I recently heard that Bob Gainey suggested to the other NHL GMs that defensemen shouldnt be allowed to dive on the ice to block a shot or intercepting a pass otherwise they would get a penalty. That means all players shoudl be standing up at all time and only use their body/stick to take away the puck.
this is the most stupid suggestion i ever heard. It means putting more rules into the game to make less accessible and more compliated to play where plaeyrs cant do anything on the ice and have to htink of so many rules. hockey's strenght use to be cause it didnt have that many rules altering gameplay. players just did what they needed to do to score a goal. it gave alot of room for defensive play making it important to be good at both ends of the ice to win. taking away all dives and slides would dumb down hockey.
It would also means a ton more penalty and we all know how much a player advantage can influence your chance to score a goal on both ends. i think theres too many powerplays currently but its bearable.
When i watch a hockey game, i watch goals and shoots, but i spend alot of time looking at defensive play and positioning cause its interesting to see what players are doing to score a goal or to avoid being scored on. the game is not only about scoring goals its about working your way toward the net to do it. but i guess the masses just dont understand that and want to see goals.
So im just crossing my fingers that this change never happens cause this is when i will stop watching hockey
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
rank 15 in Guildwars
I will try to explain to the neophytes what this is and what it represents
In guildwars you can participate in a 8v8 tournament that goes on all the time 24/7. you face something like 6 different stages to eventually get to the hall of heroes where you compete against 2 other teams to win the control of the hall of heroes, at that point you face other teams coming to challenge your position and you can be there for as long as you can keep winning games.
Winning in hero's ascent rewards you with fame points which are used to level up in the ranks of Hero, 185 fame gives you rank 3 and your first emote which is a deer, rank 6 is 1000 fame and is a tiger and theres other emotes for rank 9 and 12. rank 10 is 7750 fame, as you can see the fame recquirement rise pretty damn fast and it gets much harder to gain ranks at the higher levels.
The game has been out since 2004 and until then there was nobody with r15, (100 000 fame) and for a long time nobody with rank 13 and 14 (in fact i didnt know anyone was r14 (60 000 fame)until i saw this video showing the r15 emote http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeVs70UKVw)
so everyone that has been through elementary school knows that 7750 is much lower than 100 000 and getting r15 already seems like a big accomplishment but let me present you this in another way
You earn 1 fame if you win 1 game in heroes ascent, that number rises with consecutives wins, if you lose you get kicked out of the tournament and the counter restarts. the number of fame you get is 2 if you win 2 games, 3 for 3, 4 for 4 then it starts rising faster and eventually you get to the maximum which is 40 (after 13 wins in a row) for every win after 13 you get 40 fame.
but you have to win those 13 games and the competition in HA is very strong so getting there and staying there is already a huge accomplishment in itself
so getting 100 000 fame represents a lot of wins because its unlikely the guy could get to the 40 fame per win cap everytime he tried. very unlikely, so unlikely that i have no clue how to guess a number for that
lets look at it from my perspective, im a pretty good GW players, ive been playing for over 30 months, im a rank 5 with 786 fame. I never won the hall of heroes and i dont think i ever won more than 4 or 5 games in a row and that is playing with fairly decent teams most of the time (i didnt get much into the higher ranks restricted groups because of lower rank)
seeing that this person won 100 000 fame and got the rank 15 is an incredible accomplishment not only in terms of ridiculous amount of time spent playing but also cause it needed to be done while performing really well.
In guildwars you can participate in a 8v8 tournament that goes on all the time 24/7. you face something like 6 different stages to eventually get to the hall of heroes where you compete against 2 other teams to win the control of the hall of heroes, at that point you face other teams coming to challenge your position and you can be there for as long as you can keep winning games.
Winning in hero's ascent rewards you with fame points which are used to level up in the ranks of Hero, 185 fame gives you rank 3 and your first emote which is a deer, rank 6 is 1000 fame and is a tiger and theres other emotes for rank 9 and 12. rank 10 is 7750 fame, as you can see the fame recquirement rise pretty damn fast and it gets much harder to gain ranks at the higher levels.
The game has been out since 2004 and until then there was nobody with r15, (100 000 fame) and for a long time nobody with rank 13 and 14 (in fact i didnt know anyone was r14 (60 000 fame)until i saw this video showing the r15 emote http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeVs70UKVw)
so everyone that has been through elementary school knows that 7750 is much lower than 100 000 and getting r15 already seems like a big accomplishment but let me present you this in another way
You earn 1 fame if you win 1 game in heroes ascent, that number rises with consecutives wins, if you lose you get kicked out of the tournament and the counter restarts. the number of fame you get is 2 if you win 2 games, 3 for 3, 4 for 4 then it starts rising faster and eventually you get to the maximum which is 40 (after 13 wins in a row) for every win after 13 you get 40 fame.
but you have to win those 13 games and the competition in HA is very strong so getting there and staying there is already a huge accomplishment in itself
so getting 100 000 fame represents a lot of wins because its unlikely the guy could get to the 40 fame per win cap everytime he tried. very unlikely, so unlikely that i have no clue how to guess a number for that
lets look at it from my perspective, im a pretty good GW players, ive been playing for over 30 months, im a rank 5 with 786 fame. I never won the hall of heroes and i dont think i ever won more than 4 or 5 games in a row and that is playing with fairly decent teams most of the time (i didnt get much into the higher ranks restricted groups because of lower rank)
seeing that this person won 100 000 fame and got the rank 15 is an incredible accomplishment not only in terms of ridiculous amount of time spent playing but also cause it needed to be done while performing really well.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Darkfall Online
Many players are really tired of playing WoW and are looking for something fresh and new. This is why the expectations for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes were that high. A game that was gonna be really vast and suited for hardcore players. But the game was horribly designed and was really far from what it was advertising. As a result only a handful of players are playing VG now while over 200 thousand quit within the first 3 months. And so time went on and the amount of players wanting a change from WoW grew. Lets precise that its not only wow players that are looking for a new good game, Since i believe Ultima Online there was no game for hardcore players, no game with good Free for all settings and corpse looting and other hardcore features. Them paired with players from other games and mostly the huge wave of players that got introduced to mmos by WoW as well as other people from all horizons makes a pretty huge chunk of players. So they heard that Age of Conan was in development a game with supposedly revolutionary combat and gameplay. While AoC has several good aspects, good graphics, animations, outstanding sound and music. the guys that designed the classes and abilities was really stupid and the game was really unfun to play and lacked several of its advertised feature. People were and are being patient with AoC but they failed and are still failing to deliver what they promised and people get tired of waiting and quit. this is why AoC lost close to half its subscriber base after 3 months (possibly more than that, but all we have is the number Funcom had at the end of july or something like that). Meanwhile, several other mmos tried to copy the wow formula in an attempt to make something better and new like Lord of the rings online, Star Wars Galaxies and the Game enchancements, etc etc. But everytime they failed miserably because while they had a little something of their own to bring to the table, they were not as detailed and polished as WoW.
