I am assuming that is a Patrik Laine related smiley?  He will look really good on Scheifele's wing...   

How soon before you guys start the Teemu2.0 stuff with him? 

Stars in 5 
Blues in 7
Ducks in 5
Sharks in 7

Panthers in 6
Red Wings in 7
Caps in 7
Penguins in 6

So, only hit .500 out East, but looking good in the West - 3-for-3 so far.


Round 2 -

Lightning in 7
Penguins in 6

Blues in 7
SJS in 6

(I'll update my post tomorrow once ANA/NSH is decided )

edit: finally got around to updating my SJvs ANA/NSH pick.

the floating holster...

Holy ****, Jesse.  You may be the only other person that appreciates this as much as me, but I'm going to post anyway.  Check out the #figureporn on this Starkiller Han's holster:



Perfectly executed.  Separate belt that fits his hips perfectly and is attached by peg to leg.  Doesn't even impede the ball-joint hips all that much.  Would be perfect for a tauntaun riding Han custom.  Just so perfect.  Such a shame it's hidden by the winter coat.

Going to be buying a few extra Starkiller Hans just for these legs/belts to upgrade some older Han figures.

Found the wave in MN today.  Very happy with Han.  Phasma is great. 

Leia... man, that face deco.  Those eyebrows.  One of the two Leia figs I found had a horrible eyebrow  (one was almost straight vertically) and pink paint drips (from her lip paint, I think) on her hairdo.   

I want Leia too, but man why can't they give us General Leia who's just so much cooler than this one ya know?

I thought for sure it was because the General Leia outfit was going to be a 5POA TFA figure (like the way they did Han in each line with the more "familiar" look as 5POA wide release).

Now that it seems like 5POA from TFA is drying up, maybe 5POA General Leia isn't such a sure thing anymore...?

I tend to think of Minnesota as more of a win-it-now kind of grouping that seems to have failed.  Some good youth but hardly a young team. 

Yeah, that's the same thing I said, I'm just pinning the "failed" part on "the kids" who as you point out aren't hardly kids anymore. 

Parise and Suter signed to be closer to home... but at the time much was made of "the kids" in the system and how we were so up and coming that within a year or two, we'd be legit.  We heard a LOT about "the kids" - Granlund, Coyle, Nino, Dumba, Kuemper, etc.

Within the first year or two of Parise/Suter, they made the Pominville/Vanek trade/signings pretty much because "the kids" weren't stepping up.  No one grabbed those top-6 spots and said, MINE! So, they grabbed Vanek/Pommer as a band-aid... but don't worry "the kids" would still develop and fill out our roster nicely.  Then last year came the trade for Dubnyk because "the kids" (Kuemper esp.) were not living up to what they hoped.

This year was really go-or-no-go time for "the kids"to finally take the next step.  While they have all turned into serviceable NHLers, none has jumped up and turned into the stars they were hoping/selling them to be (I'd put Brodin as the lone exception).  Granlund's not a legit #1 center (at least not against what we face in the Central).  Coyle and Nino are nice 20-25 goal scoring parts, but neither is on track for a reliable role on this team.  Zucker, Dumba, Scandella all took big steps backwards.

I have no idea if the kids didn't develop the way they thought or if they hit exactly what they were going to be and it was the staff who just overhyped them as being more than they were ever going to be? That part is what makes our owner's vote of confidence in GM Fletcher so odd as he's the guy who put all his eggs in these kids baskets and big money to Heatley, Vanek, etc who haven't panned out.

But yea, with Parise, Suter, Koivu, Dubnyk we're still in win-now mode (or else we're screwed).  It's a big ask to swap out the Zucker, Haula, Dumba type parts and hope for something better, but that's really all we've got until we blow it all up in a few years if it continues not to work.   

Here we go...

Stars in 5 

Got the # of games wrong; really, really hoping that I got the series winner wrong too. 

Got my tickets to MIN/DAL game 6 on Sunday!

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