if set up, CS tends to be a lot harder to manage for her than you'd want.

Anni May - Similar to the above, but trade ramp for Psychic Terrain. Bianca tends to do as much.

SS Wally - Fairy Zone, which was significant before Sylveon eggmon. Good nuke that's hard to set up, crap DPS, horrid Buddy move conditional.

SS Silver - Fun, but similar to SS May, his myriad conditions make teambuilding stressful.

SS Diantha - Obscene. Even 1/5, she's providing every Rock damage dealer with everything they need, and contributing excellent DPS of her own.

Lucas - Still our only source of manual Dragon Zone. I don't think he's that great but some swear by him.

SS Cyrus - AoE sleep man. I think he's slightly overhyped. Sleep is hard to maintain, and getting Zone up for his sync is a pain.

Dojo Gloria - See SS May, but easier to set up and has Max Move.

Challenger Gloria - Cinderace is butt ugly, don't do it. I don't care if it's a Gauntlet Solo machine, or if its DPS pressure is sufficient to handle sides.

Marnie - SS C!Iris.

Bede - Hyper underrated utility pair with excellent bursts, but always runs next to a trio of Master Fairs so is often neglected. But trust me man, he's stupid good.

BT Leon - Piercing Blows with good Atk/Def debuffing. I think his kit is a bit wonky at times, but the man puts in good work.

Anni Raihan - Fast Ramp with stacking moves up next on Sandstorm, the sync pair. Needs 3/5 to really matter, since Sand is garbage without his Propulsion.

Oleana - Another excellent Poison nuke, with a great Max Move and phenomenal debuffing utility. A little slow on gauge though.

Tech is extremely good. There are a lot of solid choices here. For those who seem to do well across the board, BT Leon, Bede, SS Diantha are all excellent, even with 1/5 non-EX investment. Diantha is the current only source of Rock Zone too, so big props there. The rest tend to need higher investment, though there's a good argument for pairs like Oleana and SS Roxie for a rare offensive typing and their still-useful 1/5 traits.

My personal pick will be SS Roxie. While I am incredibly tempted by SS Hilbert, due to my lack of good Bug types, I just invested in Alder and got Winter Viola, so I'm hesitant to make that trade no matter how good he'll be in Bug High Score. Meanwhile, Roxie is just...easier. 1/5 she has status application and -2 AoE Sp Def debuffs. Hilbert doesn't compete with that until 3/5.

Support Pool In general, I think Supports are your best options to get. A good support carries, while a good Striker often still wants for something.

Classic Red - HMM, I wonder why the Red alts are all listed first! Weird how that happens even if Snorlax is ASS GARBAGE

SS Acerola - You've heard the stories. They're all true. You want to stack PMUN to the moon in very few turns for quick clears, Acerola is your girl. Mind the frailty.

SS Brendan - I disparage Brendan more than I should for a pair who is very, very good. Excellent bulk, Potion support, fast-acting buffs, harsh debuffs on a move that's mostly free when he takes hits, paralysis options, gauge management options, he does a ton.

SS Blue - Was never good, stop deluding yourselves.

SS Mina - Good for bulk, but little else. If you're a big fan of SS Leon (Kuri), Mina is a godsend. Her Buddy move will block sync damage enough to survive, and let Leon tear loose. Otherwise, her buffing kit is fairly poor.

Ingo - Languished in time, didn't get a good 5/5 grid. Sandstorm is butt chunks.

SS Dawn - I love her but she's dying for a grid expansion. There's not a thing she can do that a dozen other defensive supports since can do, except the Crisis Countdown and self-sacrifice set, which I don't like no matter how effective it is.

SS Morty - Excellent utility with Sun, defenses, and speed. Really good so long as you don't need to buff offensive stats.

Anabel - Worse than she should be, and I'm sorry.

Argenta - See SS Acerola. Their kits are very similar, but Argenta takes a slower pace of stacking in exchange for persistent application and accuracy buffs. I like Argenta better because she can drop field effects for CS.

Elaine - If she's 3/5, she's honestly insane. If she's any less than that, she's kinda garbage.

Penny - Very useful Fairy support, with AoE debuffs on Sp Def. Slightly frail, hard for her to maintain HP given the vampire Buddy move condition, but she does well enough.

Rachel, Sawyer, and Tina - They're 4*s, bro.

For support, "best pick" is defined by your needs. If you have NC Blue, you probably don't need SS Brendan no matter how good he is, while NC Leaf may mean SS Morty isn't as essential, especially if you gave her the Support role. SS Acerola or Argenta are excellent for PMUN stacking, if that's your speed. Penny is good for SMUN, in that she's the only option. Elaine is a great generalist but only at 3/5 or above.

I favor supports, so I have everything I need. I will still be taking SS Dawn for 5/5. One day, she'll get a grid expansion, and I'll want in on it. Better to do it for 5k now than wait for a potential Sinnoh cluster rerun where I have to worry about Lucas and SS Cyrus being around, you know?

Overall Best If I were like...brand new, right? And I had no resources, and no significant tools, and was asked hey. Who do you think offers the most out of everyone in any of these brackets? SS Diantha. Rock Zone is exclusive to her right now, Rock is a terrible offensive type to shop for, she elevates literally every Rock type to relevance with her hilarious combination of traits, and all of it is achievable at 1/5. I think by type, power, and low-cost impact, SS Diantha is the best bang for your buck. I'd consider SS Roxie or Oleana second. Poison is even rarer, with all its good options being limited availability, and the decision largely comes down to how bad you need more Electric support. Oleana's Rebuff is more valuable than a Zone, since DeNA is still trying to push those, while her offensive debuffs are really handy for a lot of content.

"But don't you favor support?" Yes I do, and I stand by that. However I think the supports are largely...conditional? It's hard to explain. SS Acerola is very good, yes, but only in a context where you have physical damage dealers with DPS worth talking about. ie, other limited pairs. You can make due with the 3-bar spams in the common pool, but I've personally never been too enamored with SS Acerola. She is excellent, as is Argenta if she's more your speed, but I think for newer players, and people who focus primarily on-type anyway? Covering Rock is harder to do, and more valuable. Same with Poison.

[puckmeupfam]

Sap | Jeff Skinner

Word Count: 2287

Note: My autumnal aesthetic piece that I started in July. Title is based on the fact that this is entirely fluff without plot, and because it takes place in the Northeast with references to maple syrup, cider donuts, and leaf-peeping. 

Zipping your newly packed suitcase and pulling it off the bed, you heard the front door open signaling that Jeff arrived home from practice. It was a rare time when he had the weekend off. No games, no practices after the one he just finished, just free time which he chose to devote to spending with you. The two of you loved going on short trips whenever possible to escape the monotony of work and grocery shopping and Buffalo. Honestly, you could spend the weekend in Lackawanna and be happy as long as you were with Jeff. This particular weekend was special because it was now solidly fall. The temperatures were dropping. The leaves were changing. Swimsuits were being swapped out for sweaters. And golf was being replaced by hockey.

You had spent most of the summer in Markham. Coming from a smaller family, you were always enamored by Jeff’s. At this point, you honestly considered them to be your family, too. You loved talking to Jillian about her time in law school or asking Ben about his hockey career in Germany. It was also hilarious to watch the five siblings tease Jeff about his competitiveness or on-ice gaffs, but he was always a good sport about it and just laughed with bright red cheeks. You knew how much it meant to Jeff when he got to spend time with his family and experience that warmth and joy. The both of you were incredibly lucky that Buffalo isn’t too far away, but with his schedule, the uninterrupted summer was extra special.

As you were lost in your thoughts, you missed Jeff coming up the stairs and into your shared bedroom. His arms wrapped around your waist and his face found its way into the crook of your neck. The action brought an unconscious smile to your face as you leaned back into him.

“Whatcha thinking about?” he asked you, voice muffled against your skin as he lightly swayed. You shrugged in response, “We should probably get Andrea a birthday gift while we’re gone, something nice you know? Show we were thinking about her.” Jeff hummed in response. He rocked the two of you a bit before speaking, “Are you ready to leave?” You took a deep breath, inhaling his cologne. Turning your body to look him in the eye you smiled softly, “Almost,” you whispered, “we should probably get going before they decide they need you to individually kiss each fan.” This elicited a booming laugh from Jeff that you felt throughout your body, “The only person I’m kissing is you.”

After another minute of contentment, you shuffled him away from you to grab some chargers and last-minute necessities. He chuckled as he started pulling your suitcase down to the car, he knew how much you were looking forward to this trip. You had spent the last week researching and talking about all the spots you wanted to visit while you were away. Grabbing your purse and hoisting it over your shoulder you did a last-minute sweep of the house to make sure that everything was unplugged and you weren’t leaving candles lit or stovetops on. After your anxieties were quelled you went outside and joined Jeff in the car. He had already put your B&B into the GPS and he flashed you a large grin which you eagerly matched as he pulled out of the driveway.

This trip the two of you were going to Western Massachusetts. It was about a five and a half hour drive, probably longer since you knew you would be stopping for lunch and every state park that came your way. You synched your phone and started playing music, knowing that you had a playlist with the perfect ambiance. Jeff always teased you for making playlists for every mood, weather pattern, task, or aesthetic that came in your head. But when the soft chords came through the speakers and his fingers started a gentle tap against the steering wheel to the beat, you knew that it was appreciated.

In Buffalo, the weather was just cool enough that the seat warmers got turned on but not yet so cold that you were shivering. You were cruising down the highway, close to crossing city lines. When you glanced over at Jeff he had a small smile, like he wasn’t even thinking about it. Just watching the road with an underlying well of happiness. You took a minute to look at him, to take him in. His smile turned out to be infectious and you knew your face was probably spread with a dopey grin.

“You’re staring,” Jeff said, breaking the silence.

“You didn’t even look over. How would you know?” you complained.

“I could feel your stare,” he responded, looking over at you with a grin that took over his whole face. His statement made you burst out laughing. While the whole thing was funny and, you were sure that he really did get that weird feeling you get when someone’s looking at you, it made you think about how you were always so aware of each other. The two of you could be in a crowd of people at some Sabres bruncheon and someway somehow you could always glance up and see him already looking at you. Or when you would go to some team party, you always had a tendency to reach for each other’s hands at the same time.

“You would stare at you too,” was your response after you had realized that you went a few beats too long just staring into space.

It was Jeff’s turn to laugh, “what does that even mean?”

“It means,” you started, drawing out the word, “that you’re cute and potentially the embodiment of sunshine and everyone would stare at you if they could and I will simply not defend myself further.”

Jeff rolled his eyes at your dramatic tone and faux-seriousness. He swung his arm out over to you, holding it in the air until you grabbed his hand in both of yours. You pulled his hand into your lap and leaned further back into the passenger seat. Turning your head to the side to watch the city escape, your eyes unfocused and your brain turned to elevator music as your temple rested against the window. After a few minutes of contented silence, Jeff’s hand made its way to your thigh and squeezed, drawing your attention.

“Look at the leaves, babe,” he told you. The passing trees were dotted with warm-colored leaves of crimson, tangerine, marigold, and honey. It was absolutely gorgeous and seemed like a sign that your trip was only going to get better. You stared in awe for about a mile before you looked back at Jeff. His eyes flickered from the road to your face and the look he gave you, full of love and peace, made you feel so warm.

“They’re so pretty,” you said softly. You moved your hand to twine your fingers together and you watched his dimples come out in full force as he forced his eyes to stay on the road. After a few moments of contentment, you spoke again, “do you want me to tell you about the plant pigments that make these colors possible?”

Jeff chuckled, but you knew that your joke didn’t ruin the moment or anything else that you might think if you were talking to someone else. Because Jeff knew you, he loved you. He loved your bad jokes, your stories that you’ve already told him multiple times but just like telling again and again, the way you go into lectures to explain things that he had never thought twice about, your urge to talk during movies to comment on the scene or the actor’s personal life. He loved the best parts of you and he loved the worst parts of you. And this moment? Where you feel the light beaming out of your heart. It isn’t the moment. It’s just a moment in a string of hundreds of thousands of moments that you’ll experience with your favorite person.

--

After about two hours in the car, you were close to Syracuse and decided to stop for lunch. The two of you decided on a cute, local diner. Jeff parked the car and as you stepped out, you stretched your legs to rid yourself of the wobbly feeling from being in a car too long. The sidewalks were made of a red brick and there was a quiet hustle with people walking their dogs and couples going in and out of shops. The two of you walked side-by-side, but right when you were about to reach the door Jeff stepped ahead to hold it open for you. Stepping through you smiled at him and he followed you in. There seemed to be a typical lunch rush, but the restaurant wasn’t crowded. A waitress pointed you towards a booth and you slumped into it as Jeff sat across from you.

You both ordered coffees before cracking the menu open to see what they had. The pages were lined with different sandwiches, egg dishes, pancakes, and all the typical diner food that you loved. You settled on your order fairly quickly but Jeff scanned the pages until the coffees were brought out and the waitress was asking for your order. Handing her your menu, you explained what you wanted before both of you turned your attention towards your boyfriend.

“Could I have the brownie french toast?”

At that you raised your eyebrows at him incredulously. As the waitress walked away, scribbling your orders down as she went, Jeff looked back at you and laughed at your expression. “Cheat weekend,” was his explanation. He shrugged with an expression on his face like he was being forced to order what was likely the sugariest option on the menu. You threw your hands up to say you weren’t judging. Jeff quickly launched into a story about something Jack did at practice and that filled your wait until the food was brought to your table. Your boyfriend’s eyes widened comically when his food came out. It looked like there had been a blizzard of powdered sugar. It was topped with a whopping pile of whipped cream and a generous amount of rainbow sprinkles, just in case the brownie batter wasn't sweet enough.

Neither of you wasted any time in diving into your food and when you glanced up at Jeff after a few minutes you giggled when you saw that some of that whipped cream had ended up on his nose. You stealthily pulled out your phone to snap a picture of him. Once he heard the click of your camera he looked up at you which reignited your laughter.

“What?” he asked, chuckling lightly with you even without knowing the reason.

Without explaining yourself, you just reached out and swiped the sweet substance off his face before licking it off your finger. His response was just a sharp laugh with rolled eyes, head thrown back a bit at your antics. He knew full well that you were going to tease him for a long time for his choice of ridiculously confectionary lunch. You returned to your food with a shake of your head, but when you turned to take a sip of your coffee you noticed that Jeff had absolutely demolished his plate of french toast and was now trying to collect the remnant of whipped cream with his fork.

“It’s not going to be my fault when you crash from all that sugar,” you told him. He watched you dig your teeth into your lip to try and conceal the smile that was threatening to break through.

“Honestly, (Y/N), I’ve never felt better in my life. The sprinkles fuel me. I think I’ll make this my pre-game meal,” Jeff said with an air of seriousness. Sadly for him, but luckily for you, he had a genetic inability to suppress his smiles. You leaned back in the booth until your head hit the pleather upholstery and kicked your feet up to rest in his lap underneath the table.

“Don’t overwhelm yourself, I’m taking you to the Sugar Shack tomorrow and we’re getting the cider donuts.”

Jeff pulled a shocked and aghast face in response, “How dare you insinuate that I would ever be anything other than thrilled at the very prospect of cider donuts? You know, just because you said that I’m going to get two orders and we’ll see what you say when I eat those and yours too.”

You rolled your eyes so dramatically that you knew, if your mom were there, she would be telling you that they’d get stuck like that. Under the table, you kicked your legs up to rest in Jeff’s lap as he waved his arm to flag down the waitress for the bill. You sat quietly, just watching as he went through the monotony of thanking the waitress and putting his card in the sleeve of the bill. When he looked back at you, he smiled knowing that he caught you staring for the second time that day.

“You ready?” He asked you. A simple question, given that you were on a roadtrip with a predetermined destination. But with the opportunity to just appreciate him and your relationship, without the stress of your schedules or outside influences, it just felt meaningful. There was no one you would rather be with, during the happiest moments of your life or the worst. You felt a little misty with the joy of having him by your side.

