#just another thing to add to the pile of reasons I might have ocd

[mathsbian]

God I need friends…

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Thoughts on Marner, Point, Scherbak, Puljujarvi, Hutton, Hart, Nylander and Schmaltz (Aug 13)

Ramblings: Thoughts on Marner, Point, Scherbak, Puljujarvi, Hutton, Hart, Nylander and Schmaltz (Aug 13)

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The Fantasy Guide was released on August 1 and has already been updated three times since. The last being August 8 when I put rookie indicators in the draft list and added UFA notes to the Guide. Buy the 13th annual Fantasy Guide here. These little August updates I do just to keep things fresh until September hits and training camps start and the real updates start flying in. Long-time readers will know that I’m all over these, you can count on me.

Mitch Marner versus Brayden Point? Wow…this one caught me completely off guard on Twitter last week when someone asked that and I found the question very odd because the answer was so obvious. But when I publicized my Tweeted response it turns out that the answer really wasn’t obvious at all. There are people there who worship at the altar of Point! Recency bias at its best right there. Sometimes fantasy owners can get completely blinded by it. Thankfully, there is me here to educate!

Before I begin, I want to make one thing absolutely clear before all the Point lovers start piling it on me. I like Point. I’ve always liked Point, I even had him ranked sixth in the Fantasy Prospects Report (the rankings for that month you can find here – June of 2016). I got emails saying I overrated him in the FPR, but I explained that he was a sure-fire NHLer, strong likelihood of scoring line, will make the NHL sooner than you think, and just a very safe keeper pick all around. (As an aside, you can see Marner at No.3 on that same list, but not my point)

Point made a big splash that season with 40 points in 68 games, and he jumped to the next level last year with 66 points. Marner made similar strides, debuting at 61 and then 69 points. A lot of poolies who don’t follow careers and trends from the age of 17 onward, but instead just see the NHL data, can fall victim to this. Point had an upside in the FPR that year of 80+ points. So there is still room for more out of him still. But right now he is perfectly on track for what I envisioned him to be – a guy who seems to have a 60-point floor, an 80-point ceiling (maybe a tad higher) on a great team. Until he hits his prime, he’s probably going to hover around 65 to 70 points. Everything he’s doing and has done so far is pointing to this. I love it when prospects follow nice trajectories like that. It leaves little doubt. At least in my OCD logical mind. And he can reach his upside with a little help from great linemates.

Marner is also following his trajectory perfectly. Everything is hitting the right notes at the exact time I would want to see it. I had him in that 2016 FPR at a 90-point ceiling and 76-point 3YP. That’s extremely high for a 3YP on a prospect, I almost never do that with a player and this is because I was extremely bullish about him. This was his upside before Tavares was even being dreamed about by Toronto fans. With Tavares there, oh my goodness this guy could shoot past 95 points. Normally I call Marner the driver – and I still might. He doesn’t need the help of great linemates because he is the great linemate. But with Tavares there, you have two drivers.

So to me, when I was asked that question, I felt the answer was as obvious as the nose on Brad Marchand’s face. Marner is on track to regularly reach levels that maybe 10 other players hit. Point is on track to regularly reach levels that maybe 50 other players hit. So you have your answer. And then you factor in Tavares on top of the obvious answer that you should already have reached and it’s just a no-brainer.

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I really like what the Sabres did this offseason and honestly, doesn’t everyone? Most fans were disappointed by what Buffalo produced last season because they had been expected to take a step forward in their rebuilding and instead they somehow went backwards. This time they add Rasmus Dahlin, Jeff Skinner, Casey Mittelstadt, Carter Hutton and Patrik Berglund among others, losing only Ryan O’Reilly. So is this enough to make them a winning team? I think this makes them an 80- or even an 85-point team, which makes Hutton a potential 30-win goalie. Will Phil Housley ride him like a true No.1? That’s the main question. The secondary question – will he be another Scott Darling? Hutton has had a 40-game season before, but that was in 2014. I think there will be some growing pains here, and the situation reminds me a lot of Edmonton’s back when Cam Talbot arrived. He had a horrible start and Anders Nilsson seized the starting role for a month or so. But Talbot took it back and a big reason is because he was paid to do so. He had the contract and was crowned starting goalie, and when a team does that – then he’s getting all the possible starts. And as you saw with Carolina (and St. Louis) last season, they will keep giving the goalie starts even at the cost of making the playoffs. If you’re deemed to be the starter, amid much fanfare (and dollars) – then you’re getting the starts. Long story short, although Linus Ullmark is a good goaltender and perhaps he is even better than Hutton – he’s not going to take the starting job. Not this year, and probably not ever. Long term there might be something with Ullmark as a future starter somewhere, but for this year and likely next, his odds are slim.

