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

[Grand Moff Larkin]

I can see Toronto making the playoffs but winning the division feels like too big of a stretch

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Devils’ Jack Hughes out with hand injury after freak accident at team dinner: Source

[sutterfamily]

I can see Toronto making the playoffs but winning the division feels like too big of a stretch

Reasonable. It’s probably gonna end up being friggin Tampa or Florida let’s be honest

[practice]

Stecher 2 tha Leafs. I've been calling for this for like 5 years better late than never

[practice]

I don't watch other teams much but I watch the Leafs and I think they are one of the worst teams in the league and people say the Flames are one of those as well which makes me wonder: did Brad T put together the two worst teams in the league?

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Stecher can move the puck / skate at least. He’s the defenseman version of a forward who can put up numbers when given a top six role / minutes on a bad team, but doesn’t really fit on a good one. Like he’s a poor man’s top-four guy more than the sort of dude you want on your bottom pair.

[sutterfamily]

I think the SNES might have claimed him as a stop gap with Chabot out, oh well.

[practice]

Florida v Tampa is a great game. Like a different sport compared to Leafs games which resemble a Barclay's Premier League TM match between the best team and the worst team.

[practice]

Some kinda first career goal by 23 year old Jack Findlay

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Tonight I learned that the Sabres have both Josh Doan and Josh Dunne on their roster. I thought the announcer was mispronouncing Doan.

[Cacophony]

Kempe getting big bux

[Grand Moff Larkin]

8/85

Solid player but man the new NHL math is hard to process

[Grand Moff Larkin]

First time for everything, but Kirby Dach is out for 4-6 weeks with a broken foot

[Grand Moff Larkin]

Breaking containment on the Wings thread to see how people interpret a rule:

Last night Moritz Seider was skating backwards with the puck in the neutral zone. Puck was rolling, he fired it up and around but it went out of play. The puck was two feet outside of the Wings' blue line, one foot was just crossing the blue line, the other was in the neutral zone. It goes to commercial break and when it returns, the refs have called a delay of game penalty on Seider. He can't believe it and is pointing to where the puck was, two feet outside of the zone.

There wasn't a clear explanation from the officials other than "Get in the box," but the Wings broadcast thought one of two things might've been the cause: 1. It's not where the puck is, it's where your skates are 2. Looking at the rule, it allows for a penalty to be called regardless of where it is on the ice if it seems like the intent is to fire it straight out.

My notion of the rule was always "It's an automatic call if the puck is in the defensive zone." I don't remember calls coming with it outside of the zone or with the skates in / puck out.

The Rangers ended up getting their only goal of the game near the end of that PP, and the refs called an incredibly questionable holding the stick (one of those "I hooked you a little and you held on with a chicken wing" deals) against the Rags a few minutes later, which seemed to be a "Yeah we fucked up" make-up call.

[sutterfamily]

I haven't seen the play but I guess if they think it was intentional then I could buy it but the skate thing makes no sense.

The whole point of the automatic one is that you're delaying the game while trying to clear your zone/prevent goals. If the puck isn't even in the zone, the position of the Dman's skates has no bearing on anything - if an opposing player stole the puck from said Dman, their team is not "onside" right? Like if that steal occurs and someone skates in ahead of the puck then it would still be offside?

[Grand Moff Larkin]

It didn't look intentional to me, a completely unbiased observer. I'm curious if the league issues a clarification because I was totally baffled.

Mickey Redmond's argument against perceiving intent (if that's what they were calling, I honestly don't know!) was that the automatic rule was put in place to avoid trying to read a player's mind. Just call it every time.

[sutterfamily]

It would have to be extremely obvious for me to get on board with calling it based on intent

(or also fine with it if the team getting called is playing Ottawa... )

[captain]

So now that the Oilers are basically healthy, I see the lines and combos shaking out like this.

Savoie - McD - Hyman
Podkolzin - Draisaitl - Roslovic
Nuge - Henrique - Mangiapane
Janmark - Philp - Frederic

This kind of setup gives strong pairs (97/18, 29/28, 19/88) with kind of a rotating series of LW. I like the way this is looking and working a lot, especially given how great a connector Savoie has been since playing with skill guys.

The D on the other hand has been really bad. Bouchard is making more mistakes than ever, Nurse is Nurse and his decision making continues to be awful, Ekholm is getting old and slowing down and Walman has been merely okay. They might need to keep playing with combos. I think if Bowman can find a Nurse trade he makes it all day, that cap could be deployed so much better.

[Grand Moff Larkin]

How has Savoie looked? Is Howard down in the AHL now?

[captain]

Howard sent down. He showed some flashes but wasn't really consistent enough to be on a skill line quite yet. A year of pro will do him good. I like his shot mentality but I'm not sure his release is good enough to beat NHL goalies clean yet. We'll see how he develops.

Savoie is a little worker bee who is always moving his legs, forechecking, winning battles, disrupting plays and doing good little connective work. I have a lot of time for him and think he should probably stick all year unless he really hits the skids.