Taro T

Might actually try to see that one in the theatre.

LaPaloma's in Alden IMHO was the best. The crust was absolutely perfect. Light, airy, with a crsipness at the bottom and slightly sweet. Complemented the sauce and cheese so well. If they used cup and char pepperoni the whole thing would've been perfect. Santino's in Elma is excellent too.

Can a slow goalie be good? Sure. Ben Bishop comes to mind. Does an athletic goalie have an advantage? Absolutely. 😉

Dayum, guess everything really IS bigger in Texas.

It really IS ok to say that Adams has done a very good job at F, appears to be putting D on a similar footing (helps having 50 minutes/game of #1 OA picks still on an upward trajectory), and needs to have had a rookie hit big to say that he hasn't yutzed up the G for a 4th year (barring additional moves that might happen later this summer) out of 4.

Murray will make $250k in the AHL. Won't be the highest paid Amerk, but nothing to sneeze at.

Do his parents count?

And the length of the ELC is determined by the age of the player when he signs the ELC. Younger guys sign 3 year ELCs and the term shortens to 2 year and then 1 based upon his age at signing.

If an 18 or 19 year old signs an ELC but doesn't play in at least 10 NHL games, his contract will "slide" out another year. Meaning the team still has the player on an ELC for 3 more years. (So basically, unless the kid was a VERY high end prospect, should an 18 yo sign a contract the team has him on that deal for 5 years, and the team has a 19 yo on that deal for 4 years.) (And that 9 games is the total # of games the player can play in the NHL while still having his contract slide. Once he plays in a 10th game it no longer slides that year.) Puckpedia and CapFriendly both typically have the details of the ELC contracts including potential bonus payments. Though IIRC they don't typically have the conditions to be met to earn the bonuses. (The conditions that can be used to earn bonuses are laid out in the CBA and the max that can be earned is also spelled out but except for $'s for leaguewide awards which don't count against a team's cap the exact amounts earned for meeting those conditions are determined by the team and the player.) There isn't really a "standard rookie contract." There is the ELC contract that is from 1 - 3 years in length that most all players sign to enter the NHL. But after that expires except for some limitations on eligibility for a 1 way or a 2 way contract and arbitration/RFA/UFA rights ALL players sign the same "standard player contract." The length of term is anywhere from 1 - 8 years and the pay scale runs anywhere from the league min to the league max with limitations on how much the salary can vary from year to year (with the cap hit being a constant which is the total value of the contract divided by the length of the contract). Except in rare occassions there are no performance bonuses allowed but there can be signing bonuses which simply adjust when exactly the player gets his money in a particular year.

Adams also gets along with a LOT of people around the league. Being known (or at minimum believed) to be both good at your job AND a good person who's easy to get along with tend to make it pretty easy to find another job when the time comes to look for another one. And if the Sabres make the playoffs under Granato would be very surprised if he doesn't land another HCing job when it's time for him to look for another one too.

Elevation too. Changes in air pressure from sea level to mile high effect how stuff rises/bakes & boils too.

They were real good live back in the day. Hopefully they still are.

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.)