Lmao. I didn’t know he broke his hand. Put some respect on those ECHL players though, one of them should have won the Selke 😉

Yes

Yeah, imagine calling Blake Comeau an ECHL player, that’s disrespectful to all ECHL players, Comeau is at least a CHL level player

Comeau is elite

#ComeauHart2022

#ComeauCanvas2022

I just read the Chicago section. I feel like you were being generous to our D, but competitive is a good word to use, and a bit too harsh on our offense. I disagree with the 7th in the central ranking, I’d personally put them on equal ground with Dallas and WPG, but ahead of STL and Arizona. To be honest I feel like STL lost a lot this off-season and they don’t have an outstanding D-core and who knows what’s up with Tarasenko. I also put them ahead of Minny , because we own the mild as well as the coyotes for obvious reasons. I’d say 5th overall is likely.

Stl and Wpg are miles ahead of Chicago as they all have well rounded teams while Chicago’s defence isnt exactly good and their forwards are mostly young

We were top 15 last year so not sure how that's changed much, and if anything only stronger this year.

I won't lie, I do not really agree with the WPG analysis. First off, I think WPG finish either 1st or 2nd in a battle with Colorado. Lines are off but you said you pulled it from Daily Faceoff so no worries. One thing that stood out to me was Copp being a pure "offensive" which is very far from the case. He did have an excellent offensive year last year but is also one of the best shutdown/defensive forward in this league. The line of Copp - Lowry - Appleton last year was arguably ONE* of the best shut down lines in the league. So yes, he does provide offense but it doesn't come at a cost to his defensive game. Also, everyone gives Wheeler such a hard time lately and I don't necessarily agree with it. Has he regressed? Sure, most players do as they age but he's still almost a PPG player. His defensive game took a hit last year yes but I don't think it's as bad as people make it out to be and that he will be better this year. In regards to Morrissey, was he good last year? Nope....but look who he was playing with and look at the entire D-core itself, its wasn't good. When Morrissey was with Trouba, he was such a good defenceman and I have full confidence in his game that he can get it back to where it was a couple season ago. Comrie is definitely a question mark I'll give you that but in an interview earlier this off season, it was Hellebuyck who really pushed Management to give Comrie a shot,...hopefully he pulls through.

Personally, I'm rolling with the following lines:

Robertson-Hintz-Pavelski
Gurianov-Seguin-Radulov
Kiviranta-Benn-Raffl (puke)
Comeau-Faksa-Glendening

Lindell-Klingberg
Suter-Heiskanen
Sekera-Hakanpaa

Oettinger
Khudobin

Let me just start by agreeing with some of the above comments that the Stars biggest acquisition this offseason was the return of guys like Seguin & Radulov. Losing both of those guys sucked last season & combined with the horrendous schedule crippled the team. That being said, Nill did nearly nothing this offseason to actually help this team. Hakanpaa & Suter, to an extent, are the only players that step in and fill a role that we did not have a player for prior to the offseason. Raffl, Glendening, Holtby, and the final 2 years of Suter's contract are all terrible signings for the Stars. There are a number of guys that would do better in bottom-6 roles than the guys Nill signed & the signing of Holtby is looking more and more like it may for Dallas' best goalie, Oettinger, into the AHL this season.

If the lineup I set above is the one that gets rolled out, the Stars should be a WC team. If Oettinger is in the AHL and the offensive black hole, Faksa, is centering guys like Gurianov & Kiviranta, I truly think that Colorado, St. Louis, Chicago, Minnesota, and Winnipeg will all have better teams than Dallas.







Disagree with all 3 of your points here. Not gonna go so far as to say Faksa was borderline the "worst player in the NHL", but he was the worst of the 3 players on that FCC line last year & the numbers back it up. I would argue that Faksa was the one that brought down Cogliano & Comeau, not the other way around. Look at the individual metrics of all 3 & you'll see that Faksa is worst of the 3 and it's really not even close. He finished with the lowest relative Corsi & relative Fenwick on the roster and again it wasn't close. People argue that Benn's contract is the worst on the team, but from a cost vs. production standpoint, Faksa has an absolutely atrocious contract. If I could find a team willing to simply take the contract off our hands, I'm making that trade ASAP. Give me his $3.25M to spend on other areas of need, because we have defensive forwards that can do what he does, and better.

I noticed Copp posted really good two-way metrics before 2021, the thread was just incredibly long by the time I got to Winnipeg and I didn’t want to right an entire quip about how a third line guy could bounce back defensively. For Wheeler, I guess my wording leaned towards that I think his defensive ability makes him a horrible player. I don’t think that, he’s still a top line player. It’s like Patrick Kane, Alex Ovechkin and even Kyle Connor. For first line wingers that suck defensively I don’t think it’s that important. First of all, first liners are meant to produce offense and are typically given up to 2/3 offensive zone starts. Secondly, those defensive zone starts usually translate to offensive zone attacks which is something analytics does a really poor job of accounting for in my mind. Thirdly, wingers are the least defensively impactful players on the ice. Centre’s and defense men all have significantly more defensive duties than wingers. Not to suggest wingers are defensively irrelevant, yet less importance. All 3 factors considered, Wheeler, Connor, Ovechkin and Kane are 4 of the least important players in the NHL from a defensive standpoint. Maybe Comrie will do fine, I just have a hard time putting faith into a guy with no real NHL success.

I'm giving him a year to prove his worth. Faksa is better than last year showed. I suspect there's an injury that's holding him back. Just can't see a healthy player dropping from a top10 selke worth season to one of the worst forwards in the league in a matter of two seasons or so. There has to be something more to it.

Eye test showed me that Comeau and Cogliano respectively were tantamount to absolutely nothing last year. These "gritty assets" can't defend, can't attack, are subpar in physical play and even struggle in lifting the puck their own end without flipping it to the opponents end. Only thing going for them is durability, and the fact the coach likes their attitude, I suppose. Can't fault them from lack of trying.

We've seen more from Faksa than this in the past, which is the most curious thing here.

Nashville is rebuilding
Jets improved their d
Blues should look at changing the goaltending up
Stars are back at full strength
Houston is tanking
Colorado is Colorado
Minnesota is safe because they brought back Kaprizov
Chicago is a wild card (by wild card I mean who knows what they’ll do)