Taro T

If they practiced today, he certainly did.

The goal is playoffs, but they won't sell the future to make it happen if they're in a similar situation to where they were this year at the deadline. Because THE goal is still being legit Stanley Cup contenders consistently. And his answer to my qustion was the 1st time he has publicly stated that the playoffs are a goal. He has been VERY careful to not publicly state playoffs. He prefaced it with the 3-5 year goal and came back to not sacrificing the future for short term gain, but playoffs are the minimal goal for next year with primarily THIS crew. (I actually was going to post my notes from last night on the board, but the weird formatting that happens when trying to post anything longer than this kept me from doing so.)

Well, while he is still saying he has long term 3-5 year goals, he did actually say the playoffs next year are a goal. He won't torpedo the future to goose it, but he did actually say playoffs are a goal. That is something that he has not said once prior in the 2 years of this latest retool. So don't expect to see Saros if he costs one of Savoie or Kulich, but would be very surprised if he stands pat in net. Would also be surprised if he stays pat on the blueline.

Agreed. He has "it."

And Dominik Hasek was left exposed in the expansion draft by the Sabres. "Great" hockey minds oftentimes have no more clue about goalies that aren't prototypical than we have at understanding why that truly innocuous comment has our wives ready to kill us.

After stating he'd never play for the Habs again.

Except for the handful of times that Granato went for the really few NHL games played Kids Line and a couple other 1 offs, at 5v5 when Peterka has been in the lineup he's been stapled to Cozen's wing. The normal Kids Line is pencilled in as a thing moving forward. Somebody will have to beat one of them out to break it up in the near term.

It is very interesting indeed. Just spitballin' but expect that it MAY be because a top goalie that is still all in on a team is worth his weight in gold and simply doesn't come on the market. So, the guys that do actually become available are not bought in and the team figures they're better off with whatever they can get for the expensive guy that had been a stud for them rather than somebody going through the motions at the one spot where there is nobody to cover for a mistake by him. Not sure why there isn't more of a market for these guys the handful of times they seem to come on the market.

The "game worn" ones are auctioned. For at least some of the special nights, you can buy either proweight or replica versions. Bought a nice special night sweater for the significant other recently. So, at least some are sold for retail.

5-1-0 his last 6.

No data. The games today were the only ones got to see. That's what PTR said. Guess they kept it close but took a 5 minute major and the game got away from them.

Michigan tied it with about 6 left in the 3rd on the PP and won in OT.

Which is why Nashville wouldn't make it.

Speaking of Kings properties that should be wearing tinfoil hats; Portillo just gave up a PP goal with just over a minute left in the 2nd. Nittany Lions 1, Wolverines 0. Through 2 periods. The winner will take on Quinnipiac in the Frozen 4.

Sabre 2014 1st is in Florida for the goalie of the future. Can't use it for the goalie of the present. ;) And the deal you meant to propose, would do that in a heartbeat if it brought Saros in.

Am betting he'll do better than Anderson has done in these "guaranteed win" versus bad opponent games. 5 of them since January 1 and the team is 0-4-1 in them. For all the talk about the 8 game losing streak or the poor stretch since Tuch went out and Dahlin was hurt too which has now morphed into Samuelsson out and Thompson playing hurt, if they pick up 7 out of 10 points in those instead of a truly pathetic 1 point, they're the team that's getting chased. Would like to see Levi get the start tomorrow. If not him, either Comrie or UPL. For the love of all that is Holy, please do not put Anderson in net that game. Yes, they could win it with Andy in it, but why risk throwing away another 2 points in that situation.

