Disqus - Latest Comments for wflan

Re: Morning skate notebook: Yak is back

wflan — Fri, 01 Dec 2017 15:24:00 -0000

For real, take his head off? unfreakingreal...

Zadorov is a lot more valuable contributing than in the penalty box of serving a suspension.

Re: This is the Avalanche rebuild you have been waiting for

wflan — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 17:41:20 -0000

I dove into this a little above

Re: This is the Avalanche rebuild you have been waiting for

wflan — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 17:40:56 -0000

I agree with dstal89756, drafting is at the center of the stalled rebuild. Before the Duchene era, there was year after year of underwhelming draft classes and traded high round picks. No first rounder in 2001, 2003, 2005, or 2008. The first draft year with two firsts since 1998 was 2011 (Landeskog/Siemens). 2009 Was a great year, but it is 100% an outlier. In 2010, here's the selection (and NHL games played):
Hishon (13), Pickard (86), Bournival (108), and Aittokallio (2), then (0) (0) (0) (0).
Here's 2011:
Landeskog (428), Siemens (4), then (0) (0) (0) (0)
Here's 2012:
(0) (0) (0) Blandisi (68), Smith (1)
Here's 2013:
MacKinnon (300), Bigras (31), Martin (3), (0) (0) (0) (0)
After that, only Greer, Rantanen, and Jost have any NHL games played, with the caveat that you're getting into picks where they're too recent to tell.

Hopefully they've turned it around.

Undervaluing picks and tossing them around like candy at the end of October had long been a hallmark of the Avalanche strategy. The Avs management record is full of atrocious things like spending Craig Anderson, Brian Elliott, Filip Forsberg, and two second round picks to get Varlamov and Berra.

The Avs were terrible because they weren't good at evaluating talent. With the benefit of hindsight, you could build a cup winner out of players the Avs dumped or passed over in the draft. It started before Roy was obsessed with heavy hockey while the league went the opposite way. It seems as though that era is over. Cross your fingers, and let's chat in four or five years...

Re: J.T. Compher seeks to regain rhythm following rocky Sweden experience

wflan — Thu, 16 Nov 2017 11:25:50 -0000

Duchene, Kerfoot, and Yak caught lightning in a bottle. I wish we would see more effort go towards trying to keep that scoring going!

Re: Should Nikita Zadorov be included in any Duchene trade talks?

wflan — Wed, 01 Nov 2017 18:56:57 -0000

I think that something like Duchene + a 2nd/3rd would be preferable. I think that the issue with Z is that he's really difficult to value correctly. Duchene was in the same situation last year when he was in the long slump and I imagine other GMs are risk averse to some extent and wouldn't be excited about the optics even if Z pays off for them in the long run.

Re: Yakupov captures heart of Denver in home opener victory

wflan — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 12:35:04 -0000

I'm afraid that Duchene and Yak are going to provide too much on-ice value to trade and at least one are going to walk in FA and have trouble producing separately -_-

Oh, and because it's Colorado, I'm sure we are going to be a bubble team and miss out on the lottery (with some real impact players this year) and manage to convert almost nothing from the shitty times into a bright future.

Re: NHL Starting Goalies, News and Line Combinations | DailyFaceoff.com

wflan — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 12:26:50 -0000

He's also rolling at 5 points (3g/2a) in 4 games. The 'prove it line' is running the offense right now.

Re: NHL Starting Goalies, News and Line Combinations | DailyFaceoff.com

wflan — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 12:24:53 -0000

He's basically on babysitting duty, and is a victim of the other left wingers being good where they are but probably bad where Landeskog is. Interestingly, given the two rookies, Compher's line is on shutdown duty and is doing pretty well with it.

Re: The Avs’ kids are taking over – finally

wflan — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 15:55:49 -0000

With how bad players like Soderberg and Colborne have been, I personally would rather see your Grimaldis out there than them, regardless of how good they were out east with different teams

Re: Varlamov: “I felt like I was playing in a soccer net, not a hockey net”

wflan — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:48:35 -0000

I'm glad Varly is getting his confidence back - he's a rock back there when he's on his game.

