Taro T

In the 2nd, the Devils are up on the Tokarski backstopped Penguins 2-1.

Does anybody know for certain that the Sabres would in fact burn up a year of Savoie's ELC if he stayed on the roster for the entire season but played 9 or fewer games? The CBA specifies that a contract can't slide if the player plays in a 10th NHL game. But it doesn't specifically address a time limit for just being on the roster. Not sure if it is addressed in the agreement between the NHL & CHL (have never seen that document). Of course, if the Sabres did do that, he'd get an accrued season and would be eligible for FA a year earlier than had he played 10 games then been sent back to junior. So, they wouldn't actually do that, but it seems they theoretically could. Which would make this the exact opposite of a college player playing a handful of games burning a year of their ELC but not getting credit for an accrued NHL season.

Am with @Eleven on most of those.

Wtf should Anderson be getting anything but spot duty at this point? Yes, he played incredible hockey in the 1st period of the Stars game. But he has not been good other than that since the calendar turned to 2023 and he backstopped a couple of inexcusable losses in his 1-4-0 record. They don't know much about what Comrie brings. They need to know if they plan on using him as even the #2 next year. And, again, expected and understand why they're going w/ UPL tonight. Doesn't mean that they don't need to know what they have in Comrie, unless they've already decided to move on from him, which by their actions, statements, & philosophical views of how to treat players they've not done to date.

Shows how tough it is for kids in that league, you don't even get through the top 10 kids before you're down to <0.2 PPG. That's under 16 points through 80 games.

Thing is, the league puts a high value on limiting travel & also promoting "traditional" rivalries. So, while they may at some point go back to 1-8 in conference (wouldn't have money on it, but it could happen) they almost definitely will not go back to 1-16 playoff seeding. Too much travel & too great a chance that they might end up w/ a 1st round matchup of something like Canes-Canucks that they expect wouldn't sell many tickets & would have very low TV ratings. Still personally would like to see them run something similar to what they did in the very early '70's. Start out 1v4 & 2v3 in division, then those 2 winners play the 2 winners of the other division w/in conference, then those 2 winners go cross conference, w p/ the 2 survivors meeting for the Cup. Would allow for Sabres Habs, or Sabres Phlyers in the finals and could also allow a battle if Alberta in the finals or NY-NY or Detroit-Avs or any other combination. Wouldn't having the 2 best teams in the championship regardless of where their home rink happens to be located make for a better product? They'd get the rivalries early and COULD get them again at the end too.

As expected. Still would like to have seen how Comrie would've handled the sort of btb's.

Why would they get an offer? There's still 3 or 4 Sutter brothers that have never coached the Flames. Gotta work through the whole pack before moving on to something else, right? 😉

One thing not mentioned in all this is the picture quality of streamed content is of noticeably lower quality than that from satellite (probably cable too, but haven't compared them directly).

Close. Bandits then Sabres. 😉

Empire folding happened as a result of the Criminals declaring bankruptcy when their fraudulent accounting scheme blew up at the tech bubble's bursting and the subsequent asshattery of the bankruptcy trustee (he liquidated Empire because the future Adelphia MIGHT eventually end up losing money by paying more in rights fees after a going entity sale rather than what they'd get just selling off the equipment & studios by themselves. Completely backwards from what he was supposed to do. And WNSA folded long before all that, with no effect on the Sabres. You have the cause and effects of the events of the early Aughts completely off. 12 teams aren't going bankrupt because Bally's is going to try to renegotiate their broadcast contracts.

Not sure if O'Reilly has anything left in the tank but these 2 could help shore up the Loafs major deficiency. Me no likey. Would much rather have seen them get Patty Kane.

Yep. Whoever the top 2 are, they'll be the ones given the keys. Granted it isn't a direct comparison because Miller had the '04-'05 season leading the Amerks to a long run and Levi hasn't left college yet. But nobody expected Miller to start on October of '0405. He was too young, too inexperienced & Biron was still there and though he'd been mainly a backup he'd even the starter the previous 2 seasons & Noronnen was another former 1st rounder who'd nearly taken away the starting job before the lockout. But yet Lindy & Corsi trusted what they saw & after a so-so start, Miller & the team caught fire after he came back from the thumb injury. They made the right choice even though it would've been easy to not go that route. And if we have a 3 headed goalie monster for a bit at some point, so be it.

