Am I the only one who thinks if we get 3 points this week that would be ok....obviously want more but 1-1-1 would ok
- nonpoint22

Possible. I was shocked to see the bruins lose at home vs the Habs. Bruins are solid. I can see us winning vs the rangers but they normally lose when I come to see them so we may lose (trying for a reverse jinx). Tough week for sure.

Oh, if they lose both of those games, you can probably see the "Fire Lavvy" bandwagon starting to leave the parking lot.
- johndewar

I think Giroux will kick it up another notch this week and do the whole lead by example thing. He knows this is a huge week and his track record is pretty good in these situations. Who knows, maybe "Playoff" Danny will show up too.

I think Giroux will kick it up another notch this week and do the whole lead by example thing. He knows this is a huge week and his track record is pretty good in these situations. Who knows, maybe "Playoff" Danny will show up too.
- Lexington Flyer

From your fingers to his ears. I certainly hope so! We need Danny to pick it up.

I think Giroux will kick it up another notch this week and do the whole lead by example thing. He knows this is a huge week and his track record is pretty good in these situations. Who knows, maybe "Playoff" Danny will show up too.
- Lexington Flyer

I though we traded danny boy for this

Possible. I was shocked to see the bruins lose at home vs the Habs. Bruins are solid. I can see us winning vs the rangers but they normally lose when I come to see them so we may lose (trying for a reverse jinx). Tough week for sure.
- Hextall271

I think the Bruins are the best team in the east but not if they play the way they did last night. Turnover after turnover, needless giveaways, bad passes, it wasn't hard for Montreal to turn that into offense. Then the Bruins let the Habs get in their heads a bit and started running around being stupid.

Thing is. They still should have won that game.

Possible. I was shocked to see the bruins lose at home vs the Habs. Bruins are solid. I can see us winning vs the rangers but they normally lose when I come to see them so we may lose (trying for a reverse jinx). Tough week for sure.
- Hextall271

chara took himself out of the game with 17 minutes in penalties in the 3rd period. habs scored on the pp, and won.

Possible. I was shocked to see the bruins lose at home vs the Habs. Bruins are solid. I can see us winning vs the rangers but they normally lose when I come to see them so we may lose (trying for a reverse jinx). Tough week for sure.
- Hextall271

you going to nyc for the game?

I though we traded danny boy for this




- Philly1980

Need to showcase him a bit more. This will be a good week for that

chara took himself out of the game with 17 minutes in penalties in the 3rd period. habs scored on the pp, and won.
- hammarby31

Sounds like a blueprint for Rinaldo to work with

you going to nyc for the game?
- Don'tForgetTocchet

Nah, I'd love to but were here in Washington visiting my sis for the week so a two day trip to Philly is about the most we can manage. Thats ur neck of the woods right? U must be going?

Need to showcase him a bit more. This will be a good week for that
- Lexington Flyer

It depends, hopefully playoff Danny shows up. I love the guy, but he needed to play big this season and he has not.

granted Mike Brown is only 27, is only making 737K and has one more year left, but to get Gagne for a 3rd/4th and see Brown go for the same.........

chara took himself out of the game with 17 minutes in penalties in the 3rd period. habs scored on the pp, and won.
- hammarby31

Didn't get a chance to watch the highlights. I was just surprised they didn't kill the Habs. However, price is really coming into his own IMO, can't be surprised i guess

granted Mike Brown is only 27, is only making 737K and has one more year left, but to get Gagne for a 3rd/4th and see Brown go for the same.........
- nastyflyergirl

Overpayment for Gagne or overpayment for Brown?

Nah, I'd love to but were here in Washington visiting my sis for the week so a two day trip to Philly is about the most we can manage. Thats ur neck of the woods right? U must be going?
- Hextall271

my husband refuses to attend any more away games... i thought about going by myself but i figured that might be really depressing if we lose

Overpayment for Gagne or overpayment for Brown?
- NickTheKid87

I'd say overpayment for Brown.