So its in this context that a game that has been in development for 7 years and didnt get much attention at all is now intriguing many players: Darkfall Online. Darkfall is being developped by a small studio in greece caleld Adventurine. they are being helped by norwegians and swiss developpers. After i read the list of features and saw their long gameplay trailer, I came to the conclusion that DF is a really ambitious project. it seems like they nailed down well what they needed to put in a game to make it good now all they need to do is do it. If they manage like to put everything in there. then we will have a really great game. Things like the ability to create and change your class to your taste anytime you want minus some time levelling, item decay to create a world economy, skill based gameplay, destructible player cities, naval combat etc etc (i dont know them all). But the pressure is high on them because the game looks horrible graphically and animation wise so that is not what will draw players. We also have the right to be afraid that despite teh bad graphics the game will recquire pretty high system recquirements due to the fact that its a small studio. so while the game looks like it would be good in 2003 it might need a 2007 machine to play well but we will see how that goes cause we can always be surprised.
So let us hope the game runs smoothly on older machines so that way the target audience is larger and let us also hope that the game delivers all its advertised feature and we might Finally have something unique Post-WoW that will be worth playing. But I'm skeptical they will pull it off so I'm still looking forward Guildwars 2 and the Star Wars Galaxies pre-combat upgrade emulator.
So its in this context that a game that has been in development for 7 years and didnt get much attention at all is now intriguing many players: Darkfall Online. Darkfall is being developped by a small studio in greece caleld Adventurine. they are being helped by norwegians and swiss developpers. After i read the list of features and saw their long gameplay trailer, I came to the conclusion that DF is a really ambitious project. it seems like they nailed down well what they needed to put in a game to make it good now all they need to do is do it. If they manage like to put everything in there. then we will have a really great game. Things like the ability to create and change your class to your taste anytime you want minus some time levelling, item decay to create a world economy, skill based gameplay, destructible player cities, naval combat etc etc (i dont know them all). But the pressure is high on them because the game looks horrible graphically and animation wise so that is not what will draw players. We also have the right to be afraid that despite teh bad graphics the game will recquire pretty high system recquirements due to the fact that its a small studio. so while the game looks like it would be good in 2003 it might need a 2007 machine to play well but we will see how that goes cause we can always be surprised.
So let us hope the game runs smoothly on older machines so that way the target audience is larger and let us also hope that the game delivers all its advertised feature and we might Finally have something unique Post-WoW that will be worth playing. But I'm skeptical they will pull it off so I'm still looking forward Guildwars 2 and the Star Wars Galaxies pre-combat upgrade emulator.
Friday, September 26, 2008
shivers while listening to music
My friend sent me a Metallica song yesterday called Mercenaries. He asked me what I thought of it and after listening to it one time I told him that it didn't appeal to me much. Then he told me that he thought it was a masterpiece and that he got shivers when he listening to it trying to figure what every member of the band is doing to create this unisson. Now that really caught my attention because I knew exactly what he was talking about, sometimes you get shivers listening to a really good song but this time I think we can tell why: It's partly when you try to listen to every details of every second of a song and what it creates.
heres an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQWKUXtzTug (dont pay attention to the video it sucks)
But we all know that a song doesn't need to give you shivers to be good, in my case theres plenty of songs that just kinda move me like this for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOH6UHY_ELk (as for most electronic songs, you'll have to be patient to truly let it build up and appreciate it)
heres an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQWKUXtzTug (dont pay attention to the video it sucks)
But we all know that a song doesn't need to give you shivers to be good, in my case theres plenty of songs that just kinda move me like this for example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOH6UHY_ELk (as for most electronic songs, you'll have to be patient to truly let it build up and appreciate it)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Canadiens in Roberval
Tonight the Canadiens are playing the Sabres in Roberval for a pre-season match.
Roberval is a small town of roughly 10 000 inhabitants, its not that small, but the fact that its so far from montreal (roughly 5h30 drive) and thus 5h30 from any large city makes it a small town.
Couple years ago, they decided to create some kind of ice town, which was basically a small village on ice, with small houses, ice paths to move around the town and some ice rinks to chill. the whole concept was just to have some cool place to go ice skating with friends and have a good time socializing and chilling, literally. Then there was a contest across canada to determine which city was Hockeyville, the winner would get the opporunity to host a nhl pre-season match. Roberval along with roughly 1100 other cities submited its application. The ice town charmed the judges cause of its unique concept. After a large vote on the internet to determine a winner, Roberval was crowned Hockeyville and is now getting to host a pre-season game.
Their arena has 1237 seats and is pretty far from being up to the standards of the NHL as far as being able to host medias and accomodate players. but the city has been working on that since april to try and do their best for tonight's game, which will be on TV.
This doenst seem like something all that major. but it is, for people that are located really far from most major cities, almost disconnected from the rest of the world(except for the internet and the television) its a unique opportunity to see, their hockey team, some of their idols, for the first time in person, to be part of a large special event that will probably never happen again. I'm really happy for the residents of Roberval who get the privilege to host a nhl pre-season game.
Roberval is a small town of roughly 10 000 inhabitants, its not that small, but the fact that its so far from montreal (roughly 5h30 drive) and thus 5h30 from any large city makes it a small town.
