The time is now.

Jim Nill has been building toward this moment for quite some time. In 2013 he acquired one of the best centers in the game in Tyler Seguin, put a former star in Jason Spezza behind him, and now he’s added a shutdown center in Hanzal, a top winger in Radulov, a fantastic goalie in Ben Bishop, and a solid complementary top-4 defenseman in Marc Methot.

Atta boy, Jim. Continue reading

The Florida Panthers might have completely blew it just like the Avalanche did. In 2014 Colorado made the playoffs for the first time in ages, then promptly degraded their roster until Patrick Roy was forced to resign.

The Panthers lost Jonathan Marchessault, Jussi Jokinen, Jaromir Jagr, and Reilly Smith from last year’s team. To offset that loss, they’ve added Evgeni Dadonov, Radim Vrbata, and an import from the Finnish League, Henrik Haapala. That’s a lot of offense to replace. Continue reading

The Arizona Coyotes have been patiently rebuilding since their surprise run to the Conference Finals in 2012. They missed out on Jack Eichel and Connor McDavid in 2015 when they were the second worst team in the league, and might have made an error when they took Dylan Strome over Mitch Marner in that same draft. I’m open to being corrected on that as time goes on – but Marner had a serious impact in the NHL at 19 years of age.

The youngest general manager in the league though, John Chayka, has done a magnificent job acquiring long-term potential. Max Domi, Christian Dvorak, Clayton Keller, Brendan Perlini, Lawson Crouse, and Dylan Strome  represent a sextuplet of forwards who should become at worst contributing members of the top-9. Continue reading

In the spring of 2013, it looked like the Colorado Avalance were following a marvelous script. That beautiful, rebuilding script the media loves – the one Pittsburgh and Chicago had showed everyone how to do.

It went something like this:

Summer of 2013, draft Nathan MacKinnon first overall. He scores 26 goals and 62 points as an 18 year old and the team skyrockets to a 112-point season. MacKinnon has joined a promising young core: Matt Duchene is 22, Ryan O’Reilly is 22, Tyson Barrie is 22, and their Captain, Gabe Landeskog, is 21. Continue reading

Never mind me telling you about the Islanders. Wtf do you make of this team?

This squad sputtered out of the gate last year and posted a 17-17-8 record through 42 games under Jack Capuano. Doug Weight entered the scene as coach, and the team dominated the remaining 40 games and went 24-12-4, only to see their playoff dreams fall short by a singular point. Continue reading