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A couple of you asked me about where I think William Nylander falls in terms of his AAV. And everything I’ve heard about negotiations is that he wants a long-term contract. And frankly the Leafs would be crazy not to go along with that.  He’s certainly going to exceed $6 million, so the question on your mind is likely – will he reach $8 million? Here’s what I think. If he signs for five years, then they may be able to get him for $6.25. If he signs for eight years, then you’re probably looking at an AAV of $8. I’ll come in south of the middle with my guess and say six years and $6.75 AAV.

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How should you treat Restricted Free Agents when it comes to drafting them? I would treat them as if they’ve signed, because they will. A player holding out is so rare these days, you may see one this year at the most. RFAs of note: Noah Hanifin, Ondrej Kase, Sam Reinhart, Nick Ritchie, Shea Theodore, Josh Morrissey, Darnell Nurse and of course Nylander.

Jordan Schmaltz is another interesting one because you just know he’s going to be pushing for not only a one-way deal, but one with a big enough cap hit that it helps his chances of getting into the lineup regularly. His qualifying offer was for $1 million and I’m assuming was a two-way Q.O.  He’s probably hoping to get just that in a one-way deal, whereas the team is probably okay with giving him a one-way deal, but would probably want him to take less to do it – maybe $750,000. If he signs for a number like that, than he may as well be on a two-way deal because teams have no problem with burying a contract like that in the minors. At $1 million the team hesitates a little longer and gives the player more leash.

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If Erik Karlsson gets traded I think Thomas Chabot tops 45 points. If he sticks around until Christmas then my expectation for Chabot is closer to 35. He’s Ottawa’s second-best PP QB option right now, even over Chris Wideman.

Another young defenseman, Sam Girard, is in a different situation and has a different kind of skill set. I think he’ll need to be eased into the role as Tyson Barrie’s heir apparent. I’d expect baby steps this year and next, perhaps a trajectory similar to Ryan Ellis (though without the injuries).

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These are questions I received on Twitter Sunday, by the way. Someone asked for my opinion on Nikita Scherbak and Carter Hart. Scherbak is a skilled player with second-line upside and perhaps he could even be a first liner on a weak team such as Montreal. But he gets hurt too often. He’s been hurt more often than healthy ever since he turned pro and I don’t have very high hopes for him. But he’s on the team that needs his skill set the most. If he could just string together 80 games then he could surprise this year. But there’s no way I would bet even $10 bucks on that.

As for Carter Hart, I guess what’s really being asked here is – “Hey, next summer Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth both become free agents, so will Carter Hart be the No.1 guy?” I certainly think that’s possible, even though it’s rare these days to see a 21-year-old grab the reins like that. Carey Price is the last one I can think of – and that goes for 22 and 23-year-olds as well. I think the Flyers will have a good year and if Elliott can play 50 games (he hasn’t done that in seven years though), then the team may re-sign him for two years. In which case, Hart would become the backup goalie in the middle of 2019-20 and then by the middle of 2020-21 he’ll take over as the starter. That puts his wait time at 1.5 years until the NHL, and 2.5 years until he actually helps you in fantasy. That being said, both Elliott and Neuvirth are injury prone and Alex Lyon has to clear waivers to be sent down – so I’m curious to see what he does as the likely No.3 goalie for this season.

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Jesse Puljujarvi. A victim of being drafted too high. Had he been drafted 12th overall in 2016 most fantasy owners would consider him a top prospect to own. Before his 20th birthday, he played his 93rd NHL game and scored his 13th career goal. What were you looking for, exactly? As I outlined in the Fantasy Guide, Puljujarvi took on much tougher minutes last season, possibly the toughest among forwards in terms of not seeing strict offensive zone starts and facing stronger competition. And he came away smelling like roses. What’s more, his 5on5 S% indicated that he was the victim of tough puck luck in terms of putting points on the board. So as a 19 year old he was one of the rare defensively responsible Oilers and even though his teammates shot just 6.6% when he was on the ice, he still got 20 points in 68 games. I think he is a safe bet for 35 points this year and has an outside shot at 55. My long-term projections for him remain exactly where they always were and consider him a serious buy-low in keeper leagues.