“With you? Always.”

Pulling yourself out of the booth, you extended your hand for him to grasp and continued onwards.

[spyrkle4]

Quiet Conversations (Bh6 one-shot)

AN: This was the first bh6 literature I ever wrote, I’m not the best writer but I try. Hope you enjoy and polite criticism is welcome. Onto the fic!

Despite being able to note the most places Big Hero 6 had appeared in, Megan had started hitting a few dead ends. She’d been looking into the incidents the mysterious superheroes were involved in. The incident at Krei Tech, the whole thing with the star, and most recently the big monster attack. But she just couldn't find many clues that could link to finding out who they are.

She couldn’t ask Hiro for help either, as her friend/teen genius had been rather busy of late. Whenever she asked him for help in her investigations, Hiro would claim he had some sort of school work to do. Eventually she stopped asking, not wanting to put any more pressure on her friend’s back. He hadn’t been doing well since the monster attack and the whole thing with Sycorax for some reason. She asked him once what was wrong and he replied with, 

“It’s complicated,” and looked rather sad, so getting Hiro’s help wasn’t an option.

However, luckily for Super Sleuth Megan Cruz (it was a cool journalist name no matter what Hiro says) she had the greatest idea on how to look for more information on Big Hero 6.

By interrogating the enemies of Big Hero 6, surely some of the villains that they fought have some information on them. But which villain to interrogate was the real question.

Her first option was to question Globby (the supervillain turned hero that had been known to help Big Hero 6 in the past). But since the whole incident at Joe’s Diner, that wasn’t an option anymore. Speaking of that incident, her father had labeled Big Hero 6 has fugitives since they were found helping Globby. Megan often heard her classmates at school complain about it, since many of them were fans of the super heroes. She was hopeful that perhaps by finding out who Big Hero 6 were, it would change her dad’s opinion on them.

She considered questioning Momokase, a longtime enemy of Big Hero 6 but her dad vetoed that. Megan didn’t blame him, the sushi chef/ninja mercenary was known to be dangerous even behind bars. 

“One of the villains Big Hero 6 faced has to have some information on them,” Megan stared at her conspiracy wall, trying to scrounge for any clues.

“What does Hiro always say? ‘Look for a new angle?” Megan sighed, her fingertips tracing the timeline she mapped out.

“Maybe if I start from the beginning I could find a clue,” There has to be something. Maybe it was a bad idea, most of the villains that Big Hero 6 faced were dangerous! Her eyes glanced over a picture on her wall, it was a photo someone took of a fight between Big Hero 6 and one of the villains they fought. It had been one of the first battles Big Hero 6 had since they showed up at Krei Tech, against the mother-daughter crime dancing duo known as High Voltage.

A lightbulb inside Megan’s mind lit up, and she had an idea on who to question.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” her dad asked her for the 50th time. “Yes Dad, this could help me find out the identities of Big Hero 6!” Megan replied. When she told her dad the idea she had, he insisted on giving her an escort.

“Alright, but be careful.” He hummed, realizing that she wasn’t going to change her mind. She waved him goodbye when they got to their destination (after saying hello to the person at the front desk), promising to be back before the sun sets.

Megan clutched the notebook in her hand while she walked through the hospital. It was definitely one of the better hospitals in San Fransokyo, the floors and walls were clean. Despite the little nerves in her chest, Megan kept thinking of all kinds of questions she’d ask and what kinds of information she’d learn. She stopped walking when she got to a hospital room at the end of the hall. 

She entered the room, it was a normal hospital room. The walls and floors were the same dark grey shade as the hallway. The single bed was on one side of the wall, and the tv was on the opposite end. Megan had only been to a hospital once, and that was when one of her friends had broken their leg. The hospital room didn’t look that much different than the one her friend was in when she visited. Although that hospital room hadn’t been on the fourth floor.

The occupant of the hospital room was sitting by the window, her eyes gazing to the outside world. She looked to be not that much older than Megan. With long dark blonde hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. A tuft of her blonde hair was highlighted purple but it was fading. Megan was unsure how to approach her, but she then spoke up.

“I can hear you over there.” she didn’t turn around, but Megan could sense she was annoyed.

“Sorry,” she took a seat next to her, “I’m Megan.” There wasn’t another response.

“What’s your name?” 

“You already know my name, don’t you?” Megan nodded, “then there’s no need to ask.” “It’s still common courtesy to ask someone you don’t know their name.” A small smile formed on her face.

“I’m Juniper,” she turned to face Megan, who was able to get a good look at her brown eyes, “Nice to meet you Megan.”

“Nice to meet you two, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions,” Megan spoke in her journalist voice, keeping her notebook and pen in hand.

“Questions?” Juniper narrowed her eyes, staring suspiciously at Megan.

“Yep,” Megan opened her notebook, ready to write things down, “I wanted to ask you about B-” “Should’ve figured you were another reporter asking about Sycorax.” Those brown eyes were glaring at her, the look of anger made Megan flinch.

“What?” Megan’s eyes widened, “No, I wasn’t going to ask any questions about Sycorax.” At first she was confused why Juniper thought she wanted to ask about the Bio-Tech company. “Everyone always asks about Sycorax!” she shouts, “They always ask about...her or call my Mama and I monsters!” the outburst ended as quickly as it began. Juniper curls herself into a ball on the floor, shuddering.

Oh..oh..Megan realized, she remembered during the monster attacks. Diane Amara (an evil clone of Liv Amara, that was a shocker to the public), had used several villains in her evil schemes. Mutating them into monsters whether they were willing or not, and High Voltage were not willing participants in Di’s schemes. 

“Hey,” Megan sat down, unsure of how to approach the shuddering blonde. “I don’t hate you..” “You should,” Juniper sniffles. “I am a monster for helping her.” “She forced you and your mom to help her against your will,” Megan argued, “that doesn’t make you a monster.” “Even before that, I did a lot of bad stuff,” the blonde wipes a few tears from her eyes.

“Do you still want to give up crime dancing?” Megan asks. Juniper turns to face her, a bit of confusion in her chocolate brown eyes, “At the..school dance, you and your mom mentioned about giving up a life of crime and turning a new leaf to the point of singing an entire song about it.”

“Y-you were there at that school dance?” Juniper’s eyes widened with shock. “I go to that school!” 

���Really?” “What did you think I was homeschooled or something?” both of them started giggling, the tenseness in the air starting to fade.

“You do look a little familiar,” Juniper noted, “Were you wearing a pretty blue dress at the dance?”.

“Yeah I was,” Megan replies, wait..pretty? “Surprised you’d even remember me.” “At least I remember something good from that dance,” she sighed, rubbing the bandage wrapping on her neck. Megan was curious what that was but knew better not to push the emotionally fragile girl any more.

“Why don’t you tell me a little more about yourself?” and so the two girls spent a great amount of time conversing. Megan ended up not asking any questions about Big Hero 6, not wanting to accidentally trigger Juniper. She asked a little about Juniper and her mom and Juniper asked about her and her dad. Eventually the evening started to roll and Megan had to leave.

“Ah look at the time!” Megan realized, “My dad will freak out if I’m late!” she turned to Juniper, “I have to go now, sorry.” “Are you going to visit again?” Juniper asks her, there was a funny feeling in her chest as she stared back at those warm chocolate eyes.

“Of course,” she replied without hesitation, “I promise.” “That would be nice, I enjoyed talking to you Megan,” Juniper smiles, and it makes her happy to see a smile on that face.

“See you later Juniper.” Megan waves, walking out of the hospital room.

“See you later!” Juniper waves back, her expression much happier than when Megan first entered the room. 

As Megan was walking home, there was a skip in her step. A warm feeling in her chest she couldn’t describe. Despite not getting any clues to the identities of Big Hero 6, Megan found something better. She found a new friend, and maybe..something more.

[stagmanparty]

So I finished watching MLP Season 8 and...

….it´s actually not bad.

Yeah, I´m the first to admit I have to eat my words and agree the show hasn´t really gone down as much as I thought after the movie. I still hate it but the show itself remains good. Yes, there are more than a few mediocre or outright horrible episodes there but the good ones more than compensate.

I do believe that Dubuc is kinda out of her element on ponies, which may explain her use for an entire new cast aside from hasbro´s orders. The friendship school thing is done better than I though tough I still think is kinda stupid at moments.

Overall the balance is...fine.

I was expecting worse but it was an okay season.

I do hate that they explicitly mention the events of the movie but they´re STILL refusing to acknowledge the Equestria Girls ones. Come on Mccarty, stop being embarrassed ot the BETTER story!

Below the cut is my personal opinions of each episode with a dose of sarcasm if u want to read them but for the season as a whole I´ll give a 7/10 it was regular to me.

701-702:  “Girls, I want you all to work on my new school!”

“We have lives, Twilight”

ROLL CREDITS

So this wasn´t bad. I though Twilight was gonna be more selfish but she actually makes some fair points and owns to her mistakes here. What´s funny is that she doesn't act this way the rest of the season…

I still think the students are kinda lame but I like how they interact with each other and the episode itself was well handled.

Still, Twilight isn't perfect either since she refuses to have zebras or buffaloes or talking cats on her school. Hell, there aren´t even crystal ponies so she´s almost as bad the racist snape guy.

Kinda standard but good episodes.

7/10

703: “So sis, when are you gonna leave?”

“The town?”

“The show…”

I said it once, I´ll said it again, Maud overstayed her welcome. She´s no longer funny and feels like a creator pet by now.

That said the episode itself is actually really good.

Confalone GETS pinkie and gives he an actual character and this was honestly better handled that with Twilight.

Hell for a second I thought Pinkie was gonna have to deal with her own since her meeting with the guy has all the elements of a meet cute scene =P

I could live without the stupid opening scene but it seems even Pinkie realized Maud was being offensive to her audience there…

A really fun Pinkie episode to add to the pile

8/10

804 “thank you for calling me, Rarity. I can surely help you with all my sewing knowledge”

“Oh for this episode I´ll need you to forget about all that, darling and be completely useless”

So yeah, this was a waste of time.

So the mane six can´t help Rarity with her store but have plenty of time to go yell at Fluttershy?

And if Rarity hates the ponies of Saddle Row so much why does she enve sells them clothes?

I actually hate how they´re all portrayed cause they´re feeding the stereotype that people into fashion are shallow and petty and the whole point of Rarity´s character was to subvert that!

I only laughed at one joke in the whole episode.

So yeah another terrible fluttershy episode to add to the pile

2/10

805 The real reason Rainbow flies so fast...to escape her gay for applejack thoughts.

So a perfectly okay episode.

In other seasons it would have gone unnoticed but in this one it stands out for having solid writing.

It was fun and rainbow was very likeable here since she honestly seemed more concern about the grannies than anything.

It feels a bit stretched out but this is normal for a pony episode.

I do hope she kicks Applejack's behind the second she came back to town though…

A fun Rainbow episode.

7/10

806 “Girls, while you wasted time trying to help that kid with divorced parents I acciBURPddentally destroyed a scared statue so we better run, you bastards!” then Twilight pulls a rick an actually leaves them behind =P

SO yeah a complete waste of time.

I understand the point but it doesn't work for me since it seems like they made the problem way too simple.

I also dislike the hippogriffs on principle since i find I them really lame characters so…

Oh and this episode has the WORST song in the entire show. Hell is not even a song, is just words with music behind it.

So yeah, pretty lame episode.

2/10

807 “See Twilight, Sunset would have just told me things straight to my face! Then try to stab me in the back but the point remains…”

I already talked about this back when it aired and yeah, my opinion hasn't changed.

This isn´t a Celestia episode, is another of Twilight´s poorly made panic attacks ones.

We learned absolutely nothing about Celestia, she learns nothing at all and we wasted twenty minutes of our lives.

For a fan of the character, waiting nine years for this is nothing but an insult.

The saddest thing is knowing that the show will end without having a proper celestia episode.

So yeah, a total waste of time with only the adorable sunbutt to save some face

4/10

808 “You noticed all the wanted posters for you on the way here, Starlight?”

“No, actually not”

“yeah me neither, good thing you´re friends with a princess…”

Really, how come Starlight is NOT a wanted criminal? The episode could have dealt with her hometown disowning her but nope, is just a kinda lame sitcom situation.

Hell, it would have been better if we´re told the parents hooked up and now Starlight and Sunburst feel all kind of awkard but nope.

i suppose there´s like a moral lesson in here but the episode was so dull I don't even remember it.

It could have been a better story but it amounts to nothing.

3/10

809 “And to think this all started over a parking lot…”

“you don´t even need the parking lot, Rainbow!”

THAT would have been a better premise…

So yeah, remember season 1? Cool ,cause this is the exact same episode. Nothing new added and nothing interesting happens.

Go watch the leaf episode instead, is way better.

3/10

810 “Wait, Big Mac has a what now? How come nopony told me? Do I look like a jealous sister or something?”

“the shotgun isn't helping, AJ…”

Have they really interacted these two? I mean, don´t want a repeat of the same storyline. Infact, showing that Applejack and Sugar whatever get along well will be an interesting episode.

Far more interesting than this for sure.

I was bored the entire time and shut up, sweetie Belle. You'll be lucky to have Snips…

Another time waster.

2/10

811 “Spike, can´t you just masturbate like a regular teenager? I mean you have your own room now so it won´t be weird for me anymore…”

Again, remember season 2? Go watch that instead.

It even made more sense back then but now spike not knowing “how to dragon” has become a huge plot hole cause there´s absolutely no reason for him not to know these things so this entire conflict is pointless.

Oh and him having wings is something I don't really like.

Explain how he didn't have those during season 2 when he grew, hasbro! ANother lame Spike episode to the bad spike episodes pile.

2/10

812 “Girls, you rather go to a school where you dont´do any homework, play games all day, het to eat delicious food..actually I´m leaving too, school closed!”

So yeah do they do anything at Twilight school other than waste time? No wonder the CMC want to go there! Wasting time is their entire MO nowadays since they have their marks!

Prety standard episode, is honestly just to introduce the villain.

The only really fun thing is the “your mom” bit, I would have approved her out of that alone.

It´s okay, sadly can´t say more.

6/10

813 “Evil clones, what was I thinking? Dinosaurs, that´s a proper supervillain plan!”

MEH I mean it´s an okay episode but when you get to it is just repeating stuff from the first discord episode, nothing new. nothing gained.

That should be the motto of this season.

MEH

6/10

814 “Discord, what part of go to hell don´t you get?”

“The part where you forgot to tell me to stay there”

This episode is horrible!

What´s the moral lesson, be an asshole and get away with everything?

WHy the hell does Starlight apologizes? Why is HER problem that Discord feels bad? The idiot should take it on Twilight and she ahs a perfect reason not to let him in the school..Discord is an asshole! As this episode demonstrated!

Can he just...leave, please?

Worst episode of the season.

1/10

815 “Twilight, shouldn't we invite Zecora one of these days?”

“You wanna explain Kwanzaa to the viewers, Rainbow?”

ZZZZZZZZZ

Oh what? Oh yeah this episode.

Look I get the point and being objective there's nothing wrong with this episode but my god, tiw as boring!

Just the same bit repeated over and over and over and over…

Whatever, technically there's nothing wrong with it but I didn't like it.

6/10

816 “So mono means one and rail menas...no wait, wrong scam. Calls dismissed!”

“Slow down bro, so who´s the princess of friendship then?”

“The one with the eyepatch!”

“BLAST!”

So...a perfectly normal episode.

Again, this show always suffers from not having a b plot going on so the conflict get  a bit stretched but as an episode, it was well done.

Hey snape is right that Friendship IS a weapon in this universe, glad someone finally mentioned it.

There´s actually a good moral lesson about how no matter if the lessons are good if the methods are fraudulent which coming from Hasbro is the ultimate irony.

Flim Flam are kinda overdone at this point but it still works.

7/10

817 “Remember that time you left me in the desert with pinkie?”

“Oh sure, everything looks bad when you remember it…”

Actually a pretty good episode.

