PetrSykora

It's like a team full of Robocops whose prime directive is to suck the life out of hockey. Gotta give them some credit though, the throwback style sweaters are a huuuge step up from those bogus ones they've been wearing ever since their 40 years of irrelevance ended. That dumb L A logo looks like it belongs on the door to a restroom at a low budget renaissance fair.

Quoting myself because you guys are right but it was a late night post and I didn't exactly explain where I'm coming from. You are all correct, you don't have to compare two things for them both to be wrong. On a personal level, I was just really holding my breath that it wasn't another racism or discrimination situation. It would have been like a giant "you're not welcome here" sign for me as a fan if he was able to run the team like a bigoted tyrant for that long. The reality still sounds awful but my initial reaction was relief because there wouldn't be any of those type of dehumanizing stories again to remind me of my own bad experiences growing up with the sport, especially if they were coming from the team I've supported for so long. I'm not naive, every organization likely has some sort of skeleton in their closet but it's still like a punch to the gut every time they are exposed. I'm not giving Bob a pass, I'm just relieved his actions (the actions that built the last decade of hockey here, and the actions that currently have him on administrative leave) don't appear to be motivated by hate.

Is it a bad thing that I'm actually relieved the early reports have him painted as more of a Babcock jerk than a Peters? Pretty low bar but considering the other recent controversies in the NHL at least our organization doesn't come off looking like a complete dumpster.

The NHL has been an absolute gongshow the last month and it's leaving a horrible taste in my mouth as a fan. I'm all for a new GM but I'm also fearful of whatever potentially awful thing he could've done to prompt this. I haven't seen anything but a very vague report on Sportsnet and I hate to speculate, but my mind instantly jumped to Kesler's stories about team mandated painkiller abuse. Can't help but wonder if it's related.

Another year, another disgruntled all-star acquired by a Vegas team still swinging for the fences after flying too close to the sun in their first season. A healthy Eichel makes them better but that Sharks comparison is apt. It might not be for a while (let's hope sooner rather than later) but the inevitable lean years for Vegas could be real bad.

Give this guy his own wing in the idiot ward of the hockey hall of fame. I defended him when they said he was betting on his own games but that was only a couple of months ago and it's been nothing but downhill with this guy since.

"Community not found" made my heart sink faster than Clifford in a fight with Brookbank. I'm so glad we're still here.

I think the fact that none of the players BM acquired in the last year and a half were deemed worthy enough to protect in the expansion draft says more. Just going through the motions over here.

I'm talking about the uniforms. Our Duck foot logo is generic and the black sweaters are boring but hooooly, I'd take them over some beady eyed robo-cat with a horrible case of periodontal disease every single time. That's just their weird jagged logo, don't even get me started on that awful shade of yellow and how it clashes with white ice, or how lazy and unfortunate of a name Predators is for a team.

Coyotes are going back to their 90s look full time now. Great news, I never liked any of those decapitated tooth-baring animal head logos in this league. Minnesota is corny, Florida needs to re-brand again, and Nashville needs to just relocate and burn all ties to what's currently the worst brand in sports cause there's no saving what they've got.

I am hopeful Zegras and Drysdale can provide some sort of excitement throughout the season. It's just that I've been turned into a total pessimist when it comes to this team. All I can think of when it comes to those two is how they could spend the whole year developing losing habits under an overwhelmed coach who has never finished with a point% over .500 in an organization that doesn't care anymore. The idea of it has got a very pungent pre-McDavid Oilers stink to it.

It's funny cause he'd still get more goal support in Buffalo

I like how it's NOW when his team is at rock bottom that he decides to sit on his hands and do absolutely nothing. After all these years of pointlessly trading guys like DSP and Penner when the team is contending for a title, handing out wild contracts to Stoner and Bieksa in that same period, or throwing someone like Cogliano under the bus cause the team is in a spiral.. Nah, now is when fresh faces aren't welcome. We haven't been competitive or even building towards something in years, I'm so psyched to see the exact same product on the ice all over again.

