TrueBlue4ever

Maybe they are in the midst of another photo shoot.

What benefits them right now is to create fear and division to gain a base. Their entire platform is not based on policy but on the spin that “democrats/liberalism/socialism is evil” so it doesn’t matter if what Dems are pushing now is exactly what Republicans wanted before, so long as the Dems are in favour of it, the GQP is opposed. If you strapped down every Republican in the Senate or Congress and injected them with truth serum I would wager that less than a half dozen truly believe the election was stolen. The rest just know peddling the lie keeps the base engaged and is their best (only?) way not to get steamrolled by the larger liberal base come election time. All that matters is staying in power, that is the true platform.

And all are illegal immigrants wearing tan suits who are secret crisis actors to fake a school shooting so they can take away our guns.

A ballot printed off of Hunter’s laptop, which was purchased for him by George Soros from a pizza place fronting a child sex trafficking ring. Did we miss anything?

We took Demski and Willie J from there. I’m OK with taking talent, don’t get hung up on where they come from.

Just a reminder to all who have judged the entire Jets’ season on the last 7 games alone - a win over Calgary tomorrow in any fashion and we guarantee we finish ahead of the Flames. If Vancouver loses in regulation tonight, that win tomorrow will clinch a playoff spot.

Why do I see a headline in our future “school shooting as student guns down anti-vax protester who who harassing them over mask wearing”?

Just a minor detail, but 40’x 60’ is 2400 square feet, not 3600. You would kind of hope that a “news” outlet could get the basic math right. But then again Trump has always been about exaggeration.

Touché. When did this thread topic spin off the rails?

But he does have the only nude scene in the Marvel universe so far.

These shiitake mushrooms taste a bit funky.

Bill Simmons is one of my favourite sports writers and penned this absolute comedy masterpiece. Read the article first and then watch the video. https://www.espn.com/espnmag/story?section=magazine&id=3712343

So I am not going to suggest a panic move like a firing or a benching, but I am more angry about tonight’s loss than the past few. Some of my rantings and answers to a few of the previous posts: -firing Maurice now or after the season will not cure what is ailing the team now, but there is some stuff he and the coaching staff should be doing that they aren’t, so they are hardly blameless. More on that in a bit. And Gerard Gallant is one available name out there who would not make me feel like the firing was just a knee jerk move that would replace a good coach with a poorer choice just for the sake of a short term shake-up. -Benn may not have been the answer, but he is not near the biggest problem right now. In fact he may be playing the steadiest simplest game right now on the back end and the team could use more of that. In fact, at this point I would welcome Dylan DeMelo being the exposed defenceman in the draft instead of Stanley. - The confidence of this team is so fragile right now, and that is what is really killing them. In the 6-1 loss, after they got down 2 they panicked and made flat out stupid plays that ended up in their own net. In the 3-1 loss they were so focussed on not making any defensive mistakes they forgot that you need to score to win a game. And tonight when they got up 3-1 they still played a straight line game but were skating and trying to make creative plays. But once the game was tied they completely froze up and played the entire 3rd period not to fall behind, and of course it eventually caught up with them. If they played from the middle of the second period like they played for the 2 minutes between giving up the power play and empty net goals, they win this game. And that really angers me, seeing them coast until they realize they might lose, and only then does the urgency and effort on the boards happen. This team flat out is not giving the effort required to win. Not a talent issue, but a commitment issue. The players and not the coach need to answer for that lack of effort. -Now for the coaches. The penalty kill early on the year was getting burned by pressing up high because teams were getting the puck low and outnumbering them for easy passing plays. So they adjusted and decided to sit back and try to block the shot lanes, which worked for a while and got their average up. But their opponents have adjusted again and now are accepting the box the Jets play and moving the puck around until they collapse down low, and then feed the point (which is the high slot in reality) for the shot, and the blocks are not happening. Time to adjust again and pressure on the penalty kill and force bad passes and rushed decisions. Watched Calgary play Edmonton this way on Thursday to a tee and McDavid looked hurried and human. So the system needs tweaking and that is on the coaches. -Also, the best line tonight through 2 periods was the 4th line, and they got 5 shifts and 3 minutes of time on ice in the 3rd (Lewis got an extra shift because of the penalty kill, and the last shift for that trip was after the empty netter), while Connor got 7 shifts and 6 minutes and had zero shots in the game. Scheifele had 7 shifts and played 8 minutes in the third. His shortest shift of the period was 50 seconds and his last 4 shifts were all over 1:10, so he was not adhering to the “short shift” game plan, all to get one shot on net. so blame to the coaches for abandoning the 4th line a bit and blame the players for not regulating themselves and playing selfish. - Scheifele moped about his benching a bit but he deserved it and had not responded at all the way a leader needs to. Connor has been hot garbage lately. And Dubois does not look like a top 3 draft pick at all. Wheeler is trying but has slowed down and has been hurt all year. Hellebuyck whines even more about getting pulled and has looked extremely below average since (again tor eh Calgary game, Jacob Markstrom was confidently throwing himself at pucks, while Helle just drops to his knees and hopes the puck hits him without much flinching). Our best players are shrinking instead of stepping up. We look slow and don’t hit. Again, Calgary skated with Edmonton, kept them outside, were on top of them at every turn, and battled hard on the boards. Our stars are playing soft right now. I’ll let people debate of that is on the coaching staff not motivating them or on the star players for not putting in the effort needed to be a professional. And to close with a sobering stat - this is the first 6 game losing streak in Jets 2.0 history. They have never struggled like this in their 10 years since their return, so this stretch truly is rock bottom for this incarnation of the franchise. Just my musings from the cheap seats.