Well Conner Fields wasn't protected in the expansion draft and the Kin-ig-hit Hawks traded for him and they are now a game back of the Bandits. Also, Frazier has only played 1 game. Byrne missed about 6. Nanticoke missed the past 3 and Brandon Robinson has been out the past 3 as well. Plus Cloutier was hurt the 1st game and has only been back the past 3 games. That's a LOT of offensive firepower to be missing. They also tend to go run and gun even more than last season so they have a lot of 10 second or less possessions that end with a single shot as there is nobody around to pick up the loose ball after the shot. They are not the juggernaut they were during the regular season last year. That team ranked up there with the mid-90's squads. Too bad Vinc ran out of gas and they couldn't figure out Colorado's D. The way they have to battle for these wins rather than run away from anybody will hopefully serve them well when they get to the playoffs. Hoping they find a way to stay in 1st because the 2nd and 3rd seeds are going to beat the snot out of each other before facing the conference winner that will get to play a much weaker Halifax or Filly. Vinc looked spent the 1st 2 games but has been his normal self since. If they can get the penalties under control - they take a LOT of penalties and not just the physical ones like they usually get; they also have a ridiculously large quantity of illegal substitutions; they should be in good shape as well. How you have illegal substitution more than 3 times a year is boggling. They do that twice a game.

When my younger one was in 1st or 2nd grade, they had an assignment to say what they did to help out around the house. His answer was "get daddy beers." He didn't lie. ;)

Priolo with the unassisted winner in OT. 7-6. Both goalies were incredible. Buffalo held San Diego scoreless in the 1st and 4th; and SD held the Bandits scoreless in the 2nd. Byrne had the Bandits 1st 3 goals including the only goal of the 1st; then Smith; McCollum; and Cloutier had the only goal of the 4th. At 11-3 with a 1/2 game lead over the Rock who sit at 11-4. Kin-ig-hit Hawks were losing at the half in Vegas. Would be nice to see them lose out there to the expansion team.

Bandits in San Diego in a few minutes in a battle of the 2 1st place teams. Bandits need this win to stay a 1/2 game ahead of ToGronto. Game is on ESPN News.

Well there is that. But, they do seem to have issues keeping the heavier teams from making them look silly in their own end. That they can actually do it against A team gives hope they could do it against more next season. And against the Aisles they don't let them work into the dirty areas without getting a body / stick on them. One of the very few teams they do that against.

And that was their 21st road win this season. Those of you disciples of the mythical Deluca 0.500 can rejoice that they've clinched one for the road. Fun game to watch. They played reasonable team defense all game. There's something about the Aisles that they can actually play defense against them. Not positive what/why that is but they can't do it against so many other teams. They played very good team D the 2nd and 3rd periods of the Miller game too. And they were playing good the 1st half of the 1s game in Barclay's. (Didn't get to watch the 2nd half of that game. Know they lost, but not sure how they played in that snoozefest.) They're still alive. Probably won't get all the way back into a playoff spot, but they're still playing meaningful games in the last week of March and almost definitely will be still playing them into April. Baby steps.

2nd longest. That 1st full season they owned the team they just barely missed the playoffs by only 3 points.

For more than 40 years the NFL went out of its way to make sure that if every single seat in the local mausoleum wasn't paid for then nobody could watch locally. Didn't matter if only 10 seats were empty, a couple million people weren't allowed to watch the game without taking a road trip. Even if tickets were only on sale for less than a week, if you didn't have every single seat spoken for, you couldn't watch your team. What changed? Did the magnanimous masters of the NFL find Jesus? Nope. They found multiple $BILLIONS in TV revenue. And TV networks don't like to have the local markets blacked out. Your local TV provider makes sure your local team is televised to everyone for free. And you'd better hope you are within the confines of the local primary TV market should your team show up on NFL Network or Amazon Prime. Better not be in the overall market but from a 2ndary market like Ra-cha-cha or Baton Rouge. Because you AREN'T watching your local team for free. And as streaming services continue to take a bigger piece of the NFL pie, locals are not going to get to watch ALL the local games for free. Enjoy it now while you can if you're in the primary market.

Seem to recall a guy that started out in Indianapolis that they said the same thing about. ;)