I didn't realize Grimaldi was waiver eligible. I hate the idea of committing to bringing him up for the season and getting him playing time, OR risk having him be a healthy scratch or just not call him up and you never see what he can do in the NHL. I realize he's 24, but he hasn't even played half a season's worth of NHL games. It sucks the system is set up to suppress players like him.

Re: Frei: Avalanche’s 2000-01 team deservedly makes the cut to the NHL’s “Top 20 Greatest NHL Teams.” But what about…

wflan — Mon, 22 May 2017 18:55:02 -0000

I think that including that last Penguins team on there is classic recency bias, and I can't really justify the inclusion of the 80s Flames.

It would be interesting if there were a handful of non-championship teams that were included, for example the Kariya/Selanne Avs (03)

Re: Public art battle sheds light on Denver International Airport’s role in city’s branding

wflan — Mon, 22 May 2017 12:27:30 -0000

Plus, in 2015 DIA had $687.5 million in operating revenue and over 54 million passengers. Spending a few pennies per passenger on art is *not* too much to ask. In the case of this garden, the annual maintenance averages out to 3/4 of a penny per passenger.

Personally, DIA is one of my favorite airports and a big reason is all the art and unique experiences that help blunt the awful stress of air travel.

Re: $400 million northern Colorado reservoir gets final approval

wflan — Fri, 19 May 2017 17:10:52 -0000

Alright, well your tone makes me think that you're trying to dismiss or discredit me BUT the good news is you don't need an advanced degree to understand how nuclear energy works. 'Nukes' are similar in a few ways, but mostly different.

I have a science degree and a lot of reading to back up my perspective for what it's worth, but again I dismiss that as any sort of prerequisite.

Nuclear power is an area of particular interest to me. Most plants are graphite-moderated rods in a water bath. The graphite absorbs some of the radiation and can be raised/lowered to control the speed of the reaction. The more particles bouncing around, the more they hit and liberate, which then bounce around and hit ... in a chain reaction. Controlling that rate is the graphite's job and is essential to safe operation. Fukushima had a hydrogen explosion after the tsunami knocked out the control systems and an exposed element reacted with built up hydrogen. Basically it was a gas bomb with a bunch of radioactive material floating around before it blew up.

So suffice to say, using mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy or simple photovoltaics (PV) then using the electricity/heat to distill water is vastly, vastly simpler and safer.

Re: $400 million northern Colorado reservoir gets final approval

wflan — Fri, 19 May 2017 12:50:10 -0000

http://newscenter.lbl.gov/w...

The price of solar has seen the bottom fall out. From 2009 to 2015, the price fell 70%. And the 'waste heat' in nuclear is generally what they use to make steam to run a turbine and generate electricity. No need to pull all that uranium out of the ground then figure out how to stuff it back in there when other energy sources are so much cheaper and simpler!

Re: WannaCry ransomware attack: North Korea further linked to global cyberattacks

wflan — Wed, 17 May 2017 14:15:51 -0000

The exploit that allowed the tool to take over systems, and what the hack did once it was 'inside' aren't the same thing. Different parts of code can be from different sources.

Re: Aurora declares it is not a “sanctuary city”

wflan — Tue, 16 May 2017 18:35:14 -0000

You know, your story could be that of a black family brought into America against their will toward the end of legal slavery. And it's not crazy to think a Canadian might be an undocumented immigrant. You can't actually tell what you seem to think you can tell by looking at someone, and I can't imagine you actually want a gestapo-like situation in the US.

Re: Aurora declares it is not a “sanctuary city”

wflan — Tue, 16 May 2017 17:45:54 -0000

Make sure to present your papers next time you want to speak freely or enjoy due process, aka not be thrown in a cell to rot without charges or representation. Forgot them at home? Got mugged earlier? Too bad, the constitution no longer protects you.