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I started watching this, and ended up getting sucked in for the entire thing…(the Darling blooper reel begins at 4:00)

{youtube}JDxLvea8RzY{/youtube}

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Also, in case you missed it, I posted different rankings in five of the last six days. Check out all the Rankings here.

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See you next Monday.

      from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-thoughts-on-marner-point-scherbak-puljujarvi-hutton-hart-nylander-and-schmaltz-aug-13/

[orsonneedsfood]

Social Stranger Danger - Part 3 - The End

Here's parts three and four in my earlier blog that you can catch up on here. 

Instance Three:

Honestly, after some thought it’s not worth relating. It was just an unusual run in with a missionary from the LDS church. It happened just after we got home from the shopping experience, though, so it felt like a bigger deal than it actually was.

 So, moving on to –

Instance Four:

It’s a bit long, so apologies in advance for the length. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed to make it to the end, though.

The kid and I go to Sam’s about once a week for fruit, milk, and other items we use a lot. I’d prefer to support a company like Costco - for reasons that turn into a soapbox so I won’t get too detailed - but we are at Sam’s because my father-in-law pays for the membership and was nice enough to put us on his account there. After the last four years of financial issues I don’t argue with a free membership to a warehouse shopping experience. 

At some point in all our trips to Sam’s I allowed the kid to do the scanning at self-checkout. From that point forward if we go to a regular register where the checkers do the scanning the kid would have a full blown meltdown. He likes the scanner. Routine is pretty huge with him. He thought it was part of his routine. This kid’s full blown meltdowns are no joke, either, and there are just some things it’s not worth arguing over or causing a scene about. He wants to scan, that’s fine, scan away kid. Not worth the adjustment and screaming that comes with the adjustment. If we get our Costco membership back again there are no self-checkouts – so there’s another win for Costco in my book.

That’s probably harsh. Because, to be honest, it’s not that bad to let him do the scanning. He’s good at it. Fast, excited, adorable. I find comfort in our little routine, too. When we have our usual runs with five or six items it feels like a fun way to end our time in Sam’s Club. When we get up into the 15 to 20 items I begin to have a bit of a constricting feeling in my chest, rising anxiety. Up to that point we’ve made it out without any melt downs, major or minor.

There’s a particular checker there that seems to rub me the wrong way on many occasions. She hovers. She’s not really nice, but not really mean. Her small talk is always off. “Looks like we won’t get the snow we thought we’d get,” she said once, while I looked out the door to see it’s still snowing sideways from the wind, looking like a blizzard. “I don’t know,” I replied, “looks like it’s still trying pretty hard to prove the weather people right.” Then we spent the next two minutes having a mini argument about how when it’s windy it looks like more snow than it actually is, but I still think it’s enough snow to warrant “near blizzard” proportions. It ended up the most snow we’d had this winter, I might add.

She also tends to always be talking to someone at self-checkout and not pay attention to any other customers around the area. So I’ve stood waiting for about five minutes trying to catch her attention when I have wine in the cart.

That week we had a very full cart and I noticed this particular rub-me-the-wrong-way checker standing over someone else’s cart in self-checkout. I wonder for a second if it’s worth the risk of a meltdown but decide it’s not. The lines all have at least one person waiting to start being rung up. That’s a calculated scream fest of at least 20 minutes in line given the masses of food piled in the carts in line, and my own abnormally full cart this week.

So I jumped to one of the little handheld areas and she pounced on me right away to direct me to the line that has a belt. “These are 10 items or less.” She pointed to the smaller stations with no belt.

I sighed and wondered aloud why they don’t have a sign up for that.

She pointed to the sign that says “Self-Checkout” on the side visible to me and said “On the other side of that.”

So I just said okay and jumped into the empty line, taking a breath and telling myself it’s not a big deal.

Blunt and honest moment, I’m coming to the end of my period and my hormones are doing that crazy up-down-up-down dance so I know my emotional state is off to begin with. I’m trying hard not to engage. I know it’s not worth my energy and I’m just feeling overly sensitive that day. It’s possible I rub her the wrong way, too. So I squash my emotions and try to put a smile on my face. I’m thinking “pointe shoe face on, Coral.” Which is the face I’d use when my pointe shoes hurt like crazy and I had bleeding feet but had to perform. It’s a silent chant in my head when the world requires I look like everything’s okay but it’s really not.

