Bombers 2017-2018 Preseason Report

As noted above, the team is rebuilding.  After getting hit by lightning thrice (Giroux, Kopitar, and Schneider rating marginally better than dog turd while simultaneously accounting for approximately $22mm of cap space all at the same time), the team realized its window was closed and sold almost every asset available(#).  With the rebuild in place, the team will now focus on developing the talent to contend for a cup in a few years.  

 

(Tyson Jost's grandfather crying, on news Tyson got traded to the Bombers - those are not tears of joy by the way)  Forward Depth:  A long-time issue with the team, the team finally has some top-level talent to build around, with Elias Pettersson, Colin White, and Tyson Jost ready to spearhead the offense and some quality high-level supplementary players like Christian Fischer, JT Compher, German Rubtsov and Sonny Milano to round out the roster.  Nikolay Prokhorkin will be relied upon to be the Bomber's Panarin v.2.0 - his KHL contract runs out after 2019 - this skilled Russian forward has shown that he can score when given quality ice time.  Mathias From is expected to be the next Sami Salo for the team - he managed to injure himself in practise with a slap shot before the SHL season even started ala Salo.  Lots of other interesting depth T6 players are in the pipeline (Hudon, Dickinson, Erne etc).  

 

 

(Zaitsev earning his $7mm contract by autographing a zillion pictures and hockey cards and selling it on Ebay(*))  Defense Depth:  D has never been an issue with the Bombers, having developed players like OEL, Trouba, Josi, Hjalmarsson, etc.  The pipeline is no different now, with Chabot, Honka, Liljegren, McKeown, the underrated Libor(&) Hajek(~), and Snuggerud ready to fill in for Josi, Benning, Dumba, Zaitsev, Sustr and Stecher.  

 

With that said, fans were up in arms over the trade of Trouba for Tyson Jost, and removed the team's top RHD cornerstone.  However, the team already has a zillion RHD including (Zaitsev, Honka, Liljegren, McKeown, Benning and more).   

 

 

(Alexander Augustus Lyon, right) Goaltender Depth:  Schneider was meant to anchor this team forever, but the raters decided to ignore the fact that NJ stunk, and the team would have been WAY worse w/o Schneider.  Bombers GM targeted high IQ goaltenders - Alex Lyon (Yale undergrad(+)) and Petruzelli (majoring in engineering at Quinnipiac) during the summer.  Clearly goaltending is all about intellect, not size, agility, quickness, or KARAKTR(^).  Regardless, the team is well positioned with Hellebuyck, Lyon, Kahkonen and Petruzelli in the pipeline.  

 

(`) Translation, fired.  

(#) More assets still available.  Please contact Bombers GM for a special deal just for you!  

(*) All selling fees to be borne by Nikita, with gross proceeds earned by the team to pay for his contract.   

(&) Not to be confused with Euribor Hajek.  Note potential risk from U.K. regulators phasing out Libor due to the scandal plagued benchmark used to set the price of trillions of dollars of loans across the world.  

(~) Hajek is not offensively challenged.  He is a solid shut down defensemen.  Also see Andrej Sustr.  

(+) We are assuming he got in based on intellect, and that he isn't actually Alex Lyon III (aka Trip) and is the heir to the Voltron Lions rights (and/or owns the city of Lyon).  Addendum:  Alex's dad Tim went to Yale but that fact absolutely did not increase his probability of getting into Yale, just like large donations (in the tens of millions) to a university doesn't help your chances either.   

(^) Karaktr as defined by Bergevin and Therrien.  It is the key (or is it "qui") je-ne-sais-quoi, that makes borderline AHL players NHL gods deserving of top line minutes.  Also refer to forwards paragraph and Charles Hudon, who clearly has no Karaktr and too much skill to be useable on the top 2 lines of a team.  A truely viable Stanley Cup strategy is to rely on an elite goaltender to win all games with Karaktr players on all 4 lines.