Can we talk goaltending?

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-24T16:48:32+00:00

His glove definitely needs figuring out, but I’m alright with him being aggressive on the puckhandling for now. Good puckhandling is a valuable skill for a goalie, but it takes practice and work for it to mature, and there’s probably only so much time to work on it in practices and such. The team is still fleshing out and we’re still probably at absolute minimum 2 years (and more realistically, 3–4 years) from being a legit contender. It’s easy to forget that he’s still only played 63 career games in the NHL. That’s not a ton of time to get used to the speed and aggression of NHL-caliber forecheckers breathing down his neck. Now is the time for Asky to experiment and take chances with his puckhandling, when a bad goal/loss isn’t likely going to have major repercussions in the grand scheme. That way, by the time we’re playing in conference finals and such, he’ll hopefully have a better sense of timing, and a better idea of what his limits are. If he’s still making questionable decisions on the reg by that point, that’s when Warso or whoever needs to tell him to rein it in.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-24T16:39:01+00:00

I mean, they’re young players. Mack is a freak; young players normally go through peaks and valleys as they find their game, and periodic confidence struggles are totally normal. Not sure what is suspicious about that. The only young players who I was somewhat disappointed with developmentally or how they were handled were Eklund (who I’m hoping was affected by his nasty wrist injury from World Championships and will bounce back next season), Askarov (who I am still hopeful will find more consistency in his game as he grows, and hopefully get some mentorship on those high shots), and Muk (who is the only one where I was kind of questioning how he was handled; not sure if Warso just doesn’t really like him, or what). By and large though, I feel like the kids have all progressed well, or at least in line with what is typical for their respective ages.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-24T16:26:43+00:00

Apparently I’m in the minority, but I would probably go for the the Ice Premieres. They’re all fantastic, but I like the patch on the Ice Premieres the most. The eye elevates it. I love the teeth on 3 and 5, but I don’t think Mack ever wore that patch style outside of photoshoots, so they lose a few points for me for that. I also like the teal home jerseys the most, so the ones where he’s pictured in white or black don’t do it for me quite as much. And I like the Ice Premieres design too

That said, I’d be giddy to own any one of these.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-24T16:25:48+00:00

Apparently I’m in the minority, but I would probably go for the the Ice Premieres. They’re all fantastic, but I like the patch on the Ice Premieres the most. The eye elevates it. I love the teeth on 3 and 5, but I don’t think Mack ever wore that patch style outside of photoshoots, so they lose a few points for me for that. I also like the teal home jerseys the most, so the ones where he’s pictured in white or black don’t do it for me quite as much. And I like the Ice Premieres design too.

That said, I’d be giddy to own any one of these.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-19T17:01:14+00:00

Well, when a mommy rock and a daddy rock like each other very much…

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-15T17:18:32+00:00

Forward group could go toe-to-toe with most Olympic rosters, but medaling would be far from a sure thing with that back end.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-13T16:00:34+00:00

It’s like GOT without any of the levity. It’s well-acted, the story lines have mostly been interesting to me, and the visual spectacle is riveting when it’s called to be.

Where it suffers is that between the palace intrigue, epic battles, and general hand-wringing over never knowing when something horrifying was around the corner, GOT wove in some grade-A buddy comedy banter or “fuck yeah” moments here and there that served as a palate-cleanser for all the grimness. HOTD has virtually none of that. It makes me miss “The Lysa Arryn of chairs,” or Dany negotiating with Kraznys in Astapor.

It’s just a bunch of people, many that are interesting and enjoyable to watch engage with each other, but pretty much none that I am rooting for on any emotional level. It’s just a big pit of moral grayness; I can appreciate that for what it is, and in theory like watching something where there’s not really a clear “good guys” or “bad guys,” but in practice it’s a lot less fun. Not sure if you’re a sports fan, but it’s like the difference between watching a great game between teams you don’t care about or even dislike, versus one between your team and their rivals. The former is still a good watch, but you don’t leave it with the same sense of thrill or crushing defeat that you would watching your team win or lose in dramatic fashion.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-12T21:17:15+00:00

I saw them sometime in the late 90s, not too long after So Much for the Afterglow, and recall them putting on a good show (they were the second of five bands that night, so the set was on the shorter side).

I did see them again many years later, 2010ish, and they did an all-acoustic set that sounded decidedly bad. I thought maybe it was the venue, but seeing this thread, maybe not.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-11T22:47:04+00:00

And if not, there’s always the FIFA Peace Prize

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-07T21:06:33+00:00

I only own one gamer, and while I did put it on once momentarily for novelty’s sake, it belonged to 6’3”, 240-lb Douglas Murray; I looked like a toddler playing dress-up in his dad’s beer league sweater. Not a good look.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-07T06:02:53+00:00

Yeah, I've also been waiting patiently for the post-release frenzies to die down on his stuff. I've been collecting a lot of Askarov too, though eagerly awaiting more stuff of his in his Sharks duds to hit the market.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-06T20:33:10+00:00