Then she followed us to the other line, ignoring the three other people checking out in her section, to pull up a separate cart. “You need to put your items in here after scanning.”

The kid started to do his hand flapping and general excitement dance in the cart and started saying repeatedly “I want to scan. I want to scan. I want to scan.”

I debated not engaging at that point but wondered for a moment if this slight change in routine would be enough to throw the kid into a tailspin.

“I’ve never done that in the past and we’re here almost every week,” I said.

She just shrugged her shoulders and said she could get in trouble if someone saw she didn’t insist on the other cart.

I have a moment of sympathy for her. I worked for the WalMart machine once, and I understand getting in trouble is no joke. I also know nothing about this woman any more than she knows anything about us. She could have kids, or grandkids, or both, at home that she’s supporting. She could be OCD and struggling with my pushing back against the rules. She could be somewhere on the spectrum and rules are rules for her. She could have gotten in trouble already for not handling the self-checkout line properly. I took another breath and tried to feel sympathy sink in and overwhelm my emotions instead of becoming overwhelmed with irritation. I wondered briefly if all my breathing sounded like frustrated sighs instead of a way to try to regulate my emotions that threaten to overwhelm me.

So the kid and I started our scanning dance while she continued to hover over our cart. I hold up an item, he scans, saying “here you go” and I always reply “thank you.”

If I skip a thank you he reminds me. “Say thank you, momma.”

We get through two items, and I started putting things into the new cart.  She began promptly moving them to a different section of the cart.

“I know you’re probably trying to help but can you please let me put the things in the cart.” I put them back where I’d originally placed them, roughly in the same spot they were in for the original cart, trying to save a space for the kid where he likes to sit.

The kid is already beginning to flap his hands and let out high pitched “No, no, no, no,” sounds and I don’t know if it’s because we’re having to do this new piece to the routine, or if it’s because she’s touching our stuff.

Her response to me is, “I have to make sure to count.” She’s eyeing my cart at this point, tilting her head to see if there’s anything I missed already. With my two items out of 19 scanned.

Then it hit me. She’s not OCD. She’s not on the spectrum. She thinks we’re trying to steal. She’s hovering because she assumed we have something hidden in our cart and I’m trying to get away with stealing things by using my kid as a weird cover.

I could feel my face flush red. I’m furious and everything about that space felt overwhelming for a moment. My kid continued his high pitched ongoing “No, no, no,” standing in the cart and trying to make his way to the other cart. Those annoying florescent lights blasting down on us, making me feel like my head is disconnected in some way from my shoulders, like it always does, always leaving me with a headache the rest of the day. I can almost feel that headache settle in behind my eyes in that moment. The stares of other people boring holes into my skull, wondering why I don’t calm my kid down, and what’s wrong with him, stepping on our food in a desperate attempt to reach the other cart, flapping his hands and saying “No, no, no, no, no.”

In that moment, in the midst of this bizarre trip, I had the reassuring thought that at least we had him tested for autism and I know for a fact that the only way out of this is through it and his neurological make up is overwhelmed with the shift in routine. I have the tools I can use to settle him down. Nothing’s “wrong” with him in the way these other people make me feel like something’s “wrong.” I won’t yell or make him feel “less than.” I’ll try to communicate because he’s overwhelmed, and for all I know his sensory issues are so close to my own that the lights are getting behind his eyes are starting to buzz there, too. Adding chaos to the moment in his little system.

And this stupid older lady; too skinny, crooked teeth, hair so thin she’s created a careful comb over on the way into a ponytail, trying to actually make small talk in that moment where my son is about to go over the edge into full blown, ear splitting meltdown.

I felt my face fill with blood from this anger seething just under my skin. I’m sure my face is more lobster than person at this point from that anger at her ignorance and inability to see the situation at hand.

I have this urge to join my son in screaming “no.”

It took all my effort but I focused my internal struggle away and down. I have the tools to examine this later. Let my body go on feeling angry and overwhelmed but my mind needs to be there for my son. 

I focused instead on my ball of upset energy in the form of a 3 year old - with none of my tools under his skin. 

Yet. 