I mean the premise relies on twilight´s students being borderline sociopaths (guys, is not that complex of an idea, friends can disagree on things) but the episode itself it was really fun and the Raridash wa adorable.

I honestly liked it.

8/10

818 “I mean we could have get you a teacher and encouraged to get better through a montage but insulting you and hurting your feelings seemed like a better idea, pinkie”

Way to handle a problem, girls!

What part of this is supportive” pinkie? Your friends were assholes to you that made you feel bad so you stop bothering them and then come looking for you because is a problem for THEM?

There´s a better lesson about admitting you may not have the talent for something, which is a lesson that kids DO need to learn but since the problem is solved with a “who cares?” the moral lesson doesnt´work and nobody really learns anything here.

Who approved of this crap?

2/10

819 “I say someone must have  said a funny because your mother is in stitches hahaha! I´ll leave you to your grief, Starlight.”

Finally a good episode!

Actually an excellent one. Coupled with a catchy song and really good dialogue, my man Haber can make a really good episode when he wants.

I have zero complains this was the best episode of the season.

10/10

820 “That´s it I´m taking you to your parents or in its defect your lesbian aunts that cannot be seen in the show due to television censorship policies!”

I´m sorry but cootalo was a brat the entire episode in need of a good spanking.

Rainbow did absolutely nothing wrong and that gid set gogin around here is full of lies.

If anything she was a bit rash over the fact that yeah, the little girl she sees a sister suddenly is throwing her away...again, cause she did it with the maredowell thing also. Funny they didn´t mention it, probably to appease the fandom.

As an episode is nothing bad, Rainbow actually comes out great here so yeah, Scootaloo, you're grounded..as in put in a hole in the ground.

Good episode

8/10

821 “All me friend are long dead…”

“Yeah yeah, lovely. Fill this form here, big guy…”

What's wrong with Twilight this episode? Why is she such an insensitive idiot?

It was pretty clear the obvious solution was just giving him a classroom with no walls and guess what, that´s what she does alter on so what gives?

And why are SPike and SMoulder allowed to burns the school every day?

An dhow come Rockhoof has no job in “modern equestria”? there used to be plenty of things wanting to eat the ponies every week, did they disappear in between seasons or what?

Really stupid episode that only works by everybody bieng assholes to an actually nice guy.

2/10

822 “Look at the bright side Rainbow. We got replaced by a new cast but at least we didn't die horrible on the movie like the transformers did…”

grumble grumble this is actually a really good episode.

I mean I could argue they have already dome similar stuff but it make sense here. The tree of harmony finally gets some light on it and this actually helps make the students look less lame by giving them character so...yeah, it´s actually really good.

Damnit.

9/10

823 “Oh shoot we forgot to invite them to the school!”

“It's okay, Twilight forgot to invite like half of the country as well…”

grumble grumble another really good episode!

I honestly though this episode was gonna suck but it turns out to be one of the best.

It´s obviously a previously unaired episode that they managed to shove into here but is actually a really good so I have zero complains about it.

The kirin is actually really cute and I liked the song so…

9/10

824 “So kid have you seen stuart little?”

“No.”

“Then this whole thing is gonna be new for you…”

So yeah...as an episode is okay but I´l argue that even the target audience could saw this coming a mile away.

My only real problem is that Spike barely apologizes to TWilight despite hurting her so much. Why is he such a brat? Twilight is nothing but a loving and supportive sister to him, look at that opening scene, si so lovely an touching!

Why does the show keep treating Twilight caring for her sibling and treating him like an equal as a bad thing? She even offers to let him go and learn more about his culture, she is supporting and loving why do they keep treating her like she´s doing a bad thing? and again kind of a big plothole nowdays  with dragons going around Equestria with no problems.

Other than that is a fine episode.

7/10

825-826 “Since we´re stuck here where the little filly´s room?”

“There is no little filly´s room in tartarus…”

“NOOOOOOO!”

Really, who built this prison Barry allen? Give them a bucket at least .

Again...actually really good episodes.

The action was good,the stakes were high, while that poor manticore shouldn't be there I still like the good detail than monsters have been kept her since past seasons and than the mane six honestly don´t hold a grudge against them, hope there´s an actual redemption arc down the line and they don't just forget about them like with the other villains,

Speaking of that, Cozy is probably the best vilian on the entire show.Hell, she´s better than Thanos cause she doesn't have an stupid justification, she just want s POWAAAAA! And she´s damn adorable and effective, she almost won.

Still They missed a chance to say that the missing magic was going to the human world to tie things up with Equestria girls for once and who the hell delivers letters to tartarus anyways?

The finally more than makes up and gives almost everyone a chance to shine so I like it. The mane six were treated with a LOT more respect than in the damn movie that's for sure.

Good solid episodes.

8/10

So that´s season 8, is not that bad honestly.. Had they had a better focus it would be better. Continuity is still a bit of a mess and just saying past stuff doesn't count but hey they´re trying.

Now I have like 40 Equestria Girls episodes to catch up though…

[doomedandstoned]

BAILEY’S CHOICE

Youngblood Supercult guitarist Bailey Gonzales shares her 10 favorite albums of Autumn.

Photo by Johnny Hubbard at Doomed & Stoned Fest

First off, let me preface by saying that this list is just a fraction of what I would include on a good, solid Autumn playlist, but everything must end at some point. Most of these you’ve probably heard, some you may not be familiar with, and others perhaps long forgotten and thus need a good revisiting. So here goes:

1. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young – Déjà vu

This has been in my catalog since I first started smoking weed in the fall of my freshman year of high school and learned to enjoy the hazy, beautiful strains of intricate harmonies that permeate CSNY’s iconic brand of folk-blues rock. Their albums were always on rotation in my house when I was growing up, but until I started to fully understand its cosmic, layered beauty, Déjà vu fell more or less into the “lame music my parents listen to” category for me. Now it’s a staple, especially as the weather starts to cool and the leaves start to turn, and I’m thrown into some kind of sepia-tinged yearning for the past. Funny how things change. This album holds some of the group’s most acclaimed work; I can’t point out a single track I’d skip over.

2. Graveyard – Graveyard

Graveyard by Graveyard

Speaking of high school—I grew up in a very small town in Southeast Kansas, and when MySpace made its debut (yes, MySpace), I found a page for this indie label called Tee Pee Records that absolutely dictated what I would listen to take the edge of my Black Sabbath cravings—this is where I was ultimately introduced to stoner rock and all of the branches of the retro heavy metal genre—and one of them that always stuck with me as I worshipped this label’s releases thereafter was Graveyard’s self-titled album. There are so many great tracks on this album, with “Thin Line” being an absolute favorite and even an echoing of one of my darkest autumn remembrances (won’t delve into it, but the subject matter will lead you where you need to go). Fantastic, timeless album.

3. Jonathan Snipes & William Hutson – Room 237

Room 237 (2012) is a funny little documentary. I love it, despite the fact that this film lays out conspiracies about Stanley Kubrick’s version of The Shining that range from absolutely Kubrickesque crazy-but-plausible to totally ludicrous, leaping-to-judgement scenarios and breakdowns related to the hidden puzzles within the original adaptation. But, we are talking about music here: this album plays like Stranger Things meets Goblin meets John Carpenter. There is nothing necessarily special about it, but in trying to find an OST that would fit neatly within this list, this fella kind of jumped out to me. Not everybody enjoys soundtracks, and while I could listen to creepy, ambient synth all day long, every day, Room 237 seems like it could entrance any listener, especially with standout tracks like “To Keep From Falling Off” to “Universal Weak Male” and even with the closing track, “Dies Irae” which plays off the original theme from The Shining.

4. Trouble – Trouble

It blows my mind that this album was released in 1990. Everything about it screams, “I WANT TO MAKE YOUR EARS BLEED: ‘70s METAL STLYE.” It’s like a lost and very angry Sir Lord Baltimore album was found in someone’s murky basement and sold in a musty, long forgotten record shop. The kind of place where you might hear whispers of dark legends. Somewhere that may be evocative, in legend, of the kind of place that Mayhem’s late singer, Dead, slit his wrists, throat, and blew his brains out and everyone commenced for this orgiastic blood feast of mourning to say, uh, “let’s take a photo of his dead body and slap it on a bootleg album cover and make necklaces out of his skull...” It’s not that harsh, but there’s definitely something spooky, dark, and forbidden about it. You may ask yourself, if you’re just hearing this album for the first time: “Why don’t they play some of these tracks on the radio?” Well, my child...do you really want to know?

5. The Steepwater Band – Revelation Sunday

This collection of hot tunes from The Steepwater Band is, apart from 2011’s Clava, one of our band’s road staples. We often don’t agree on much when that road cagey feeling hits or when disagreements happen, which incidentally is why things tend to work well with us, but The Steepwater Band, Mount Carmel, and Gary Clark Junior are all things we can come to terms with through the van’s trebly stock speakers. Maybe it’s the bluesiness. Very moody folk-blues rock tunes, with a touch of whiskey-fueled country, is what these guys exhibit in songs like “Slow Train Drag,” “Dance Me A Number,” and “Steel Sky.” A plus material, in my book, and good for the road on a cold night’s ramble.

6. Black Sabbath – Never Say Die!

Can people stop it with the “I’m tired of Black Sabbath” comments??? You know they are the reason we’re all here, and whether you like to admit it or not, you dig a good Sabbath tune either once in a while or every day. Doctor’s orders. Now I don’t think that a playlist is complete without a Black Sabbath album, but autumn seems the appropriate time for their fumbling, but strong conclusion — 1978’s Never Say Die!   And I really don’t care that I know I’m in the minority for loving this album. To me, while it’s their most strained Ozzy-era album (I won’t even touch 13, so don’t ask), it’s full of premonitions of things to come, including a full out jazz brawl in “Breakout” that reminds me of the mean streets in Dirty Harry, and songs that might make the bravest of our genre cry, like “Junior’s Eyes.” “Shock Wave” goes through the typical rough and tumble changes that Black Sabbath fans learn to embrace, but it comes in wave after wave after wave. Hell, even the title track is nearly full-out punk rock. If you’ve avoided this album, please—give it a spin. Even if it’s only to hear Bill Ward sing. It’s the album I fell into when I joined my first band in the fall of 2008 and what pushed me into the direction of branching out to things I’d long avoided. I literally shit my pants every time the first synth breakdown in “Johnny Blade” comes over the speakers, and I think you should, too.

7. Madonna – Madonna

Speaking of shit you probably don’t wanna read…who out of us has given Madonna’s 1983 debut a spin? Anyone? Bueller? Yeah, I didn’t think so. For you folks who can appreciate this one, I applaud you for admitting it. It’s not a sin to listen to Madonna (tell that one to the Vatican), but unless she’s been covertly transformed into Lana Del Rey or someone else on the darker and more modern side of the pop spectrum, you’d be hard pressed to find an admitted fan in our heavy underground group. And you know what? I don’t give a single fuck (yes, I learned that language from M herself). She’s a goddess, an icon, a killer songwriter—if you don’t believe me, tell that to the $400 million she has neatly tucked away—and dammit, she taught me to give a little less of a fuck in times where I don’t have too many to spare. This is another reason my parents are badass. Who in the world would buy their kid the “Like A Virgin” album only if their 11-year-old can ask for it by name without getting too embarrassed at the thought of saying “virgin” out loud to the Camelot Music clerk? Yeah, that’s right. Anyway, listen to this. Just do it...Madonna would.

8. The Midnight Ghost Train – Buffalo

Buffalo by The Midnight Ghost Train

I met Steve Moss at a show in Topeka in late 2009 at a dive bar where the drummer from my first band was singing in his new group. We did the obligatory thing and then, holy shit—this band starts playing and glasses start clinking and I swear to god I thought the whole damn place was going to cave in. They play a bunch of tunes and I’m so fully entranced it’s stupid. After the show, I went up to their singer/guitarist and said, “Um, that was really fucking awesome. I loved how you slipped “Hand of Doom into the middle of one of your songs.” Bam. We were instant buds. I couldn’t believe that they had come out of Topeka, Kansas. Later, while they were prepping to record 2012’s Buffalo, we had a very memorable fall jam session and some shows together, and EVERY. DAMNED. TIME. I felt like there was just something insanely special happening. Buffalo proved to be an instant classic, and even though The Midnight Ghost Train boys seem to always be on tour, I visit with my old pal Steve from time to time when he’s around, and nothing can erase those crazy, almost LSD-like imprinted memories of our house shows together. Hell, we reunited again just last month in another Topeka dive bar. I still have almost 3 hours’ worth of an interview I need to write that documents Steve’s early life up until the recording of Cold Was The Ground. The circle goes round and round. And I sure as hell can’t shake that sound.

9. Creedence Clearwater Revival – Green River

I don’t know what everyone else thinks about when they hear the track “Green River” from Creedence Clearwater Revival, but I think of Gary Ridgeway. I know that’s way far off, but I can’t help it. I also think about the album cover, and how many people still try to copy it, unintentionally. And I think about Stephen King. If you’ve read a few of his novels, you know from some of his passages, he’s a total CCR freak. I’ll give him a pass for mentioning Springsteen so much just because he’s a damn genius. But I bet the casual listener has never heard the song “Sinister Purpose” on the radio airwaves. It sounds like it belongs on a damn Leaf Hound album or something. Thank god for small favors. This is the epitome of southern blues rock. All you Lynyrd Skynyrd fans can fight me (although I won’t knock them), but CCR has earned their grimy, yet rightful spot as the Bayou’s most raw and creepy rock group. And way down in the fall, there’s always a bad moon rising.

10. Buffalo – Dead Forever...

Man, I was going to write up a few more albums, but this is the end of the line, folks. Australia’s Buffalo caps it off with their 1972 album, Dead Forever...   I can see this piece being released today, and that’s why I’m so glad everyone in this community puts out music that can rival little-known bands like Buffalo. I have a sweet spot for this group. Nobody will ever be able to answer why this killer band could never receive any airplay, and that question still lingers as absolute over processed shit continues to infiltrate the airwaves and real emotion can’t shine through. One of the promotional stickers for this record was, “Play this album LOUD.” Seen that before? Is history repeating itself in belittling our efforts to get out there and WARP THE FUCK out of people’s minds? I guess so. But we can fix that. Put the needle on some Buffalo, don your battle jacket, and work on getting some fuzz into some onlooker’s ears. Listen carefully, and don’t let the Buffalo situation happen to us all.

Hear Bailey's 'Autumn Vibes' Playlist on Spotify

Photo by Johnny Hubbard

The Great American Death Rattle by Youngblood Supercult

[dynoguard]

NaNoWriMo: Return of the DinoKnights (Day 12)

Day 1 & 2 text is here.

Day 3 is here.

Day 4 is here.

Day 5 is here.

Day 6 is here.

Day 7 is here.

Day 8 is here.

Day 9 is here.

Day 10 is here.

Day 11 is here.

Today’s update is extra long, so I have included a read more break to not completely destroy everyone’s timelines. 

“Are you sure this is the right way?” Jason asked. The dark hallways of Science Tower One reminded him of his father’s video games; a maze of doors, winding hallways, vaulted ceilings made of the same bits, rearranged over and over again. 

“It’s not.” Linn replied. “Not if we’re trying to get back to control. But we’re not.”

“Are you going to eat me?”

Linn stopped. She spun around with a hop. To Jason, she moved like a small bird, deliberate and graceful with bursts of erratic speed. “Eat you? Did that translate right?”

“You say we’re going to find your friend but we’re just wandering in the dark.” Jason said. “And the teeth and claws and stuff.”

“You don’t like my claws?”

“It’s not-” Jason shook his head. “Just, if you’re going to eat me, give me a head start.”

Linn lowered her head but kept her snout forward, her neck curving gracefully, the feathers on her forearms fanning out as she clicked the large, curved, sickle-like claws on each foot against the floor.  “Why would I give you a head start when I could just GOBBLE YOU UP!”

