eat drink & be queer

Sooooo it's pretty obvious I love Stenberg lol. And like I GET IT, it's smart to pick a potentially top-pairing RH defenseman, I know they're like unicorns & they have financial value & it's a really smart move.

I just... really want Stenberg. I'm impatient & I can envision him in that locker room with the Sharks next season, I can envision him on Misa's wing, I can envision him getting time on Willmack's line. And selfishly, I don't want another team to get him.

As for what Mike Grier will do, this is a mystery. I personally think he's a brilliant GM, who plays chess not checkers, who makes creative moves & thinks longterm. He knows he's got a fabulous opportunity here. Reid is a smart, relatively safe bet. But Stenberg is fun to watch, will slot in so beautifully with our team, will generate points season after season, and will put butts in seats. That has value too. (There's a reason 2 out of the top 10 IIHF highlights featured Stenberg.)

I want to wait until Combine results to make my final pick, but despite what SO MANY analysts are saying right now... I still say Stenberg.

So for people who don't know, they're going to have 5 international teams: Canada, Sweden, Finland, USA & a "World" team (mix of players from every other country).

The NHL & the Player's Association will choose 30 players for each team. Those 30 will get whittled down to 8, decided by online fan voting, but then the NHL/NHLPA will add on one additional forward, defenseman & goalie to fill out the roster to 11. Sounds ok so far, right?

Here's the silly part. They're going to play 3v3 🙄. And not just 3v3, but the games are only 4 minutes long. 🙄 There's no OT or shootout if it's tied, since it'll be a points system (2pt for W, 1pt for T, 0pt for L). They're going to do it round robin style so each team will have 4 matches. The winners will advance to a 10 minute final game.

Sooooo this format is kind of absurd lol. I mean 3v3 is pretty unpopular for a reason, and with 4 minute long matches this is extremely luck-based. It could mmmaybe be fun to watch? Will depend a lot on who's on each roster. The NHL/NHLPA will have to do a good job picking those initial 30 players so fans can feel like they have good options.

I think odds are pretty high we see some faves though! Mack will absolutely be there, if he agrees (plus, see below). Will is less certain but I feel pretty confident the NHL knows the potential here.

Ok, so the 25 & under skills competition is separate from the above tournament. This is 10 people competing in 6 events (Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Passing Challenge, One Timers, Stick Handling and Accuracy Shooting). Each player will compete in 4 out of 6 of these. (After that things get crazy, finalists have to do a shootout & an obstacle course??)

This looks like the NHL capitalizing on the unusually-skilled group of younger players they currently have. What's unclear is how THESE players are chosen. And are these players excluded from the tournament roster? Is this them trying to give the vets a role in the tournament so it isn't just younger fans choosing younger players? If players can't compete in both & the NHL is choosing, there's a really good chance Willmack are in THIS group (along with Bedard, Zegras, Hutson, etc).

So looks like Canada won't be limited to 25 & under goalies for the tournament at least lol. As far as predictions, this format makes it really hard to predict. It's honestly kind of a free-for-all. Luck is going to play a big part. The "world" team should be stacked with talent, but maybe language/ cultural differences come into play.