I focused on making sure we can get through the next ten minutes together and maybe give him one tool to work with for the future.

“What’s wrong?” I said. He continued to say “No.”

It took a good five minutes to calm him down, talking him through it and trying to get him to use his words, and pointing me toward what’s wrong when his words suddenly failed him because of the level of how upset he is. I tried not to insist on words in that moment because I knew he might be so blown out of his skin that he had no way to form them.

The whole time this lady just standing there with one snarled, white-knuckled hand on the “other” cart. 

I had to explain that mommy wasn’t aware of the rules before today but when we use this line we have to put things in another cart. “I want use that line,” he said, jabbing his finger repeatedly to one of the other self-checkout lines. “That line. I scan. That line. I scan.” 

And I explained to him that if we have more than 10 items we have to use this line. Let’s count together. So we got to ten and he started to make his whining and arm flapping dance again and I finally got out of him that he wanted to take ten items at a time to the register where we can keep our own cart. 

I had to go into how that’s not the rules either. 

Finally, we come to an agreement and he seems to understand those are the rules and mom will try to make sure to never, ever get more than ten items at a time, but if we ever need to we’ll find plan B routine. 

He gets into the new cart, right in the spot I’d been trying to leave open that she had filled (yet again) with the two items we managed to scan before this whole debacle started.

Again, this whole time, she’s just standing there, and I can see in the corner of my eye she’s scanning our cart with her eyes, silently counting and trying to see if there’s something buried under the apples. My original epiphany proving itself to be true. She thinks we’re trying to steal. Even in the midst of my son having a medium sized meltdown because his poor little world is shaken up out of what he’s used to.

We finished scanning and she goes through another count of our cart. Even though she stood there the entire time counting each item as it went from one cart to the other. Ignoring God knows how many other customers that are probably more likely to steal than I am. 

Side note on stealing. I once got to our car to realize a little $5 book hadn’t gotten scanned and I took the kid out of the car, went to customer service, and paid for it. No joke. 

My anger in that moment is warranted, I’m so far from the type of person able to steal, even from a company I don’t believe in supporting in the first place. 

My brain and emotions are so muddled at this point I’m just desperate to get home.

I could feel my hands starting to shake, feeling like we were near the end of this ordeal. My pain level from my endometriosis has shot up from a 4 to the 7 or 8 level from the stress of this whole thing, holding myself so tight in an attempt to make my son feel safe and for me to not lash out irrationally at this woman. 

I wanted to be fetal and crying with a hot pack and Advil at this point. Or lots of whiskey. Or detached somehow because it’s all too much and I’m coming undone past the point of what I’m capable of processing in one moment.

Then, to top this whole thing off for me, she decided her parting words should be, “Next time it might just be easier to use the regular lines after all that!” 

I turned toward her with shock and she’s smiling. Smiling. Looking at me with pity in her eyes. But smiling. 

I felt my face filling with that familiar blood rushing again and I clamped down on the cart with white knuckles. I felt like screaming in her face. 

It took all my effort to instead tell her “You think that was bad? If you’re here the next time we’re in, I’ll insist on you doing the scanning for us and you can see just how bad it gets when my son’s routine is thrown off even more than it was today. You think he was loud? You don’t know loud. I’d turn your hearing aids off, and if you don’t have them you’ll need them by the time we’re done. Don’t pretend to think you know the reasons we come through self-checkout. Because I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.”

I didn’t even wait at that point, I just turned around and fumed off. I felt tears welling in my eyes but didn’t know if I wanted to cry from anger, shame, or some odd combination of emotions swirling through me with those damn lights blaring into my eyeballs.

I tried to take a few more breaths. I looked at my son, happily sitting in his cart and the medium meltdown done with. He looked back at me. He could see how upset I was, and he said to me, “Turn it around. Find something good,” in a sing song voice.

Lucky for me I have the best kid for teaching me how to handle my emotions because he’s seen every Daniel Tiger episode about twenty times.

So we both sing the “When something seems bad, turn it around, find something good,” song four or five times, and by the time we’re at the van we’re both smiling and he’s laughing at me. 

The only thing good about that experience was this sweet boy, pulling through and getting over it even faster than me.

Putting him in his seat, he pats my back and says “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I do cry a little at that point. How could you not?

I think I had every single one of these emotions in that moment - pretty sure it was a “core memory” moment if there ever was one, to use an “Inside Out” analogy.