She lunged forward, jaws snapping open, her sharp teeth bared. Jason leapt backward. The back of his left leg caught the edge of the cylindrical decorative planter behind him, sending him tumbling, gracelessly, over a squat fern of what was (until today) an extinct species.  

Jason started to struggle to his feet in a panic when he heard Linn laughing. Her laughter came in bursts, starting as musical giggles then rising to full guffaws before halting with an inhalation of breath that sounded a bit like a goose honking. 

“Are you-” Linn managed to say through her laughter. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” Jason said. Linn extended a clawed hand and, after a moment’s hesitation, he took it. It was smooth and scaled and softer than he expected. He could feel her claws against his skin, but as she helped him to his feet he did not feel even a scratch. Even when his weight shifted unexpectedly as he untangled himself from the plant. 

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist. And your face, the look on your face!” Linn laughed. 

Jason flushed with embarrassment, his brown skin turning a darker shade for a moment. He leaned against a smooth section of the hallway wall. “Okay, yeah, if I’d been watching it would have been funny. But if you didn’t lure me down here to eat me-”

“You can talk and you’re not cooked, why would I eat you?” Linn paused. “You do cook your not-talking food, right?” 

“Yeah, we cook our food, most of the time.” Jason replied. “And we don’t eat anything that talks... that we know of.”

“Score two for humanity.” Linn laughed. “If we go to control, the adults are just going to put us in a corner until they figure everything out. So I’m being helpful, we’re going to meet Kyle where he’s going.”

“Where is-” The lights flickered on suddenly. Jason snapped his eyes closed against the sudden burst of light. 

“HEY THERE!-”

Jason turned to see the face of another dinosaur with its jaws wide open. He once against screamed and leapt back. This time Linn was there to catch him.

“-CU-CU-CUSTOMER!” The dinosaur was behind the wall Jason had been leaning on, which he could now see was a panel of black glass. The Dinosovian in the mirror resembled a green Tyrannosaurus Rex, though proportioned more like a human being and wearing a shiny, tailored purple jacket over a bodysuit similar to the one Linn wore.. He seemed vaguely plastic, a bit too angular, and his head plumage was coiffed into a ridiculous crest. “You look like you could use a snack with b-b-b-b-bite!” 

“Hey Mister Bite!” Linn chirped as if the creature were a life-long friend.

“Cu-cu-customer Linn-in-in.” The pitchman seemed to twitch and relocate within the glass as he spoke, An assortment of packages materialized around him, “Good to see you again. What can I g-g-get you?”

“It’s a vending machine?”

“You haven’t heard of Mister B-b-b-bite?” The pitchman turned its attention to Jason. “You must have been living under a r-r-r-ock.”

“Is it broken?” Jason asked. “Why does it talk like that?”

“It’s called sh-sh-showmanship!” Mister Bite replied. 

“Yeah, that’s kinda Mister Bite’s deal.” Linn said, turning her own attention to the screen. “Two Chomp-Chomps, a Drom-sized Splort, and- Jason what do you eat?”

“What?”

“Mostly meat, mostly veg?”

“Mix of both?”

“Make that two Drom-sized Splorts, and a Cerowrap.” 

“Coming right up, Cu-cu-customer Linn!” A series of clanking noises and thumps came from behind the wall as a short, catchy tune filled the air. “C-c--communications are down, your account will be debited once connections are re--re-restored!”

A small door, previously indistinguishable from the rest of the wall, opened, and a tray extended from it. On the tray were a pair of red plastic pitchers with silver writing that the translator told Jason’s mind was Dinosovian for “Splort!” Next two it were what looked like a pair of candy bars in silver wrappers and what appeared to be a burrito made with an unfamiliar leaf in place of a tortilla.  

“Thank you, Mister Bite.” Linn shoved one of the pitchers and the leaf-wrap into Jason’s hands. 

“No Pr-pr-problem! Come back when you need more B-b-bite in your d-d-day!” The plastic pitchman then vanished, the screen going blank, once again becoming a pane of black glass. 

“All this talk of eating you made me hungry.” Linn tore the wrapper off the first ‘Chomp-Chomp’. Jason had expected a candy bar of some stripe, but the package contained a tube of cured meat covered in a breading that was mostly small seeds. She took a bite.

Jason sniffed his wrap. It smelled like lettuce with a hint of mint. Under that lay the smell of unfamiliar spices and a hint of something meaty. “So is Mr. Bite like, artificially intelligent or just prerecorded?”

“Low-end AI, programmed to sell food, make small talk and tell some jokes.” Linn replied. “How do your vending machines work?”

“We push buttons.”

“Just like the ones in Historic Tuskaroon!” Linn chirped. “We went there one year on vacation. I got to shoot a brigand with a crossbow, I was all-”

Linn mimed firing the crossbow, then hopped to where she had aimed it. 

“And he was all-” and acted as though the bolt had struck her in the chest, grabbing the impact with a claw and dramatically flopping to the ground. “Ugh!”

Jason took a wary bite of his wrap. The leaf crunched, and tasted much like it smelled, like minty lettuce. The fillings were warm, something that tasted like almonds but was soft like baked beans, a ground, lightly spiced meat that was vaguely pork-like in texture and flavor, and a savory sauce. “This isn’t bad. What kind of meat is this?”

“Dragonfly.” Linn replied. She took a drink from her pitcher, holding it up and gently pouring into her mouth. “But its totally super-processed.”

"Gross.” Jason said. He took another bite anyway. He took an awkward sip from his pitcher. It was carbonated, like a soda and it tasted like coffee and almond milk with a hint of tropical fruit. 

“Huh...” Linn paused. “I just realized we don’t know if you can eat this stuff.”

“It doesn’t taste poisonous.” Jason said. 

“But you could be allergic or something. Maybe you should just let me-”

Jason noticed that both of Linn’s ‘Chomp Chomp’ wrappers were empty. “We can go back if you’re still hungry.”

“Eh, maybe in a bit.” Linn stopped in her tracks.

“What is it?” 

Linn turned to the wall on their left. A heavy door large enough to drive a car through was stuck, half-open. Or, more accurately, half of the door and a section of the wall was missing, Beyond the empty gap was a large, dark room. 

“This is Project Zero.” 

“I don’t come from your time, please explain.” Jason replied. 

“All the Science Towers have cutting edge science projects, some are classified. One in five dinos here work on Project Zero but no one talks about it.” She stepped through the gap, her tail swishing behind her.

“Wait, you said it was top secret.”

She stuck her head out of the door. “Which means if we’re going to find out what it is, we need to do it now, when no one is around to catch us.”

--

“Monsters! You have monsters just wandering around and you didn’t think to tell us?” Sheriff Horne glared at the human Gloria Anning. She and Sagan were the only ones in the control room when she finally made it up stairs. 

“Describe the monster... was it furry with big claws, yay big?” Gloria indicated about five feet with her hand, then mimed a pair of antlers with her hands “Or was it four legged with big horns?” 

“No, not an animal, a monster.” Horne seemed even larger and more powerful in her shiny blue armor and her frustration was palpable. “A monster, capital M, emphasis on the ‘onster’, it was like a living shadow full of purple lightning,”

“We don’t... have anything like that.” Sagan said.

“No. We don’t.” Gloria said. “Tell me more, Sheriff.”

Sheriff Horne recounted her journey to the vehicle bay in detail, omitting exactly how much the chittervoles had startled her.  

“Is it possible this ‘specter’ could be something you picked up on your way to the present?” Gloria asked.

“I don’t know. I’m not-” Sheriff Horne sighed. “I’m not good with the science. I know how to operate stuff-”

She slapped her armored hand against her chest plate for emphasis. “-but Linn’s the smart egg in the family.”

“And she’s wandering around with my son right now.” 

“That’s not good.” Horne said. “I mean, no offense, but I don’t know you, or your species. For all I know he could eat her.”

“He is a teenager.” Gloria interjected. 

Both Horne and Sagan looked at her.

“I’m kidding,” Gloria said. “I’m pretty sure we have more in common than we don’t. Which is is why instead of returning here now that power is on, everyone has wandered off and left us to worry.”

“She’s right.” Sagan said. “So do we wait here for them to come back or go looking for them.”

“Kyle and Zara are scientists at the top of their fields.” Sheriff Horne replied. “And Brach’s just as smart and curious.”

“So we-” Gloria began.

-better find them before they accidentally teleport us into the sun or unleash killer robots on the world or turn air into fire or something.” Horne said as she stomped toward the door to Section 2. 

[strawberri-blonde]

Boyfriend Tag - Tyler Seguin

Requested: Yes

@champagne-for-the-painn :Hey, can you do a tyler seguin one where the girl is a famous youtuber and her and tyler do a video together? Thanks

Word Count: 2,316 (got carried away)

___________________________________________________

Your fans knew that you were dating the infamous hockey player, Tyler Seguin because he was in the background of some of your YouTube videos, accidentally of course and the both of you have posted pictures on Instagram. To say that they were shocked is an understatement, you’ve expressed your hatred for fuckboys in past videos. So they just couldn’t grasp the thought of you two together and to be honest you didn’t either.

When you first met Ty, you wanted nothing to do with him. You didn’t want to be another girl that got tangled in his sheets. But somehow he convinced you to give him a chance and so far you haven’t regretted it. Tyler has shown you a different side of the “player” everyone pins him to be. Sure he could get a girl naked in three seconds but he has so much love for his family and you wouldn’t have guessed but he’s very insecure that you’ll find someone else.

You wanted your fans to see what you saw in Tyler. A goofy guy that always seems to put a smile of your face. So when your fans wanted you two to do a video together. He didn’t object to doing it. And that’s how the both of you ended up at the foot of your bed with a camera ready to go.

_X_

“Hey, guys.” You smiled at the camera as you did a wave. “It’s Y/n and I’m here with a very special guest, Tyler Seguin.” You turned to your right to look at the hockey player besides you. “Say hey, Ty.”

“Hi.” The brunette replied then awkwardly smiled causing you to laugh, then he followed right after. “What?” He smiled.

Hi.“ You mimicked his facial expression and laughed some more.

“Geez, act professional, Y/n.” As Tyler said this, you leaned your head on his shoulder and calmed down.

“Okay.” You breathe out. “I’m back.” One last laugh escaped from your lips. “This week I’m doing the boyfriend tag. If you haven’t noticed by this dude’s presence.” You pointed at Tyler with both of your thumbs.

“How do you do that exactly?” Your boyfriend questioned as he looked at the camera then back to you. “I mean, am I being ask questions?”

“I mean, yeah.” You shrugged while typing in your phones password. “It’s a series of them that deal with with our relationship.” You lifted up your legs from the floor to be in the criss cross position.

“Oh”, nodding his head he put a hand on your thigh.

“Okay, first question.” Tyler crossed his arms over his chest. “When did we meet and where?” You looked at the camera then to him. “I know this answer.”

“So do I.” He smiled while letting out a groan. “This sounds so bad but,” Tyler laughed out. “We met at a local club in Dallas.” You nodded your head in agreement. “I want to saw seven and a half months ago.”

“Eight.” You corrected. “Eight and a half because it took me a month to agree to go on a date with you.”

“That’s right.” He smiled. “First time, I’ve had a girl turn me down.” This made you roll your eyes. “But I’m glad you turned me down.” His arms wrapped around your waist. “It made me want you even more.” You still didn’t look at him trying to hold back the smile on your face. “Normally, I would’ve sealed the deal in the first night. I would be done with them but with you, I loved the chase more.” He grabbed your chin and turned your head to face him. His lips pressed against yours for a small peck.

You looked back down at your phone. “Where was our first kiss?” This made Tyler smirk.

“Lips or other places?” A gasp escaped from your lips as you shoved him off of your body. “I’m joking.”

“I’m sure.” You laughed but couldn’t control the smile beaming from your face.

Tyler straighten his posture as he looked at the camera. “Our first kiss was during our third date.” Then he made a made. “Yes, you heard me right, third date.” He held up three fingers. A laugh was coming out your mouth as he made the next comment. “She made me wait for a lot of things.” That was the truth about so much.

“I wanted to make sure you weren’t going get what you wanted then leave. I wasn’t just going to open up for a player.” This caused Tyler to gaped.

“I was not a player.” He put a hand over his chess.

You raised one eyebrow. “Yeah, okay.” You moved on. “Who said, ‘I love you’ first?”

“Me.” Tyler said without a second beat. “But she didn’t believe me.”

The room was lit up with your laughter. “That’s so true.” You leaned into him. “I truly thought he was the joking.”

“But I wasn’t.” His hands rested on your hips so he could move you onto his lap. He kissed your cheek and you continued.

“When is my birthday?”

“Easy question y/b/d.”

You nodded your head. “This is a good one. Where does my family come from?”

“The outskirts of Austin.” He wiggles his eyebrows as he looked at the camera.

“You do listen.” You exclaimed while patting his chest. He smiled proudly as he tighten his grip around your waist. “Okay, answer this carefully.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound good.” You laughed a little.

“What is the one thing you wish I didn’t do?” You looked down right as he pressed a kiss to your bare shoulder. (You were wearing a tank top)

His thinking face was full on display. “I wish,” Ty paused. “I wish you didn’t worry so much.” You nodded your head. “You tend to let your anxiety take over.”

“That’s true.” You said to the camera. “I do, do that, but I can’t help it. It’s my anxiety.” You shrugged then opened your mouth to ask another question but Tyler interrupted.

“I’m not saying that I hate it.” He stated while running your back. “Because I like it when you have a little episode and I’m the only one who can calm you down. It makes me feel special.” His words got quiet at the end and you couldn’t help but aw.

You turned to the camera. “Excuse us for a moment.” You turned back to your boyfriend and cupped the side of his face so your thumbs were stroking his earlobes. Without hesitation you pressed your lips to his which caused Tyler to lose his balance, resulting with him to land on his back and you straddling him. You giggled against his lips as his hands went stopped just above your butt.

~Video skip~

You both were siting in your original seats like at the beginning of the recording. “Where was our first date?” You both stopped to think. “I have two possible answers.”

“Yeah, so do I.” His right hand rubbed at his stubble.

“You go first.”

“I’d have to say when we went ice skating.” You smiled at his answer thinking back to it. “Because that was the first time you agreed to go out with me.”

“Yeah,” you continued to smile. “That’s what I was thinking or that café.”

“But that wasn’t a date. I just figured out that you’d be there and I showed up and we had a cup of coffee together.”

“That’s fair.” You scrolled down on your phone. “What do you think is my favorite thing about you? And if you get this wrong you might as well leave.” You said jokingly of course.

“Easy.” He made an ‘a got this face.’ “My tattoos.”

“Eh.” You shrugged.

“What!” He laughed. “You always talk about them and whenever we’re cuddling you run you’re fingers up and down my arms.”

“I do but you know that’s not my favorite.”

His eyes squinted. “Then what?” You smiled at the camera before jumping off the bed and walked over to the door. Once you opened it, two furry creatures bursted through. One immediately jumped on your bed while the other sat at the end of the bed. Tyler started to laugh. “You got to be kidding me.”

You cooed at the doggies and made your way back to the bed letting one of them lick your face. “Guys this is Cash.” You patted the black lab who was behind you licking your ear. You pushed him away with a laugh then bent down to kiss the brown labs head. “And this is Marshall.” He returned the favor by licking your chin. “And this is my favorite thing about Ty. His choice in doggies.”

Your boyfriend motion Marshall over so he would sit in between his legs and Cash laid down behind the two of you. “I can see that.”

“But I do like your tattoos.” You paused to change the tone in your voice to sound like a girly girl. “They’re like really hot. I just melt every time I see them.”

“Oh really,” a smug look appeared on his face.

“Totally.” You said in hat same voice. He smiled before pressing his lips to yours.

~Video skip~

“What food don’t I like?” You let Marshall jump on the bed and rest on your lap.

“Tomatoes, which is weird because you can eat ketchup straight out of the bottle.”

