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Florida Panthers

Discussion in 'The Sports Book' started by Breeze147, Jul 6, 2019.

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  1. Breeze147

    Breeze147 Button Man

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    I believe this team could be next year's Blues. Although that Cinderella story could never be repeated, I think I'm going to put a twenty on Florida for the Cup. This team is loaded for bear.

    So far, my futures are $20 each to win the championship:

    Flyers
    Eagles
    76ers
    Dodgers


    Edit to remove Blues. I doubt they could catch lightning in a bottle again.

    2nd edit to drop Panthers.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2019
    • Agree Agree x 1
  2. thegov2k2

    thegov2k2 VIP Whale

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    I'd keep an eye on the Rangers.
     
  3. Breeze147

    Breeze147 Button Man

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    No doubt they will be a much tougher opponent.

    Watch out for the Avalanche, too. Under performed l think. Getting Bellemare from the Golden Knights could help.
     
  4. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    They certainly spent to win now. All in at G. If they get Bob to play like 2018-2019 Ben Bishop, they are a good team. If he looks like 2018-2019 Bob...they are going to have one of the worst contracts in pro sports on their books.

    There were much better ways to spend $9 M than on over the hill Anton Stralman and Brett Connolly. They whiffed on Panarin and bought the wrong guys with his money. Stralman, in particular, was a disastrous signing for an over the hill guy. They already had one 32 year old D signed to a 6+ M contract for too long.

    The real challenge they face is that they are in the same division as what are pretty clearly two of the best five teams in hockey (TB and TOR), plus Boston was a top 5 team last year as well. They have a murderous road to make it out of their divisional playoff. The Blues had that problem for awhile with Chicago and then Nashville being out of this world. It's probably not a coincidence that, when they won, the Central was a bit weaker than it had been for years.
     
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  5. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Avs are sneaky good, and they have zillions of cap space left. It is crazy how good that team could be in 2-3 years. They have MacKinnon, Kadri, Doonski, and Landeskog all under contract for 2+ years at a grand total of $20.3 M of cap space. That's just insane.
     
  6. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Panarin is good, but...are they remotely on par with the top 3-4 teams in their conference? Henrik is 37 and clearly past his prime.

    Rangers may be more likely to miss the playoffs than get to the final eight. Heck, they may even be dogs to make the playoffs. This team gave up a metric ton of goals last year, and they haven't done much to fix that. It does help that the Jackets and Isles are pretty easy picks to decline, but the Caps, Pens, and Devils look pretty good on paper, and the Devils brought in a couple of interesting players. This team needs to be about 15-20 points better year over year to sniff the playoffs.

    You need the Finnish guy to be the ROY probably.
     
  7. Calder

    Calder VIP Whale

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    Looks to me like the Panthers overspent on their free agents, especially Bobrovsky. That contract is gonna be a problem in a few years. Free agency can be silly season for GMs.

    The league has done so well at achieving parity, it can be harder to predict the bad teams, than the good. I'm guessing the also-rans are LA, Anaheim, Minnesota, Ottawa, Buffalo, probably Edmonton, maybe the Habs.
     
  8. Breeze147

    Breeze147 Button Man

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    So, everyone discounts the Q Factor?
     
  9. Calder

    Calder VIP Whale

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    The age old question: How much does the coach matter?

    I think a number of coaches could have won cups with the team the Blackhawks had assembled, and Joe didn't assemble that team.
     
  10. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Because coaches don't matter all that much in the NHL, and we're talking about someone, to be blunt, whose reputation was more of the "good guy in the clubhouse" vibe than the "he's some master strategist." The guy got to run the best roster in hockey out there for like 5 seasons. Of course he won cups.

    There are no forwards on this team as good as Toews or Kane were in, say, 2009-2015. That's a pretty big problem! The last Blackhawks team that won the cup had Kane/Toews/Hossa/end of Brad Richards/Patrick Sharp/Brandon Saad as their 6 best forwards. That's pretty danged good! And Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook were still great then, and Hjalmarsson was quite good by the time. Crawford was also really good when they are winning.

    You cannot seriously compare this Panthers roster to what Q was working with in Chicago when he won all those cups.

    This Panthers team really needed Panarin to say yes in lieu of signing Stralman and Connolly. That would have been a more interesting team.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2019
  11. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Dale Tallon is about 900 years old, is it really shocking that an ancient GM went all in to try to win now? He's not going to be there in 4 years when that contract looks horrible. Ownership didn't hire Tallon and Q to build a team for 2023.

    Personally, I think you have to add the Blue Jackets to the potential also rans. They lost an awful lot of talent. Detroit is also going to be dogshit again. Flyers also don't exactly look great on paper, although they could get better simply by having a warm body in net. The bottom five teams from last year in the Pacific also don't exactly project to be amazing this year.
     
  12. Calder

    Calder VIP Whale

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    Shocking? Nah -- it's not his money, he just had to convince ownership to squander their funds. Tallon's been there since 2010; it's taken him almost decade to reach the "win now" mode. They're still a wild card team at best coming out of that division.