I fear the Jets’ penalty kill is going to cost them another game.

So how do the Jets play the Oilers and win? Aside from Monday’s debacle where they got desperate and made stupid plays that all ended up in the net after they went down 2, every game has been close (within 1 goal going into the 3rd period in every case), yet the Oilers seem to find a way to finish in every game lately. The Jets played a patient simple game yesterday with short shifts. They neutralized McDavid mostly yet he still got 3 points (2 power play assists and an empty net assist). Stastny missed 2 goal mouth chances, and they did not generate much else. Edmonton showed they can play patient as well and they took advantage on the power play. Our only 2 wins were run and gun games but I would not suggest that this is the way to win against them. So what is the magic solution?

Hopkins was prepared to give his acceptance speech live on Zoom if he won, but the Academy refused to allow that forum. So he visited his father’s grave in Wales instead and was asleep in bed when they announced his name.

The kind of luck you get during a losing streak. Stastny goes 5 hole through Koskinen and hits the heel of his skate and stays out. 2 on 1 with a stick on the ice messing up the lane, and Morrissey misses an open net and then has his stick explode leading to a 2 on 1 the other way.

Trump would never share the spotlight.

Coming to this site and expecting something other than doom and gloom?

I get the idea of stale and agree with that. I am just not sure that’s what this is right now. Remember that Edmonton lost 4-0, 3-0, and 6-1 to Toronto at home this year. Teams go through bad patches. The injury bug has hit us with Wheeler, Lowry, and Ehlers out. Lousy timing, but it can’t be controlled. This team seemed very tight and fighting for each other for most of this year. Maybe it has changed, but I am willing to give it more than 4 games before I declare Maurice’s style stale. We overachieved in 2018 and it has set up some false expectations. We experienced a natural regression in 2019 but still had a chance to take out St. Louis in the playoffs but for a collapse in game 5 and a team that caught lightning in a bottle for half a season. Then our defence completely caved in and we have not recovered from it. I put more responsibility on Chevy than Maurice for that, and sadly players don’t want to play in Winnipeg as much as other places, and it has little to do with the coach or the teammates, it really boils down to the city itself, the climate, and the taxes. Sucks to be the runt of the litter, but again it can’t be controlled. So I look at where we started from 10 years ago, what we climbed to, and why we have dipped since then. Losing your #1, 2, 4, 5 and 6 defencemen in one summer and damaging the #3 guy in the process due to overwork was a sucker punch, and will take time to recover from. We cannot outbid the big markets for free agents, so this style is the one that works best for this market in my mind. It may appear to be stale in the low moments, but I don’t see firing Maurice as providing the spark that will turn things around. I would see it as the team throwing in the towel on the year and would take us longer to recover from. We are a contender with our talent but hardly a favourite, and we would need a ton of breaks to win the Cup this year. One big trade for a top 2 defenceman at the deadline was not going to significantly change that status in my mind. And I see our window still at 4 years while the contracts for Scheifele, Ehlers, Connor, and Hellebuyck are in place. Some