Location: Wondering when # became hashtag and not a number sign.
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I am still completely baffled how this is even a story, nevermind the monumental one it has transformed into.
15 years ago, this would not even have been a paragraph on a news site/paper other than the winning goal was scored on a PP. Two legal checks, player attacks another player and lands a couple punches.....average night in any NHL game.
Now? We need a parliamentary panel convened to investigate how things should be handled moving forward.
Just ridiculous.
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Kassian and Tkachuk each serve their own purpose on respective teams, and are considered a-holes respectively. Who cares ultimately, other than performance and dare say integrity. Tkachuk is still emerging , with a huge talent to boot. Kassian is diving down a dark diminishing hole very quickly , in his stint in the NHL.
For the first statement to be true, one would have to believe that they are both relevant. They are not comparable. They shouldn't even be in the same sentence together.
I didn’t read the article but it’s not wrong. We’ve learned that those sorts of hits are legal. So all the game on the 29th is going to be is likely someone not kassian catching someone not Tkachuk with a similar hit.
I still think the game on the 29th will be built up and be terribly boring. Flames on back to back and oilers back from like 10 days off.
Oiler fan logic. I didn’t read the article but it’s not wrong. Simple question, if you did not read the article how are you even able to form an opinion of whether or not it is right or wrong?
__________________ Are the Oilers trying to set a record for most scumbags on the payroll??
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Being Tkachuks hits on Kassian were deemed to be legal, indeed every player on both the Flames and Oilers are open territory for similar hits of ferocity, which I have no issues with. Its contact hockey, keep your head up. If Kassian chooses to give hits like that on someone other than Tkachuk, go for it, as big hits should not limited to just one player.
If any player is able to hit McDavid or Johnny in the same manner, make the hit. Shouldnt take any player to do such a hit only because the team on the opposing side did the same hit prior on someone from their team. Part of hockey is intimidation and doing whatever is necessary to win. Physical play is one of them. Especially on the talented players.
100% agreed with this sentiment. My issue with a lot of the talk from Edmonton is that there seems to be a significant misunderstanding of what Tkachuk does. Yes, he’s a pest/agitator/rat type player, but he is not undisciplined. In fact, it actually takes an amazing amount of discipline to play the way Tkachuk does - without discipline he’d be a tough third/fourth line plug rather than the team leader in points and going to the All Star Game.
To me, what Tkachuk is is opportunistic. He plays a very smart game, which is why he leads the Flames in points. He’s rarely out of position and rarely leaves his man open. But he’s quick enough that when he sees an opportunity (say, an opposing player skating with his head down staring at the puck), his eyes light up and he seizes it.
The problem with Kassian (IMO) is that he’s not that player. Instead, he’s going to be running around looking for someone to annihilate, which is more likely to result in a dirty play. Especially if he’s targeting Gaudreau. There’s a reason players like Gaudreau and McDavid don’t actually take that many big hits - they’re way too quick to catch. So if Kassian is trying to line up Gaudreau, there’s a good chance Johnny sidesteps him and, if Kassian is determined to make an impression, he might throw out an elbow or knee and now you’ve got a dirty play.
This all seems to be lost on Oilers fans and media.
The sad thing is that a lot of Oiler fans want the Oilers to actually injure Gaudreau, Lindholm etc. They don't want nice legal hits, they think it would be glorious to see them hauled off on stretchers while Kassian waves gleefully at MT.
They've gone from a pretty arrogant fanbase to one that's actually pretty reprehensible.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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"Zack Kassian has it all wrong. It’s not Matthew Tkachuk who needs a “taste of their own medicine,” be it with another flurry of punches or a well-timed hit the next time that the Edmonton Oilers play the Calgary Flames.Rather, it’s Johnny Gaudreau.
You want to send a message to Tkachuk. Send it through his 165-pound teammate. That’s what ex-enforcer John Scott did when he picked a fight with Phil Kessel several years ago, which resulted in David Clarkson earning a 10-game suspension for hopping off the bench in his teammate’s defence."
I had 2 questions today from Laff fans here - Is the next BoA game on national TV? (it is, lucky Sportsnet scheduling) and Who will Tkachuk fight in that game? Kassian? Some other schlub?
This may have already been posted in any one of the threads (I know the Dhillon hit was but possibly not the spector article) regarding the joke of a franchise north of here, but I can't tell who is the bigger piece of garbage, Kassian or Spector. Love the hypocrisy in the video link interview. What a load of sh*t these people are.
They absolutely detested Zack Kassian in Edmonton, once upon a time, when he broke then-Oiler Sam Gagner’s jaw with a cheap high stick in pre-season, then mocked Gagner when he returned in December wearing a face shield.
