Harbingers

I really do wonder if Rod isn’t like fug it let’s play. But that part aside, it appears it’s being dictated more by country(or even contact tracing to country). As realistically the flames can’t play until the 29-31st according to Canadian rules. Where as down here they’ve already forced teams to play with a large amount of call ups or short rosters. It appears the max they are willing to give American teams is 2-3 games off. 3 at the very maximum. I think we hit it at the worst part too, they don’t want to reschedule anything because they are worried a lot of people are going to be going to China. Which if even a handful of players have any positive test will fug everything up. So now we are kinda in a hole.

Hard pass on any movement until the new season. Whether or not Rhule is here(I’m having a hard time believing Tepper won’t keep him for year 3), and in the event Rhule is here, he gets no say in the front office, player management decisions. He’s not a plays talent savant, and can barely coach. He needs to pick one if he’s around next year.

Honestly I’d love to see the rooks pull the double shifts but that puts way more pressure on our D. Basically send them out every other shift with one of our core guys. I bet we run Stepan ragged tonight too. Honestly if covid flares up again I say don’t play but if we are all good on tests I’m really looking forward to seeing how our rooks can do when thrown into the fire.

Lorentz is basically Staal junior in terms of play style and size but you know Rod likes to keep 5-6 centers on the roster. So even if Lorentz takes over a line next season we’ll still have 2-3 spots to fill. I don’t see Necas centering a line here for the short term. He’s too good on the wing with his speed. So at worst we are looking at Aho, KK, Lorentz up the middle. I think we keep staal until the end of next year at least. So that does give us four. Also Tro may want to stay here. I would not be surprised on that, especially if it’s basically only until Rod’s contract is up. But we still gotta see what our rooks can do.

That makes total sense. I was worried we couldn’t recall Pots because of the fact we called him up on regular cap. Phew. Really looking forward to getting a look at him over the next few games. I love staal, but he’s got only a year or two left here, plus Tro probably out pricing the market. Gotta start thinking about our centers of the future.

I’m really curious to see how Rod decides to run the rooks. If he puts them on lines by themselves and has the 1 & 2 defensive lines cover them. Or if he splits everyone up in a balanced format.

Phew. I was really concerned we couldn’t pull Poturalski back up because we sent him down yesterday. We need to rely on Andersen, Slavin + the D and hope our few remaining forwards can crack Ned. Apparently we can you the emergency rule again after this game and pull up 3 more forwards to fill our roster for Saturday and Sunday. Why we can only pull up three at a time, since it’s covid is beyond me.

Canes morning skate in a few, Chip is attending. The canes are testing before the morning skate and before the game. Sounds like the redwings need to scrutinize more too since they had two key players hit the protocol yesterday.

If you’re asymptomatic you’re are still most likely transmissible. That’s why it’s two negative tests in a row, in America that is in terms of hockey. Canada I think is just a blanket 14 days.

Completely missed it yesterday. Two Red Wings have been placed in the protocol.

Florida Panthers are now down 5 + some coaches/trainers. The league just needs to do a hard stop before the entire thing implodes. I don’t give a poo if they have to change their schedule. Player, coach and fan safety is more important. Play the games at practice rinks if the venues are booked.

Or expand the cap to allow us to call up enough players.

Basically the whole team and whole staff at this point.

We are at cap. So we most likely will be playing with 7 forwards and 6 defense.

Chatfield is officially on IR. I’m guessing they are doing street signups to fill the 6 roster vacancies unless the NHL is adding a taxi squad back.

Plus if Chatfield can actually play or not.

Fug you NHL. Forcing us to play 5 forwards and a defense down? Fast and Necas better be gods.

Pierre thinks we are playing Thursday since we had no more positive tests today. This just after we sent poturalski back to the AHL so either the NHL media is getting it wrong or the NHL hasn’t announced yet. If we play and can’t bring him back up we are looking at 14 players 7O, 7D. 15 if we bring Poturalski back up. Hopefully the league and PA will change the cap/add taxi squads back. So we can at least field a full roster.

I’m beginning to think he wasn’t toxic in the locker room. I’m beginning to think he saw through Rhule and Rhule didnt like that.

Or he realized how trash our coaching staff was and said fug it, I’ll hold out for a trade.

Bergeron in the protocol now too. Boston was traveling western Canada the same time we were.

Oilers HC now in protocol as well.

All in good fun. Though I think Rhule will probably take it personally.

Sounds like thing are getting serious at the league level.