Besides, the Oilers have so many young kids, do they really need the draft picks?

granted Mike Brown is only 27, is only making 737K and has one more year left, but to get Gagne for a 3rd/4th and see Brown go for the same.........
- nastyflyergirl

I think gags was a great pickup. Veteran leader by example and basically on the cheap other than cap space. He'll help the youngsters quite a bit. And he also seems to score a lot of important goals. When needed. I was very happy to have h back as my gagne jersey is current again.

It depends, hopefully playoff Danny shows up. I love the guy, but he needed to play big this season and he has not.
- Philly1980

He usually shows up in the big games and down the stretch. I'll cut him some slack. Jokes aside, I want them to hang on to Briere. Lavi needs to put him at center and let him play with the same linemates for a spell.

So, Meszaros might have had a set back, but Matt Read is out there doing everything, wearing a regular jersey and taking part in all facets of practice.

Interesting article.

If the NHL cellar-dwelling Columbus Blue Jackets want to turn things around, they might look at drafting young Canadians.

Three psychology professors have discovered that a hockey player’s month of birth influences how scouts and coaches judge his talent, and this subconscious selection bias often puts the wrong players on the roster. The study, published online in the journal PLOS ONE, found NHL teams have long underestimated the talent and potential of players born in the second half of the year and tend to overlook them in favor of relatively older players.

How Kevlar Could Help the NFL, NHL End Concussions
That is exactly the opposite of what they ought to do, said Robert Deaner of Grand Valley State University. For any given spot in the draft, players born in the first three months of the year are more likely to be successful than those born in the second half of the same year.

“If teams really wanted to win, they should have drafted more of the relatively younger players,” Deaner said.

Deaner didn’t set out to identify selection bias in the NHL draft. He was studying the possibility of a correlation between facial shape and aggression when he discovered a link between birth month and career length.

“We dug into 27 years of data,” he said, “and we found that relatively younger players had a consistently longer career.”

Deaner asked Steven Cobley of the University of Sydney, and Aaron Lowen, also of Grand Valley State, to join him in diving deeper into the data. They found that, on average, NHL draftees born between July and December comprised 34 percent of those drafted, but played in 42 percent of the games and scored 44 percent of the points. On the other hand, those born in the first three months of the same year comprised 36 percent of drafted players but played in just 28 percent of games and scored 25 percent of the points.

The researchers focused on Canadian players because Canadian youth leagues assign players by age, with a December 31 cut-off date. That makes it easier to compare players who are the same age but were born at different times of the year.

Deaner concedes drafting athletes is an inexact science and myriad factors come into play, but the evidence suggests NHL teams have been “consistently fooled by players’ birthdays or something associated with them.” He’s at a loss to explain just what is behind the selection bias, which occurs when someone — say, a coach — grants fewer opportunities to relatively younger players than might be warranted by their talent.

His study stands in contrast to studies that have demonstrated relative age effects, which occur when players who are relatively older within their age group are deemed more likely to succeed. Such research suggests the accepted knowledge of RAEs prompts people, consciously or subconsciously, to choose older players. For example, about 40 percent of players in Canada’s elite youth hockey leagues are born in the first quarter of the year, while just 15 percent are born in the last quarter of the year. Deaner’s results suggest relative age effects are a leading cause of selection bias.

Deaner isn’t the first to suggest that those born in the earlier months might be overrepresented in sports. Before the 2006 World Cup, the folks at Freakonomics speculated there might be an unusually high number of early month birthdays on European soccer teams because of the year-end cut-off for determining eligibility for youth teams. However, after further research, they concluded that the World Cup might not be the best place to examine this because different leagues have different age guidelines. That’s not to say they didn’t find evidence of relative age effects on national teams.