So, Reminder #1: This dude is a real POS
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“That’s funny isn’t it?” said the Windsor-born [you just knew this guy was from Windsor...] winger. “If you’d have told me that (they’d chant my name) a couple of years ago, I’d have bet every dollar that I had… But I expect nothing less than that from the fans here. They’re so passionate.”
Neither do we
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Kassian’s passion used to be for good times, not hockey, and he rolled through three organizations as an ever-diminishing asset before Oilers general manager Peter Chiarelli acquired him for a song (goalie Ben Scrivens) from Montreal. There, he’d signed his exit papers with a late-night car wreck involving two girls, a truck, and who knows what type of fuel.
Reminder #2: No, you need to understand.. this guy is really a real big POS. But for good measure, Spector minimizes ("who knows what type of fuel") Kassian allegedly driving down a highway intoxicated to the point he passes out behind the wheel:
Spoiler!
According to a report from Paul Cherry of the Montreal Gazette, Kassian testified that he had at no point that night been behind the wheel of his vehicle, but there were 2 other people inside the car with Kassian at the time and one of them disputes that claim.
“I crawled into the back seat and fell asleep. The rest I don’t recall,” said Kassian as per the Montreal Gazette.
The other passenger in the car, a young woman named Gemma Brown, testified that it was Kassian who was initially behind the steering wheel of his pickup as the trio left his home early that morning. She also added that Kassian appeared to fall asleep while driving down the highway and it was at that point that she and De Courcy-Ireland managed to place Kassian in the backseat. This obviously is a stark contract to Kassian's testimony although how this might impact him moving forward, especially given how long it has been since this incident, remains to be seen.
A video recording inside the ambulance caught Kassian lying to an ambulance technician about the substances he had consumed that evening, and Kassian was pressed about whether or not he may have lied regarding other details of his story.
“If you are trying to prove that I was driving, it is false, completely false,” Kassian said near the end of his testimony.
...just to remind everyone that reporting and analyzing what he writes isn't the Spector way
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Kassian was everything you want of a power forward in Game 2, laying Sharks players out left and right, winning board battles, killing penalties…
Those hits seem to be a-ok then! A big part of the game, no doubt.
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It was this organization’s original builder, Glen Sather, who began an Edmonton tradition of taking a chance on a player in need of a second or third chance. He signed a 25-year-old Craig MacTavish out of a Massachusetts prison three months before his sentence was up for vehicular homicide, and MacTavish turned into a pillar of the Oilers dynasty years.
Organizational Reminder: No matter the level of disrespect for others' well-being they've shown, who they murdered in 1984, or who's lives they put in jeopardy a few months ago. What happens in your personal life, no matter how despicable, will be ignored here in Edmonton. We'll happily give you millions no matter the person you are.
Somehow, this is a good thing.
Quite often any article dug up from the Oilers past is hilarious in hindsight, but this one was extra special. Great reference to hard and clean hits that turn the game around... WHILE linking Kassian with MacT's vehicular homicide? *Chef's kiss*
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Alright, so I've been thinking about this a few days, and I kind of just think why do the Edmonton media even think there needs to be some type of retribution?
Their position is that Tkachuk made illegal plays that had a high potential for injury and he needs to "answer the bell" (whatever the hell that means).
Kassian responded by making an illegal play with a high potential for injury. Shouldn't Kassian jumping him mean things have balanced out? Dirtbag play responded by dirtbag play, done and done.
The only thing I can think of is that they believe Tkachuk needs to be hurt. Then we're into an arms race.
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I love how Staples goes to five on five points in an attempt to demonstrate that Kassian is a better hockey player than Tkachuk.
Why the five on five look? Well Tkachuk is top 65 in the league in overall points per 60 so probably better to not use that one. (Kassian is a respectable 110th or something too).
Which says nothing about quality of linemates and Kassian getting dragged around by McDavid.
Then he questions Tkachuk being a star player, which to me is silly. He's a top six that produces, wears a letter and impacts game ... is going to an allstar game and has production that puts him on average as a 2nd best forward on the average NHL roster.
All this talk about Kassian hitting this way now is amusing to me ... so he could have been hitting clean earlier but chose not too? He can't help but hit dirty even when he means to hit clean? He just now understands that it's less dirty if you don't hit someone's head?
to me this Staples thing and even with a lot of guys on the Edmonton media side its bordering on creepy. I'm now thinking that Staples has some kind of weird shrine to MT in his basement.
A professional journalist watching a video of Lucic talking and declaring that he's not happy about having to defend Mt, and that its created some kind of Flames locker room split is just National Enquirer level reporting.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I think Kassian needs to be very careful about what he does in the next games. He has been spitting threats in the media, that if he does injure someone, I would expect the Flames organization to respond with a lawsuit
Seems so weird that a "real" media outlet can allow a self proclaimed fan boy write articles. Is this just an Edmonton thing or do all cities do it this way?
