Nice to beat the Habs/Rags, but at what cost?

[B21]

RE the oilers

see, its knowing when to suck as well as being good at it.

The Oilers are only good at sucking they don't know the right times to acutally suck.

as for the Pens, well they are the A#1 team when it comes to sucking...

come on, you walked right into that.

Ha! Hall, Nugent-Hopkins and Yakupov versus Malkin, Staal and Fleury - closer than you think.

[King Knut]

Bringing up the fact that the Penguins won the lottery and were given advanced lottery positioning based on sucking two years before that particular draft is not a good way to make your point.

The Penguins received help. DId they lose on purpose or were they just that bad? I don't know. I do know that it was a god damn travesty that they were given the #1 overall after the lockout season. That was totally out of line and inappropriate. Merely the beginning of Gary Bettman doing everything within his power to save Mario's ass... for some ungodly and unknown reason.

The Pens tanked to get Crosby, Staal, Fleury and Malkin. Based on.....???? I wonder how a team can tank to get a player when no season is played. That Craig Patrick must be a cheeky bugger.

[Howie58]

Greetings:

I understand the draft pick concern but think there is a bigger "problem" with a late-season pickup: Does it take Lavy and Homer off the hook when they may need to stay there? I might argue a change in coach or GM might mean as much as the pick.

Howie

[sarsippius]

Good point Howie, but I think there was zero chance of Homer going anywhere, no matter how the last handful of games go. As far as Lavy, its probably a little better than even money that he stays, unless there are some behind the scenes issues that haven't been made public

[RonJeremy]

If we lose out on, a top 5 pick, what about the big right handed defenseman, Pulock. He has a cannon shot, and is very skilled,it's high time we had a dman who can shoot the puck

[B21]

@King Knut

<< Bringing up the fact that the Penguins won the lottery and were given advanced lottery positioning based on sucking two years before that particular draft is not a good way to make your point. >>

Yes it is when it's not the same as "tanking". There was no season leading up to the Crosby lottery. That means you are literally arguing that the Pens "tanked" during the three most recent seasons that were played before the Crosby lottery on the off chance that the NHL would lock the players out, cancel the season and then decide that sucking for three prior years would give the Pens and four other teams the best odds to get Crosby. If you can't see how dumb that sounds....

<< The Penguins received help. >>

You call it help which implies intent. I call it luck which is was.

<< Did they lose on purpose or were they just that bad? I don't know. >>

I do know. They were that bad. Trust me.

<< I do know that it was a god damn travesty that they were given the #1 overall after the lockout season. That was totally out of line and inappropriate. Merely the beginning of Gary Bettman doing everything within his power to save Mario's ass... for some ungodly and unknown reason. >>

They weren't given anything. The won a lottery in which they had a 6% of winning. That's called luck. Had the season been played out, the would have had a 20-25% chance. That's called getting f'd over by the lockout. See the difference?

So how would YOU have determined who got #1 overall? And no BS about giving every team an equal shot.

[mojo1917]

If we lose out on, a top 5 pick, what about the big right handed defenseman, Pulock. He has a cannon shot, and is very skilled,it's high time we had a dman who can shoot the puck

You mean besides the diminutive Viking...

[JackStraw]

If we lose out on, a top 5 pick, what about the big right handed defenseman, Pulock. He has a cannon shot, and is very skilled,it's high time we had a dman who can shoot the puck

He's not that big (6'0") but he can shoot the puck. I think his defense is suspect though. Much rather go for Ristoleinen.

[trevluk]

Isn't "never ever never" a triple negative....hence positive?

Oh good, I get to win an argument with a Pens fan now! (It's all I got since my team has crapped the ice this year.) Is the word "ever" a negative in Pittsburgh? Because I believe that everywhere else in the free world it a just an adjective of time and has no positive or negative meaning. So your sentence - "the Flyers can never ever never have a 2nd round pick in any draft." would translate to "the Flyers can never, in any amount of time, occassionally not have a 2nd round draft pick in any draft." So no, that is not a triple negative, hence a positive. I will be scanning all of your other posts for grammatical errors. As I said, it's all I got right now.

[Dynamo 47]

The Pens tanked to get Crosby, Staal, Fleury and Malkin. Based on.....????

Based on? They were dreadful and the year Crosby was coming out they did not exacly go out and bust a gut to win games near the end of the season. Whether you are a Pens fan or not, the reason they are successful now is because they were drafting top 5 for 5 straight years and were able to get impact players.

