Author: Buffalo Winter

The Dog Days of Summer

Here along the Lake Warm sunny weather can be a nice distraction from the hectic snowy hockey days ahead, but now is the time to invest some thought and energy in preparedness for the 2025-26 ESPN FHL season.

To begin successfully it all starts with the draft, you can opt out and let the ESPN FHL draft server select for you and it will select the top players available each round, but I would advise against that.

My supposition is that if you are interested in becoming a successful ESPN FHL team manager, then you are already a solid hockey fan which affords you valuable insight into making your own draft selections.

Each year I create just one team and win or lose I manage my team the best that I can all the way through the season, and I hold up my team for scrutiny as an example throughout to highlight what I find to be useful tips and information.

PREPARING FOR THE ESPN FHL DRAFT

Step One: Create your first player list in this fashion; write down the top two statistical leaders (forwards and defensemen) from each of the 32 NHL teams.

You now have in your hands a list of 64 players you want on your team, naturally half of them will be selected by the other team managers in your league’s draft.

In the Pacific Division these are the players I might draft if available:

Anaheim Ducks RW Troy Terry & C Mason McTavish

Calgary Flames C Nazim Kadri & LW Jonathan Huberdeau

Edmonton Oilers C Leon Draisaitl & C Connor McDavid

Los Angeles Kings RW Adrian Kempe & C Anze Kopitar

San Jose Sharks C Macklin Celebrini & LW William Eklund

Seattle Kraken LW Jared McCann & C Chandler Stephenson

Vancouver Canucks D Quinn Hughes & RW Brock Boeser

Nevada Knights C Jack Eichel & RW Mark Stone

Enter the NHL website and select each team’s roster/stats link to determine last season’s point leaders for each team, following my example you can go through each division methodically to compile your list of 64 players.

Additionally, I would like to suggest utilizing “paper” and not just your “device” while participating in the draft, reason being that unless you have plenty of RAM to have multiple tabs running with a large, wide screen and are able to quickly manage them, hard copies in plain sight will assist you greatly.

Now, depending on what position you are selecting from your ability to quickly scan your lists and make a strong decision on who to select in the 90 seconds allotted to you each round factors in.

There are more tasks involved with lists that we will address after collecting all the lists that we will create, tomorrow we will create our defenseman list and why they are considered some of the most important players you can draft in the early rounds.

Stanley Cup Champions…again

Here along the Lake A bit boring and a bit disappointing but this year’s Stanley Cup Finals have come and gone with nothing different, same two teams played for the Cup and the same team won as last year.

Panthers 5 – Oilers 1 (en x2) (SCF 4-2 Florida) Referees Rooney and Hebert made sure no Edmonton power play would save the day as neither team had the man advantage save one pair of offsetting penalties halfway through the first period, and of course a game misconduct with a couple minutes left in the game.

Edmonton took 20 SOG over the first two periods and found themselves down 3-0 heading into the third period, then the Oilers with six and half minutes remaining in the game and series pull the goalie and promptly get scored on, not once but twice into the empty net.

And just to avoid the shutout Edmonton pops one in just 20 seconds or so after the second empty net goal against to make the final a 5-1 score, Florida played well and had the better goaltender, they deserved to win.

Personal Note

Watching a player that arguably plays dirty be awarded the Conn Smyth Trophy, well that just adds to the overall disappointment, additionally I hope that the Cup engraver will get the names in proper order this year and not add some businessman’s name after the player’s names like last season.

Paul Maurice

Here along the Lake You cannot argue with success and the head coach of the Florida Panthers has plenty of that since becoming a Head Coach in the NHL beginning as a mid-season replacement in the 1995-96 NHL regular season.

Paul played and coached major junior hockey in the OHL whereas head coach he won the J. Ross Robertson Cup OHL championship and that success catapulted Paul to become an NHL assistant coach for the Hartford Whalers, eventually their head coach that year forward.

After earning a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals during 2001-02 season, Paul a couple of seasons later left Carolina and was a head coach in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization AHL/NHL, then back to Carolina for a few more seasons before a head coaching gig for one season in Russia.

Once back in North America, Paul spent nearly a decade as the Winnipeg Jets head coach before landing the same position with Florida three years ago as Paul has guided the Panthers to an incredible three consecutive finals appearances in his initial three years as the team’s head coach.

TONIGHT, GAME SIX 8PM

Elimination or Game Seven

Kris Knoblauch

Here along the Lake Does having the best head coach assure a team of a Stanley Cup, of course not, there are way too many mitigating factors involved during an NHL game to credit the outcome to just the coach.

Edmonton HC Knoblauch As a teenager Kris Knoblauch played his major junior hockey in the WHL on four different teams and when he turned 20 years of age began playing collegiate hockey for five seasons for the University of Alberta in the CWUAA.

Kris played one season of minor professional hockey in the now defunct CHL before becoming an assistant coach in the WHL, and in his third season was promoted to head coach where he took the team he once played for and won the WHL Ed Chynoweth Cup championship.

After winning the WHL championship Kris was made head coach of the OHL Erie Otters that had a 15 years old Connor McDavid and 18 years old Connor Brown in the line-up and the Otters lost twice as many games as they won, they were horrible.

But after three seasons Kris and the Otters with teenagers Alex DeBrincat and Dylan Strom won the OHL J. Ross Robertson Cup championship and after this success Kris was picked up as an assistant coach for the NHL Philadelphia Flyers for two seasons, then put in their farm system as head coach of the AHL Hartford Wolf Pack making the playoffs once.

Additionally, Kris was brought up from Hartford to be the Head Coach of the New York Rangers for two games during 2021 because of irrational covid protocols implemented by political activist Bettman.

During the NHL 2023-24 season the Edmonton Oilers made Kris their mid-season replacement head coach who promptly guided the team to the Stanley Cup finals eventually losing to the Panthers where they would meet again in the Cup finals this season and now face game six elimination in Florida this Tuesday night.

Oilers Offense Obsolete

Panthers 5 – Oilers 2 (en) (SCF 3-2 Florida) The Edmonton Oilers seem like a rudderless ship when it comes to their vaunted power play, who is ultimately responsible for the power play, the players, the head coach, or just the team in general?

Edmonton now finds itself in a “do or die” situation as they prepare to return to Florida to capture another road victory to bring game seven back to Alberta, or the Panthers on the cusp of winning consecutive Cups will bring another stunning defensive effort and remain champions.

GAME SIX Tuesday Night 8pm