kelownabomberfan

and when he scores 40 goals for the Oilers next year he'll be over-rated because he's playing with McDavid and Eberle. Hey, someone has to play with all of these super-stars. Meanwhile, Chychrun will suck with the Moose but that's ok because he plays LHD.

On this we can agree. When it comes to the Oilers I pay as little attention as possible.

I'd like to see Petan and/or DeLeo get a shot with the big club before the tank is complete.

Not Shenkarow, it was Gobuty.

Peluso is out.

I also see that he has 99 points in 51 games in the OHL this year, captained Team Bobby Orr at the top prospects and is ranked 4th overall in current scouting projections. But yeah, the only way I'd be more excited about this kid is if his name was Matthew Hawerchuk or Matthew Selanne.

the super-highway to NHL stardom.

we don't need no stinkin' goal scorer...

which is why I am wary of both Yak and Drouin.

I think Edmonton could really use Matthew Tkachuk.

or if drafted, there should have been some sort of study as to what was needed to make him a success, instead of just setting him up to fail. He needs a good play-making line-mate. Just like Seguin needs Benn. If you don't want Yakupov on a line with your best players then you are just wasting him, as he's not going to flourish on the 3rd line playing with pluggers. Imagine him coming to Winnipeg, and Maurice puts him on with Copp and Thorburn?

all right, I see I'm speaking Chinese and you're speaking Greek. I'll just leave this discussion now.

http://thehockeywriters.com/whats-wrong-with-nail-yakupov/ These guys seem to think that all that needs to be done is Yakupov being put back with McDavid.

Yes, fine, but that's not the point. Imagine what Hawerchuk would have had for points if he was feeding and being fed by Kurri, Messier, Anderson, Coffey, Tikkanen, etc, instead of Mark Kumpel, Phil Sykes and Tim Trimper. Kind of like wondering what Milt's numbers would look like if he had had a chance to play with Anthony Calvillo.

The Trade that shocked the hockey world happened 25 years ago, ripping Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton and forever making Peter Pocklington a pariah in the City of Champions. But there exists an alternate universe where Wayne Gretzky was never traded from Edmonton—because he was a Winnipeg Jet. In Peter Gzowski's best-selling classic The Game of Our Lives, which follows the 1980-81 Edmonton Oilers, a team on the brink of becoming a dynasty, Gzowski tells a story of how Wayne Gretzky was almost traded to the Winnipeg Jets instead of the Edmonton Oilers. The deal never happened because Jets owner Michael Gobuty wasn't a bolder backgammon player. At the time, Nelson Skalbania's Indianapolis Racers franchise of the WHA was not working out. That's an understatement. The team was a financial disaster, even with a young phenom like Wayne Gretzky playing. The Racers lost close to $1 million in 1978-79 (closer to $3.5 million in today's dollars, which is a good year in Phoenix, I suppose) and was not included in plans for a WHA-NHL merger that would eventually take place in 1979. However dire the team's situation was, Skalbania had Gretzky, who he had signed to a seven-year personal services contract when the young prodigy was 17 years old. And Gretzky alone was going to make Skalbania a tidy profit. Skalbania called Michael Gobuty, one of the owners of the Winnipeg Jets, to talk about Gretzky. Of course, with the benefit of hindsight it's obvious Gobuty should have paid whatever Skalbania wanted, but at the time it was believed that Skalbania wanted too much money for the burgeoning superstar, and some of Gobuty's advisors—who aren't confirmed but Gzowski guesses was coach Rudy Pilous—weren't sold on Gretzky, thinking he was "too scrawny". Despite the hesitation on the part of the Jets, the two owners had one final meeting on board Gobuty's plane (where all big-money deals were required by law to be made in the 1980s). Flying over the country Skalbania proposed a risky, totally 80s-movie-plot deal, as Gwotzki describes in the book: Deal off. Next, Skalbania called Peter Pocklington, who agreed to Skalbania's asking price and Gretzky was an Oiler. Just like that, Gobuty lost out on the greatest hockey player ever, and Winnipeg Jets fans are left wondering whether they could have watched one of the league's greatest dynasties develop in Winnipeg instead of Edmonton.

now imagine if Hawerchuk got to play with Kurri, Messier and Anderson while Gretzky had to play on a line with Paul MacLean and Larry Hopkins. And that might have happened, if Gobuty had put down the cheddar to get Gretzky from Skalbania instead of Pocklington.

I hope Armia isn't hurt too bad. He's been one of the few nice stories this year. Looking forward to him continuing to gain confidence next year. Maybe we can draft a Finnish buddy for him to play with too. EDIT

makes you wonder how any goalies ever got any shut-outs back then. But you also see why no one is ever going to catch Gretzky playing in the modern era. Jagr is going to have to play until he's 150.

Well, now they do, thanks to the Liberals being back in power.

the big difference in the game from then to now, in my opinion, is the goalies. In those highlights Mike Vernon and Reggie Lemelin are letting in goals that would just not happen in this day and age anymore. And more's the pity.

he was on MH370, and was mysteriously rescued from some island that now no one can find.

Maurice was counting players in the dressing room this morning and thought they were one short because Stafford was invisible.

I am not a fan of Dr. Drai or Yak but that's just my bias against any player who isn't from North America showing. That and the fact that Yakupov has basically been a giant bust. Who knows though, he could get traded and do a Tyler Seguin and light it up, given the ice time, a bit of confidence and decent line-mates.

Hawerchuk scores a beauty at the 7:00 mark on a partial break-away. And yes, that's Scotty Bowman doing the colour with Don Whitman doing the play-by-play.