Taro T

Bond or Mission Impossible. Hmm. Tough choice. Will go with Bourne. Those movies are all great.

Durn shame for him that the Yotes hadn't moved to New Mexico yet. Walt White never seemed to get into any trouble for any of those things. 😉

Thought you were one of the posters that was fine with Jokiharju as Power's partner. (If not, apologies.) If so, how do you reconcile not considering Clifton enough of an upgrade at D with believing Jokiharju was/is good enough?

Personally would do that deal. IMHO, it's Hannifan for Olofsson and about 60% of that 1st (a trade of pending UFA for pending UFA+) and then Vladar for Jokiharju and the rest of that 1st. Would have a lot of flexibility with the top 6 D they'd roll out and would personally use Hannifan with either Johnson or Lyubushkin with Dahlin - Samuelsson and Power - Clifton the other normal pairings. Would allow Granato to reduce both Dahlin's and Power's usage and he could always ramp their deployments up when necessary. Plus then UPL becomes expendable for something. Maybe just a 2nd, but he becomes trade bait himself.

And remember, the Sabres wouldn't even let Derek friggin' Plante go to play in the Olympics back in the day. Would be surprised should Chicago release Bedard for the WJC's. (Figure it has as much of a chance of happening as did that Eichel/McDavid matchup in the WJC back in '16.)

That was a pretty ugly draft class at F.

You really expect Chicago to let him leave for 2 weeks to play for Canada? Doubt anybody else expects that.

This was the one that REALLY hurt. Pretty much closed the era on that 1st version of the team. (Even more than Robert becoming Van Boxmeer or Martin and Korab separately getting traded to the Kings on the same day.) Housley became Hawerchuk. The only sad part of that trade is that Arniel and Ducks were best friends (they were the best man in each other's wedding) and not only did Scott convince Ducks that Buffalo would be a great place to play but they really wanted to play together again. But would dump Phil for Ducks every single day of the week and twice on Sunday. The problem with the Barasso trade is they didn't really get very much for him. Technically McNab for Savard wasn't a trade. It was a signing of free agents. Never fully understood the mechanics of that one.

Thought you were referring to Lord Stanley's Chalice. What? That DIDN'T work for the Jets? 😜

Mike Vernon.

And don't forget, they put him with Dahlin when the injury bug hit the D hard. They had 24 minutes of good D play and then 36 minutes of trash. When the injury bug hit again, they kept them separate so they could both dominate their own pair. And get them closer to 50 minutes of reasonable D play. That worked much better.

Personally don't see why people are afraid that guys like Dahlin and Power are going to level off well below their projected ceilings. There is a reason both were selected 1st overall and neither looked like he was not going to at minimum come close to the original expectations through his 1st couple of years. Totally get that a guy like Myers (who lasted until 12OA for a reason even though he's bigger than either) plateaued. But he exceeded early expectations and showed signs of tailing off to more what he was expected to be by the 2nd year. He did not have the pedigree of either. Power is special. He is not Dahlin. But the likelihood of a LT contract blowing up in their faces is slim; the likelihood of a ST deal blowing up in their faces is a lot higher. IF he'll agree to it, lock him up now for 7-8 years and deal with the next contract then. Power has played as a top pairing guy at every level since junior within his 1st year whereever he's been. The case can be made he didn't do that in Buffalo, but is that accurate - if the Sabres were down in the last 2 minutes who was Dahlin paired with while they're trying to get that tying goal? Yep, the youngest D-man on the roster.

Have adjusted the settings on the laptop connected to our fancy TV and the quality is better. Can still tell a difference between satellite and a stream but it isn't nearly as pronounced. (ESPN+ used to be roughly the same quality as AHL TV. That isn't the case now that some adjustments have been made.)

Yeah, yours truly already forked that up. All (or nearly all) the Labatts commercials aren't directly hockey related, but they all aired religiously during hockey games. Like they say in the 1st one "crose enuff." 😉 Nice catch.

So, then it isn't likely that they'll get many full year subscribers in WNY.

Yes. Somehow it didn't get posted in that flood of posts. Thanks for posting it.

It's smart for the player; not so much the Sabres. Were they not in the middle of the Covid era when negotiating Dahlin's 2nd contract it likely would've been a LT deal. But due to uncertainties about revenues, ownership didn't want to get locked into a LT deal where they might have to come up with some serious $$'s with no real cash coming in. And, because it was right after 2 "down" years (by Ras' standards), he wasn't really pushing for the LT deal either. From the team's standpoint, the 2 situations are significantly different IMHO.

Worked for the Jets. 😵‍💫

Nope. And the Rags probably wouldn't want to make the trade from their side either. If you can get him for a 2nd or equivalent (basically a 'meh' player), then sure pull the trigger on him. But don't believe he really adds anything they don't already have; so don't want to give up even the 1st and small add. IF the Rags are looking to get rid of him, somebody will probably give them that. But can't see him being worth more than that and can't see him being worth that for this team. The 'but he's a 1OA pick' really doesn't move the needle. What your grades in school were (and where you went) get you your 1st job. After that, what you've done in the real world supersedes that.

Could've sworn that was included in the flood posted last night. Somehow missed it. Thanks for posting it. 🍻

In that single NCAA season that he was his brother's associate coach, they finished 2nd in the Big Ten and lost the championship game in Double OT, so they just missed out on making the NCAA Tourney. Not positive that'd be considered "losing." But, no, they were not champions if that's how "winning" is defined.

Understatement of the year.

That didn't seem to do the trick. 😞

Why are people suggesting giving up 2 (meh) assets for LaFreniere? Shouldn't 1 meh asset be enough to get 1 meh asset?

No Peterka, Krebs, nor Okposo, Girgensons, or Jost? Interesting.