Couple years ago, they decided to create some kind of ice town, which was basically a small village on ice, with small houses, ice paths to move around the town and some ice rinks to chill. the whole concept was just to have some cool place to go ice skating with friends and have a good time socializing and chilling, literally. Then there was a contest across canada to determine which city was Hockeyville, the winner would get the opporunity to host a nhl pre-season match. Roberval along with roughly 1100 other cities submited its application. The ice town charmed the judges cause of its unique concept. After a large vote on the internet to determine a winner, Roberval was crowned Hockeyville and is now getting to host a pre-season game.
Their arena has 1237 seats and is pretty far from being up to the standards of the NHL as far as being able to host medias and accomodate players. but the city has been working on that since april to try and do their best for tonight's game, which will be on TV.
This doenst seem like something all that major. but it is, for people that are located really far from most major cities, almost disconnected from the rest of the world(except for the internet and the television) its a unique opportunity to see, their hockey team, some of their idols, for the first time in person, to be part of a large special event that will probably never happen again. I'm really happy for the residents of Roberval who get the privilege to host a nhl pre-season game.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
NHL 09 first look
I had a first look at NHL 09 on the PS3 yesterday and I was really impressed with what they have done with the game. Like they said on the nhl 09 website "The best just got better"
Their goal with nhl 08 was to make the game feel more natural to play by using the 2 analog sticks to shoot, create cool dekes and really allow the player to feel like he was controlling his player. They did that well and NHL 08 succeeded at what it wanted to do, it was really cool. The problem tho was that it was a really offensive game, where it was easy to score goals, get away from defensemen and do outstanding moves to score some really nice goals... in bulk.
NHL 09 improved that feel too with the new protect the puck feature where if you hold a button while skating you get in a good defensive position where its harder for enemy defensemen to steal the puck from you.
But nhl 09 main focus was defensive play where their really improved and made feel more natural. Its pretty hard to enter the offensive zone in the center and get a clear shot in the slot now. In fact, its hard to do anything offensively if youre not playing it like you should.
I want to also remind that nhl 09 plays with the 2 analog sticks and the L1 L2 R1 R2 buttons while protect puck is on X, the only button youll use for gameplay movement. That means your 2 thumbs are always on the analogs while your 2 indexes control the other moves (pass, dump puck, skate backward, glide) the only time your finger will be on another button is when you wanna protect the puck, making it so that if you want to shoot from a defensive position youll have to stop holding the button. X is also used to lift the opponent stick to try and steal the puck because every button has a With the puck and Without the puck function. Shooting is done by tapping the right analog, and holding it back for a bit then tapping it for a slapshot (you take your swing to slam the puck hard). The other L and R buttons are pretty easy to pickup. R2 is passing or change players. R1 is to use your stick to sweep the ice if you do it while moving the analog or clear the puck, which you can do effectively too (clearing the puck was always a tactic in nhl games, but this time it actually works because you can slowly flip the puck into a corner of the ice rink and forecheck toward that direction). L2 is skating backward, so if you hold that button and move the analog stick backward, you will certainly start skating backward but that will only be useful if you wanna add that to your offensive arsenal or want to get more control on your player because the game is good enough to now when you should skate backward while defending on the rush and it will make you skate backward automatically. L1 is glide, you use it to slow down your skating speed and just glide, it can be useful when youre at the point trying to get in a good position for a big slapshot. Without the puck L1 is used to get in a position to block shots or pass, and you can move with the analog too. Then if youre in a moment of panic you can always hold L1 and R1 at the same time to dive. Last but no the least, you check by tapping the right analog stick forward when youre without the puck, checking players is tough and as rewarding as ever in nhl 09.
Thats alot of text about controls, but the game feels and plays really naturally and is easy to pick up, then tis hard or impossible to master since youll always do small mistakes but the important thing is that its really fun and feels like hockey.
I havent seen much of the rest, the Dynasty mode seemed very similar to nhl 08's (which was already impressive) but the create-a-player was massively improved. even if its not as customizable as before (you dont have tons of sliders for jaws, chin, mouth, etc etc that allwos you millions of possibilities to make hundreds of characters that all look the same) they cut that down alot and made the character appearance simpler, you choose face form, skin tone, then hair color, eye color and other things like that. but that is not where the character creation strenght lies. This time you can actually choose your equipment which stick you want to use (theres like 30 different sticks, and they are the real ones) and you can select the type of curve you want on your stick to be better with wrist shots, slap shots or an balanced stick. then you have a selection of skates with blade lenght, shorter blades are better for agility but you have less speed, then a more balanced, and long blade for more speed and acceleration. You can choose if you want to tuck your jersey in your pants or no, if you want your socks over your skates or under. Then you get to the skills sliders where you decide how you want to set your attributes on your player, They brought back the Offensive awareness and Defensive awareness sliders to really give your player a personality on the ice. Once youre done, you can go test your player on the ice.
You also have the option to do team practices, practice different scenarios 1 on 0, 1 on 1, 2 on 0 etc etc. practice power play and penalty killing. me and my friend actually spent 2 hours in practice mode just chilling and toying with the controls before doing an actual game, and it was fun.
To conclude, even if i only played a couple hours with nhl 09, I am really impressed, I have never seen a hockey game so complete, and I'm wondering what theyll do in nhl 2010. The only thing I didn't like of it was the music, EA sports usually gets the right ot use 15-20 songs every year and just use those and clips of those for the entire game. They could improve the music clips used after scoring a goal or anytime during a faceoff to make it more realistic and for that I will give NHL 08 only a 9.7/10
Their goal with nhl 08 was to make the game feel more natural to play by using the 2 analog sticks to shoot, create cool dekes and really allow the player to feel like he was controlling his player. They did that well and NHL 08 succeeded at what it wanted to do, it was really cool. The problem tho was that it was a really offensive game, where it was easy to score goals, get away from defensemen and do outstanding moves to score some really nice goals... in bulk.
NHL 09 improved that feel too with the new protect the puck feature where if you hold a button while skating you get in a good defensive position where its harder for enemy defensemen to steal the puck from you.