But I also know that an essential part of a Pest's act is that of a cowardly heel. Your job is to make someone miserable and take them off the ice. "Answering the bell" gives someone satisfaction and takes you off the ice. What's the sense in that?
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I've seen 18 a few times? But there were 2 girls and the age seems to jump around from 18 to 24. But one girl was putting him in the backseat while the other took over the wheel and eventually crashed and got her own DUI... allegedly of course
Or, as the owner of the vehicle and reason the truck was on the road with the 3 of them in it in the first place puts it “I crawled into the back seat and fell asleep. The rest I don’t recall”
I am still completely baffled how this is even a story, nevermind the monumental one it has transformed into.
15 years ago, this would not even have been a paragraph on a news site/paper other than the winning goal was scored on a PP. Two legal checks, player attacks another player and lands a couple punches.....average night in any NHL game.
Now? We need a parliamentary panel convened to investigate how things should be handled moving forward.
.
Absolutely. The firestorm of controversy over this just highlights how rare hitting has become in today's NHL that a couple heavy hits are now considered dirty and something the player has to atone for. Hits, retribution, and fights used to be so common as to pass notice. Now people are going bananas over it.
Even all the gushing over what an incredible game it was left me shaking my head. Sure, it was a good game. But I don't know if it even cracks the top 30 Flames vs Oilers games I've seen, let alone the top 10.
Says something about the state of the NHL's on-ice product in the regular season that some hitting and emotion in a game flares up into a national story.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
There’s no reason to define Kassian by his alcohol abuse. He’s been sober since he got to Edmonton and has really turned his career around. That’s not easy to do so credit where credit is due.
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Location: F*** me. We're so f***ing good, you check the f***ing standings? Lets f***ing go! F***ing practice!
Exp:
So I dont like reading Spector drivel. Once, twice, three times he has legally wrote articles, but I don't like them. I know they are legal but they make me want to fight him. He wont fight me.
So according to his logic am I now allowed to grab him from behind, ragdoll him and rain punches on him? Just asking. What's the "code" on this say?
__________________ Backlund for Selke 2017 2018
Oilers suck.
Alright, so I've been thinking about this a few days, and I kind of just think why do the Edmonton media even think there needs to be some type of retribution?
Their position is that Tkachuk made illegal plays that had a high potential for injury and he needs to "answer the bell" (whatever the hell that means).
Kassian responded by making an illegal play with a high potential for injury. Shouldn't Kassian jumping him mean things have balanced out? Dirtbag play responded by dirtbag play, done and done.
The only thing I can think of is that they believe Tkachuk needs to be hurt. Then we're into an arms race.
Yeah, this whole thing has confused me too
3 totally legal hit from pest to tough guy to get under his skin
Tough guy goes berserk and pegs pest for a few
Flames win
It seemed like a script I could write any day of the week. But they're letting this caveman with crazy-eyes address the media and push some narrative that things aren't finished yet. And they aren't, as Tkachuk knows how to get a lengthy PP from the goon they also rely on heavily for offence. But instead, we've churned this hockey rivalry through the weird "Edmonton is always the best" media and spit out something that fits.
But those hits are legal, and the large majority of respected hockey people that have chimed in on it have said as much. You watch replays (incl many of Kassian) and those hits fit right in with "delivered very well". I thought the biggest knock on Tkachuk was that he jeopardized Gio in the process. And for his efforts, Tkachuk took a few that he damn-well would know is coming. He wanted to get under the skin of a fighter, so he knew what the response was going to be. To think that this is still somehow 'unfinished' is weird.
They also forget that before the fight, Kassian had taken a pretty healthy charge at Tkachuk who braced and took Kassian shoulder-to-shoulder. And once Kassian was given a shift in the 3rd, Tkachuk finished another completely legal hit to send the message that he will keep playing hockey at him.
But it was mentioned at the time that it was uncharacteristic of the NHL to comment on Tkachuk's hits and they did so very early into all of this. I wonder if Edmonton's involvement in this incident is what encouraged the NHL to comment on this specifically, and quickly.
Absolutely. The firestorm of controversy over this just highlights how rare hitting has become in today's NHL that a couple heavy hits are now considered dirty and something the player has to atone for. Hits, retribution, and fights used to be so common as to pass notice. Now people are going bananas over it.
Even all the gushing over what an incredible game it was left me shaking my head. Sure, it was a good game. But I don't know if it even cracks the top 30 Flames vs Oilers games I've seen, let alone the top 10.
Says something about the state of the NHL's on-ice product in the regular season that some hitting and emotion in a game flares up into a national story.
This is a really weird take on a bunch of things...
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