    No argument on the additional also-rans -- working off the top of my head.
     
  13. srudude87

    srudude87 Low-Roller

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    I'd buy the Avs now. I'd like to see them sign Mitch Marner to an offer sheet. They're really close, the 4 first round picks (in the high 20s) would be worth. Yeah they may have goaltending issues. But the previous 3 Cup winners (Pens twice and Caps) proved they could overcome that if the team is good enough. Leafs would probably match, but at least try.
     
  14. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    They should offer sheet Point. TB cap situation is pretty rough too.
     
  15. stlguy197239

    stlguy197239 VIP Whale

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    Colorado is the team to watch. They have been in the playoffs the last two years and made a number of really good moves this off-season. The only issue I can see is that their defense is kind of questionable. Their best d-men are a little young and the older guys (Johnson and Cole) are not exactly guys I would trust with big minutes in the playoffs. Also, any team with Nazem Kadri on it is due to be short a player, due to a suspension, come playoff time. Just ask the Maple Leafs.

    Florida is a year away and I am not sure signing a goalie with a worse save percentage in the playoffs than the regular season and paying him 10 million a year was the best move.
     
  16. Breeze147

    Breeze147 Button Man

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    Thanks, I'm convinced, Panthers suck.

    Speaking of overpaying, how do you guys feel about the Flyers signing Kevin Hayes to $6M. It cost them cap space that would have gotten Wayne Simmonds back.

    Signing Matt Niskanen and Justin Braun should help transition a young, talented defense and should help on the PK. Shayne Gostisbehere claims he was injured most of last season. Ivan Provorov also had a poor season. These two must get better.

    They need further help on the PP. They need help at every position as to scoring. They will have Carter Hart for an entire season.

    IMHO, Samuel Morin is injury prone and will never live up to his hype.

    Robert Hagg is a hitting machine.

    With the other improvements in the Metro Division, I see another dismal season for the Flyers.

    Oh, and Brayden Schenn says Thank You Ron Hextall!
     
  17. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Well, Wayne Simmonds is terrible in 2019, so I'd rather not have him than Hayes. Wayne Simmonds is not worth anywhere near $5 M a year, he's a third line ish winger on a pretty obvious decline who looked rough even after the trade to Nashville.

    Hayes is actually $7.1 M ish, which is a little high, but I'd rather pay him $7 next year than pay Simmonds $5. Is the $7 maybe a million too high? Sure, but that's the cost of signing a free agent guy. In the long run, years 6 and 7 may be rough, and you may be better off holding off on 7 year deals unless you're signing a better player than Hayes. Good GMs generally aren't giving 7 year deals to their second/third line centers and wingers, especially ones who are going to be 32-33 at the end of the deal.

    Justin Braun and Niskanen are not good, though. Both of them are offensive black holes. In general, you want your team to be not signing or trading for guys who were born during the Reagan administration at this point.
     
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  18. stlguy197239

    stlguy197239 VIP Whale

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    I think the Flyers GM should be fired and investigated for working with the players agents to artificially inflate player salaries. 7.1 mil per year for a guy who has scored 20 goals ONCE in his career.

    Schenn should be thanking the GM twice. Once for trading him to St. Louis and another for ensuring he can get a huge contract next year as a UFA. If Hayes is worth 7 mil, Schenn might get 10.
     
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  19. stlguy197239

    stlguy197239 VIP Whale

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    I just want to talk about what a good job Doug Armstrong has done with the Blues. Your two best player (ROR and Tarasenko) are only getting 7.5 mil per year and are signed for 4 more seasons each. He filled his depth spots - 5th/6th Dmen and 4th line with guys not making more than 2 mil each AND still has some trade pieces if he wants (Edmundson, Allen, Schenn). Not to mention he fleeced both the Buffalo and Philly GMs in recent trades. Most teams see their FAs get overpaid coming off a SC season but the Blues are in great shape for the next 2-3 years with the cap. Although Pietrangelo is due to get a big raise next year.

    Oh yeah, and the Stanley Cup thing.
     
  20. The Rumor

    The Rumor VIP Whale

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    Schenn is a better player, I agree. But there's a couple of things that work against him. Hayes is a good defensive player. Schenn is not. Schenn is also going to be, what, 2 years ish older when he hits FA? That matters as well. Schenn should a higher annual, but 7 years is a tougher ask for him.

    It also depends upon if Schenn's raw stats bounce back a little to what he did in 2017-2018...he's an 8+ M player if he puts up 70 points again in the Blues defensive system, but that might be, say, 5 years, $42.5 M or 6 years, $50 M, not 7 years $60 M.

    There aren't that many guys who get 7 years - Bob, Panarin, Karlsson, Skinner, Hayes, Lee, and Duchene were the only UFA to get 7 years. Schenn, given ability and age, probably fits in the next tier of guys below this. Of course, you can make the obvious argument that Hayes is the worst of these 6 guys on paper, although he's also the youngest.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2019
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