Good Times Grimes

Just what we need, a surplus of ruckmen!

Still waiting for one flag in my lifetime...just one

I cannot wait for the 2024 draft.

Absolutely brutal. Our first line is made up of fourth liners (despite Komarov's great season, he's no more than a solid grinder). I wouldn't be surprised if Kadri was being punished by Babcock for his suspension-worthy threat to Wideman in the previous game. It also seems that Connor McDavid can play. 5 points against the Leafs.

I think Pittsburgh is the big dark horse. Crosby is on fire, Kessel has finally found a linemate who he can produce with (Hagelin), Letang is playing the best hockey of his career and Malkin is still to come back into the lineup. On another note, the Leafs finally offloaded Phaneuf by trading him to the Senators. Biggest win for the Leafs in a decade! We're currently on a West coast road trip, and have left Lupul, Bozak and Matthias in Toronto to recover from injuries, while van Riemsdyk is still on the IR. Last night's team was one of the worst lineups I have ever seen...ever. Now it looks like Kadri will be missing a few games after making a visible threat to Giordano, and Bernier set to start the next game, so things are only going to get worse. Last place, here we come!

I think he might've played before.

Connor McDavid's back!

You're right, I wasn't considering Casey. I can't wait for the footy to actually start so that we can move past this whole mess.

The more time goes by without us hearing about the club lobbying for a top-up player for 2016, the more certain I become that we were prepared for this outcome when we began to court Melksham. We've got more than enough solid options down back to cover his loss this season.

CAS disagrees with this.

John Scott with 2 goals and named the All-Star MVP. Awesome.

Joel Smith effectively compensates the loss of Melksham, numbers wise.

Hopefully he's on a heavily front-ended contract that's due to pay him $1m+ in 2016 and very little for the final three years

This is a really good read by John Scott, the enforcer that was voted into the NHL All Star game as a joke by fans only to have the NHL try and interfere.

The Western Conference race is going to be really exciting to watch in the second half, with only six points separating fifth and eleventh. I think the teams that are currently in the top 8 will be there at the end of the season, but the order will shuffle around a lot over the next couple of months.

That's enough out of you. '67 was great. Or so I've heard...

Why are we still talking about this? As was often the case pre-Roos, we recruited the wrong player. It doesn't matter where he was "ranked" by experts or who wanted who, we drafted Toumpas and it was ultimately the wrong decision. Being a hindsight hero on these threads has absolutely no benefit to anyone. Our drafting and recruiting over the past few off-seasons seems to be much improved as we have as solid a group of youngsters on our list as I can remember. Let's look forward, not back. If we're lucky, maybe Wines will choose to come "home" at the end of the season.

How do Habs fans change a lightbulb? They don't. They just sit around in the dark talking about how good the old one was.

Players suspended by WADA are supposed to be unpaid, though I'm sure clubs will find a way to pay them.

Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

This article on the AFL site about Jake Carlisle suggests that due to his ban his contract will last a year longer than it initially would have. Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but is this the case with all the banned 34? i.e. with Melksham's contract not begin until next season?

I'm not disagreeing with that. All I'm saying is that it's impossible to judge at the moment.

Obviously it's not an ideal situation, but we won't be able to tell who won the trade for years.

WYL, it's impossible to say whether or not "this trade is a complete crock" until Melksham's contract with us is up and we see the output of Mason Redman over the course of his career. If Redman gets delisted after two seasons and Melksham comes back to be a consistent member of our best 22, then it will be a clear win for us. I understand how you feel about the Essendon 34, but to say that this trade was bad for the MFC is jumping the gun.

That sounds like something straight out of Chris Connolly's joke book. I'm not overly concerned about his fitness/maintaining his football shape. He'll be given a program to follow and can still see personal trainers, physios, etc. It'll just be like he has a season ending injury.