But nhl 09 main focus was defensive play where their really improved and made feel more natural. Its pretty hard to enter the offensive zone in the center and get a clear shot in the slot now. In fact, its hard to do anything offensively if youre not playing it like you should.
I want to also remind that nhl 09 plays with the 2 analog sticks and the L1 L2 R1 R2 buttons while protect puck is on X, the only button youll use for gameplay movement. That means your 2 thumbs are always on the analogs while your 2 indexes control the other moves (pass, dump puck, skate backward, glide) the only time your finger will be on another button is when you wanna protect the puck, making it so that if you want to shoot from a defensive position youll have to stop holding the button. X is also used to lift the opponent stick to try and steal the puck because every button has a With the puck and Without the puck function. Shooting is done by tapping the right analog, and holding it back for a bit then tapping it for a slapshot (you take your swing to slam the puck hard). The other L and R buttons are pretty easy to pickup. R2 is passing or change players. R1 is to use your stick to sweep the ice if you do it while moving the analog or clear the puck, which you can do effectively too (clearing the puck was always a tactic in nhl games, but this time it actually works because you can slowly flip the puck into a corner of the ice rink and forecheck toward that direction). L2 is skating backward, so if you hold that button and move the analog stick backward, you will certainly start skating backward but that will only be useful if you wanna add that to your offensive arsenal or want to get more control on your player because the game is good enough to now when you should skate backward while defending on the rush and it will make you skate backward automatically. L1 is glide, you use it to slow down your skating speed and just glide, it can be useful when youre at the point trying to get in a good position for a big slapshot. Without the puck L1 is used to get in a position to block shots or pass, and you can move with the analog too. Then if youre in a moment of panic you can always hold L1 and R1 at the same time to dive. Last but no the least, you check by tapping the right analog stick forward when youre without the puck, checking players is tough and as rewarding as ever in nhl 09.
Thats alot of text about controls, but the game feels and plays really naturally and is easy to pick up, then tis hard or impossible to master since youll always do small mistakes but the important thing is that its really fun and feels like hockey.
I havent seen much of the rest, the Dynasty mode seemed very similar to nhl 08's (which was already impressive) but the create-a-player was massively improved. even if its not as customizable as before (you dont have tons of sliders for jaws, chin, mouth, etc etc that allwos you millions of possibilities to make hundreds of characters that all look the same) they cut that down alot and made the character appearance simpler, you choose face form, skin tone, then hair color, eye color and other things like that. but that is not where the character creation strenght lies. This time you can actually choose your equipment which stick you want to use (theres like 30 different sticks, and they are the real ones) and you can select the type of curve you want on your stick to be better with wrist shots, slap shots or an balanced stick. then you have a selection of skates with blade lenght, shorter blades are better for agility but you have less speed, then a more balanced, and long blade for more speed and acceleration. You can choose if you want to tuck your jersey in your pants or no, if you want your socks over your skates or under. Then you get to the skills sliders where you decide how you want to set your attributes on your player, They brought back the Offensive awareness and Defensive awareness sliders to really give your player a personality on the ice. Once youre done, you can go test your player on the ice.
You also have the option to do team practices, practice different scenarios 1 on 0, 1 on 1, 2 on 0 etc etc. practice power play and penalty killing. me and my friend actually spent 2 hours in practice mode just chilling and toying with the controls before doing an actual game, and it was fun.
To conclude, even if i only played a couple hours with nhl 09, I am really impressed, I have never seen a hockey game so complete, and I'm wondering what theyll do in nhl 2010. The only thing I didn't like of it was the music, EA sports usually gets the right ot use 15-20 songs every year and just use those and clips of those for the entire game. They could improve the music clips used after scoring a goal or anytime during a faceoff to make it more realistic and for that I will give NHL 08 only a 9.7/10
Friday, September 12, 2008
Montreal traded for Robert Lang
While I see the acquisition of Robert as a good one, how the hell does Bob Gainey always manage to get the same kind of players on his team to play center for the 3rd line.
Few years ago we had Radek Bonk, a center that could play really well when given the ice time and the task to score. Radek bonk played center with Daniel Alfredson on his wing and was able to score about 75 points in a season (im not sure if thats correct information but it was a good scoring production). When Bonk joined the Canadiens, he immediately slowed down by a ton in his offensive production obviously he was playing a much different role with the Canadiens, but we just couldnt count on him to score some points at all. On the other hand he did play really well on the penalty kill and was appreciated by the crowd for that.
Last year we signed Bryan Smolinski to replace the loss of Bonk. Smolinski had some good seasons of over 50 points when he was given the proper ice time and good wingers. Once he was in montreal he just completely shut down too and was unable to do anything on offense.
I fear this is the same that will happen with Robert Lang, we will expect him to be able to score alot of points (he had a season of 80 points with the Penguins, and some pretty good years with the Red Wings) but I'm expecting him to slow down alot on offense. Let's just see how he can play on the penalty kill because last year, even if Bryan Smolinski one of our best guy for faceoffs, he didn't quite replace Bonk in the penalty killing role. If Lang can play really well defensively then it should be worth the money.
These 3 centers are just all very similar to me, they are the kind of guys that can play good, but shine a lot if they are paired with really good wingers. They are not the kind of players that will make the others around them shine.
But I've been compairing Lang to the other 2 already, almost forgotting that this year might be a different scenario since with the acquisition of Alex Tanguay we have one other really talented player that we can use to create various line combos and perhaps one will allow Lang to play with some really talented players and be able to make his line the second line.
My prediction for Robert lang this year is that he will score around 30 to 40 points
Few years ago we had Radek Bonk, a center that could play really well when given the ice time and the task to score. Radek bonk played center with Daniel Alfredson on his wing and was able to score about 75 points in a season (im not sure if thats correct information but it was a good scoring production). When Bonk joined the Canadiens, he immediately slowed down by a ton in his offensive production obviously he was playing a much different role with the Canadiens, but we just couldnt count on him to score some points at all. On the other hand he did play really well on the penalty kill and was appreciated by the crowd for that.