But it wasn't going to happen. Kind of like Copp going anywhere but Detroit.

Soooooooo close to being the Mugwumps. 😉

Wrre it South Buffalo you could've been hanging on & hanging out with Timmy Russert back in the day.

That's true. But he has treated the players as humans & not just expendable assets on at least 3 occasions when a player's role was significantly diminished. When Power was about to come on board, Adams traded Hagg for a small return rather than ,are him sit in the pressbox regularly and he had several communications with him about where he stood as that process advanced. He let Sheahan walk & void his contract when the team got healthy in November. He also attempted to trade Hinostroza rather than simply send him to the Amerks when the 3 headed goalie monster was born. He's been upfront & as Okposo said, players know their roles and where they stand. A guy like Asplund may not like it, but being treated like an adult has to help with the mentality of it. So, when it's time to move on from a "glue" guy on the room, not expecting it to have a ripple effect, but who knows for sure how that'll play out.

Welcome to the club. The dues are quite reasonable & we rarely have meetings. Though when we do, beer & wings ate served.

Could be. But having good assistants is part of being a great head coach. Ruff openly talked about how much he appreciated getting to coach at the ASG & as part of Team Canada's crew because it was a great opportunity to talk to other top coaches and pick their brains.

And a 3rd round pick.

The thing that's tough to evaluate is, the team has generally improved its defensive play as the season has gone on though that improvement has come in fits & starts. The wings have played better along rhe boards after we got out of October/ early November. The D has, in 2023 on occasion boxed people out. It pretty much didn't do that in 2022 this season. But, the 2nd goal scored by the Ducks, the Sabres most physical defender didn't do anything to remove the screen from in front of Comrie. We don't get to see them work in practice, nor are we in the meeting rooms when the concepts & game plans are discussed and reinforced. So, though we see what they're doing we don't know what they were supposed to be doing. We also still don't see Granato match lines much. Will he when we're beyond development as a co-goal? (Development is no longer the only goal.) Hope he will, but until he does, we're just guessing. The other thing that makes it tough to evaluate is the goaltending still leaves much to be desired. How much better will the D seem when we get to watch a quality NHL starter? The thing that is troubling is, the PP us a serious 1 trick pony and teams have figured that trick out. Can he & his coaches get the PP clicking again? Am cautiously optimistic that Granato is the real deal. At a minimum, he IS an NHL caliber HC and will likely find another HCing job when the time eventually comes for him to move on. That hasn't been the case since Ruff left. And that in itself is reason for optimism.

He was a huge behind the scenes part of the Sabres in their formative years. Apparently he was a very generous & helpful person too. Maybe he'll finally get to pull some pranks on the Knoxes again. RIP Mr. Weiland.

Didn't know they yell checkmate, either. 😉

Good point. On the flipside & supporting @dudacek's post, Okposo also is on record in the Athletic extolling Granato's (& Adams) virtues.

Potentially being the key/operative word. With no information on how the unpaid rights fees are distributed across the 3 leagues mentioned (plus wouldn't there possibly be unpaid rights fees to other leagues/sports carried by those RSNs included in that lump sum total) we don't know that the NHL teams will necessarily be taking a big hit this year. Expect that the unpaid rights fees skew heavily either towards baseball (whose season is just about to get underway) if the rights fees tend to be paid in advance or towards the NBA & NHL if they're on a pay as you go basis w/ 1/2 the season over. Next season would likely see the bigger potential hit, but the teams & league can begin right now looking for alternative RSNs. Could be, in a ripoff from Demolition Man, in the future all RSNs are MSG. (As long as they ain't friggin' NESN.) The league and Sabres survived the implosion of Empire & WNSA (and Adelphia).