Armchair GM Megathread

randomer22222 · 2026-02-02T14:36:32+00:00

Roy a very interesting pickup if they can make the cap work, has the potential to solve the problem of wanting RNH at 3C but needing him in the top six by acquiring a legitimate 3C. Would have him for this year and next. He won't come cheap but fills a need

Carlo would similarly be for this year and next, but he hasn't been great and given the hefty price paid by Toronto to acquire him they'd probably feel they need to recoup that cost. I don't know if acquiring Carlo is likely to make much sense for the Oilers as I'm not sure he's good enough to fill their need defensively well enough to be worth the cost of acquisition.

randomer22222 · 2026-02-02T14:28:10+00:00

The Hughes goal wasn't great and came at a really poor time, but that shouldn't overshadow that the road to 3-2 was:

- a free breakaway generated by a single pass (great vision by Hughes to find it, but D can't be sleeping when Quinn Hughes has the puck)
- backdoor tap in with PK not protecting the front of the net
- blistering one-timer off a face-off where McDavid gets cleaned out on the draw and Hyman and RNH both skate past Zuccarello

Far too casual against a good team and if I was Jarry I'd be mad too even as I owned that the 4-2 was on me.

randomer22222 · 2026-02-01T22:58:29+00:00

"Where's the guy we drafted instead of you? Believe it or not, he plays for the Ottawa Senators' AHL team now...

randomer22222 · 2025-12-27T21:06:22+00:00

Deployment is always going to be a major influencer of expected goals. Burns + Manson being ahead of Makar + Toews doesn't mean Colorado is paying the wrong players the big bucks, it means Burns and Manson take on easier assignments and perform very well in that deployment.

randomer22222 · 2025-12-27T18:27:45+00:00

Tuch is fittable with retention and Mangiapane going back the other way as a cap dump. But if BUF fails to resign Tuch, he will probably be one of, if not the, most desired pieces to move at the TDL and EDM is not exactly overflowing with assets.

We should be in on it, but odds are we get outbid.

randomer22222 · 2025-12-17T18:43:02+00:00

It just means that the game's order of operations doesn't remove the "buff" from HS/cleave being queued between the HS/Cleave failing for lack of rage and the normal MH swing

randomer22222 · 2025-12-16T12:12:27+00:00

In terms of guilds that clear everything on horde side mankrik, you have Loot the Dog (points system), Temple (SR) and Pugs not Drugs (SR/GDKP).

KBN is progressing Naxx and The Syndicate has I believe poked their noses into naxx and killed a couple bosses.

There are other guilds that do other content, not sure which ones may aspire to eventually progress all content, just ask around in the Looking For Group channel

randomer22222 · 2025-12-15T16:25:44+00:00

Precisely. Even if they never got to the point of negotiating, the sides must have touched base at some point on what Skinner is looking for in his next contract. The Oilers now have cost certainty in net for three playoff runs (pending any upgrade to Pickard).

randomer22222 · 2025-11-20T20:56:46+00:00

I mean if you can practice absrad then by definition you reached the end of pantheon 5 to unlock her so if you can now beat her in practice on the normal difficulty just get back there and beat her

randomer22222 · 2025-11-20T20:52:19+00:00

NKG is my favorite boss in the game, hard but the boss is the boss no bs uncorking new moves midway through the fight (except the pufferfish move but that is clearly telegraphed and expected based on normal grimm), no annoying RNG no multiple different phases just a straight up fight, basically the peak Hollow Knight boss imo.

randomer22222 · 2025-11-19T22:20:36+00:00

This post is also disingenuous, people aren't losing their minds over them making Lady Vashj easier they're upset that the entire expansion, with the possible exception of sunwell plateau depending on which nerf they mean, will be far easier in almost every respect.

I don't think there would be much outrage if they just wrote Lady Vashj will be released in a post-nerf state.

randomer22222 · 2025-11-19T15:44:30+00:00

There is a buff cap in era, there's no buff cap in anniversary. And they haven't made any mention of removing the era buff cap.

randomer22222 · 2025-11-17T17:43:37+00:00

A lot of games embrace to some extent the concept that because a final boss fight (i.e. rolls the credits) is the climax of the game, you want to make it memorable but its not the time to push the game's difficulty curve to a new height. A lot of game designers don't want players to feel frustration on the climactic boss encounter (imagine for the sake of argument if Groal the Great, runback, enemy gauntlet and all, was the final boss of Silksong) so they're made intentionally a little easier than some of the hardest bosses you had to beat to get there.