But before teams go out and draft the just the youngsters, hockey analyst and former NHL exec Craig Button says to proceed with caution. After a look at the study, he thinks it’s a bit too narrow (just Canadians, no goalies) and that there are many other criteria that lead to the relatively younger players outperforming their older counterparts. According to Button, the study looks at RAE and selection bias using the NHL has supporting evidence, without discussing the factors that led to the player being drafted. There will always be players who are selected later who outperform those who are selected earlier, he noted.

“The scouts watch games by the thousands and they are looking at so many different aspects of a player,” said Button. “What
aspects of a player’s skill set are weighted more greatly when assessing players and then ultimately selecting them? What of those skills and aspects could be affected by age would seem to me to be a plausible question.”

Some reasons? Players who are drafted at 18 are at different stages of physical maturity. Lots of things affect this maturity, but when it occurs, the difference in maturity at draft time is decreased by the time it comes to actually play. Another problem Button had with the study was that it only evaluated Canadian players, who make up only about half of those drafted. Between 1991 and 2007, the draft has changed a lot, because of the growing presence of European players in the NHL. Button also cautioned against using a 365 day span instead of a calendar year.

“This is also a hotly debated issue in education circles,” he said. “The bias in selection may be more because of maturity differences because bigger, stronger players who are more mature may have a ‘leg up’ in performance at the ages of 17 or 18 or the less mature player may not be quite as capable.”

Finally, Button said scouts are mostly there to judge performance. Projection, or understand the criteria that would positively or negatively affect a player might be a better indication on why the younger players outperform in certain instances. A more mature player requires less projection, but only one of the reasons this is so is age.

Deaner and his team admit they don’t yet fully understand the selection bias they’ve uncovered, though Deaner has a few ideas about what might be going on. Like Button, he acknowledges that being a few months older can give a child the appearance of a physical advantage (something the Freakonomics piece suggested)– in this case making them more likely to be selected for the elite youth teams and, later, in the pro draft. Another theory is that the younger kids might be performing better in the long run because of the underdog effect, in which they work harder to overcome any obstacles, real or perceived, to their success.

Whatever the case, Deaner’s research could have implications for the league, and teams like the Blue Jackets might want to give him a call.

“I think once the NHL teams are aware of this, they may revisit their draft strategies, but nobody has

Bringing Mez back (at full strength) with the way Gus has been playing totally solidifies our blueline. While we lose the right handed shot situation with Bruno and Foster in the pressbox I really like our lineup.

I have been very impressed with Gus's play. I was saying about Gus and MAB before the Lockout, we need One of them to continue to step up their game. And thus far Gus has.

I have also liked what Gervais and Foster have brought, both have some problems in their games but Gervais has given us mobility and Foster's point shot and PP QB skills have been impressive, especially coming from the right point.

I think gags was a great pickup. Veteran leader by example and basically on the cheap other than cap space. He'll help the youngsters quite a bit. And he also seems to score a lot of important goals. When needed. I was very happy to have h back as my gagne jersey is current again.
- Hextall271

Speaking of Gagne jerseys.....I was at the Washington game last week and I wonder how long it took some poor intern to get the boxloads of Gagne jerseys out of storage to feature at the Fan Zone stores.

I think gags was a great pickup. Veteran leader by example and basically on the cheap other than cap space. He'll help the youngsters quite a bit. And he also seems to score a lot of important goals. When needed. I was very happy to have h back as my gagne jersey is current again.
- Hextall271

I like the pickup. just was stating that because of the complaints about what he cost. if he continues to play well, I couldn't mind seeing him get another year at the right cost of course.

my husband refuses to attend any more away games... i thought about going by myself but i figured that might be really depressing if we lose
- Don'tForgetTocchet

Is it a bad environment for flyers fans or is it because they don't tend to win? Lol

I like the pickup. just was stating that because of the complaints about what he cost. if he continues to play well, I couldn't mind seeing him get another year at the right cost of course.
- nastyflyergirl

I knew what u were getting at lol. Agreed, but id like to see him come back as well at a reasonable rate.