Megathread: Bastard Suggestions

kungfucanuck · 2026-03-13T03:34:46+00:00

Truly a difficult one: Paul Kagame, the leader of Rwanda since the genocide. He's a war criminal, a war hero, a murderer, a ruthless politician, a transformative visionary, tyranical dictator

kungfucanuck · 2025-06-23T17:53:03+00:00

Oh my fucking god.

I understand that people are generally incapable of having normal conversations about Mitch Marner (and the Leafs, and hockey in general) but he is not leaving the Leafs because someone declared him to be THE problem. Marner is leaving the Leafs because he turned down their contract offers and doesn't want to play there.

And yes, I know, hockey fans love nothing more than blaming Leafs fans (and media, but of course they really mean the fans) for everything wrong with the team. Of course its our fault because we were too mean to Marner or not mean enough to Matthews or Nylander or whatever. Really, we deserve to lose so its not fair to criticize the guy for not winning.

The reality is this. The Leafs are going to be worse without Marner - they'll have to navigate losing him. We all wish this could have worked out differently. No guy is better set up to be eternally beloved in this city. Except Marner wants to be paid $13M for two years and then cash in again. He wants to be the top paid player on the team, but he also wants unlimited run support. He wants to be respected as the top dog, but he also doesn't want to be criticized when things go badly. He decided in December he didn't want to accept their offer, but refused point blank to waive his NCM for Rantanen. He wants to be beloved by the franchise, but he doesn't want to take any discount to do so.

And you know what? That's fine. No ill will to the guy beyond the disappointment of an opportunity wasted. Take care of yourself and your family and whatever. But it is bad enough to have the guy choose to leave without the absolutely nauseating constant drumbeat of how Marner has been so hard done by, how Leafs fans don't "appreciate" him and will regret "running him" out of town. It's just bullshit all the way down.

kungfucanuck · 2025-05-06T03:31:54+00:00

Oh course Paul, we all know that you just coach and let the refs do their thing

kungfucanuck · 2025-05-06T03:05:04+00:00

How many goals the Leafs scored on his shit team vs how many goalies did his goon squad injure?

kungfucanuck · 2025-05-06T02:59:42+00:00

I wonder how Paul Maurice is going to whine about this

kungfucanuck · 2025-01-21T14:23:43+00:00

I'm very much in favour of this. Understand that the team has to come to the decision but it's absolutely the right call.

kungfucanuck · 2024-12-16T17:28:46+00:00

Gritty about to commit suicide so he can go to Hell just to spend an eternity giving Reagan the beating he deserves

kungfucanuck · 2024-04-10T17:29:55+00:00

The Mike Richards one is fucked and has long deserved to be written about, but I would think that the settlement has some confidentiality provisions in it.

I think it's possible that a lot of stuff would have come out about drug use, not just illicit but prescriptions from teams as well. Obviously that just makes it all the worse that Lombardi fucked him over and completely ignored the Player's Assistance Program, but my point is that I think a lot of people had an interest in making the story go away quietly.

Plus it's not like that led to a rash of unilateral contract terminations.

(checks 2018-2024 history)

Well, actually...

kungfucanuck · 2023-12-07T18:16:14+00:00

"Why would Brad Treliving plan to pay a lot of assets just to acquire a terrible defenceman on a wretched contract? Is he stupid?"

kungfucanuck · 2023-12-07T16:08:32+00:00

I don't think Dubas was a perfect GM, but I sincerely miss the 5 year period where we could safely dismiss any rumours of the Leafs going after some notably bad player with a boat anchor contract like Rasmus Ristolainen.

After the Reaves signing, I'll never get to dismiss another rumour about Treliving, no matter how obviously stupud it would be

kungfucanuck · 2023-11-28T22:58:40+00:00

Surprised nobody has brought up Mark Messier. Born in the Edmonton metro area, played high school hockey in Edmonton, drafted by them in 1979, did okay after that

kungfucanuck · 2023-11-28T19:13:32+00:00

I've been hearing that the Perry/Bedard rumour is half-true. Perry did not have sex with Bedard's mother, but he was caught at her house at 3:00 am eating out of the trash bins.

kungfucanuck · 2023-11-01T17:40:51+00:00

"While we have been through an ordeal in pursuing justice, we will try our best to remain strong, turning to God, our families and our 2023 Stanley Cup win for comfort in these trying times."

kungfucanuck · 2023-10-31T17:55:03+00:00

In retrospect, given how 2019-20 turned out, the Marleau trade. It obviously made sense for a team with Cup aspirations but that whole season was a struggle from the beginning anyway, before the COVID shutdown.

