Das 2025-2026 NHL Regular Season Thread: If Connor McDavid were a real team player, he’d sign for the league minimum

[sutterfamily]

OT in SNES/PNES was fucking wild.

[sutterfamily]

Hate the shootout, got a point at least. PNES were good, dominated the second but were unlucky with 3 or 4 posts. SNES were better in the third and OT, lots of chances to win it but nobody could bury. With the D kinda rounding out, their hugest hole remains having a proper sniper to take advantage of those chances.

[sutterfamily]

Okay, positives:

Ullmark is playing really well all of sudden. Yakemchuk looks good, I think that pick is going to pan out just fine. Uh... oh, SNES have (at least currently) the regulation win tie-breaker on basically every single other team around them.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Right, so what I said. Glad we could agree.

Is anyone saying they're the best team in the NHL, though? I know Sabres fans have a comical tendency to get ahead of their skis whenever Buffalo goes on a heater.

[sutterfamily]

But they've been playing (or at least get results) at that pace and have the best record in the league since Dec 1, so I'm just SAYING that at some point they will start to play (and get points like) a team that is not as good as that (which is what I mean by come back to earth).

[sutterfamily]

I'm assuming that you hope that starts tomorrow.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

They've stumbled a bit in the last week, so who knows.

[practice]

crazy miss by Marchment last night in the last minute

[sutterfamily]

I got more of an insight into how the PNES are keeping themselves in it this year. I think smart coaching - they are leaning into having Erik Karlsson and his thing - high risk/reward - cause they have some really good Fs to compliment the time and space he can create. He's probably also having a better year, maybe no injuries and/or made adjustments to handle his body being not what it used to be. Rackell can snipe, Kindell looks great, and then Sid and Malkin, etc. The only truly baffling part is how the goaltending has held up so well against the number of chances they give up.

I know Sid, Malkin, Letang, and Karlsson are extremely old by league standards but they're also four of the best players from their generation.

[sutterfamily]

Oh yeah, getting Chinakhov for nothing, too. Not sure what CBJ was doing there - letting the coach you're willing to fire a month later poison the relationship so much

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Felt like Mike Sullivan wanted Karlito to be something he wasn't and ended up leaning into his weaknesses, whereas Dan Muse is letting him cook. They also did the free agent bargain bin routine (Mantha, Brazous) way better than thee Goil.

[Alexei Ca$hin]

Chinakhov can really fire the puck

[practice]

Yeah that was a truly incredible sound he created off the post. When I was like 25 playing 3 or 4 nights a week in Ottawa I once hit a crossbar on a once in a year kinda wrister and a better player than me later said, that was a mean crossbar, you could hear that on the volleyball courts [outside]. The next time I was on the ice a couple days later feeling like chinakhov out there I tried to shoot a puck from around the same place and the follow through hits a guy in the mouth, then I'm giving him a lift to emergency and waiting with him just hating myself