Re: Aurora declares it is not a “sanctuary city”

wflan — Tue, 16 May 2017 17:43:25 -0000

Correct, and it's often a violation of constitutional rights to hold someone long enough for immigration officials to come. The problem is the feds can't get their act together to get real warrants from judges or agents down to jails, yet they have time to stalk kids at school and ambush people voluntarily checking in. It's a misallocation of resources that they try to make up for by having local law enforcement do the Feds' jobs for them and risk civil rights suits in the process.

Re: The New Urban Fried-Chicken Crisis

wflan — Fri, 12 May 2017 14:08:22 -0000

I don't know, the fun urban hip-hop theme could include a uniform. Hammer pants. Chains. Kanye glasses. Who knows.

I know the side curl suggestion was a little over the top, but there are a lot of negative food stereotypes with black people in America. Watermelon and several sodas come to mind. I struggled to find an analogous thing for jewish people.

Re: The New Urban Fried-Chicken Crisis

wflan — Fri, 12 May 2017 13:14:31 -0000

I don't think that's a good analogy because good sandwiches haven't been one of the sources of oppression or denigration the Jewish people have faced. It'd be more like having a jewish-themed restaurant called penny pinchers or some other reference like that, started by a gentile, with the staff wearing clip on curls. Is thriftiness inherently bad? No. Is it a way that negative stereotypes about a group have been perpetuated? Yes. At the *very least* it'd be tone deaf. One could 'earnestly celebrate' all you want but it would be, rightly, poorly received.

Re: Tesla starts selling solar roof; says savings to cover costs

wflan — Thu, 11 May 2017 11:43:00 -0000

How much revenue does your asphalt roof generate?

...which is to say that expecting a profit from your roofing material is an unusual way to look at it

Re: Commuter corridors and downtown streets are going to change markedly

wflan — Mon, 08 May 2017 23:23:34 -0000

"the suicide bike lane on Broadway"

Re: Commuter corridors and downtown streets are going to change markedly

wflan — Mon, 08 May 2017 12:44:08 -0000

Well that's a ridiculous characterization of the safety of these lanes. Occasionally you have someone turning on a red arrow, but otherwise they're great safety-wise. Car doors getting flung open, impatient drivers, and lazy attention are hazards I've seen cause injuries on side streets.

One of the real downsides is I skipped a trip to buy a game at The Wizard's Chest and we did another activity because I didn't want to deal with the circuitous route I'd have to take. So sorry local business, you genuinely missed out on $30-40 from me.

Re: Commuter corridors and downtown streets are going to change markedly

wflan — Mon, 08 May 2017 11:49:42 -0000

The Broadway bike lane isn't getting much use because it doesn't go anywhere. I biked through there yesterday and just used side streets because it felt silly to go out of my way and wait through the lights, rather than have stop signs. It needs to connect the light rail to Speer/CC, then it'll have some real utility. The main thing I think it's probably useful for is introducing people in cars and on bikes to the traffic control mechanisms.

The other issue I have here is how the article is leading readers to feel like Broadway is congested because the bike lane is strangling it. There are 7 lanes worth of width on Broadway at Virginia and 4 on Lincoln. Broadway carries about 33k and Lincoln about 28k, according to DRCOG traffic counts. For 75% more lanes, it carries 17% more traffic, which is to say that there is room to configure Broadway in a way that moves people well regardless of what sort of wheels they're riding on.

And before someone writes me off as an anti-car crazy, you can look up that data for yourself and I and a drive-alone commuter, even though I wish I could afford rent somewhere decent by a light rail station.

Re: Numerous gang members arrested in metro area, Aurora, and other police involved

wflan — Fri, 05 May 2017 13:13:40 -0000

I hope law enforcement is already on high alert for people trying to fill the power vacuum they created with this huge bust. I imagine that user demand didn't also just dry up magically, or that these crips were the only people in town with a supply.