Last year we signed Bryan Smolinski to replace the loss of Bonk. Smolinski had some good seasons of over 50 points when he was given the proper ice time and good wingers. Once he was in montreal he just completely shut down too and was unable to do anything on offense.
I fear this is the same that will happen with Robert Lang, we will expect him to be able to score alot of points (he had a season of 80 points with the Penguins, and some pretty good years with the Red Wings) but I'm expecting him to slow down alot on offense. Let's just see how he can play on the penalty kill because last year, even if Bryan Smolinski one of our best guy for faceoffs, he didn't quite replace Bonk in the penalty killing role. If Lang can play really well defensively then it should be worth the money.
These 3 centers are just all very similar to me, they are the kind of guys that can play good, but shine a lot if they are paired with really good wingers. They are not the kind of players that will make the others around them shine.
But I've been compairing Lang to the other 2 already, almost forgotting that this year might be a different scenario since with the acquisition of Alex Tanguay we have one other really talented player that we can use to create various line combos and perhaps one will allow Lang to play with some really talented players and be able to make his line the second line.
My prediction for Robert lang this year is that he will score around 30 to 40 points
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Overview of the summer in the NHL
This is a small summary of my observations about the nhl free agent hunt that started july first 08. i didnt cover all the signings and didnt update it to add the other major contract signing like Chris Chelios or Joe Sakic, but its still an interesting read.
on july first the free agents hunt started in the nhl.
after a couple of big trades during the draft that surprised many. (olli jokinen in phoenix, alex tanguay in montreal etc etc) the best had yet to come.
many of these trades are worth mentionning and i wanted to create a thread just for that even if not many people beside kip will careill start with the trades concerning montreal
Alex tanguay: Alex tanguay is the perfect guy we needed, we needed a star winger that can score a minimum of 30 goals, a really talented guy, not just some good or decent player an dwe finally found it in Alex tanguay who once said he didnt wanna play in montreal (that mightve changed since we finished first in the conference last season). He's also a francophone which is something that always pleases the fans Hes gonna continue to add to the team renown speed as well as be a player that can control the puck well in the offensive zone, something that you can never have too much. Its gonna relief alot of pressure off of kovalev's back so that he can get more room to perform, or the opposite kovalev could drawn all the defensive attention while tanguay gets to play against suckier defensemen and has enough room to demonstrate his talent
Acquiring the rights to sign mats sundin. its unfortunate that sundin isnt certain if he wants to continue his career, but bob gainey improves his popularity by trying hard to get another established star in the team, a Big 6"5 center is always useful in a team and sundin has been an example of consistency throughout his career.
Signing George Laraque. omg its george laraque, one of the best and most feared fighter in the league, at 6"3 and 260 pound (aprox) and the talent to score goals when he gets used that way in a team (unlikely here in montreal) Laraque is one of the best plumber a team ccan have. its gonna be good to defend our young talented players and mostly our promising goaltender Carey Price. Carey has been pushed around alot last year by opposing teams and while Komisarek can push and kick everybody's ass, hes too talented to take stupid penalties cause we need our defensemen to kill the penalties. so having a guy that we just dont care about to go intimidate the enemy team is good. then we could use Laraque every once in a while to go stand in front of the enemy goaltender to block the view. Laraque is also a francohpone that is known for being really active in the community which is something montreal fans will really love about him.
Signing marc denis, Marc denis was once the blue jackets starting goalie, he would play 70+ games per season and perform good, he was the Blue jackets martin brodeur. but this changed once denis left the jackets to play for tampa where he had a disastrous trip. hes been sucking alot since he was in tampa not performing well (we could blame coach john tortorella for that because he tends to be really hard on his players and doesnt shy down to blame goalies)Denis has the talent to be a starting goaltender he just needs to find his focus again and montreal his giving him that chance. He brings experience to our team as well as be a good competitor for Carey price who will need to perform in order to remain the starter. Also renowned Montreal Goalie coach Roland Melanson will surely help Denis improve as a goaltender. Finally, marc denis is a another francophone something to make the fan rejoyce.
This is what concerns montreal, so far the next season looks really promising as most teams from our division hasnt improved much while we did, lets just hope the chemestry follows and everybody keeps up with the hard work. But we can ahve high expectation as young players mature, and coach guy carbonneau gains experience
Other trades:
Rangers sign markus naslund: Wow another star player for the rangers, last year they signed the 2 really wanted center Scott gomez and Chris drury and now they are adding a really talented 40+ goal scorer to a team that had pretty good offensive talent with Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan
Rob blake with the sharks: Possibly one of the top defensemen in the league along wiht Scott niedermayer and chris pronger, rob blake is getting old but is still a really pro 6"5 defenseman with one heck of a slap shot. This spring the sharks fixed they offensive defenseman problem by trading with the sabres to get Brian campbell. but thye lost it this week to the free agents, so they signed rob blake to bring a ton of experience to the really young sharks defensive squad.
We trade Grabovski to the leafs. lol this winter grabovski was burning through the AHL by scoring like 15 points in 3 games or something retarded, we called him up to the big team, he played the first game, then we scratched him for the 2nd game to let another bigger play (because we needed the physical aspect for that game) and he got pissed and didnt take the plane with the team to protest cause hes a baby like that. needless to say he had played his last match with the team and now he will play with the rival team, lets hope he gets his chance there
Kristian huselius goes to the Blue jackets: Huselius is like the most underrated player in the league, he can score 90 points in a season easely and for once he gets the recognition he deserve with a pretty big salary.
