I think of myself as someone who is above average at tracking players on NHL rosters and the "tweeners" in the AHL; as well as international rosters and this guy completely slipped thru my radar

Love this stuff!

How many Latvians made the NHL rosters? They have a sneaky good international squad.

Also sad that we lost our only UK/Australian on an NHL roster (Nathan Walker demoted to AHL)

Who are the biggest changes in what was their expected role vs season opening reality?

For me:
Big Drop:
Harvey-Pinard in Montreal went from expected to be top 6 (had shown good chemistry there last season) to a projected 4th liner.

Big Gain:
Jonas Johansson/Matt Tomkins went from random chance at a backup position instead of heading to Europe to possible starter on a cup contender (at least for 2 months).

How hard is it to break down by Province/State for Canada/USA?

As our regular season starts at 4:30 PM CST today, we should switch to a proper season discussion thread.

New Thread Incoming

Why wasn't he claimed is the better question

Not sure why I missed Latvia, there are 4 on NHL Rosters.

Girgensons (BUF)
Merzlikins (CBJ)
Balinskis (FLA)
Bleugar (VAN)

It's all manually tracked from me, so it would be extremely difficult lol, I would have to go through every single player and manually track where they're from.

Haha, I ask because I've tried and its exhausting; so hoped you had a better way to do it. Quant Hockey is a good reference for this stuff but only works once stats start getting posted for the season

Who is the other Slovenian player besides Kopitar?

Biggest ???Question Mark??? from the Offseason IMO:



What is Ottawa/ Dorian doing?
Was there no plan or directive?

Pinto isn’t signed; imo the most important piece of your offseason puzzle. And yeah no one saw Norris still being hurt/ not cleared but that is just a band aid to hide the nonsense that’s going on.

Why are they signing Brannstrom with Pintos money?
Why are they signing Tarasenko with Pintos money?
Why haven’t they just moved Joseph asap?

It seems unfair, if I’m Pinto, you sign a “worse” player in Tarasenko - and a worse/ less valuable piece in Brannstrom. I mean if I’m sitting on the couch all summer and watching my team leave me behind - I am not giving them a team deal. Maybe I would have if they put a priority on me but there’s atleast a dozen teams who would have already paid Pinto by now as he’s your 3C, potential 2C if he’s needed to hold the line. And even worse, with Norris now out, sure you have some time/ cap… but you don’t have your fill in 2C. He hasn’t had any camps or warmup games. Both Norris and Pinto ONTOP of this have some serious injuries for a center (shoulder). They need time to ease into games. And the likely hood of Pinto being rushed when he signs isn’t guaranteed (or what anyone wants to see)… but it’s a possibility.

It’s just looks like a boneheaded move. All for a team whose track record has shown they have had BAD starts to the season, and cannot afford ANOTHER.

I mean once they’ve actually played games you can track that via NHL.com