2002 - 5th Overall - Ryan Whitney

2003 - 1st Overall - Marc Andre Fluery

2004 - 2nd Overall - Malkin

2005 - 1st Overall - Crosby

2006 - 2nd Overall - Staal

Those same years the Flyers picks were as follows. Now granted some were as a result of bad trades of picks, or missed picks but when you are drafting top 5 five years in a row you should have impact players

2002 - 4th Overall - Joni Pitkanen

2003 - 11th Overall - Jeff Carter (and also drafted Richards later in the 1st)

2004 - Didnt have a pick until the 3rd round

2005 - 29th overall - Steve Downie

2006 - 22nd Overall - Claude Giroux

So you see why it helps the Flyers to lose this year and miss the playoffs? There is a significant advantage to drafting top 5 versus middle to late first round; especially in an NHL with salary caps.

[B21]

@Dynamo 47

<< Based on? They were dreadful and the year Crosby was coming out they did not exacly go out and bust a gut to win games near the end of the season. Whether you are a Pens fan or not, the reason they are successful now is because they were drafting top 5 for 5 straight years and were able to get impact players. >>

Seeing as how the season prior to the Crosby draft was cancelled I find it hard to say they were dreadful...although if the season were played they certainly would have been. If you are referring the 2003-04 season (last season actually played before the Crosby draft) their record in March and April was 10-4-3.

So you have two options on that one...either explain how a team that is purposely "tanking" and not going out and "busting a gut to win" goes 10-4-3 to close the season or you can admit that the Pens didn't tank.

As for the rest of your points, no one (especially me) has ever disagreed that the Pens were fortunate they way things played out those years but they didn't tank. They sucked and then got very very very lucky.

Whitney was not an impact player. That's a joke of a statement.

They traded up to get Fleury at #1 then sent him back to Juniors during the 2003-04 season to avoid having to pay him a roster bonus.

Malkin was drafted before the cancelled season then spent the 2005-06 season in thed KHL which means he didn't suit up for the Pens until 2006-07 even though he was drafted in 2004. The Pens practically had to smuggle him out of Finland so he could play that season for them (because that's what teams that want to tank do - they smuggle world class talent away from the KHL).

The first year after the lock out the Pens signed 3 big name free agents (Palffy, LeClair and Gonchar) and, for a number of reasons, still sucked (remember - no Malkin yet) and managed to get Staal (because when you sign free agents like those guys you are clearly intending to tank).

So the next time a Flyers fan decides to throw out a "tanking" accusation (aside from the Mario draft of course), I'd like to see a little proof. I'd also like to see a few tanking accusations thrown at other "deserving" teams as well. Example - I never see anything about Edmonton "tanking" to get three #1 overall picks the last 3 years (and in position for another high lottery pick this year!). No one seems to remember that the Nords had three straight #1 picks in the early 1990's. How did that work out for them? Oh yeah - they won a "tainted" Cup. Using your rationale, they tanked to get their Cup, too. But only the Pens get accused of tanking. Hmmm.

[B21]

Oh good, I get to win an argument with a Pens fan now! (It's all I got since my team has crapped the ice this year.) Is the word "ever" a negative in Pittsburgh? Because I believe that everywhere else in the free world it a just an adjective of time and has no positive or negative meaning. So your sentence - "the Flyers can never ever never have a 2nd round pick in any draft." would translate to "the Flyers can never, in any amount of time, occassionally not have a 2nd round draft pick in any draft." So no, that is not a triple negative, hence a positive. I will be scanning all of your other posts for grammatical errors. As I said, it's all I got right now.

You win.

[flyercanuck]

Based on? They were dreadful and the year Crosby was coming out they did not exacly go out and bust a gut to win games near the end of the season. Whether you are a Pens fan or not, the reason they are successful now is because they were drafting top 5 for 5 straight years and were able to get impact players.

2002 - 5th Overall - Ryan Whitney

2003 - 1st Overall - Marc Andre Fluery

2004 - 2nd Overall - Malkin

2005 - 1st Overall - Crosby

2006 - 2nd Overall - Staal

Those same years the Flyers picks were as follows. Now granted some were as a result of bad trades of picks, or missed picks but when you are drafting top 5 five years in a row you should have impact players

2002 - 4th Overall - Joni Pitkanen

2003 - 11th Overall - Jeff Carter (and also drafted Richards later in the 1st)

2004 - Didnt have a pick until the 3rd round

2005 - 29th overall - Steve Downie

2006 - 22nd Overall - Claude Giroux

So you see why it helps the Flyers to lose this year and miss the playoffs? There is a significant advantage to drafting top 5 versus middle to late first round; especially in an NHL with salary caps.

Philly also had to trade players and picks for the 4th overall in 02 and for the 11th overall in 03. I know Pittsburgh traded up for Fleury, but it was only from #3. Philly was drafting in the 20s as usual in those two drafts. And I've said it before, Pittsburgh is successful because of two drafts where they had no brainer picks. Those other top 5 picks weren't exactly the greatest choices (for example they could have had Toews instead of Staal and any number of great players instead of Fleury who would now likely go 12-15th in that draft instead of 1st overall)

[trevluk]

You win.

It's the little things in life these days!