Sean avery to the Dallas stars: That guy is a fag and should be removed from the league, the fact that hes now in the western conference is making me happy cause we dont see/hear from him as much
Doug Weight with the islanders. The islanders could really use better centers, last season was really deceiving for them (Best scorer in the team had 49 points and was center Mike comrie), Comrie is good, but hes not your best center, he probably didnt have enough working room to perform and Weight might be able to help that, hes one of the greater playmakers this league have seen and he can bring alot of experience to the young and crappy islanders and more importantly leadership to assist captain Bill guerin who became the team captain right after signing with the islanders and learned it on the TV as his little daughter was like "daddy youre on tv". he probably was like "lol wtf.." and had a pretty bad season in terms of goal production, if Doug weight can feed him nicely perhaps we can see the islanders in the playoffs
Tampa bay get Olaf kolzig. Tampa always had a problem with having a good goaltender and ever since they won the cup with nikolai khabibulin they have had really bad goaltenders. and now they get Kolzig, who is one of the best goalie in the league but is getting older and older unfortunately. the 6"3 german south african goalie can still play good and is known to perform better when he gets more shot (he won so many games wit hthe capitals when they would be outshot like 50 to 25)
Mark streit with the islanders for 4,5 million. Streit gave great services to montreal playing as both a defensemen and a forward, his decent slap shot made our powerplay really good this season. But the small swiss guy has no talent, and we used to pay him 500k a year and it was fine. but now that he scored an impressive 62 points last year being fed by our star defensemen Andrei markov, his value went up alot and he managed to snag a huge contract from the islanders. hes not worth half of it but hes still a good addition to the islanders cause they needed a guy that cn play on the powerplay
The blackhawks got Brian campbell. Brian campbell is a very good mobile defensemen and the hawks needed one REALLY badly to assist young duncan keith who is fast, but doenst have the experience recquired to defend well. having campbell there is gonna help the team offense alotThe hawks also got Cristobal Huet, our ex goaltender, who is pretty good but never played more than like 45 games in a season which makes his consistency questionnable, hes good tho and if the blackhawks keep khabibulin then the russian might have some pressure to keep his starting spot as the French goaltender performs well
Michael Ryder goes to the bruins, Ryder scored 30 goal in 2 seasons with montreal but always kinda sucked and all of his goals were kinda lucky, this year he didnt perform well at all and was scratched most of the season cause of it, he has some talent and improved some over the year, but he doenst have the heart and the perseverance to put enough efforts while playing. After his really disastrous season he was able to get actualyl more money than he used to get in MTL by signing with boston. he went from 3,2 mil to 4 mil (thats really odd to pay 4 mil for a guy that didnt play half the season and scored 14 goals but yea whatever good for him)
Rangers sign wade redden, Wade redden is one of the better offensive defensemen in the league and what really hurt hte rangers scoring this year was teh fact that they didnt have a good defensemen to launch the attacks or do great passes (Roszival had that role and hes kinda bad) with Redden, it will make all the forwards look better
Oilers trade Joni Pitkanen for Erik Cole. That is good because the oilers could really use a really good starting winger and they could give away their big defensemen since they have Sheldon Souray who can be that big defensemen with the crazy slapshot. Pitkanen is also the piece of puzzle that the hurricanes needed. The canes always had pretty good offense but their defense was always bad and since they traded the big Mike commodore this spring, they needed another big defensemen. Plus, pitkanen can play on the powerplay
Brian Rolston and bobby holik go back to New jersey, These 2 guys used to be key pieces to the new jersey successes and now they are back, which is good cause nj is kinda weak in the center positio ncurrently, the only problem is that these 2 guys are kinda old now and they paid alot of money for em (5 mil per season for rolston and 2,5 a year for holik). Rolston can score alot of goals and the money spent coudl be justified, but holik is too slow and all he can do is win faceoffs and have a really mean look on his face.
Patrick lalime quits the hawks to go to the Sabres, Lalime used to be the starting goalie for the senators and was REALLY good, but ever since he left ottawa, hes had alot of troubles, i dont expect any change with the sabres, but we might have him cause us some troubles during the regular season as quebec goaltender tend to perfor mbetter vs the habs (most of the type we were shut out last season was against quebec goaltenders that werent starters for their respective teams)
Jose theodore sign with the Capitals for like 5 million a year. thats retarded, he had horrible times ever since he got his big contract with montreal and was just a burden for the Avalanche, but he ended the year nicely last year and played well toward the end perhaps it raised his value enough, either way the caps paid too much and it might not be the greatest move from their part
Marek zidlicky to minneseota. i dont know how important zidlicky was in nashville, but it soudned like he was an important piece of that defensive squad and he joins a team that has a good defensive aspect something that coach Jacque Lemaire enforces. Is zidlicky good enough defensively for Lemaire's standards? we will see, hes still a really good addition to the team if look at it in offensive terms
Radim Vrbata signs with tampa bay. wow another pretty good deal for tampa, vrbata is very underrated and can perform pretty well, it will replace the whole left by Ian Hlavac who was traded to nashville last year.
Curtis Joseph returns to toronto. thats good for him, hes like 43 years old now and he gets the chance to play with the team where he spent most of his career with
on july first the free agents hunt started in the nhl.
after a couple of big trades during the draft that surprised many. (olli jokinen in phoenix, alex tanguay in montreal etc etc) the best had yet to come.
many of these trades are worth mentionning and i wanted to create a thread just for that even if not many people beside kip will careill start with the trades concerning montreal
Alex tanguay: Alex tanguay is the perfect guy we needed, we needed a star winger that can score a minimum of 30 goals, a really talented guy, not just some good or decent player an dwe finally found it in Alex tanguay who once said he didnt wanna play in montreal (that mightve changed since we finished first in the conference last season). He's also a francophone which is something that always pleases the fans Hes gonna continue to add to the team renown speed as well as be a player that can control the puck well in the offensive zone, something that you can never have too much. Its gonna relief alot of pressure off of kovalev's back so that he can get more room to perform, or the opposite kovalev could drawn all the defensive attention while tanguay gets to play against suckier defensemen and has enough room to demonstrate his talent
Acquiring the rights to sign mats sundin. its unfortunate that sundin isnt certain if he wants to continue his career, but bob gainey improves his popularity by trying hard to get another established star in the team, a Big 6"5 center is always useful in a team and sundin has been an example of consistency throughout his career.
Signing George Laraque. omg its george laraque, one of the best and most feared fighter in the league, at 6"3 and 260 pound (aprox) and the talent to score goals when he gets used that way in a team (unlikely here in montreal) Laraque is one of the best plumber a team ccan have. its gonna be good to defend our young talented players and mostly our promising goaltender Carey Price. Carey has been pushed around alot last year by opposing teams and while Komisarek can push and kick everybody's ass, hes too talented to take stupid penalties cause we need our defensemen to kill the penalties. so having a guy that we just dont care about to go intimidate the enemy team is good. then we could use Laraque every once in a while to go stand in front of the enemy goaltender to block the view. Laraque is also a francohpone that is known for being really active in the community which is something montreal fans will really love about him.