Eichel apparently flew to Montreal with all his hockey equipment today. Most likely a nothing story being blown out of proportion by social media because of yesterday's offer sheet news, but I can't help but flash back to when Toronto news choppers followed Kawhi Leonard around for a day OJ Simpson style when his contract expired. Meanwhile, the butt-groove on Bob Murray's sofa grows deeper as he starts up on another Netflix series.

Waiting on Eichel or not, this has easily been the most frustrating offseason for me as a fan. It's one thing to hope Buffalo says yes to our garbage and agrees to a blockbuster. This is still the sorriest team in the NHL going on 4 seasons now. You're allowed to attempt to improve the team, either for the rapidly approaching season, or the near future while you irresponsibly wait on something that's out of your control to materialize. The indifference to it all is what gets me. I appreciated how passive aggressive Getzlaf's statement from when he re-signed was at the time. Now I wish he was just flat-out inflammatory. Guy deserves better than to spend the twilight of his hall of fame career reliving the same nightmare every year.

Boo. At the risk of sounding ignorant, I never really understood what these billion dollar corporations get from blowing the bank on a tiny patch they can stitch onto a sports uniform all while irritating the same fans they're targeting in the process. Obviously there's a profit somewhere otherwise they wouldn't do it, but there's gotta be far more effective ways of advertising that cost a lot less. I have no marketing experience though so what do I know. Whatever I guess, it makes the team money to waste on bad roster decisions. At this point all I can ask for are no wild colour clashes (see: Pittsburgh's helmet, Europe) and none of those god-awful corporate writeups talking about what the Honda logo represents and "the qualities they share with the Anaheim fans" or something dumb along those lines once they're announced as the team's partner.

Just do something! Running back the most offensively inept and straight up boring roster in the history of this team is just madness. Commit to a direction BM because I have no interest whatsoever in watching a full season of this team as it stands and I know I'm not alone on that.

We're so deep into the summer now that even Zac Rinaldo has somehow gotten a job before Bob Murray has done a single thing to address the worst team in hockey.

Kudos to that poor staff writer for the NHL website who had to spend their time writing a hype building review of our offseason where literally no moves were made to improve a horrendously bad team. I would've just attached that video of Wild Wing accidentally lighting himself on fire if I was in their shoes.

They had to agree to their qualifying offers because they had no means of negotiating better deals ever since Bob dropped his only phone in the toilet a month ago.

Looking forward to the Last Shift Netflix documentary series about McKinnon being a borderline sociopathic winner and locker room tyrant. Beats the inevitable Evander Kane vs Logan Paul boxing farce we're probably gonna get instead.

I remember being afraid back when McDavid was drafted that the Oilers were about to fail upwards into becoming the league's next era defining team. Now I'm just afraid they're straight up ruining the career of the most talented player I've seen in my lifetime. They don't deserve to have him on the Oilers. It's never going to happen but he should try Eichel-ing his way outta Edmonton. I can picture him in a Rangers sweater.

Obviously none of us know him personally but given his past behaviour, I can buy him being an emotionally abusive loser to his wife. He also likely has a gambling problem because I have no idea how you can blow 50 million dollars in career earnings this fast without one. Betting on his own games though? Desperate times and all that, but he's fresh off the best season of his career. Either he's dumb enough to bet on himself and the sad Sharks, or he's the worst match fixer of all time. The main reason I'm skeptical of this all is because I don't understand what she gets from exposing this along with the death threats. It's entirely possible he used that as a manipulative cover to continue his destructive behaviour and she didn't really believe him. It's also entirely possible he was telling the honest truth considering the circles he allegedly runs with and how much money is at stake. Assuming this is all true, exposing this and potentially getting him kicked out of the league might have just dug his grave. What a mess.

The fact that this was all aired out publicly by his wife on social media in response to his infidelity kind of makes me think it's exaggerated. Especially since she said something about how he said his friends would kill him if he didn't gamble. I don't know. Still, pretty interesting how the NHL is trying to quickly tackle this situation head-on instead of their usual policy of sweeping things under the rug (see: Chicago's ongoing abuse scandal, Montreal drafting a sex offender, etc.)

Throwback to game 6 in Trashville when he got himself ejected from an elimination game by going all Zorro and carving an R into the forehead one of their guys with a dumb, dirty hit. Still got more on-ice IQ than Bieksa and his signature snow angel maneuver though.