carpandean

Well, he said that he was the grumpiest guy to come here since Slava Kozlov. Said he was telling people not to get him stuff, because he wouldn't be here week. Later, Rob said he might just have been told that they might try to trade flip him.

I would say that tanking and the roster purge are two different things that are highly related. Doing one helps with the other, but they are not perfectly linked. Purging the roster ends when you stop selling off your old assets; tanking stops when you start replacing them with assets that help now. The roster purge might be done (or close to it), but ...

Yeah, we are setup to tank next year, as we should be. TM might dip the plane a little lower - down to the treetops - for next year, but he should be preparing to start pulling up in July of 2015.

And the 3rd-round pick from us. Shoud be "Halak and a 3rd to Washington for Neuvirth and Klesla" Edit: no 6th

Neuvirth has only worn two numbers that I could find: 30 (most of the time) and 1 (for a recent conditioning stint in Hershey). One of those was occupied.

http://youtu.be/woxN0aenvhY

My McCormick jersey is now a classic!

So, let's say that you're the Blues' GM, you missed the ECF this year, it's approaching the draft and you have agreed, in principle, to a deal with Miller. Do you hold off on filing the paperwork for a few days? Would you rather give up a (likely) late 2nd in a couple of years instead of trading your late first this year for a late 2nd this year and (likely) early 3rd in a couple of years?

We should hire back Darcy Regier as the Assistant GM in charge of selling off s**t.

Wait ... there's another deal?

Sick, sick shorty from Oshie!

Wrong thread, rook.

Why would Montreal want a 5'9" defenseman with seemingly little offensive ability?

But, if they want to keep "what they currently have in Rochester" in Rochester to let the Amerks continue their push for a Calder Cup, then is he good enough to fill the opening?

:D

To each his own, I guess. I love their Millionaire uniforms.

Must be nice to be traded to a team with the same exact colors. No need for new pads, just a new helmet.

It's like calling the big, fat guy "Tiny".

http://www.cbssports.com/nhl/eye-on-hockey/24461180/photo-sabres-call-on-emergency-backup-goalie-after-ryan-miller-trade What a moment for a former high school goalie.

That escalated quickly.

Having read the CBA, it's not clear that this is correct. CapGeek seems to think that it is, but I'm not convinced. The CBA itself says that when such a player retires or defects early, then the difference between the total salary spent and the total cap hit incurred is calculated as the cap to be recaptured. So, for example, if he retires one year early, then the difference is $39M - 9($4M) = $3M. On this, both CapGeek and I agree. Where we differ is how this is split once he is traded. They say that the Sabres would incur a $10M penalty because they spent $18M, but had a cap hit total of $8M (2 x $4M), while the other team would incur no penalty at all. In fact, they would have a -$7M difference (salary to cap), but wouldn't actually receive a credit. However, that's not the spirit of the rule. By ending the contract one year early, the actual cap hit should have been $39M/9 = $4.33M. So, the Sabres should have had a total of 2 x $4.33M = $8.67M. Thus, they should be penalized $8.67M - $8M = $0.67M, because that's the benefit that they got by having that year on the contract, but not realized. Likewise, the other team should have had a total cap hit of 7 x $4.33M = $30.33M, but actually incurred a total of $28M, so they should be penalized $2.33M. Now, maybe the rule is only designed to screw the team that signed the contract, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

I agree, but you said that he has "three cheap years remaining on his contract." If you consider $4M to be cheap and don't expect his talent to drop off too quickly after age 34 (3 years from now), then doesn't he have a lot more than three cheap years left?

I'm curious about this comment. He has a $4M cap hit for 8 more seasons after this one. Are you referring to the the three $1M seasons starting in 2019-20? I'd say that by 2018-19, that $3M salary will be "cheap" and the four seasons at $4M will be considered cheaper each year as the cap goes up.

The even number thing became relatively irrelevant under last year's conference restructuring. The EC has 16 teams, while the WC has 14 teams. The NHL is willing, in at least the short-run, to go with an unbalanced structure. Obviously, adding two teams to get to 16 (8 and 8) and 16 (8 and 8) seems like the long-run plan, but there's no reason to believe that they wouldn't go with 15 (7 and 8) in the WC for a couple of years until they find another city to expand into.

KC or LV would certainly help to avoid having to restructure the conferences again.