Signing marc denis, Marc denis was once the blue jackets starting goalie, he would play 70+ games per season and perform good, he was the Blue jackets martin brodeur. but this changed once denis left the jackets to play for tampa where he had a disastrous trip. hes been sucking alot since he was in tampa not performing well (we could blame coach john tortorella for that because he tends to be really hard on his players and doesnt shy down to blame goalies)Denis has the talent to be a starting goaltender he just needs to find his focus again and montreal his giving him that chance. He brings experience to our team as well as be a good competitor for Carey price who will need to perform in order to remain the starter. Also renowned Montreal Goalie coach Roland Melanson will surely help Denis improve as a goaltender. Finally, marc denis is a another francophone something to make the fan rejoyce.
This is what concerns montreal, so far the next season looks really promising as most teams from our division hasnt improved much while we did, lets just hope the chemestry follows and everybody keeps up with the hard work. But we can ahve high expectation as young players mature, and coach guy carbonneau gains experience
Other trades:
Rangers sign markus naslund: Wow another star player for the rangers, last year they signed the 2 really wanted center Scott gomez and Chris drury and now they are adding a really talented 40+ goal scorer to a team that had pretty good offensive talent with Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan
Rob blake with the sharks: Possibly one of the top defensemen in the league along wiht Scott niedermayer and chris pronger, rob blake is getting old but is still a really pro 6"5 defenseman with one heck of a slap shot. This spring the sharks fixed they offensive defenseman problem by trading with the sabres to get Brian campbell. but thye lost it this week to the free agents, so they signed rob blake to bring a ton of experience to the really young sharks defensive squad.
We trade Grabovski to the leafs. lol this winter grabovski was burning through the AHL by scoring like 15 points in 3 games or something retarded, we called him up to the big team, he played the first game, then we scratched him for the 2nd game to let another bigger play (because we needed the physical aspect for that game) and he got pissed and didnt take the plane with the team to protest cause hes a baby like that. needless to say he had played his last match with the team and now he will play with the rival team, lets hope he gets his chance there
Kristian huselius goes to the Blue jackets: Huselius is like the most underrated player in the league, he can score 90 points in a season easely and for once he gets the recognition he deserve with a pretty big salary.
Sean avery to the Dallas stars: That guy is a fag and should be removed from the league, the fact that hes now in the western conference is making me happy cause we dont see/hear from him as much
Doug Weight with the islanders. The islanders could really use better centers, last season was really deceiving for them (Best scorer in the team had 49 points and was center Mike comrie), Comrie is good, but hes not your best center, he probably didnt have enough working room to perform and Weight might be able to help that, hes one of the greater playmakers this league have seen and he can bring alot of experience to the young and crappy islanders and more importantly leadership to assist captain Bill guerin who became the team captain right after signing with the islanders and learned it on the TV as his little daughter was like "daddy youre on tv". he probably was like "lol wtf.." and had a pretty bad season in terms of goal production, if Doug weight can feed him nicely perhaps we can see the islanders in the playoffs
Tampa bay get Olaf kolzig. Tampa always had a problem with having a good goaltender and ever since they won the cup with nikolai khabibulin they have had really bad goaltenders. and now they get Kolzig, who is one of the best goalie in the league but is getting older and older unfortunately. the 6"3 german south african goalie can still play good and is known to perform better when he gets more shot (he won so many games wit hthe capitals when they would be outshot like 50 to 25)
Mark streit with the islanders for 4,5 million. Streit gave great services to montreal playing as both a defensemen and a forward, his decent slap shot made our powerplay really good this season. But the small swiss guy has no talent, and we used to pay him 500k a year and it was fine. but now that he scored an impressive 62 points last year being fed by our star defensemen Andrei markov, his value went up alot and he managed to snag a huge contract from the islanders. hes not worth half of it but hes still a good addition to the islanders cause they needed a guy that cn play on the powerplay
The blackhawks got Brian campbell. Brian campbell is a very good mobile defensemen and the hawks needed one REALLY badly to assist young duncan keith who is fast, but doenst have the experience recquired to defend well. having campbell there is gonna help the team offense alotThe hawks also got Cristobal Huet, our ex goaltender, who is pretty good but never played more than like 45 games in a season which makes his consistency questionnable, hes good tho and if the blackhawks keep khabibulin then the russian might have some pressure to keep his starting spot as the French goaltender performs well
Michael Ryder goes to the bruins, Ryder scored 30 goal in 2 seasons with montreal but always kinda sucked and all of his goals were kinda lucky, this year he didnt perform well at all and was scratched most of the season cause of it, he has some talent and improved some over the year, but he doenst have the heart and the perseverance to put enough efforts while playing. After his really disastrous season he was able to get actualyl more money than he used to get in MTL by signing with boston. he went from 3,2 mil to 4 mil (thats really odd to pay 4 mil for a guy that didnt play half the season and scored 14 goals but yea whatever good for him)
Rangers sign wade redden, Wade redden is one of the better offensive defensemen in the league and what really hurt hte rangers scoring this year was teh fact that they didnt have a good defensemen to launch the attacks or do great passes (Roszival had that role and hes kinda bad) with Redden, it will make all the forwards look better
Oilers trade Joni Pitkanen for Erik Cole. That is good because the oilers could really use a really good starting winger and they could give away their big defensemen since they have Sheldon Souray who can be that big defensemen with the crazy slapshot. Pitkanen is also the piece of puzzle that the hurricanes needed. The canes always had pretty good offense but their defense was always bad and since they traded the big Mike commodore this spring, they needed another big defensemen. Plus, pitkanen can play on the powerplay
Brian Rolston and bobby holik go back to New jersey, These 2 guys used to be key pieces to the new jersey successes and now they are back, which is good cause nj is kinda weak in the center positio ncurrently, the only problem is that these 2 guys are kinda old now and they paid alot of money for em (5 mil per season for rolston and 2,5 a year for holik). Rolston can score alot of goals and the money spent coudl be justified, but holik is too slow and all he can do is win faceoffs and have a really mean look on his face.