“I can.” You dropped your head acting as if you were ashamed. “If I would go to a restaurant would drink so I order everything time.”

“Sweet tea.” He spoke with confidence. “Your obsessed with it.”

“I am.” You smiled then looked back at your phone.

“This should get interesting.” You smirked. “What’s my favorite sports teams? There’s like four.”

“Yes, I know.” He nodded before leaning back to think. “Dallas Stars,” you lifted up one finger. “Ugh, Anaheim Ducks,” you made a face that he didn’t see. “New Jersey Devils.” You snickered. “And, uh, Tampa Bay.”

“What the fuck, no.” You laughed.

Ty came back up. “Then who?”

“Dallas Stars, Edmonton Oilers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Toronto Maple Leafs.” He made a face.

“You’ve never mentioned any of them.”

“I have so.” You squealed. “Come on, I always talk about Sidney Crosby. And I’ve mentioned Draisaitl and Nylander before because you got jealous.”

“Nah, you’ve never said anything.”

You looked at him funny. “Please, even Cash would’ve gotten it right.” You both turned to the sleeping dog. “Anyway, changing topic.

"Who is my best friend?” You turned to him. “If you don’t get this. She’s going to kill you.”

“Y/bf/n.”

“Correct.”

“Good, because I know that the both of you would’ve hurt me.” You looked at the camera and smirked.

“Who’s my favorite hockey player and I’ll make it easy on you. You have to choose from the Dallas Stars.”

“Me.” You looked down and petted Marshall. “I’m not.” He sounded so hurt which made you laugh.

“No.” You tried to hold it together as you looked at his face.

“Then who?”

“Jamie.”

“Jam-” he stopped himself in disbelief. “You’d pick Jamie over me.” Tyler pointed to himself.

“You know I’ve liked him before I dated you.” His crossed his arms and looked away from me.

“Ty.” You pouted. “You know I love you.” You shifted your body which caused Marshall to move over to where Cash was. “You’re my favorite man. He’s just my favorite hockey player.” You straddled him and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I love you.” You nuzzled your head in his shoulder. “Please, talk to me.” You whispered so only he could hear. “If it helps I bet Jamie couldn’t make me scream as long as you can.” This made Tyler looked at you with a compressed smile. “Oh course I mean, when I cheer for you.”

“Of course.” You both kissed.

~Video skip~

“I would spend hours on?”

“Reading, which is weird.” Ty said while grabbing your hand to play with your fingers. “Who reads?”

You rolled your eyes in response. “What kind of books do I read?”

“I don’t know, you read a lot.” He sighed. “So a wide range.”

“I’d say that’s a good answer.”

“What talents of mine do you LOVE!!!” You screamed the last past making the doggies attack you with kisses. “The question was in all caps.” You explained showing him.

“Well, I LOVE your cooking. I’d say that’s a talent. Especially, when I have friends over and you cook for us. But then again it’s not hard pleasing a bunch of hockey players.”

“That’s so so true.” You laughed.

“Okay, complete this sentence. My girlfriend is?” You set your phone beside you since that was the last question.

“My girlfriend is an amazing person, who deserves a whole lot more than what I give her.” This made you hit his shoulder, then you nuzzled against him. “She’s incredible smart, kind, and a great mother to my kids.” You looked at him questionable but once you felt one of the dogs hit you in the back with their foot because they were stretching you knew what he was taking about. “When I saw kids, I mean, Cash and Marshall. And I’m crazy about her.”

You kissed his lips. “I love you.” You mumbled against his lips.

“I love you, more.” You two kissed some more until both of the dogs wanted to join in.

~Video skip~

“Okay, guys this was the boyfriend tag featuring Tyler Seguin, who played the part of my boyfriend.”

“You made it sound like you casted me for the part.” He joked causing you to make a face and continued on.

“Anyway, I hope you liked this video give me a thumbs up and comment down below if you want Ty in more videos.” Tyler stuck up his. “And don’t forget to subscribe. Bye my cuties. Until next time.”

[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 73 - TOR - The Nylander Bowl

There was a part of this season the Sabres and Leafs were on a collision course. Right after the win streak there was that game that felt like a real rivalry matchup. I suppose I’m a little bias since I experienced it in person, but I think we all felt the same way at the time. The Sabres, slotted right behind Toronto in the standings at that point looked like they were finally in the same league for the first time in a long time. Perhaps they were both in a quite shitty place together at one time but that’s not nearly as fun. That game was so close it damn near went to the shootout. It was not to be and since that matchup Buffalo has tumbled down a hill in a historic way, not only falling out of the playoff picture but losing so much in the back half that there is an outside chance they pick top 5 in the Draft. We can rehash our mournful lack of playoffs or we can look north of the border where getting playoff games hasn’t exactly made our Canadian brethren all that much happier. They have also been rather shit since the New Year, albeit not quite as shitty, and they’re now staring down the barrel of a first-round matchup that runs a high likelihood of knocking them out early. Trust me, I’m near to selling a kidney for a Sabres playoff series at this point but in Toronto they’ve had one going on in April three years in a row now and enter this one prepared to sound a five-alarm fire when their predicted knockout comes. The grass is always greener on the other side and sometimes with the way we talk about the Leafs that other side is the other side of the border as it were. This game was a bit of that. This game last night was hardly fun but when it was it reminded you of what this matchup could be a behemoth of a rivalry waiting to happen. I’ll save the Leafs’ playoff fate for Playoffs according to the Sabres because if you are a Leafs fan reading this… well first off thank you, share this, you Ontario folks love your hockey…  you probably aren’t from Toronto. Leafs fans who show up to Sabres games are mostly the St. Catherines/Hamilton bunch who either can’t afford Toronto ticket prices or just don’t want that. All the whining about Sabres fans not showing up for Leafs games is warranted but its more stupid than you think at first glance. Now let’s talk about the game that happened last night.

This game had fewer shots than some Church events I’ve been to, particularly that first period. Carter Hutton was playing the role of Nun evidently and stymied a lot of the Leafs fun. The game was grossly lopsided in favor of the not so lonely visitors from the start. The Sabres only had seven shots the whole period and didn’t break five shots until the final five minutes of the first. The Leafs shot 19 shots in the first. Some weaker opponents don’t put up that much in a game… like uh, the Sabres who only put up 24 shots the whole game! This lopsidedness perhaps colored both fanbases reactions then when the only goal of the period was by Sabre Casey Mittelstadt. Mittelstadt tapped in a Dahlin slapper from the line behind a Garret Sparks who was apparently struggling to locate the puck. Exhaustion may have been an excuse the Leafs could use, this being the back end of a back-to-back but Sparks was fresh as Spring morning so that didn’t extend to him. That said, the Leafs started on time and outplayed the Sabres in every category in the first except powerplay goals. Mind you, the Leafs have been in a bit of a funk lately and the fanbase is beginning to fire up the hot stoves for Mike Babcock’s firing. The funny thing is, they’re complaining about a lot of the stuff Sabres fans complain about Phil Housley about: player deployment, player minutes, roster choices… oh no, this is going to be another summer of courting hall-of-fame coaches isn’t it? HURRY, TO THE PEGULA JET! FIND QUENNVILLE’S HOUSE AND DROP MONEY ON IT! I DON’T WANT ANOTHER DAN BLYSMA, PLEASE! GENEROUS LOCAL PLUTOCRAT, PLEASE! I KNOW YOU CAN GIVE Q JUST AS MUCH MONEY IF NOT MORE THAN THE ENTIRE CANADIAN ECONOMY, DAMMIT!

Nonetheless, the Leafs funk was snapped out of in this game and they proceeded to put up another 19-shot period, this time scoring two goals. While the first period had a smattering of penalties that somehow the Sabres were the team to get something out of, the second period only had one and it was Zemgus Girgensons cross checking Nazem Kadri. I’m a Buffalo Sabres blog so by law I have to state what a little pest Kadri is. There you go. While I’m on it let’s just say if Girgensons scored as much as Kadri does I wouldn’t be thinking about what I can get for him in a summer trade. I’m just saying. That goes for you to, Risto. Poor Brandon Montour, showing off how great a pickup he was for the Sabres these last few games, he gets just bamboozled by Auston Matthews. You could see he didn’t realize it went in off his skate because he looked like a ghost had just given him a weggie. I’m not going to bring anymore light on his plight because once again, he’s been doing great. The feature of the second period I will bring to light is the almost goal William Nylander scored. John Tavares ended up getting credit for the second Leafs goal but for a moment it looked like it could’ve been Willie’s. Hold that image in your head as we fast forward to the third where we find noted brother of William Nylander, Alexander Nylander, getting a puck from VLADIMIR SOBOTKA, and absolutely drilling that one home from between the circles. If this game was going to be the Nylander bowl, which it is on this blog as long as it continues to feel like an unnecessarily lopsided matchup every time we face the Leafs, then fam, we have won. We won the Nylander bowl. Nylander < Nylander, obviously! Having already won the game with that goal, the Sabres pushed hard for the equalizer to perhaps force overtime and get their first back-to-back wins since November. By the time Zach Hyman scored the empty netter I was already popping bottles celebrating Buffalo’s first Nylander Bowl Title! All kidding aside, this game stung something mighty and ended up 4-2 Leafs. I literally cried in the shower.

Don’t worry, I was kidding about the shower. The good news is we have some fun speculation to talk about! I know I bit hard on the Duchene stuff and that didn’t come to pass but give me a break, the Sabres season is still active until I get back from seeing their last game in Detroit next month. Until then, I am going act like the championship can still be won with some key additions! To start out with Dave Poulin and Jeff O’Neill were having a little talk about Joel Quenneville on one of probably eight dozen hockey segments on Toronto radio stations the other day and they think Coach Q’s best option if he wants to return to coaching may just be Buffalo. All the stuff about whether or not Housley will get fired aside, is that something we want? I’ve talked about it hypothetically up until now but would the second winningest coach of all-time coming to Buffalo finally be the coaching solution we’ve been looking for since Lindy Ruff was shown the door back two millennium ago? There is certainly an argument and if it happened I can’t imagine Jason Botterill isn’t crafty enough a guy to A. work with him as now the smaller fish in the pond, and B. provide him with a good enough lineup to replicate some of the success he’s known for. I can imagine about half a dozen other options that don’t seem too bad either and also do something different than just bringing in the big Hall of Fame guy but its fun to speculate. This next rumor is all speculation backed up by zero experts… its actually more of a Play-a-GM kind of thing actually… what is the likelihood of Erik Karlsson? So: disclaimer; he’s not coming here, and that cap hit is probably not so bueno, but let’s imagine this low year he’s having with San Jose causes second thought and Karlsson leaves. He’s said he is proud of Rasmus Dahlin and loves the Swedish phenom, what if he mentored him like Ra’s al Ghul and Batman? Again, just saying. I saw some joking on twitter and it got me going. That’s what we’re here for: stupid fan shit like that.

So anyway: like, comment and share this blog around. I appreciate all you readers so much, whether you’ve been here all year or not. If you haven’t and you think it would be awesome to go back and read the win streak New Look Sabres posts than maybe use that time to share this with a friend instead; I did just that thing the other day and it made me sad. Speaking of things that make me sad: the Sabres have a chance to sweep the season series against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday. Why does that make me sad? Well, we have now lost five straight games to the Leafs and it feels cheap to wipe out Montreal in a season series while not getting the Leafs the same way. It’s like going to the Duty-Free store on the border and getting Aunt Jemimah’s pancake syrup: you got all this Canadian around you and you take the crap! The only thing diminishes a season sweep of the Habs is getting swept on the season by the Leafs. I better end on a more positive note than that… Jeff Skinner hasn’t signed yet… SHIT!

Thanks for reading.

P.S. The Sabres getting a couple games in the “Global Series” in Stockholm, Sweden in November is pretty rad considering how much of this organization is Swedish now. On the other hand, I see all of us complaining about the travel and those games actually counting in the standings. Can we all resolve right now to just enjoy those games?

[momentsofmendes]

Do ya? Part One

“Do you remember your first big heart break?” “First, last…latest. Yeah that sort of pain never really leaves you. You’ll know what I mean about that one day.” I answered her. “Latest? Ah.” she smiled at me knowingly. “What?” I laughed. “I wondered why you were suddenly free and eager to come over here on vacation.” “It’s not a vacation, as you yankee-doodles say. It’s a holiday. An eight week long holiday which I am using to forget the boyfriend that just left me. We lived together, so I’m now homeless until I start university in approximately 10 week’s time.” I tried to sound jovial about the whole thing, was pushing the whole ordeal to the back of my mind and trying to focus on the positives which were a) a whole summer in New York with a friend b) freedom c) I was finally starting university in September - about four years behind the rest of my friends who had always known what they wanted to do. I hadn't been so lucky. I had to venture out in the scary world of work to discover what I really wanted to do with my life. “Guessing you don't want to talk about it, but I really want your advise. I haven't even had my first kiss yet and its so hard to meet guys. Especially now that I’m in college, they all want one thing.” she rolled her eyes. I loved that she still had something innocent about her. He had yet to experience a lot of things, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She hadn't experienced the heart wrenching experience of someone leaving you, falling out of love with you. I had one guy I was seeing for a few weeks cheat on me with one of my best friends. The funny thing about that ordeal was that if she’d just told me in the first place I would have told her that I wasn't that interested in him. We haven't spoken since. “One of the positives of this break up is that I can now put the money I saved for a house towards university. 10 weeks to go.” I raised my glass. “To new beginnings, and to my stories putting you off men forever.”

~

Vanessa’s idea of cheering me up was steering a semi drunk me to what looked like a concert venue. “Who’s playing?” I asked. “I cant tell you.” “I need to know, if its someone hot you’re supposed to throw your knickers at them in appreciation. What do I throw at this person?” The knicker throwing was an old saying, pretty sure it was something my mum’s generation did back in the Rod Stewart days. She laughed, a bubble forming from her nose. I erupted into uncontrollable laughter in unison. “Throw whatever you brits throw at each other.” “In that case I need to crack into my emergency tea supplies and load up on ammo.” I dug around in my hand bag before I came across what I was after, not really sure why I had packed them in there and not my carry on, and pulled out my box of Dorset Tea. “I’m sure that this mysterious person will appreciate my efforts as I’m sure they too recognise how hard it is to get a decent cup tea here. “You’ve been in the country for four hours.” she laughed. “Precisely, I’m gasping.” It quickly became apparent that the person who's concert we were attending was a big deal, the queue outside extended way down the street. “You don't mind waiting here while I grab the tickets from over there do you?” she pointed towards the end of the line and then over to the box office. I shrugged. “We love to queue.” She didn't get that I was making a joke, but I didn't expect her to either. I observed the other people in the queue, a mixture of ages and both men and women. All were dressed pretty normally, no band shirts in sight to give away who it was. I wondered who she liked and tried to work it out. It couldn't be one direction due to the current hiatus and the fact that the queue was relatively calm and not awash with screaming teen girls. She came back over a few moments later which surprised me, brandishing what looked like VIP passes. “For you.” she said, passing me one of the neck worn passes. “Wow, fancy. Where do you get the money for this stuff?” She tapped the side of her nose and whispered. “My dad’s in the garbage disposal business.” “I think I’ve worked out who it is, and he is definitely going to appreciate my tea bags.”

~

“Give me love like her. ‘Cos lately I’ve been waking up alone.” We sang along loudly, every word felt like it was stretching my lungs to capacity, and by the end of the concert I was hoarse and a little dizzy and hot from being packed in so close to everyone else in the crowd. “There’s a bar in the VIP area, I’ve been here before.” she guided me through the crowd, most were dispersing out into the foyer of the venue to go home, but not us, oh no. Vanessa was resourceful. I’d have to ask what she meant about her dad later on, it was probably an inside joke that I didn't get, just like she didn't get so many of mine.