definite re-tooling needed, but not ready to blow up this approach yet. Ask me again if we lose the next 8 and get swept out losing 5-0 in every game in the playoffs. Or just tell me who steps in right now as a coach and makes us better. Part of the solution is not just the firing, but the quality of the hire. Who is the best candidate available right now? (On paper, Mike Babcock has the best track record but he is now a toxic name after his time in Toronto). Aside from the gutted defence, what I am hearing is that our forwards are not doing enough defensively, and I certainly see that with bad passes and poor back checking, notably from Kyle Connor and supposed rink rat and student of the game Scheifele. How much is on the coach and how much is on the player? I am actually closer to the part in parentheses than all my other posts would suggest.

I would not classify the Jets’ approach and success as “tired”. No Western Conference team has has a better record in the past 4 seasons. But if the mentality is “Stanley Cup or bust” every single season and we can the coach if we don’t win the division or make the final 4 more than half the time, we will be recycling coaches with no better results over that time. The Bombers showed what instability in coaching did for the better part of 25 years after Cal Murphy got dumped. People called for O’Shea’s head for the better part of 4 seasons, right up to half time of the West semi-final in Calgary. Wonder how we would have fared if we axed him in 2017 or 2018? And who wants him gone now? But that is my mentality. I can deal with slow and steady and prefer a methodical approach to building a team. I would rather see sustained success where we re-tool rather than tear down and re-build. So much has to go right to win a championship, I do not wish for a decade of abject failure to get a 2-3 year window before we crater again. I can deal with this approach more than the flash in the pan. If you want a tired approach, look at Buffalo’s last decade or the Oilers between the Messier and McDavid years. Or even Ottawa, who were in the Conference Finals a year before the Jets were. Who would trade our last 4 years for theirs? Just my opinion.

He absolutely is not above questioning. And he does have a decent but not exceptional by any means track record of success. Are there coaches with better track records? Of course. Are they retired or otherwise already employed? I would say yes. But I am happy to consider alternative names if anyone offers one. And I have already considered and will soundly dismiss Patrick Roy as a suitable replacement.

We had a team that went on a regular season tear that teams achieve once every 30 years. We had a big physical defence with Buff, Chariot, Trouba (who also made Morrissey better), and Myers, with Toby Enstrom as our 6th or 7th defenceman. Joe Morrow too and Kulikov. Compare that alone to what we have now and that explains a lot of the difference. Now include Tanev, Laine, Little, and a 32 year old Paul Stastny and a 31 year old Blake Wheeler. One stat said there were 14 NHLers at 6’5” or taller in 2018 and the Jets had 5 of them, 3 on defence. Now we have 3, one out with injury, one who supposedly has been playing hurt all year and now coming off a concussion, and a rookie on defence. We have lost size and speed. We have lost the loudest building and most energetic fans in the league for all of our home games. And yes, we are depending too much on Hellebuyck. So when Goalie picks 2 coaches and says “it’s pretty obvious who the problems are” I find that it overlooks a ton of stuff.