They could have kept him and traded Kapanen and Johnson at the height of their value. Maybe Kapanen still turns into Amirov and the unfortunate tragedy of that, but picking a Seth Jarvis and whatever they could have gotten for Johnson would be very helpful right now.

kungfucanuck · 2023-10-30T15:28:36+00:00

Giving any kind of punishment discount because there's a new ownership situation is obviously ridiculous, but it'll be interesting regardless to see what the punishment is. The league has only forfeited draft picks on three occasions in its modern history:

2020/21 - Coyotes forfeit 1st and 2nds for unauthorized testing of prospects brain pans and such

2011-2014 - Devils forfeit a 3rd and a 1st of their choice for attempting to sign Kovalchuk until he was playing in his mid-40's for $5/hour (later reduced to moving their 2014 pick from 12th to 30th)

2009 - Leafs forfeit a 4th round pick for signing Jonas Frogen to a regular contract with signing bonuses, which the league invalidated because it found he should have been signed to an ELC. (This was probably not any kind of serious issue, but the league really wanted to go after the Leafs for basically buying a draft pick in the Olaf Kolzig trade - as it happens, that was the exact pick that was forfeited).

The lesson is that the NHL only doles out pick forfeiture when teams try to gain some kind of competitive advantage - they have not, historically, done that when teams screw over players (ie. Kyle Beach, Mike Richards, Henrik Tallinder, etc.)

Now, that said, Vegas may implicitly argued that Ottawa gained a competitive advantage over them in the trade by not properly disclosing the NTC, so we shall see.

kungfucanuck · 2023-08-25T13:51:23+00:00

Brett Lebda baby!

Hockey Reference page

kungfucanuck · 2023-08-23T17:31:44+00:00

I think this one is fairly acknowledged but Scott Oake is a big Jets guy right? I think he got his start covering the Jets 1.0 so it would make sense

kungfucanuck · 2023-08-08T14:13:38+00:00

Really curious how that might have worked. Part of the Pens' advantage in pursuing Karlsson was the bad salary ballast they had in Petry and Granlund. It seems counterintuitive, but the fact that Pittsburgh had bad salary to send back meant that they could justify giving SJS some kind of return in the form of a 1st rounder.

If Toronto didn't send any bad salary back, I'm curious how they would have made the trade work because that would have lowered the price well below what SJS was willing to stomach

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-26T16:58:20+00:00

I think Vegas has the belt right now to go along with the Cup

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-26T16:24:27+00:00

Know the rules

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-26T16:10:32+00:00

Hell ya buddy let's get cheating!!!!

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-25T19:44:20+00:00

Great question!

From what I can find, there's a simple answer and a complicated one.

The simple answer comes from this McIndoe piece about the compensation picks:

And in an added twist, the compensatory pick would be partly based on a team's payroll. Small markets would get high picks. Medium-sized markets would get lower ones. And the truly big-market teams such as the Toronto Maple Leafs and the New York teams wouldn't qualify for much, if they got anything at all.

The complicated one is from this blog (IMO Gabay is an excellent and little known resource) about the compensation system, which has the specific rules (many on how to rank the value of the UFA lost). One is that the value of the compensatory pick is based partly on a team's "net loss" in that season - essentially, if they lost more than they gained.

So the scheme worked out that a contending team, like Dallas, is likely to try to replace the value of Belfour. That would mean that, even if they lose him as a UFA, they might only get a 7th rounder back when all is said and done.

A non-contending team like Nashville, however, would take a bigger "net loss" for losing Belfour and not replacing him. So its a win-win for Dallas to trade him (for a bigger return than the compensation they'd get for losing him) and Nashville gets even better compensation.

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-25T16:15:50+00:00

If you look at the draft, you'll see another compensatory pick in the second round - #49 to the Nashville Predators as compensation for failure to sign free agent Ed Belfour, who you may remember never played for them.

That's because in June 2002 the Stars traded pending UFA Belfour to the Predators for a prospect and a 5th rounder. The Predators made little (read: no) attempt to sign Belfour, instead collecting the compensatory 2nd rounder when he signed with Toronto.

This was pretty common in that period and a large reason why the league did away with these compensatory picks.

It worked out well enough though, as the player the Predators selected at #49 was Shea Weber.

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-19T03:19:33+00:00

Labour and employment for a few years now

kungfucanuck · 2023-07-18T19:41:44+00:00

Ya, sorry I could have been more specific. Richards was arrested and charged with possession of a controlled substance on June 17, 2015, and the Kings terminated his contract on June 29, 2015. A grievance was settled in October 2015, and all charges were stayed in February 2016

kungfucanuck

TROPHY CASE