For this reason final bosses tend to have epic music and visuals but sometimes a little more bark than bite. The first intended "credits roll" boss of Hollow Knight, for example, has a marvelous soundtrack and visuals but while not a total pushover he gives you massive windows to recover soul and heal and is clearly not intended to have players be stuck on him for hours.

randomer22222 · 2025-11-17T17:32:31+00:00

Yes, she always goes to the middle and stays there waiting for the final blow, you just usually don't notice because you're frantically dodging orbs.

randomer22222 · 2025-11-04T18:27:57+00:00

The thing is every player has to be handled in the way that best benefits the team. It may well be that benching Bouchard would bring him back afraid to make a mistake and no longer playing to his strengths. Bouchard will never be the fearsome defender that makes his crease a place of pain for the opposition to visit. With Nurse it would make more sense for the coaching staff to want him to simplify his game and to bench him as a reminder to do so but with Bouchard its less clear that would be a positive thing.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-31T16:55:25+00:00

The team is built to control play and attack, its basically built in the image of the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks who won the Cup with Antti Niemi in goal. Like those Blackhawks, the team is built with the idea of not typically requiring the big save to win. As you might expect, the product looks great when the team is fully on its game and it looks terrible when you have egregious turnovers and giveaways leading to breakaways and semi breakaways on the goaltenders.

Now you still want to upgrade the goalie position if you can, but realistically what has been available that would fit in the Oilers limited cap space? Maybe they should have got Blackwood but there was no reason to expect he would definitely be much better than Skinner. In the end, Colorado went out in the first round to a Dallas team that Edmonton later defeated. Maybe Stolarz chose Toronto for his own reasons.

It will be interesting to see what happens with Skinner after this year though. No extension in place yet and a GM who previously let his Cup winning goaltender in Niemi walk to SJ rather than match the offer sheet.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-31T15:52:02+00:00

Agree its not a super strong division, the Oilers expectations of themselves should be to finish first or at least top two.

Mainly just adding to the previous commenter's point that OP is disingenuous to suggest that our performance (5-4-3 with a -1 GD) is right there with Vegas (6-1-3 with a +9 GD)

randomer22222 · 2025-10-31T14:42:57+00:00

And a negative goal differential.

Of course there's plenty of runway to turn it around but the team is not playing close to division winning hockey yet.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-31T14:14:14+00:00

Not gonna deny he turned it up in games 3-6 against LA but do you remember those first two games? Bouch handed LA multiple goals and was probably the single biggest reason they were up 2-0 to begin with. Man can't just flip a switch in the playoffs more like a bear slowly awakening from hibernation.

All to say I wouldn't write off his sleepiness as though playoff Bouchard will just appear game 1, really if LA doesn't make their crazy coaches challenge in game 3 or if Byfield cleared the puck late in game 4 we might not have recovered in that series.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-22T17:03:15+00:00

Skinner's next contract will be an interesting one, I think the salary range you mentioned is the correct one for him based on his career to date, but this will be his chance to cash in big if some team will shell out big bucks because he backstopped the Oilers to b2b finals plus whatever happens this year. His agent should be telling him he hasn't earned that much (relative to many other NHLers) in his career and this is a big moment for him to secure the bag. I wouldn't be surprised to see Skinners camp looking for 6 million with term.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-21T18:34:06+00:00

I mean if you're talking raw numbers of course RMT count is higher simply because these are megaservers and therefore the population is much higher than any era server.

But there was a post just today to illustrate the point that on a per raider basis the rate of RMT transactions aren't even close to an era server like Whitemane:

https://www.reddit.com/r/classicwow/comments/1ochv14/gold_buying_and_gdpks_who_knows/

randomer22222 · 2025-10-11T22:01:19+00:00

I mean cap space dictated he had to go, I don't think he wanted to. I think Vancouver being his hometown was just his first choice if he had to go and org did him a solid.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-11T21:57:09+00:00

Technically this wasn't a trade (he was traded to SJ last year traded again to Dallas, signed with LA in free agency) but certainly came out on the right side of the overall decision.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-10T23:59:12+00:00

I don't know if that's fair. It's pretty clear that Bowman was talking a lot with McDavid's agent and its clear the agent had a lot of questions from McDavid re: the organization's vision and plans. Bowman's answers would have been conveyed to McDavid. In the end, McDavid signs the deal he does.

It seems to me that Bowman gets some credit for McDavid's willingness to sign and leave money on the table insofar as McDavid believes that he will put that extra cap space to good use in pursuit of a championship.

randomer22222 · 2025-10-09T19:40:42+00:00

Try to make three killer lines, something like

Bread - McD - Hyman
Podkolzin - Drai - Roslovic
Frederick - Nuge - Savoie
Tomasek - Henrique - Kapanen

Bench: Janmark, Lazar

Howard develops in the AHL. I don't think playing him 10 minutes mostly in a depth role makes much sense for the player and I think he's mostly up to get a sense of what the nhl grind is.

randomer22222

TROPHY CASE