“So what is a cheeky nandos? Ed mentioned it between drunk and don’t.” “Why don't you ask yourself?” I giggled, pointing in the direction of the very bar we were heading for that she had turned away from to question me. “He’s right there.” “I can’t!” “Why not? Take a tea bag with you for a conversation starter.” I was half joking but thought it would actually be the sort of thing he might find funny, or at least memorable. I could imagine him going on the Graham Norton show and being questioned about the craziest things fans have ever done, giving him a tea bag in a New York concert venue had to be up there with some of the craziest things he’d ever experienced, surely. “Fine but I’m approaching it from the ‘my friend is a crazy weirdo from the uk that carries tea around in her purse’ angle.” “Fine but remember, never put the milk in first.” I shoved her in Ed’s direction, watching closely as she tottered off towards him, her heels making herself head and shoulders above most in the room, she really didn't need them. I positioned myself at the bar and looked at the tender, wondering if he was going to ask me for ID and if he would accept my UK driving license as proof enough of my age, or whether I should have brought my passport with me. I ordered a cocktail, something with a weird name, it was the only thing on the menu without a rude name. “You don't look old enough to be drinking.” the voice came from behind me, it was accented but not one that I could place. I was terrible at recognising regional accents. I knew for sure that he wasn't from Jersey like Vanessa, she had a very memorable twang to her voice. I turned and looked at him. Tall, slim but well build, very handsome with dark brown hair that quaffed up at the front, and a strong jaw that wore a goofy smile. I sized him up. “Neither do you, does your mum know you're out?” “She does actually, she’s here.” he laughed. The tender came back with my drink and I turned fully to the guy and held out my hand. “I’m Elle.” “Shawn.” she shook my hand, somewhat awkwardly which made me feel like a nutter for even offering it. “Which one’s your mum then?” I asked, sipping my drink. It was fruity, and way too sweet. “That one over there.” He pointed then laughed awkwardly. “She’s a brit too.” “Ha that’s funny, I didn't expect to meet quite so many while I was over here. I was here for some escapism.” “She made me come over because she noticed you getting teabags out and giving them to that very tall girl. Looks like she's making a big impression on Ed by the way.” I leaned onto my tip toes and peeked over his shoulder at Vanessa, who was in hysterics, as was Ed, both bent double. “I knew that would work.” “Are you from the same place as the tea?” I shook my head, snapping back to our conversation rather than spying on my friend over his shoulder. “Yes - well where the brand is from. Tea isn't really grown in the UK, everyone knows its all imported. We like to pretend that we invented it though.” “You’re kind of funny y’know?” he smiled at me, a really big smile and I went all melty. Forgetting that I had vowed to be a boy free zone for the rest of my life, or just the next three years while studying. “Funny looking?” I probed. “Definitely not - you’re hot.” “Wow you american guys are forward…” I laughed, widening my eyes. “I’m Canadian.” his cheeks gained a blushed hue and I smiled. “My apologies, I don't have a good ear for accents - and all I know about Canada is hockey, maple leaf, moose, cold, Justin Bieber…” I laughed awkwardly. “Well Elle. I’d like to give you a lesson if you have time. How long are you on vacation for?” He looked hopeful, reaching into his pocket and fishing out a phone. “I’m on holiday over here for 8 weeks, pretty much the whole summer. Do you live here?” I asked. “At the moment.” he nodded, running his hand through the back of his hair, making it stick up even more. “I’m doing some work here, a uh project.” “You’re old enough to work?” I joked. “Hey - I’m probably no younger than you are. You’re what? 19?” I laughed. “Try 22. You’re 19?” “18 - but I’m very mature for my age.” he assured me. I wouldn't have been able to guess that he were only 18 if he hadn't said anything. He had soulful dark brown eyes that seemed older and wiser than their years, like they had really seen the world and had a story to tell - I liked that. “I’m sorry to dash Shawn but I think my friend just did something embarrassing and needs a swift escape. I’m going to go and save her.” I smiled, touching his wrist, the hand that still clutched the phone. “Wait - Elle. Can I- Can I have your number?” I took the phone from him and typed my number in, ensuring to include the +44 prefix at the beginning and advised him to whatsapp me so that I didn't get a horrendous roaming bill from O2 higher than my student loan. He just smiled, shaking his head lightly with a suppressed laugh. His parting words as I brushed past his shoulder were “She’s different.”

[sarahlwlee]

31 Stories in 31 Days: Playful

What is this? As part of celebrating Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month (May), I am writing a story a day about my experiences as a Chinese Malaysian immigrant in America. My friends and family have provided numerous one-word prompts to help me create these stories. Today’s word prompt was contributed by Kathy B. and the word is “Playful”. Thank you Kathy for your contribution and thank you everyone who stopped by to read my story today.

I became an aunt when I was 11 years old. My first experience of being an aunt was babysitting Kristy, my sister’s first born daughter, with my mother and brother when she was a baby. I remember when my sister was pregnant, my sister allowed me to touch her tummy when Kristy kicked or what seemed like a punch to the stomach wall from the inside. Before we knew the gender of baby, we use to call Kristy “Peppermint”. When my sister had her first ultrasound of the baby (if memory serves me well), Kristy was the size of a peppermint leaf and so she was nicknamed Peppermint all through my sister’s pregnancy.

A couple of years later, John was born, my sister’s second child. He had a complicated birth but with swift action of doctors and great care he was born a healthy baby boy. Each year as both Kristy and John grew up, they would visit grandma’s and grandpa’s house, which is the Sri Petaling house. This was when I was most playful with niece and nephew. Whenever they came over to the house to be babysat, we would take them to the playground near my secondary school which featured the latest playground set made of metal and plastic with colorful features. The playground closer to the Sri Petaling house was made of wood, metal chains and pipes with a single coat of dark brown paint, which didn’t last long and started to peel as well as rust. I remember my father painting the playground set because he wanted all the kids in the neighborhood to have something nicer and a safer set for me to play when I was a kid.

As Kristy and John grew bigger, we advanced from outdoor playgrounds to McDonald’s indoor playground, where we grabbed lunch and Kristy would run and play. I remember teaching Kristy how to eat fries with an ice cream sundae by dipping your fries in the ice cream. Personally, I was a fan of dipping nuggets in an ice cream sundae and tried to convince the kids when they were little that this was the best way to experience nuggets and fries. I am guessing this didn’t stick with them. When I asked them recently when we were reconnecting on a video call, they only remembered fries and ice cream.

In addition to teaching them bad eating habits, we use to make silly videos together with my old digital camera and take a lot of very random photos. During this same video call, I decided to show them some of the videos as well as photos. It was so silly and funny, almost cringe-worthy at some points but it made us laugh. At the time I was dating someone else and I had a ton of stuff toys from my ex-boyfriend, which I affectionately called them my children. So Kristy, John and I played make believe with these stuff toys as my imaginary kids and recorded many videos.

When Kristy was about six or seven years old, Jerry was born, my brother’s first born son. I didn’t spend as much time playing with Jerry as I was going to college and I didn’t spend a lot of time at home. The most notable memory I have of Jerry when we had family gatherings at the Sri Petaling house was his utter dislike of the soft turf grass in the garden. Every time I tried to put him down on the grass he would lift his little feet up refusing to set foot on the grass. Kristy said it was probably his feet feeling ticklish from touching the grass. I couldn’t tell if he was ticklish or he didn’t like the texture of the grass, but this happened often enough that it became memorable. Jerry spent a lot of time with my parents whenever I was away at classes or hanging out with my friends. Often I can tell when any of the kids were in the house because toys will be all over the floor in the living room and sometimes the kids were in my room because they were looking for me to play with and some item in my room would have been moved by the kids.

Recently, when we were talking on the video call we were testing the features of Zoom for my father’s wake service. We took the opportunity to catch up, poke fun at one another and reminisce old memories together about grandpa as well as about each other. I realized I missed so much about my nieces and nephews lives while I was gone for almost 17 years from Malaysia.

Kristy and John are now pursuing their master’s degree in the United Kingdom with an emphasis on Teaching English as a Second Language. They blew me away with their keen observation on what they are evaluating for their thesis proposal. My brother’s daughter, Sherry, I barely know much about her because I had left the country. I learned that Kristy played the role that I had played for her as an older caring and playful family member.

When Chauncey and I visited Malaysia last year in May, we stayed at my brother’s house which gave us the opportunity to get to know Jerry and Sherry a little more than “Hi” and “Bye”. I learned Sherry studies really hard to excel in school and was planning on taking the Grade 8 piano exam. Jerry is absolutely passionate about cars and can tell you a lot about how a car should operate. Both of them just astounds me as young smart people.

I can’t wait to see what’s next for Jerry, Sherry, Kristy and John. I am not their parents but I am a very proud aunt of their accomplishments so far and what they will undertake in the future. In a way it’s great to see the next generation carrying some of the important admirable traits of our family, such as kindness and care for others as well their humorous teasing of one another. I am sure there are many more traits, this is what I have been able to garner in our few short video calls.

Sometimes I wonder if we will always keep in touch this way or if someday we will lose touch with one another? I dare not fathom the thought of losing touch and maybe that’s enough to ensure we won’t give up on trying to stay connected. The choice of living in a different country has had a lot of impact on maintaining a close family relationship, however my entire being has been hard wired to accept these choices. Maybe it feels hard wired or rather its a defense mechanism to survive because I have had a lot of time to come to terms with those choices.

Every time I visit Malaysia, I try to stay as open as possible to conversations with my family and try not to box someone into a memory or time frame of reference that may or may not be representative of them today. I always have to remind myself that I have changed too even though there are parts of me that are still very much the same. Perhaps I need more faith in my family and God to maintain or even grow what we have.

[flauntpage]

DGB Grab Bag: Chicago Hopeless, Stone-Faced Karlsson, and Math—How Does it Work?

Three Stars of Comedy

The third star: The curling faceoff – This was a pretty funny way to open this week's outdoor game.

Slightly less funny: A few hours later when the curlers got drunk and threw the rock into the power generator.

The second star: Erik Karlsson and Eugene Melnyk – I'm no body language expert, but I'm not getting a real big "Can't wait to sign a long-term extension" vibe here.

By the way, this was literally front-page news in Ottawa. Good times up here.

The first star: Nazem Kadri vs. Rasmus Ristolainen – Not their fight from Monday's game; that wasn't all that good. But their post-scrap debate on the subject of conceptual mathematics was fantastic.

Kadri's right, by the way. I guess we can add "counting" to the list of things the Leafs are better than the Sabres at, right next to "draft lotteries."

Outrage of the Week

The issue: The NHLPA released the results of an extensive poll of over 500 players, who were asked to weigh in on various questions about life in the league. The outrage: Wow, did you see the results? They were stunningly, jaw-droppingly… boring. Is it justified: To be clear, it's cool that the NHLPA does this stuff. Some information is better than no information. But with most of this poll, it was only slightly better. We learned things like "Connor McDavid is fast" and "Sidney Crosby is good." (We also learned that Carey Price is the league's best goalie, so apparently many of the surveys were returned by mail that took three years to arrive.)

Some of the results were mildly surprising—Wes McCauley ran away with best referee honors, and the players still seem to love Shea Weber and Jonathan Toews. We also found out that players apparently have no idea how bar graphs work. But that was about it.

Some eyebrows were raised over the revelation that 77 percent of players support the current points system, but that's no shock at all—just like their GMs, of course players are going to like free bonus points. The coach can't bag skate you too hard for a three-game losing streak if you still picked up a few points, right? If anything, the story here is that even a league where banking points is everything, 23 percent of players have still realized that the current system is awful.

Maybe the most depressing section of the poll comes at the end, when players are asked to name the best ever at various positions, because it ends up serving as a reminder of how damn young today's players are. The forwards are all from the 80s and beyond, with no love for Gordie Howe or Rocket Richard or Jean Beliveau. They get the best defenseman right, with Bobby Orr taking top spot, but he only gets 61 percent of the vote, with Nicklas Lidstrom finishing a relatively close second at 29 percent, no mention of Doug Harvey, and Scott Niedermayer(!) finishing fifth. And the goalies skip over Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, and Jacques Plante, but find a spot for Price in the top five. Seriously, when were all you guys born, in the 90s? (Thinks for a second.) Yeah, don't answer that.

At the end of the day, it's a fun little poll that clearly isn't trying to ruffle any feathers—the only question with a negative focus is about bad ice. That's understandable, but man it feels like a missed opportunity. Don't you want to see these guys rate the league's worst coaches, referees and GMs? Can't we ask them which owner they'd least like to play for, or which city has the ugliest fans? While we're at it, let's get them to rate Gary Bettman's job performance on a scale of 1 to 10, or explain where they plan to spend the 2020 lockout. Maybe even include an essay portion where they have to explain goaltender interference.

It was a good effort, NHLPA, but you can do better. Next time, give us the director's cut.

Obscure Former Player of the Week

The Blackhawks are finally bad again, and they're going to miss the playoffs for the first time in a decade. It goes without saying that fans around the league are heartbroken, and we wish to offer our love and support to Hawks fans during these difficult times.

But if it helps at all, it's worth remembering that there have been far worse Blackhawks teams than this year's mess. And sometimes, being pathetic enough to warrant a little bit of pity can pay off. So this week, let's devote our obscure player section to the story of Ed Litzenberger.

Litzenberger was a big winger who had the misfortune of trying to break in with the Montreal Canadiens in the 1950s. That team was pretty stacked, making it to the final for ten straight years, and Litzenberger only managed to crack the lineup for a total of five games across two seasons. He finally earned a regular spot in 1954, and was reasonably productive, managing 11 points in the season's first 29 games. But that's where those terrible Hawks come in. By the mid-50s, Chicago had made a habit of finishing dead last, and the franchise was at serious risk of going under. So in a rare burst of charity, the other teams decided to offer up just enough help to keep their competition alive.

That help included Litzenberger, who was traded to Chicago for cash midway through the 1954-55 season. Well, "traded" might be pushing it; some sources use the word "donated." Either way, the deal was his chance to take on a top line role, and he made the most of it by racking up 40 points in the season's final 44 games. That was enough to earn him Calder honors as rookie of the year, the only time in the award's history that a player has won it while splitting his season between two NHL teams.

For the rest of the decade, Litzenberger starred in Chicago, earning second-team All-Star honors in 1957. He was a big part of the franchise's rebuild into contenders, eventually helping them win a Stanley Cup in 1961. He was traded to Detroit that summer, and then quickly made his way to Toronto where he'd win three more Cups. The 1964 championship was his last NHL action, but he'd head to the AHL and win two more titles, making him by some accounts the only North American pro hockey player to win a championship in six straight seasons.

So let Ed Litzenberger be a lesson to GMs everywhere. If over the next few weeks Stan Bowman comes up to you making puppy dog eyes and mumbling about how tough it is in Chicago these days, do not give him one of your best prospects just to be nice.

Be It Resolved

Seattle is getting an NHL team.

That's not really breaking news at this point. If any of us somehow hadn't clued into that development over the last few years of watching the league make eyes at the market, their recent ticket drive seals the deal. The ownership group collected 10,000 deposits in the first few minutes and over 25,000 in the first day.

So yeah, while nothing will be official for a while, it's basically a done deal. Seattle is getting a team, probably for the 2020-21 season. People are already doing mock expansion drafts. This is happening. And it's good news for everyone.

Well, almost everyone. And then there's Quebec City.

They'd been holding out hope that they'd be an expansion candidate. They have an arena ready to go, and plenty of NHL history. They'd hoped to bring back the Nordiques, just like Winnipeg brought back the Jets a few years ago.

But now it probably can't happen. Seattle gives the NHL an even 32 teams, which finally brings us back to the days of two equal conferences and four equal divisions. While it wouldn't be unheard of for the NHL to beat a good thing into the ground, it certainly feels like this will be the last round of expansion for at least a little while. And that means Quebec City is out of luck, at least when it comes to expansion.

Of course, that's not the only way to get a team, and that's where things get a little touchy. Quebec has long been one of the top targets for every rumor about an NHL team relocating. That quieted down slightly during the expansion process, since there was a more obvious path back to the NHL available. But now that that door has slammed shut, we can expect to start hearing whispers about some team or other making eyes at Quebec City.

