The Official 2023-2024 NHL Season Thread: The Philadelphia Flyers are dead to me, even Gritty

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Now with fewer posts
Now with fewer Arizona Coyotes
Now with more Philadelphia Flyers fans

I am going to fish our season predictions out from PHPMyAdmin.

[Mark E. Smith]

Turn that bloody blimey space invader off!

[captain]

i love hockey (and hockey message board)

[captain]

remember when i had 30,000 posts here

[Grand Moff Larkin]

I don’t want to know how many posts I had

Hundreds professing faith in Dennis Cholowski alone!

[captain]

i guess i need a new avatar. jesse in the jagr wig is compelling

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Most of the comments are like "He turned away, what was he supposed to do??" but the aftermath of this makes me queasy

Also in terms of Twitter embeds, I tried doing a word replace on "twitter.com" (which doesn't work) for "twitter.com" (which does work), but it didn't change anything.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

From The Athletic's piece on draft prospect Trevor Connelly... yikes!

Connelly was known to scouts before the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, but his play forced teams to consider him anew. He was no longer just a prospect; he was a potential impact NHL player. But that made the evaluation of him thornier because, as one scout said, “Some stuff I’m just not willing to look the other way on.”

Many NHL evaluators were already aware that, in 2022, when he was 16, Connelly posted to Snapchat a picture of a teammate sitting on the floor of the children’s area of a library with building blocks assembled in the shape of a swastika. Connelly added the caption “creations.” He was removed from his team, the Long Island Gulls, after that incident. Connelly apologized for the posting of the swastika and said he didn’t understand how hurtful it would be to others. Some NHL people were also aware he had been accused of directing a racial slur at an opponent during a game in 2021, which he has denied.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

I try not to comment on stuff like that, but one guy said "He seems like a good kid who just made some poor decisions" and JFC he does not seem like a good kid! At best he's a total asshole!

[nick]

I'm actually impressed by most of the comment threads so far -- generally a "this kid needs therapy, the agent and mom are doing him no favours, he doesn't seem to learn" current.

This thread was interesting:

Someone really needs to do a deeper dive on Tri-City, I’m not sure if they are trying to rehabilitate people or just get whatever advantage they can…

@Quentin M. Exactly! - Why is Tri-City the harbor for both Mitchell and Connelly? They are consistently an excellent team in the USHL, but you have to wonder if they are a win at all costs franchise. What behavior ultimately crosses the line for them? And I say this as a person that was born in Kearney, NE and lived there for several years of my youth.

@Dan S. Johnny Druskinis also played for the Tri-City Storm during that particular time frame - he’s not a top prospect and was never going to be an NHL caliber player, but he was removed from the University of Michigan hockey team this year for spray painting graffiti in front of the Jewish Resource Center on campus. While it wasn’t explicitly antisemitic, it did contain a homophobic slur, and the choice of location was suspect as hell.

There’s something up with the culture of that team and it ain’t pretty.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Yeah when I sorted by most liked instead of most recent, it was a lot more encouraging. Still some "he's just a kid, why are you attacking him?" mixed in.

Hadn't seen the thread on Tri-City. I remember when Druskinis got booted from Michigan, didn't know where he ended up.

When I think of hockey culture being bad, this is precisely the sort of thing you need to bring to light and make public.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

If the Wild beat thee Goil in Edmonton and Cacophony hasn't registered an account, did the win make a sound?

[nick]

Who is Mark E Smith?

[Grand Moff Larkin]

That’s me as well, I wanted to make sure I could create an account (and in the process learned that I needed to change a setting for new accounts to be allowed).

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Watching Rags Flyers and Rempe (large lad) just fought Deslauries for what seemed like ages. Deslauries looks like he has a huge new birthmark.

[nick]

That was an old-time tilt.

GWG for Rempe too!

[Grand Moff Larkin]

It was a hilarious first NHL goal. He was basically on top of Ersson, the puck deflected off him and through Ersson's pads somehow. I thought Torts would challenge it, but maybe he was concerned he'd have to fight Rempe.

Rempe had a huge size advantage on Deslauries, but Deslauries seemed like a more experienced / crafty fighter. Deslauries probably landed more punches but Rempe did more damage.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

[Grand Moff Larkin]

It's genuinely amazing how Tampa wins with like five players contributing to all scoring

Today it's four, Stamkos wasn't invited

Hedman from Kucherov and Hagel
Point from Kucherov and Hedman
Hagel from Point and Kucherov

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Meanwhile J'accuse! is a minus three with a PP assist

I don't think the Devils are done-done yet, they could still catch the Flyers, but I'm getting less worried about them catching the Wings. Their goalies are shit and two of their current top four D are rookies. I'm also surprised that Palat isn't doing more.