Patrick lalime quits the hawks to go to the Sabres, Lalime used to be the starting goalie for the senators and was REALLY good, but ever since he left ottawa, hes had alot of troubles, i dont expect any change with the sabres, but we might have him cause us some troubles during the regular season as quebec goaltender tend to perfor mbetter vs the habs (most of the type we were shut out last season was against quebec goaltenders that werent starters for their respective teams)
Jose theodore sign with the Capitals for like 5 million a year. thats retarded, he had horrible times ever since he got his big contract with montreal and was just a burden for the Avalanche, but he ended the year nicely last year and played well toward the end perhaps it raised his value enough, either way the caps paid too much and it might not be the greatest move from their part
Marek zidlicky to minneseota. i dont know how important zidlicky was in nashville, but it soudned like he was an important piece of that defensive squad and he joins a team that has a good defensive aspect something that coach Jacque Lemaire enforces. Is zidlicky good enough defensively for Lemaire's standards? we will see, hes still a really good addition to the team if look at it in offensive terms
Radim Vrbata signs with tampa bay. wow another pretty good deal for tampa, vrbata is very underrated and can perform pretty well, it will replace the whole left by Ian Hlavac who was traded to nashville last year.
Curtis Joseph returns to toronto. thats good for him, hes like 43 years old now and he gets the chance to play with the team where he spent most of his career with
purepwnage
this site is about a little web tv show featuring gamers. while its main objective is to be funny their latest episode intro movie caught my attention. Heres what i wrote about it few weeks ago:
season 2 ep 5 came out recently, the whole show changed quite a bit over time but i still enjoy it
before every show they always do a little video with stuff that have nothing to do aobut the show and this time it was an interesting critic about the current gamesbasically critisizing the massive amount of single player console games we have, for 60$ that give you 10-15 hours of play time. while you can go watch a movie and pay 10$ or just read a book.how the targetted audience for games is larger and theres more "noobs" tha nbefore to satisfy and that kinda dumb games down.i found it pretty interesting, even if it was disguised into something that didnt look serious in the video.
I mean its true, my friend has a ps3 and sometimes we rent games, but were trying to play the mutiplayer games or the ones with co-op stories because this coop mode stories is what we cannot get with pc games, but theres not many games out there, its all single player games. for PC its a bit different, most games have a multiplayer mode, but very few are actually played by a lot of people right now. look at UT3, ET:QW, Q4 to only name those.and then the dumbing game down thing, many people that played aoc were mostly excited aobut it cause of the hardcore factor, it was aimed at hardcore players, same for vanguard, theres a real demand for these games, but theres nothing for them except Horrible games. then you can also think of games that are becoming simpler to accomodate that larger audience thats appearantly noob, think of the NGE in SWG, or the recent Buffs to pve skills in GW (thankfully GW does that well so it doesnt break PvP at all) and theres several more examples of games that are accessible now to people that arent that good of gamers
We havent seen any good competitive game since CoD1, everybody is playing really old games still because they are the best at that even if they look by crap to today's standard.really i dont know whats going on or what will happen in general with the gaming industry as the better players are seeking good competitive games and they constantly get games that arent all that good because developpers seem to be trying to satisfy the masses
lucky tie
for his birthday last year, montreal canadiens headcoach's wife decided to offer a nice gife to her husband. a tie. it was orange with some burgundy designs and other really ugly colored things. she paid 150$ for one of the ugliest tie ever. even don cherry wouldnt wear it.
The first time Guy Carbonneau wore it was in a game against the NY rangers. the habs were losing 4-1 in the 3rd period. Mike komisarek was going rampage on everyone tackling everything in could and trying to get in fight, to try and give some momemtum to his team. eventually it paid off and montreal started working on their come back, they scored 4 unanswered goals to win 5-4 in OT. one of the most memorable season game i saw.
The first game of the playoffs the habs won fairly easely against the bruins as Carbonneau was still wearing his really ugly tie. Boston battled and managed to tie the series and force a Game 7. For this occasion Guy had to wear his lucky tie and test its power and see if he could win a game 7. He did. there was riots in montreal and nobody doubted the power of the tie
game 6 against philadelphia, the habs are trailing 3-2 in the series and need to win to force a game 7. Flyers winger RJ umberger already scored 7 goals in the past 5 games against montreal and needs to be stopped. This is when Carbonneau decided to pull out his tie. but for the first time, it failed, umberger scored his 8th goal of the series and helped the flyers win.
Anyway while the ugly tie wasnt perfect it still became legendary and carbonneau promised to auction it and offer the money to charity.
and today at the annual montreal canadiens golf tournament, the tie sold for 100 000$
The first time Guy Carbonneau wore it was in a game against the NY rangers. the habs were losing 4-1 in the 3rd period. Mike komisarek was going rampage on everyone tackling everything in could and trying to get in fight, to try and give some momemtum to his team. eventually it paid off and montreal started working on their come back, they scored 4 unanswered goals to win 5-4 in OT. one of the most memorable season game i saw.
The first game of the playoffs the habs won fairly easely against the bruins as Carbonneau was still wearing his really ugly tie. Boston battled and managed to tie the series and force a Game 7. For this occasion Guy had to wear his lucky tie and test its power and see if he could win a game 7. He did. there was riots in montreal and nobody doubted the power of the tie
game 6 against philadelphia, the habs are trailing 3-2 in the series and need to win to force a game 7. Flyers winger RJ umberger already scored 7 goals in the past 5 games against montreal and needs to be stopped. This is when Carbonneau decided to pull out his tie. but for the first time, it failed, umberger scored his 8th goal of the series and helped the flyers win.
Anyway while the ugly tie wasnt perfect it still became legendary and carbonneau promised to auction it and offer the money to charity.
and today at the annual montreal canadiens golf tournament, the tie sold for 100 000$
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