So today, be it resolved that when the "Struggling team is moving to Quebec" rumor mill starts firing on all cylinders again, we can all be cool about it. No, it's never fun to see some other city salivating over your team. No, that team probably won't move, because to his credit, Gary Bettman makes it very hard to relocate a franchise. Yes, all that Quebec talk is probably wishful thinking, and maybe even a publicity plot to squeeze more arena upgrade out of your town.

It's annoying. But it's not the fault of fans in Quebec. They just saw their best chance at a team fade away, so they're going to start looking toward Plan B. They know how much relocation sucks—they went through it themselves, and with a team that immediately turned around and won the Cup to boot. But right now it's their only shot. You can't blame them for taking it.

We all know how the game is played. So let's handle it without having a meltdown. That means you, Florida, Arizona, and Carolina. You, too, if the arena thing falls through, Islanders. And hell, maybe even you, Ottawa and Calgary, at least as long as your owners are allowed to talk. Defend your turf, sure. But save the faux outrage that someone else is trying to lure your team away. It's a long shot, but it's all they have. And you'd do the same if the roles were reversed.

Classic YouTube Clip Breakdown

There's been a minor controversy up here in Canada this week involving the Vancouver Canucks. Basically, the organization seems to have decided that the market is too negative, and not everyone disagrees. That's spiraled into a bigger discussion over how a fan base should treat a team that continually finishes last, and whether fans deserve some share of the blame when the team they root for can't get it together.

That's all well and good, but let's take a moment here to defend Canucks fans. Are they negative? Sure. But you would be too if your team was underperforming. And it's a few bad apples spoiling the bunch—it's not like everyone who likes the Canucks is some sort of toxic jerk.

So today, let's hit up YouTube and randomly search for somebody being positive about the Canucks. I bet if we got back to the franchise's better days like, say, 1994, we can find a perfectly wonderful person who's willing to say nice thing about them. Hey, here's a clip now!

Oh.

So, this clip is from an intermission during Game 2 of the 1994 Stanley Cup final. The Canucks are facing the Rangers, and New York came in heavily favored. But Vancouver pulled off the upset in Game 1, earning a 3-2 overtime victory in which goaltender Kirk McLean made 52 saves, and they're giving the Rangers all they can handle in the second game.

In one of those wacky "man-on-the-street" segments, a Vancouver reporter has apparently found a few diehard Ranger fans to interview about the series. We never do catch the guy's name, but he's apparently a local real estate developer. That's a good business to be in. Here's hoping he sticks with it, rather than doing anything else ever.

"You've got some team, and you've got some goalie, I can tell you." See? This guy knows his stuff. The Canucks did indeed have a goalie that year.

Our reporter starts to ask them if they're surprised about something, then suddenly does this really weird pause where he seems to get distracted. I can't be sure, but I think it might have something to do with the time traveler from the future who appears just off camera holding a sign that says "RUN."

He finally stumbles through a question about whether the Rangers should be kicking more butt, in which case this nice man's wife gives a very smooth answer about how any team that makes the final will be a good one. Very diplomatic! She should go into politics.

(I’m kidding, of course. Only politicians should ever be involved with politics.)

Next we get a somewhat weird question about the difference between New Yorkers and Ranger fans. Our nice real estate man ignores the question completely, and instead mentions the Rangers' 54-year Cup drought and that "they've met somebody who's doing an incredible job in goal, as you know about."

He, uh, has no idea what Kirk McLean's name is, does he?

"He's there taking a lot of shots. Many more shots." Nope, no idea at all. But he's right about all those shots. McLean was playing like a wall in this series. Like a real actual wall, not one you just make up. I'm not sure why I felt the need to clarify that.

We close with the nice man's wife, who jokes about hockey not being all that big down south and then suggests that maybe Atlanta should get a team again. Ha ha, whoops! I guess this couple has some bad ideas.

Epilogue: The Rangers ended up winning this game and the next two after it to take a 3-1 series lead. The Canucks fought back to even the series before losing a heart-breaking seventh game in which Sergei Zubov and Alex Kovalev combined for three points, because sometimes the Russians help one side win. In hockey. Again, not sure why I felt the need to clarify that.

Anyway, here's hoping this fine couple, who are no doubt still happily married to this day, enjoyed the Rangers' win. They seem like real hockey fans. Maybe someday they'll even get to personally meet some Stanley Cup champions, and everyone will be happy.

Have a question, suggestion, old YouTube clip, or anything else you'd like to see included in this column? Email Sean at nhlgrabbag@gmail.com.

DGB Grab Bag: Chicago Hopeless, Stone-Faced Karlsson, and Math—How Does it Work? published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

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Power Rankings: The Bruins are getting ridiculous

The Bruins have had a lot to celebrate lately despite some recent injuries. (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Hey everyone, we here at Puck Daddy are doing real power rankings for teams Nos. 1-31. Here they are, based on only how I am feeling about these teams, meaning you can’t tell me I’m wrong because these are my feelings and feelings can’t be wrong. Please enjoy the Power Feelings.

31. Vancouver Canucks (Last week: 31)

Yeah they haven’t won a game since the deadline week, but the real issue here is all the Elliotte Friedman “this is a toxic town” stuff. Media and fans do indeed complain about how bad the team is a lot.

I seem to recall that when the Canucks were good like six or seven years ago, and even before that, the local media was all too happy to carry water for them, and their fans were huge pains in the ass to deal with if you didn’t think Alex Edler was an elite defenseman or whatever.

Things were going great. So how did it get so toxic?

Let’s take the toxicity analogy as far as it will go, but pretend the Canucks aren’t a hockey team, but rather a local nuclear power concern. In this scenario, the “good local actor” company that was producing all those good returns some time ago had an industrial accident brought on by the aging core and having no real plan for dealing with, and an owner whose lack of expertise in the industry but demand to continue pushing more profit led to unsafe conditions. Eventually there’s a meltdown, and the company is now kind of shuffling around with no real plan to fix the issue.

Now then, it is absolutely not the fault of the media for merely reporting, “Hey it’s kind of messed up that all our fish have three eyes,” nor the local residents for complaining that those three-eyed fish don’t taste very good and don’t want to buy them. Should we feel bad for the poor, set-upon stewards of this company? Should we ask for more capital-C Civility in complaining about those issues?

It’s a silly idea, right? The thought that Benning and Linden and Aquilini (who’s really the brains behind all this) should be able to walk down the street without being pelted with trash is fair enough, but if you think a little name-calling on local radio and Twitter is a bigger problem than that the Canucks are a directionless franchise that can’t figure out what the hell it’s supposed to be doing, that’s outlandish.

Last I checked, it’s a fan’s right to complain when their favorite team sucks, and few would disagree that Vancouver sucks. (Those people are afflicted freaks.) So it’s in poor taste to say that? Am I getting that argument right?

Absurd.

30. Detroit Red Wings (LW: 28)

29. Ottawa Senators (LW: 30)

But hey, at least the Canucks fans aren’t Senators fans. Eugene Melnyk sent out a letter late last week saying basically, “You know I’ve done all I can to make this team competitive, right?”

Can you even imagine having that kind of audacity?

28. Buffalo Sabres (LW: 29)

27. Arizona Coyotes (LW: 27)

26. Chicago Blackhawks (LW: 23)

I saw something last week where management hasn’t really begun looking too much at ways they can improve and be competitive again this summer. Pretty funny.

Unless they can Coagula Procedure the brains of some of their core guys into younger, better players’ bodies, the fact that they’re paying a combined $54 million (give or take) to Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Brandon Saad, Artem Anisimov, Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith, Connor Murphy, and Corey Crawford or each of the next three seasons kinda puts a damper on those plans.

They have seven players on their ELCs this year and need to re-sign three of them. This is a mess!

25. Montreal Canadiens (LW: 24)

24. New York Rangers (LW: 25)

Funny week. The Rangers sold most of their good players and then went 3-0-0 on the week, outscoring opponents 12-8. Sure, they gave up 50-plus shots in back-to-back games, but this is the opposite of what they’re supposed to be trying to do.

23. Edmonton Oilers (LW: 21)

The Oilers signed Colin Larkin, Dylan’s older brother, out of Div. 3 UMass Boston. He had 46 points in 27 games for the Beacons, putting him fifth in the nation in points per game at what is admittedly a pretty low-level quality of hockey.

It’s not unheard of for Div. 3 players to make the NHL, but it’s quite rare. The quality of these players is mostly pretty low, and it’s not uncommon for guys who couldn’t hack it in Div. 1 to transfer and become Div. 3 superstars.

So if you want to say this is a thing where the Oilers are just angling to offer-sheet Dylan Larkin this summer so he can play — and actually keep up — with Connor McDavid next year, that’s a conspiracy theory I would like to subscribe to.

22. Florida Panthers (LW: 26)

Six straight for the Panthers, and winners of 13 in their last 16. Plus they have a lengthy homestand coming up after tonight’s one-off road game at Tampa.

But here’s a real question: Does anyone think this team is any good at all? Like, anyone?

21. Carolina Hurricanes (LW: 21)

20. New York Islanders (LW: 18)

I’m calling it with these guys. They wasted their last year with Tavares. That’s my prediction.

19. Anaheim Ducks (LW: 17)

18. Calgary Flames (LW: 15)

People are gonna act like they’re falling apart because Mike Smith got hurt, but if you didn’t think: a) a 52-year-old goalie with as many hard miles on him as Smith was gonna be injury-prone, and b) Smith’s outlandishly good play this season wasn’t masking a lot of this team’s depth issues, I don’t know what to tell you.

17. Colorado Avalanche (LW: 16)

If Colorado misses the playoffs by a single point or something like that, and Nathan MacKinnon loses the Hart voting, I’m gonna riot.

16. New Jersey Devils (LW: 17)

At this point it would be very difficult for the Devils to miss the playoffs, but it really seems like they’re trying pretty hard to do it anyway.

15. Los Angeles Kings (LW: 15)

The Kings are starting to put it together again, it seems to me. A little of that is luck, at least lately, but if you think this is maybe one of the two or three worst playoff teams in the league, I have plenty of time for the argument.

14. St. Louis Blues (LW: 11)

A fun statistical quirk is the Blues got outshot by more than five shots per game and were outscored 7-12 in three games this week, but went 1-1-1. This team’s cooked. Expect the slide down the standings to continue.

13. Minnesota Wild (LW: 13)

The Wild have been hanging in this “they’re on the higher end of decent” area for a while. They keep winning with it, for the most part, but every time I’m like “Ah, I should move them up” they lose in humiliating fashion.

This week it was 7-1 at Colorado, but they’re still winners in six of their last eight, so what can I really say?

12. Columbus Blue Jackets (LW: 12)

11. Philadelphia Flyers (LW: 13)

It’s hard for me to square the Flyers being this high with their not-good week, but it was mostly on the road and all that, so I’m not too mad at ’em.

I mean, I think they have some stuff to figure out and they’re still the third-best team in their division, but I have a lot more time for them now than I did even when I was telling people not to freak out about the 10-game losing streak because this was clearly a good team.

But man, you gotta get Andy MacDonald off the ice.

10. Dallas Stars (LW: 10)

9. Toronto Maple Leafs (LW: 9)

The all-white uniforms were good. Hate to tell ya.

8. Vegas Golden Knights (LW: 6)

Losing to the Senators at home is a pretty good argument for folding the franchise.

7. Washington Capitals (LW: 9)

Let’s just say it’s a good thing the Caps had a bunch of games against the Atlantic in the past week-plus.

6. San Jose Sharks (LW: 6)

The idea that Evander Kane of all the players in the league was what the Sharks were missing is pretty weird, but here we are.

5. Pittsburgh Penguins (LW: 5)

They’re gonna have to white-knuckle this until Matt Murray comes back, for sure. But the way things have gone in his absence already, I dont know if they can pull it off without falling into a wild card spot. Imagine you’re the Caps or Flyers, you win your division, and they’re like, “Here’s the Penguins. Have a good one.” Not for me.

4. Winnipeg Jets (LW: 3)

3. Nashville Predators (LW: 4)

2. Tampa Bay Lightning (LW: 2)

1. Boston Bruins (LW: 1)

Now the Bruins just seem to be doing stuff as a joke. “Ha ha ha this is so easy for us. We’re gonna let Patrice Bergeron get hurt.” Then they keep winning. “Okay, what if Charlie McAvoy gets hurt too?”

Pretty wild to try it but I admire the gumption.

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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What We Learned: Erik Karlsson and blowing up the Senators

It’s a matter of when, not if, Erik Karlsson moves on from the Senators. (Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

Wouldn’t you know it, but that team everyone said probably wasn’t any good last year despite going to the Eastern Conference Final, is now decidedly not very good.

The Ottawa Senators finished Saturday night seven points back of the Bruins, and three other teams are between them in a division where it certainly seems like there won’t be a wild card team come April. They’ve also won just four points in nearly a month, with a win and two OT losses in their past 12 games.

So seven points might as well be a million, and the Senators are now wisely starting to look like they could go through a minor blow-up of the roster, which is something that has been badly needed for some time.

The front office asked all of the players on the roster with some sort of no-trade protection — and there are 10 of them! — to turn in their lists of teams to which they would not approve a trade. As was pointed out on Hockey Night in Canada, the team made a similar move in 2011, then dealt Mike Fisher, Chris Kelly and Alex Kovalev.

Matt Duchene, by the way, has no such protection.

Despite all the talk about the Senators being a bad team (they are), there are also some very talented players on the roster. Erik Karlsson is obviously one of a handful of the best players alive, but guys like Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman are high-end talents as well. They’re not stars but they’re guys you can build around. The rest of the team, well, the less said about it the better, especially because of how money is appropriated throughout that roster.

What’s interesting is that we talk about the Senators being a budget team, which they are by all accounts, but they’re not that far from the cap ceiling ($1.725 million) and have six contracts worth at least $5 million AAV.

Any time any sort of discussion about the Senators cutting salary comes up, the attention obviously turns to Karlsson, whose prime was effectively wasted through organizational ineptitude, mismanagement and penny-pinching. Karlsson is the star here and makes a good chunk of change, and is already making noise about (rightly) demanding a fat contract in summer 2019, when he’ll be 29.

While the Senators didn’t trade Karlsson in that 2011 talent purge, such as it was, they would have had no reason to do so. At the time, he was still in just the second year of his ELC and therefore under team control for nearly a decade to come. Now, nearly seven years later, the idea that he’d price himself out of Ottawa anyway come free agency time, and that Pierre Dorion can probably get some fairly valuable stuff for him (especially given his bargain contract), they necessarily must consider trading him. Get the no-trade list, start working the phones. Someone is going to want him. Hopefully someone good with a haul of picks and prospects to give.

It’s an unenviable spot for Dorion, because if you trade Karlsson (and you basically have to, either now or in the summer) you might as well rip the whole thing down and sell it for scrap. A Senators team without Karlsson is a squirrel on the highway, and it’ll only be a matter of time before it’s crushed again and again by oncoming traffic.

I know we’re supposed to think, “Oh he’s in such a bad slump right now, how can he make these demands,” but let’s be realistic. Ottawa has a 53.9 CF% when he’s on the ice this season, and when he’s off? It’s just 46.9. Karlsson has been on the ice for 27 goals in 23 games. Ottawa as a team has just 49 more in 28. And this despite the fact that Karlsson has an on-ice shooting percentage right now of only 7.9 in all situations (the league average is 8.9).

Karlsson in another uniform might be unimaginable — and a hateful sight — to Senators fans, but they might want to start getting used to the idea. The problems with this roster aren’t all Dorion’s fault, but they’re certainly his mess to clean up, and given that you can’t afford to lose Karlsson for nothing in two summers (with what is probably going to be another lost season and a half) then the long-term health of the franchise must be the only consideration. Obviously GMs who trade superstars don’t end up keeping their jobs, and any rebuild Dorion initiates would likely last longer than he would, but the idea that you should try to trade, say, Bobby Ryan or Zack Smith but keep Karlsson only to (probably) lose him in 2019 is odious and irresponsible.

