Taro T

Yeah, the Aisles are the "obvious" choice to expect to fall out of the playoffs this coming year. They have to be so on their game at all times because they simply aren't going to outscore anybody. Low to mid-90's seems to be what they should get over the course of the season and that shouldn't be good enough. Figure one other team will also drop out. On paper, as they continue to age, if Vasilevskiy slips at all like he did down the stretch TB would seem to be a logical guess to be the other one to falter; but until he actually falters for a full year, hard to expect he will. If Shesterkin doesn't stay healthy, could see the Rags slipping too; but if he's healthy expect they're a lock for top 3 in their division.

And, though said above personally prefer Comrie as the backup over UPL, expect that Granato, Bales, and Adams would run the other way. (Though down the stretch, the guy that was dressing as the backup nearly every game was Comrie even though he got almost no starts.)

Personally expect the healthiness was due to a few reasons besides luck which if correct would mean they should stay relatively healthy again this year. Those include: 1. strategic play - e.g. they don't go as out of their way to block shots as other teams do and a significant portion of their injuries came from blocking shots: Lyubushkin, Samuelsson, and Tuch at a minimum missed time with blocked shot injuries; 2. Improved training and recovery methods - those should be sustainable; 3. Youth - except for extremely unlucky events (Quinn's achilles injury) young guys tend to have way fewer soft tissue injuries than older guys do because their tendons and ligaments etc are more supple than they'll be when they're hitting 30 and this team will once again be one of the youngest in the league. Also, have not looked at the overall injury #'s from last year, but don't believe they were significantly healthier than other teams in goal and on D but they absolutely were crazily healthy at F last year. While (even taking Quinn out of the conversation) don't expect they'll stay that healthy again up front; they very easily could stay as healthy or healthier in net and on D.

Experience was a part of it. Staying healthy was another part of it. '73-'74 was doomed by injuries, mediocre goaltending, and inexperience. 2 of those were improved the next season.

He DID have a backup plan last year and the year before. THAT's not the issue. The issue IS he was unable to execute his plan A (or apparently plans B or C either) either year. Guessing plan A didn't happen this year either but there's still a lot of runway left this summer for it to possibly come to fruition. The "backup" plan this year is to run with Levi and one of Comire or UPL (personally would prefer the #2 to be Comrie rather than UPL should it come to that, hopefully it doesn't) as the backup with the other getting claimed trying to get through waivers making Tokarski the emergency plan goalie. Adams has a fallback in place at all 3 levels (F, D, and G) at present. The team is good enough that it should make the playoffs even without any other moves (even with Quinn out for up to 1/2 the season) but there isn't much room for error. It remains to be seen if any of Adams higher ranked plans get executed before puck drop October 12 in MSG. Could envision this team as currently constructed getting to 110 points; but 100 is more likely. And 100 doesn't leave much cushion for injuries nor sophomore slumps. Would really like to see some more moves to get the Expected Points up to the 106-110 range. Won't mean they'll get there, but should make it more likely they do.

Actually, for whatever reason, it probably ISN'T "done" (as in signed by both sides). The team is required to submit all signed contracts to the league office by 5PM the day after a contract has been signed by the player. Fully expect the contract to get done and have no idea why Dahlin hasn't signed a new contract yet. Could be they want to wait until they've got Power's deal done as well and want to have a big "splash" by announcing both at the same time; could be they're still working out some very minon point; could be ... Am not concerned over it not being finalized yet; but just saying would be surprised if it has been finalized because the league has no reason to hide the contract if it has been filed with them.

Pretty sure salary.

BUT were CHICKEN eggs here 1st or were CHICKENS?

Poe-tay-toe, Pah-tah-toe. Or Did the chicken come 1st or was it the egg?

They are. Have the shirts to prove it. 😉

Not to mention having the Team President suffer what is unfortunately quite likely a life long debilitating injury as well. Plus all the weather affected games. Plus there was the Topps masacre before the season that they got involved with some of the community efforts. ALL of those things are extremely mentally taxing and they just kept pouring on 1 after the other. It's actually shocking that the team won 13 games in the regular season and only lost 1 game the entire year by more than a single score.

Well, he wasn't above ANYBODY currently on the roster at the end of the year. Even Rousek got action ahead of him. And now with Quinn out for 2-4 months, he should be 13. But, were you in his shoes and only got into 1/3 of the games last year, why would you sign on again this year?

More than 3/4 of the teams have winning records. And the absolute worst winning "percentage" is still a respectable 0.475. Truly despise the loser point.

He got into 26 games last year. With the possible exception of Olofsson (who technically is still here and may be here in October) they've brought back every single player that was ahead of him on the depth chart plus they'd likely like to see Rousek and Kulich some action this year. There was no way he was coming back IMHO. He wants to play.

3 networks plus PBS and most cities had a Channel 29 clone (low power high band channel running primarily reruns day and night). We were lucky in that we could pick up 5 & 9 out of TO and 11 out of Hamilton and on a really clear day 8, 10, & 13 out of Ra-Cha-Cha.

The truly brilliant was the Trapper/Henry M*A*S*H, no doubt. But the 2 additional years with Good Ol' Ferret Face were still great and they did a good job breaking in Winchester his 1st year. (Saying season 6 was still "brilliant" was a bit of an exaggeration; but it was still very good IMHO.) But after that, it really went downhill IMHO. Gene Reynolds walking away as Executive Producer after Season 5 was a big loss. Even though he did stay on as a "creative consultant" it wasn't the same.

Funny you should mention M*A*S*H; been "watching" that to fall asleep to the past few months. The 1st 6 seasons were absolutely brilliant. 7 & 8 were still good way more often than not but have just started on season 10 and not sure will make it through to the end of the Alan Aldafication of what had been a brilliant TV series.

He made himself the story and was always in the news/fluff stories being reported about the NFL. Don't honestly recall ever reading the gossip pages (even when there were such things), so not sure if he was on the cover of People or a story on Entertainment Tonight nor any of their myriad competitors. Thought he ended up in Maxim and TMZ and the like; but never read any of them either, so who knows?

Very likely the case. They both expound upon leadership philosophy. They both ask their players to play a high tempo game. The big differences being that Granato epitomizes the "Servant Leader" while Krueger though talking the talk of the servant leader was much more of a "Top Down" guy. And, that Krueger from his years of being in management for underskilled organizations (Edmonton, the soccer team he was whatever they call the team president/GM over on the other side of the pond, the Swiss National Team at a minimum & likely even more) would coach a very defensive low event game hoping to keep things close enough that his team could steal a goal or 2 and accordingly steal the game which unless you are getting the hard earned W's is a very joyless game; while Granato coaches a more offensive high event game wherein he wants his players to be creative which makes for a much more enjoyable game. Pretty sure Krueger will never get to a point where he allows any but a handful of his players to be creative and only the ones he sees as truly gifted will he allow to get to there and only in the right circumstances. Remains to be seen if Granato's team can dial in a bit more structure to their game. From the brief glimses we saw where they DID play a more structured game (the 2nd & 3rd periods of the Ryan Miller game being the prime example), believe he can successfully find that middle ground where the players both get creative and stay fully in the moment to be able to react quicker to when the attempts at creativity fail in the offensive zone and play more structured in their own end but stay fully in the moment to be able to support the moment of brilliance that a Dahlin or Thompson or ... can bring.

You forget that Owens was a Bill half a drought ago?

FTFY. Not positive established is the right word for it because personally consider Levi to be "established" even though his resume is only 7 games long. But, you get the jist.

Pretty sure he doesn't really care what Anaheim will get for him; he's just tired of having a very poor team in front of him and wants a chance to play for a team that's relevant again. Fairly shortsighted view IMHO because that team should actually be rejoining the NHL by the time his 4th remaining year is finished. But careers are short and can't really blame him for only focusing on today and himself.

@Thorny's in heaven right now with that thought. 😉

Relooked at the CBA (and the MOU) to refresh the memory. (E.g., Did not recall the exact dates that things happen for instance, especially because those dates were different the past 2 seasons post-Covid.) But it is in yours truly's words.

Depends upon whether the arbitration was for a single year or 2. Signing after getting a 1 year award means the player can't sign a new contract beyond that until January 1; signing after getting a 2 year award means the player can't sign a new contract beyond that until July 1. The player and team can still try to negotiate a deal outside of arbitration until his arbitration hearing begins. Once the hearing has started, the player and team have to wait for the arbitration award being rendered within the next 48 hours after the hearing to make their next move. Player elected arbitration - if the decision is for $3.5MM or more (prorated up for increases in the average salary since 2014) then the club can walk away from 1 award for every 2 players that took the team to arbitration (1 or 2 players went to arbitration, 1 contract can get walked away from; 2 or 4 players went to arbitration, 2 contracts can get walked away from; etc.). If the club had elected a 2 year award, and decides to walk away from the award they only get out of the 2nd year; the 1st still holds. And either way the player is a UFA after the team has walked away from the player elected arbitration award. (Either immediately for a 1 year award that was walked away from, or on July 1 for a 2 year award that the 2nd year was walked away from.) If the team chooses to go to arbitration, the player can still sign an offer sheet from a team provided he signs it by 5PM on July 5 (which is also the deadline for player elected arbitration requests to be filed). If the player signs an offer sheet, then obviously he won't end up going to arbitration. (Teams file for arbitration in June (exact deadline gets effected by the end date of the SCF) or if they offered a player a QO but it is still unsigned at 5PM on July 5 they can file for arbitration that next day July 6 until 5PM. If the player elects arbitration, he loses his ability to negotiate with other teams. With player elected arbitration, as stated above, teams can walk away from roughly 1/2 of the awards and the players are UFAs after the award was walked away from. With club elected arbitration, once a decision has been rendered that is what the player's next contract becomes. The player can't walk away and a team can't walk away if they chose arbitration. The team has 48 hours after the last arbitration that it may walk away from to decide whether to accept or walk away from an arbitration decision.