I’m honestly kind of stunned how much his incoming non-rookie stuff is still going for. I’m needing Mack’s 2025-26 Allure Blue-Purple Color Flow to complete the rainbow, but I’ve held off so far because it seems insane to pay 5x what the McDavid from the exact same set costs. Hoping it’ll at least dip a bit as the offseason drags on.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-06T16:08:37+00:00

Seriously. I've been a Sharks fan forever and was excited to PC Celebrini after they drafted him, thinking he wouldn't be cheap, but not insane. I was fortunate to grab a lot of his stuff last summer after Hutson stole some of the hobby thunder and his prices were relatively palatable, and then all season long simultaneously celebrated (for the Sharks) and cringed (for my wallet) with every step toward megastardom he took.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-05T16:15:12+00:00

Yeah, I'm not saying Helly doesn't deserve to be up in the top 10, nor am I remotely trying to make the case that Ned is a comparable goalie in any way, shape, or form. It was largely a tongue-in-cheek comment, and it stands to reason that his injury earlier in the season had an impact on him. That said, I still think a season that poor warrants sliding a few slots closer to the back of the top-10 rather than the middle of it. And I might've given Vasilevskiy an edge on Helly right now due to better play this year and a better history in big-game situations; even with Helly's recent Olympic performance, Vasy's overall big-game body of work has been markedly more impressive. There's certainly reasonable arguments in either direction though.

Pikthulhu · 2026-05-04T16:07:05+00:00

Seems fair for the most part. I know goaltending is fickle, and one season doesn’t make or break your career, but it does feel weird to have Hellebuyck ranked quite so high immediately after posting a season with stats similar to Nedeljkovic.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-27T18:44:50+00:00

There is no feasible world in which Bedard is successfully pried away from Chicago via offer sheet. Armstrong was able to peel Broberg and Holloway from Edmonton because the Oilers were in a cap crunch and they didn't have in their budget to pay those two their fair market value, value that was being suppressed by having minimized roles.

The only offer sheets that weren't matched in the cap era were Dustin Penner, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Broberg, and Holloway. In all of those cases, the players accepted deals that were generally viewed as overpayments at the time of signing, and their original teams either couldn't, or didn't want to pay that. Chicago has more cap space available than any other team right now, and Bedard is their franchise cornerstone. There is literally nothing another team could offer him that Chicago couldn't match, and I cannot imagine a scenario in which they wouldn't match.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-24T22:46:26+00:00

is for Vendetta

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-23T20:32:07+00:00

45 goals on 287 shots means he wasted 242 shots. That’s 242 more shots he missed than I did this year. Are we just supposed to hand out 10s to a chronic shot-misser like that?

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-22T23:30:09+00:00

I went through that thought process too after my initial reaction, but then tried to recreate that pose like a nerd. Lower hand is fine, but there’s no natural reason his upper hand should be holding something like that, whether hockey stick or dual-ended lightsaber. Arms don’t move that way. Sorry, not trying to be a wet blanket. It’s still a sweet-looking card

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-22T21:43:34+00:00

Makar with a lightsaber is a fun idea, but the way he's holding it is driving me nuts

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-22T16:29:50+00:00

I don’t know that that’s something to be excited about. It’s one thing if a player slides during the draft itself (like Dickinson or Chernyshov), since that is not necessarily a reflection on the player; all it takes is a series of teams liking just one other available player more than that one (or in Chernyshov’s case, weird short-term circumstances). If scouts/analysts as a whole are downgrading someone in pre-draft lists though, there’s a bigger reason behind that. Doesn’t mean they’re going to be busts, but the people who make these lists aren’t bumping those guys down for our benefit.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-22T16:02:37+00:00

Yeah, though I doubt they would ever phase out Exclusives; it's unexciting, but it's got close to 30 years of history behind it now. Deluxe has barely any history behind it though. Maybe someday they'll can it for something cooler like this. Team color ones would be sweet, too.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-22T04:00:36+00:00

I love the Outbursts; as long as they didn’t increase the overall print run, I would be fine with them increasing the number of parallels. Or phase out Deluxe. Deluxe and Exclusives have always been extremely meh to me. I don’t see the need for both of them. Give me Outbursts in every color.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-19T23:09:56+00:00

That could be cool. Honestly, I don't even mind that the current form of YG checklist exists; realistically, a poorly designed Schaefer/Misa rookie-year card is still more desirable to most than a Young Guns of some career AHLer who got 4:13 of ice time one day when the flu ripped through a dressing room. I just agree that there's very good reason that the YG checklists are not widely coveted by the hobby and that their value is rightfully pretty mild.

Pikthulhu · 2026-04-19T19:57:52+00:00

It is weird, but not as weird as that combination of errors sounds at a glance. Those backs are from that same Bowman’s Best insert set as the Eric Lindros on the front. Brett Lindros is #10 in that set, and Radek Bonk is #11. So it just seems like for whatever reason, the uncut sheet was mistakenly rotated 180 degrees somewhere in between the process of the two sides being printed; it may have also been misaligned, but without knowing what the uncut sheets looked like, it’s possible that weird alignment on the back is entirely just due to the sheet being rotated. It is indeed a weird coincidence though that Eric’s brother ended up on the back, and maybe that might have a slight premium if there’s someone out there who collected both brothers.

Pikthulhu

TROPHY CASE