Of course, we also don’t know what a Karlsson trade ends up looking like. Given what GMs have recently had to give up to get okay-ish, cheap-ish middle-pairing guys who have a little bit more room to grow, there’s no calculable package a GM could give up, especially in-season, to acquire a player of Karlsson’s talent level. No such trade has ever been carried out in the cap era, and would therefore rewrite the book. If you can’t even get full value on a Hall-for-Larsson swap, the raft of picks, prospects and young skilled NHL players you’d have to concede would be incredible.

I know we talked a lot about sticking to your guns with Joe Sakic throughout the Duchene saga, but in the end, Colorado didn’t get anything much that’s going to help the team be competitive in the near-term. He got the best haul he could, which was a young, good NHL defenseman (Samuel Girard), a pretty good forward prospect (Vlad Kamenev), an okay-but-by-no-means-great first-year college player (Shane Bowers), a salary dump (Andrew Hammond), and four draft picks (including two first-rounders).

Could Ottawa reasonably expect more of a haul than that? Especially if there’s only one other team involved? It’s tough to imagine they would, simply because few would have the ability to give up more than that. Can you really ask a team for its entire draft for a year or two? You’re not getting Karlsson, or even a semi-reasonable facsimile, back, so you have to accept that any Karlsson trade is one you probably end up losing, and losing badly.

Nonetheless, you have to make it, because the other option is making him go through the motions for another 140 games or so as your club craters, then lose him for nothing in free agency when Eugene Melnyk can’t find the money between his couch cushions to pay Karlsson $12 million. Which, by the way, is what Karlsson is probably worth despite his age.

Maybe you feel like it was always going to come to this. It’s tough to say Karlsson should do anything but walk given the state of the team, the fact that he’s probably never going to win a Stanley Cup there, and that they might not be able to pay him anyway.

That gives you no choice but to blow it all up, because if the team stinks with Karlsson off the ice, think about what happens when he’s off the roster completely and nothing was done to replace even a portion of his value.

What We Learned

Anaheim Ducks: It’s too late.

Arizona Coyotes: Nice to get 35 shots but also sometimes you run into probably the best goalie in the world at that moment.

Boston Bruins: Do you think it’s possible the Bruins defense looks good because Tuukka Rask is playing out of his mind right now? Nah, that can’t be it.

Buffalo Sabres: The Sabres did a poor job drafting and developing talent but you knew that already, didn’t you?

Calgary Flames: Speaking of guys that haven’t developed, wouldn’t the Flames like the current version of Sam Bennett to be their friend for a while more?

Carolina Hurricanes: Carolina put a scare into Vegas but every bounce is going right for Vegas all season so, take the point and feel good about it.

Chicago Blackhawks: Vince Hinostroza was too good to keep in Rockford. Probably too good to have been sent there in the first place.

Colorado Avalanche: Lots of goals, sure, but also: It was Florida.

Columbus Blue Jackets: Doubtful that Columbus is the actual best team in the division again this year, but their case is so much more compelling now.

Dallas Stars: Sorry, but you need your best players to be better.

Detroit Red Wings: It’s getting to the point where the Detroit media is looking at 6-1 losses and being like, “Coulda been worse!” And they’re not wrong. Unreal.

Edmonton Oilers: Ah, the Oilers are good again. Just in time for them to lose four of five or something and have everyone turn on them.

Florida Panthers: A little surprised you’d retire No. 37 for Tanner Glass, but congrats to the guy. He earned it.

Los Angeles Kings: I love the trade for the third-best Subban.

Minnesota Wild: To be fair: It’s the Ducks.

Montreal Canadiens: Hmm, seems to me that “time” was two years ago, but hey.

Nashville Predators: The “original golden team” was California. It’s right there in the name, dawg. C’mon!

New Jersey Devils: Well, this headline reads like a Pepto ad.

New York Islanders: I don’t know how you blame goaltending in a game where your goalie stops 30 of 32 and the offense only scores one goal, but hey, it’s not like I’m a hockey genius or anything. (Just kidding, I am.)

New York Rangers: These are not the kind of headlines that end well.

Ottawa Senators: Haha, “becoming.”

Philadelphia Flyers: Can’t say for sure which Gudas comes back from suspension, but if I were a betting man, I’d put all my money on, “The one who tries to hurt people a lot.”

Pittsburgh Penguins: Oh yeah baby, here we go!

San Jose Sharks: Man, I dunno. Paul Martin is old as hell now.

St. Louis Blues: I don’t like to see that!

Tampa Bay Lightning: B-b-b-b-best team in the league.

Toronto Maple Leafs: I love when Tyler Bozak is occasionally good. That’s always funny to me.

Vancouver Canucks: My theory is that this Vancouver team was never that good. Just a theory!

Vegas Golden Knights: The Stars are the first non-Arizona team Vegas beat in regulation in like three weeks. Hooray for this definitely good team.

Washington Capitals: This was always a good team with Matt Niskanen in the lineup, but this run has been unbelievable.

Winnipeg Jets: Maybe they didn’t play that great, but to get a point out of Tampa ain’t bad either.

Play of the weekend

A bit of a comedy of errors in the neutral zone, but this was a nice one from Nathan MacKinnon.

Gold Star Award

Mitch Marner had three assists on Saturday night against the Penguins, and man, those were his first points in seven games. Must be nice!

Minus of the Weekend

Jimmy Howard gave up four goals on 10 shots and now has an .846 save percentage in his last nine games, after starting at .931 in his first 15.

Perfect HFBoards Trade Proposal of the Year

User “Baksfamous112” is got my attention with just this subject line:

Weber for Karlsson

Signoff

But what if I were to purchase fast food and disguise it as my own cooking?

—

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

(All stats via Corsica unless otherwise noted.)

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Biscuits! Lozo and DGB on Vegas Expansion, Bad Deals Waiting to Happen

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports Canada.

The following is from an email exchange between Dave Lozo and Sean McIndoe (Down Goes Brown). Each month they will talk some nonsense and debate the biggest topics in the NHL in our monthly review. You can also check out the Biscuits podcast with Sean and Dave as they discuss the events of the week.

Hi Dave...

Welcome to summer. After eight months of hockey, the season is over and we're officially on to the offseason. And in theory, it should be an especially entertaining one. With an expansion draft less than a week away and a bunch of trades, buyouts and other maneuvering that presumably has to happen before then, we could be looking at one of the busier weeks in recent history.

So my first question is: Am I just getting my hopes up here? Is there any chance the next week lives up to the hype?

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Lozo: The next week will be a lot like the Ottawa Senators in the playoffs. It will involve a lot average players in the spotlight getting a lot of attention but ultimately it will let you down in the end. Remember the Teravainen/Bickell trade? Packaging a good player with a bad deal? That'll be the height of it. A bunch of those moves. A couple buyouts. A non-expansion trade that will be decent.

Marc-Andre Fleury going to Vegas should be the biggest expansion story, but there's no way the Knights hang on to him, right? They have to flip him to Calgary or somewhere else.

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DGB: The cynic in me wonders if the whole "Marc-Andre Fleury is the greatest teammate ever" victory tour that's broken out over the past few days might at least be a partial case of the Penguins working to create a market. Sure, his numbers aren't great, but if he's Mark Messier in goalie gear, surely some team that values heart and grit over performance would be willing to pay up. And yes, that team would be Calgary.

The flip side is that the Penguins have four decent defensemen and probably only three protection slots. So it's plausible that they decide to just let the Knights take Fleury so that they don't have to worry about the rest of their roster. I guess it all comes down to where they can find the most value.

Speaking of value, or whatever the opposite of value would be: Dan Girardi. The Rangers announced they are buying him out. You're a New York guy... is this remotely a surprise?

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Lozo: Not in the least. Girardi hasn't been good in quite some time and Rangers fans will wonder forever if they could have contended again in 2015 if they had let Girardi walk and signed Anton Stralman instead. I mean, they contended. They got to a conference final Game 7 and lost to the Lightning… and Stralman.

There's a great teammate vibe about Girardi, too. But while Fleury had value, Girardi hasn't had value since maybe 2014. Girardi is the poster boy for the new NHL in terms of defenseman who can start breakouts and analytics. It's funny that Girardi types are being phased out of the game faster than fighters.

Now the Rangers have freed some more room for Kevin Shattenkirk, who should help carry the Rangers to maybe the second round again.

You know what's weird? The notion the Preds can't lose James Neal. If it creates room to sign a No. 2 center, that's good because they need that more than a scoring winger.

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DGB: I'm guess I'm OK with the Predators thing only because their season just ended, and they came so close to winning the Cup. If anyone should be allowed to overrate their existing assets, it's probably them.

But yeah, the rest of this league is getting ridiculous. All these GMs who are about to lose their 14th best player and seem to think it's the end of the world. You know how many players each team lost in the 1967 expansion draft? Twenty! Each! I am using exclamation points! Today's GMs don't have to make trades and get magic bonus points for losing, and somehow they're still here having panic attacks because they might have to part with Jay Beagle.

In related news, Tyler Graovac just got traded, so buckle up because now anything can happen.

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Lozo: I own a Graovac. It's great for big spills and sucking up crumbs between the couch cushions.

Glad we were doing this for that trade but what about what is now the second-biggest news of the day? The Habs have spotted the problem and now working on the trade that will solve their issues—getting rid of Alex Galchenyuk.

The Habs are PlayNow and Marc Bergevin is George Costanza. First the Subban trade and now he's looking to move Galchenyuk. You can't tell me he's not trying to get himself fired so he can collect his entire contract instead of a severance. If he deals Carey Price for Fleury the world will know I'm right.

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DGB: Ha, Price for Fleury, good one. That would be a terrible deal for Montreal, and the only reason Bergevin would ever consider it is because Fleury is a leader and has two Cups and is french and oh my God he's going to do it, isn't he?

Marc Bergevin, a man you can count on to make a bad deal. Photo by Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press

The weird thing with Galchenyuk is that Montreal seems absolutely convinced that he can't play center, even though his numbers there have been pretty good. He's only 23, so you'd figure they might want to give him some time to settle into the position. But apparently they've seen enough, and since they need help at center and he apparently can't play there, he's the trade bait to get a top-six guy.

The other rumor going around today was a Galchenyuk-for-Jonathan-Drouin trade with the Habs potentially kicking in a first. That would be some kind of trade, although Drouin isn't a center so it doesn't seem like a fit. Maybe Montreal just thinks everyone in the league is playing the wrong position.

Other than Montreal, which team is the most likely to make a terrible decision over the next week or two?

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Lozo: Yeah, it's gonna be a great day in 2018 when someone in Montreal writes, without a hit of irony, that the Canadiens need a No. 1 D and C to build around.

I could see George McPhee getting fleeced. When in doubt, look to the guy who fired Bruce Boudreau and traded Filip Forsberg for Martin Erat. He will take on a bad contract but not get enough along with it. Or he will choose the wrong guys off teams. Or he won't get enough in trades for guys he flips. McPhee feels like a lock for about five bad moves.

Also Boston. The Bruins will screw up something.

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DGB: Pencil me in for the Avalanche not getting enough for Matt Duchene but feeling like they have to trade him anyway. Plus anyone who trades for Brent Seabrook. (If that team ends up being the Maple Leafs, you will never see me on this site again because I will have quit caring about hockey forever.)

Speaking of trades, according to Pierre Lebrun, the NHL has asked all 31 teams to make sure that none of the trades they might make with Vegas leak out before next Wednesday. Help me find the logic in this. It should go without saying that you want to prevent the actual expansion picks from leaking out—we covered this in the early days of the podcast. But wouldn't you want fans to hear about trades in advance? Isn't that the appetizer that gets everyone even more excited for the big reveal? I know I say this a lot, but I don't understand what the NHL is thinking here.

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Lozo: If there's a way for the NHL to shoot itself in the face, the NHL will find a way. I guess it's a competitive edge thing for Vegas, but wouldn't the other teams not want Vegas to have that edge and then leak things out? Like, say if I'm a team that made a deal to shed a bad contract and it feels like I paid a lot for them to take that contract, wouldn't I want that price out there so my competitors pay it?

Also, I too want to choose the Duchene thing. That's going to happen.

But back to the Vegas thing, I guess the thinking is fans get to spend Sunday-Wednesday playing around with protected lists, and that's their fun. Then they see the reveal and it's like the lottery drawing and you can see how many players you got right. And now that I'm typing here, we should do that. A contest where you see the protected lists, then guess at the roster with trades that you think will happen, too.

This stuff will all leak anyway.

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DGB: Right, but that's exactly it. If I see my favorite team's protected list and spend three days obsessing over who they'll lose, only to find out they cut a side deal a week ago that I never heard about, I've just been strung along. I don't feel like "Hey, what a fun reveal"—I feel like I wasted my time.

If it's about helping Vegas, well, it's not the league's job to help one team over the rest of the league. And if it's about protecting GMs from finding out they paid more on a side deal than some other team did, then it's yet another case of the league being more worried about the feelings of their GMs than about their own fans. I can't figure out an option where it makes any sense.

Other than the face-shooting thing. I should probably just go with that one. Occam's Raisin and all that.

Speaking of side deals we'll never hear about because the NHL hates us, my favorite rumor is the one that has the Knights agreeing to take David Clarkson in exchange for a first-round pick and/or top prospect. Are there any other realistic scenarios where McPhee and the Knights can get a first-round pick from someone? Maybe the Ducks and their blueline?

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Lozo: They can get a lot of first rounders, I think. I will be the first person to use bullet points in one of these exchanges to show why and how this can happen.

1. It's a weak draft. Teams won't be clinging to them.

b. If you're a win-now team with a bad deal and late pick, you could package those to entice Vegas.

iii. If you have too many good players, you can use a first rounder to get Vegas to not pick your Vatanen or Neal.

If I'm McPhee, I'm punting this year and doing everything to stockpile picks like it's the Bay of Pigs and I'm filling up the bomb shelter with canned goods.

Wait, we are sorta living in a modern time version of this. I'll update the metaphor later.

How about we are this deep into one of our engrossing conversations and we haven't talked about Ilya Kovalchuk coming back yet? We saw what Alex Radulov could do and there doesn't seem to be any excitement about getting a player that was better than Radulov back in the NHL.

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DGB: I wonder if fans are a little worn out on the Kovalchuk story, since we've heard rumors of him coming back pretty much every year since he left. There seems to be way more smoke this time around, but it could be a "believe it when I see it" type of thing. Still, if it's confirmed that he's really back this time, that should make for a fascinating trade watch. Between this and the first pick, the Devils have a real chance to remake their team.

Let's close with one more offseason question. One year ago, we would have said it was unlikely that PK Subban or Taylor Hall would get traded, and that Shea Weber being dealt was outright impossible. A few days later, they'd all be moved. Who would you pick as this year's superstar that doesn't seem like he could be dealt, but ends up getting moved in a blockbuster at some point?

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Lozo: Patrick Kane. He's young and in his prime but the Blackhawks are in cap jail (they get locked up every other year) and Kane is, well, garbage. Trade him while he has value and isn't currently being investigated for any felonies.

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DGB: Wow. You're not messing around. I thought I was going to be going out on a limb with my John Tavares take, but now that seems kind of wimpy.

Could we see another offseason of blockbuster trades? Photo by Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

Any last thoughts before we wrap this up, hit send, and immediately hear about four major trades that make the entire thing outdated and unprintable?

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Lozo: I'll just cover some possible bases so the news doesn't make this outdated:

1. That secret video footage of referees partying with the Penguins at the parade is really damaging to the NHL.

2. David Poile convincing PK Subban to have his voice box removed is crazy and sets a bad precedent.

3. Jaromir Jagr agreeing to terms with Vegas is great.

4. Carey Price asking for a trade is the best thing for him.

Biscuits! Lozo and DGB on Vegas Expansion, Bad Deals Waiting to Happen published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv