Taro T

No, the best option would be the "even better than best" option you brought up which is to put a team back into either Binghamton or Elmira (or on an outside shot, even Corning). Have those players playing less than 2 hours from Ra-cha-cha if they need to call somebody up. And also have the Southern Tier get back to being Sabres territory rather than Rags territory.

In a vacuum, with only 1 team (or at most 2 teams) interested in Olofsson, yes, his getting benched at the end of the season could work against his value. But teams aren't bidding against the Sabres usage of VO (if that were all they're bidding against, his value would be a 3rd or 4th rounder). Teams are bidding against other teams that want a 25ish goal scorer that fits in well in the room on a reasonable contract for 1 more season. There are more than 2 teams that have a need for that sort of a player. The Sabres should be able to get something legit for VO and if he's a part of a package they should be able to get something actually GOOD for him.

McDaniels record in those 3 games: 1-2. Had either Allen not bobbled a snap at the end of the 1st half or McKenzie just moved the ball forward rather than laterally at the end of the 2nd half; the Bills at least attempt a field goal that would've provided the points needed to drop McDaniels to 0-3 in those games. Or maybe the "coaching genius" he displayed was designing the stadium to give his sideline 30 degree cooler temperatures than the playing field and the other sideline? If not that, maybe it was placing an obviously concussed player back on the field for another 1/2 of football? The guy who made the observation that McDaniels outcoached the other coach is a blowhard that isn't worth our time.

Had never heard that Peca got swindled by his advisors. REALLY wish the pro sports leagues did a better job of vetting advisors to their players. Especially the NHL where a LOT of the Canadian kids (and usually a lot of the guys from other countries too) have very limited formal educations. Here's to hoping that his misfortune works out for us (and for him in the long run, a lengthy coaching career won't necessarily get him all that lost revenue back but it can get back enough of it).

Umm, is the correct answer a non-negligible chance for failure of the artificial disc which could effect tragic consequences? It's great that he's taken a handful of viscious hits and seems none the worse for the wear of them. But, considering how few athletes that take the sort of punishment a professional hockey player takes that have had this particular procedure, it seems a smidge premature to be crowing about how Eichel absolutely was right in getting the procedure. Personally, expect it will work out, but literally have almost no data to support that belief. (And an expectation with no data to base it upon is exactly that - a belief.)

Bills - 2 Championships. Stampede - 1 Championship.

Presuming your Q was open to all, would say most likely he hits 55. But if he's getting 2nd line usage (with actual 2nd line linemates, not the ones he spent most of October with) wouldn't be at all surprised to see 65. Personally expect to see him get 5 years x $5.5 and there being a great outcry when that contract is announced.

Yes and no. Primarily IMHO because of the youth in the F ranks and only having 1 guy that is clearly past his prime and only 2 others arguably past it, they stayed astonishingly healthy at F this season. Thompson and Tuch both missed time, but can't think of any others that missed more than a game or 2 due to injury up front. The guy that was supposed to get the lion's share of the net this year was out for 1/2 the season and then didn't work back into the rotation until late in the year. So, they were not one of the least injured at that position. They also had a lot of D-men losing time to injury, mainly all at roughly the same time, and had at least 2 (and likely 3) that played significant time while hobbled by injuries they played through. Expect that they likely were towards the middle of the pack on that front but also were likely on the more injured end of the middle 1/3 of teams. Would expect overall the team to have roughly the same quantity of man games lost next year (the team is likely going to be even younger than last year overall) but will a bit of a more normal distribution by position.

Orchard Park is 10 minutes from downtown. Sunrise FLA is 15 minutes from Lauderdale and appears to be a good 40+ minute drive from Miami. And there LITERALLY is nothing once you go to the other side of the rink for dozens of miles. That rink couldn't have been built more remotely from the population center if they were trying. Never been to AZ but have been told that Glendale is a suburb pretty far from downtown Phoenix with a lot of the population on the other side of Phoenix (Glendale is on the opposite side of the city from Mesa and Scottsdale). Neither's situation is anywhere close to the ones you mentioned. Yes, the Meadowlands seems to be about 30 minutes from NYC but it looks to be less than 10 miles from NYC on the map and there are 11MM people in NYC/on LI plus you have all of NJ and eastern PA to draw from as well. And Arlington is a suburb of 2 fairly large cities - both Dallas and Fort Worth. It's not like the old Texas Stadium ended up in Plano or Ennis which to Dallas (and especially Fort Worth) is more akin to what Sunrise is to Miami. Would say it would be a closer analogy to placing the Corel Centre in Kanata but even that was at least in a traditional market.

And, though it could just be speaking the party line, Bettman makes it sound like there are still options to keep the team in the desert by landing them in Phoenix proper. Which is where the team should've been all along. You aren't going to get people in an "emerging" market to drive from the suburbs on 1 side of a sprawling city to watch a game being played in the suburbs on the other side of the city. (Well, not many of them at any rate.) And the attendance issues Florida has seemed to have through the years and that the Yotes have had should be a cautionary tale to realize there's a reason land is cheap far from the population centers. And you won't get the attendance you're hoping for by building in the boonies.

As long as Deadpool isn't part of that group. Who cares? 😉 There are so few entertainment vehicles that aren't tremendously disappointing nowadays. Would really hate having to wait for Deadpool 3 to come out on Bluray.

In time, sure. But they are trying to make the playoffs this coming year. Any sophomore slump from Frick or Frack or Greenway not fitting in and the F cupboard starts getting thin if Mittelstadt is gone. They can get that top 4 D-man via FA. IF they can convert him into something really good on D or in net that they can't get otherwise; fine. But they already are likely moving on from a 28 goal scorer. Not sure that it makes sense to move on from a guy that got upper 50's last year along with him.

Oh, no doubt they'll expand again. Doesn't mean we have to be happy about it.

Friggin' Hallmark Channel is what got us to get DirecTV. Time Warner (Spectrum now) replaced Empire from the standard package with the Hallmark Channel. Refused to pay an extra $5/month to watch Empire and instead moved to Satellite. That channel line up move that only mattered for about 18 months anyhow as Empire was killed when Adelphia went tits up. Guess they just didn't want our money.

Back to the OP's original question. Yes, the league needs to make it tougher on expansion teams by basically banning them and not expanding beyond the 32 teams they currently have. 82 RS games knock out 1/2 of the teams. Then 4 more best of 7's whittle that number down to 1 team surviving the whole grind.

IF they only bring in 1 outside D-man AND they go with the recently "traditional" 13F-8D, could see him grabbing that 8D spot ahead of Bryson. (Nobody is claiming Bryson when he gets waived. Clague will get less money and probably clears too, but he's a better D-man IMHO and would have a higher likelihood of getting claimed (small as that likelihood might be).) But if they bring in a 4 and a 6, yeah he drops to Ra-cha-cha or if they decide to go with 14F's likewise.

Agnostic on the 2 services, haven't used either. But Youtube will have the NFL Sunday Ticket this fall. You can get just the Ticket without subscribing, but it's IIRC an extra $100 for ST if you aren't a Youtube subscriber. Also, the $100 early bird ST discount is gone (that ended on June 6 IIRC) but there's still a $50 discount available into September. (Yeah, not sure how that works either, the season starts before the discount is supposed to end.)

Pretty accurate take. Would put Clague into Bryson's boat as well. Expecting they'll keep him in the system too.

Bummer. Have subscribed to their "paper" for a long time. Not terribly surprising. After the NYT bought them, it was inevitable that they'd be expected to "reduce costs." Thought this would've come sooner than it did.

Yeah, that one is a bit of a head scratcher. But IF they are giving Bales a pass on the GTing because of Comrie's injuries and their having believed UPL was not ready to be in the NHL (and to a fairly large degree they proved themselves right on that opinion) then it makes sense to not blame the PK on the coaching. Your goalie is your best PKer (and the Sabres goaltending was not good) and the team used its offensive forwards on the PK way more than other teams do which seem to have been a product of that "development" philosophy they ran with. Combine that with the injuries the team dealt with (and played through to a large extent) on D and the whole thing was a recipe for failure. Personally, had more issue with the PP coaching. The PP was lights out for about 6 weeks and beyond abysmal the rest of the season. There is WAY too much talent for the PP to disappear for months at time. Entries were bad and there was way too little movement. Everybody and their brother knew the team was setting up for Thompson's 1 timer.

Yeah, well, #### Bob Essensa and the horse he rode out on. Biggest flop by far in a Sabres uni. Granted at that stage of his career, he was only brought in as a backup. But, not sure he could've been the backup in Ra-cha-cha at that point.

And it needs to be remembered that for the 1st 25 years this franchise existed it was a destination players wanted to be. Gare cried the day he was traded. Hawerchuck and LaFontaine - 2 of the biggest stars of their day wanted to be in Buffalo. The European players remembered 12-6 over the Soviets. The Scandanavian players loved the Sabres because of that. The Sabres had one of the 3 best franchise winning percentages in the entire NHL for decades. That 3rd team would change from IIRC Filly to the Aisles to the Eulers to ??? but Moe-ray-all and Buffalo were always 1 and 2/3. And when you're consistently near the top, even if you don't get playoff success people want to be there because they know they'll at least be in the mix. That waned under the Criminals and didn't recover as a destination under Golisano and the team became a joke early in the Pegula Era. But this is the last of the Pegulas teams to become relevant. The Bills are a destination team. The Bandits have been in the championship game 3 consecutive seasons and would be viewed as a juggernaut had an entire season and a half not been wiped out in the middle of that run. The 3rd year Kin-ig-hit Hawks made the playoffs. Their daughter is one of the best women tennis players in the world. Everything else they touch sports wise shines. The Sabres seem to be on the verge of joining the others. It can be a destination for players again. And once it is again, there's no reason for it to go back to laughing stock. The owners have enough money to allow competent management to do their thing. Buffalo will never be the place a guy that desparately wants the big city life of NYC or TO will make his 1st choice. And the same goes for guys that really want the sunny FLA or LA weather. But for those that like some/all of the items you mentioned above, they truly can be a destination club.

Fuhr. (Well, Andy got them 1/3 of Fuhr. The 1st rounder and Puppa brought the rest of him.)

Gee, what a shock, a THN guy thinks that it would be a "great trade for both sides" for the Loafs to dump overpaid and overrated Willie Nylander on the Preds for Saros. (Oh, and the Loafs would send them Robertson too.) Anybody taking Nylander is doing the Loafs a favor and they should be getting something else good and not giving up much to take the dink. Losing Saros for Nylander is anything but a good trade for the Preds.

And the one that wasn't looked up but actually guessed: Larry Mickey. (Don't recall Schmautz on the Sabres at all.)