Great analysis Dan...I appreciate the data backing up what I think we all see. Artemi is just one of those rare athletes that have the talent to make everyone around them better. 

It is unfortunate that the CBJ were unable to sign Panarin, but it appears that GM Jarmo and the team did everything they could to persuade him to stay. While I miss having him on our team, I respect him because he played hard right to the end of the playoffs last year.

You are right; he has gotten off to a terrible start. I suspect he will get stronger/better as the year goes on, but not $10M worth.

And the Panthers are anchored with that contract for another 6 1/2 seasons!

That all sounds about right to me, except I think one of Gavrikov, Harrington or Kukan could also be available for trade depending on the scouting reports of the other team in the trade and what assets they are willing to offer. 

He'd be a great fit if our team and our city could appeal to him (and he would fit within our available cap space next year).

I agree with Matt. Three games seems a little high to me, given that it was a first offense and it was not intentional. The game moves fast and inadvertent contact will sometimes happen. I would have thought two (same as Lucic) would have been fair. This just strikes me as "we in the player safety department don't care about Columbus, so we will make an example of the CBJ captain so folks are more careful in the future." Same thing happened to Wisnewki a decade ago.

I have no confidence that a player from a Canadian city would have received three games.

With five strong goalie prospects, I wonder if they continue to develop if one or more might be offered at the trade deadline to a team that suffers a goalie injury or just needs more depth, in exchange for needed prospects or players. 

As a repeat offender, the goon should have received a four game suspension. 

I'm just glad Sherwood was not seriously injured.

Observations from NWA on the Calgary game:

I was at the game last night and in short, it was a discouraging full team loss.

The first Flames’ goal looked pretty soft. On the second goal, after a wide open shot on a defensive breakdown, Korpi left a rebound right in a very high danger area – which went right to another wide open opponent. To me, these patterns have developed into a real bad habit. We all knew that scoring goals was going to be a problem, but more worrisome are the continual defensive breakdowns.

It seemed to me that on the offensive end of the ice, everyone is beginning to press too hard. The hockey term is “gripping the stick too tight.” The CBJ put plenty of shots on net, but very few looked like dangerous chances. I thought Kole Sherwood looked pretty good in his first game this season, PLD was always in the thick of things, and Josh generated several scoring opportunities.

With all of that said, I really hated to see the boo birds come out so early in the season. The crowd was pretty thin for a Saturday night when the Buckeyes did not play.

Sadly no team was going to trade away a key piece of its future for three months (or even six months) of Panarin. I think the best the CBJ could have hoped for is a second round pick, between 40th and 60th overall pick and it is entirely possible the best offer the team actually received was a 3rd and 4th round pick. Both Bob and Bread killed their own trade value by making it clear there were only a limited number of teams they were willing to resign with, and none of those teams was really in the playoff hunt by the trade deadline  Why not go for it under those unfortunate circumstances. 

We will never know for sure, but I think the low return was one of the reasons neither player was moved last season.

Sadly no team was going to trade away a key piece of its future for three months (or even six months) of Panarin. I think the best the CBJ could have hoped for is a second round pick, between 40th and 60th overall pick and it is entirely possible the best offer the team actually received was a 3rd and 4th round pick. Both Bob and Bread killed their own trade value by making it clear there were only a limited number of teams they were willing to resign with, and none of those teams was really in the playoff hunt by the trade deadline  Why not go for it under those unfortunate circumstances. 

We will never know for sure, but I think the low return was one of the reasons neither player was moved last season.

The CBJ have the last line change at home tonight, so to a large extent Torts can control the match ups. I would certainly want my best defense pairing on the ice at all times with the McDavid line. As to the forwards I would try to use most often, I might be inclined to move Captain Foligno back to this line and try to have the Anderson-Foligno-Jenner line on when the Oliers' best line comes over the boards.

I realize that puts Milano on the top line, but what the heck, it would be interesting to see what kind of chemistry he develops with PLD and Cam. He certainly has the offensive skills and Torts has commented that so far this season he is much more responsible with the puck.

It was really a disappointment how quickly it came unraveled, but it was good to see Josh get both his first goal and first assist on the season.

A tie against a Western Conference team is meaningless--the OT loser disappears with that extra point back to the other conference. When the Good Guys don't put away conference rivals in regulation time however, that extra point can factor into whether or not we make the playoffs, or get home ice advantage. I suppose giving up that point to teams that probably aren't going to figure in the playoff hunt may not matter (We're looking at you NJD & NYR), but points to teams like Toronto or Carolina could loom large come April.

Don't interpret this as flak, but Larson can't go out and shoot or pass for players. The coach is usually the fall guy in a situation like this, but I'm just not sure different coaching is going to yield better results. (I will grant you however that it would be hard to get worse! :-) )

Here is the most interesting thing about the Monday game. The CBJ played one of the better teams in the league, in their building (a difficult place to play) and didn't really play a solid defensive game in front of Korpi...yet they walked out with the two points.

QBert, I appreciate the data. Based on the "eye test" I thought he was looking better too, since W has been on the ice for important face offs and several high danger defensive zone situations.

Still, this is too small a sample size...let's reconvene around Thanksgiving (or at least Veterans Day) to re-evaluate.

This win had the look of "scrappy" and that is how they are going to have to play this year to have success. I thought everyone contributed but Murray was particularly sharp. 

I don't want to over react to one disappointing outing, but based on last night, it seems like he might need some time in Cleveland to adjust to the smaller rink, different angles and quicker NHL game. Aaron Portzline did a nice overview about a month ago on just how different it can be for a goaltender.  

A "flashing yellow light" went off for me last season, when at the conclusion of his European season Elvis did not go to Cleveland to get some experience with the North American ice dimensions and the pace of play.

That said, even though an NHL starting goalie should have stopped a couple of those shots last night, our defense did him no favors, as several of those shots were grade A chances fired on net by some pretty good hockey players.

Hmm; I agree that everyone in the Metro Division made moves, but I'm not sure they all got better:

> Penguins sent Kessel and his 82 points packing and picked up Galchenyuk and their goaltending is shaky;

> The Caps traded a top four defenseman Niskanen plus forward Burakovsky; plus an old team is all a year older

> The Islanders are the same team as last year, except this season they have a streaky goal tender replacing a Vezina finalist;

> Philly WAY overpaid for Kevin Hayes in a deal that will not help them short term and will hurt them long term (although they do have a young goalie that could be a difference maker in the future);

> I'll grant you, NJD and NYR caught lightning in a bottle and drafted one -- two and made other good moves (Panarin and Subban among others) but they had a lot of room for improvement.

Carolina is a good young team with a very solid defense, but their goaltending is still suspect.

IMO the Division is wide open. We will see; it will be an interesting year.

There will be injuries...there always are...so even if Marko goes down to Cleveland, if he continues to work hard he will have his chance to get back to Columbus. 

It could be much worse and as Dubi recovers, we have a number of younger guys that will get at least get a chance to show what they can do against NHL talent on a regular basis.

As long as Murray is on the roster, we kind of need eight defensemen. :-) Regular readers will recall that I am a big fan of Ryan's when he has been able to stay in the line up, but the reality is that until he can prove that he can stay healthy for 75+ games, we have to assume he won't.