(it is concerning that most reports for him mention his skating isn't great, but they do mention he has decent puck skills and isn't just a meat-and-potatoes shutdown D guy)

I think it's considering the context where those qualifiers are used matters a lot too.

If they're used to justify a player's inclusion in the top 10, then that's a huge red flag. But if they're used to justify their jump from 3-6 to 1OA, then it's likely that they're still a top 10 player.

Canada Post delivers to 17.6 million addresses every day (business and residential). At 260 work days per year, that is 4.57 billion deliveries each year. Over eight years, that is 36 billion mail deliveries in 8 years.

Canada post delivered mail 36 billion times and it only cost $6.1 billion.

conscious sedation for a endoscopy is fun because you get to see the inside of your body

happy birthday!

If the Rangers used their pick last year, the Canucks would’ve gotten their first this year which is a guaranteed top 5 pick.

There’s a world where they could’ve been heading into lottery weekend with a 37% chance of picking first and a ~30% chance of having two top 3 picks lol

imo if a high stick happens because of interference, it shouldn’t be a penalty

This whole availability makes you really question why he’s still in charge

Entirely different scenarios man. If the Leafs were bad, it’d be one thing. But they were one of the best teams in the league and finally made it to the second round the playoffs prior to his NMC kicking in.

Also pretty sure if you asked him then, he’d have wanted to stay.

they still got a little bit to go before reaching peak Canuck tbh

(Also I’d probably argue this stretch is also what convinced Jim Rutherford that the team also needed a longer rebuild)

The only thing that convinced the Aquilinis to rebuild was the fact that the team had 3 wins in 26 games and played at a 0.192 point percentage between Christmas and the trade deadline. That’s really it

We’re going to see a lot of “Rutherford convinced Aqua to rebuild” and I am not sure how much of that was him vs circumstances and potentially other voices given post Quinn Hughes trade they were talking about a hybrid retool and being competitive next year.

Ultimately I don’t think this actually impacts much from a decision-making standpoint. He’ll probably end up in scouting on a different team

We have two first time matchups in R1: a 1v6 and a 7v8 matchup.

In terms of strength of schedule, PIT (the 7 seed) has the same "strength" you'd expect a 2 seed to have. OTT (6) and PHI (8) have the expected schedule of a 2/3 seed.

Not ideal!

I love the seeds for playoff matchups this year.

Round 1 we have:
2v5, 3v4 // 1v6, 7v8
1v8, 2v3 // 4v6, 5v7

Absolutely incredible balance. Definitely nothing wrong with a 5v7 or 7v8!!! round one matchup

On one hand, it labelling the Canucks as a contender is hilarious.

On the other hand, I believe that this management/ownership group is dumb enough to pay assets for him during a rebuild

The flip side is this UFA crop sucks so we’re likely going to see inflated prices for players anyways. Keep everyone available because you don’t know what some team’s going to offer in a panic trade.

He did in Pittsburgh, so never say never! Also don’t think he’ll see the rebuild through either

That’s not too far off of the blueline that the Avs won with. If you can play, you can play.

There are also some general issues that they'd need to solve before switching to the Gold plan (which are good things), like changing to a 1-16 playoff system and a consistent play everyone x times schedule.

Can't have a team with 15 less points getting eliminated 2 days before another team

You have to find a way to punish tanking while still allowing teams that are unintentionally bad or teams that have bad luck to have something to show for it in order to sell the fans and prevent animosity in case of a bad season.

I mean, any draft system with the worst team getting 1st overall is going to incentivize losing (including the Gold plan). If you're not putting in relegation or abolishing the draft, the only way to mitigate it is to provide secondary incentives and/or fines/punishments to management groups

i find it funny that someone who lost their riding so they had to get someone else to resign in order to get a seat is complaining about the ethics of floor crossings

It might not be on a different level of toxicity, but the volume would very likely increase especially since I have a tough time believing that teams won’t just reverse tank under a gold system when there’s a good prospect available

Yeah, not enough characters for that but the incentives need to be good enough to reward winning but not to the point where a devastating injury or slump makes the season awful from a fan standpoint.

Things like cap allocation increases or later-round picks (rounds 2-7 determined by gold drafting)

The only way I think you can actually curb some form of tanking is relegation, eliminating the draft, or providing meaningful incentives to finishing 27th instead of 29th type of thing.

I don’t like the Gold plan because it has the most toxic fan scenario. If you lose your top player(s) to injuries or they slump when you’re in the Gold points phase, it’s going to be a brutal experience especially in this day and age.

lmao i recently found my old digital camera from when I got invited to an EA NHL influencer event in Toronto and we got a tour of the facility.

My wife was very confused as to why there was just a picture of a toaster; had to explain the lore

if you've never gotten into taskmaster, this is a good time. Great cast