Taro T

Any word on why Jost wasn't there & was it expected that he'd miss today's session? Could be as simple as he had delayed flights getting back to town.

It would look better, yes. Percentage of capwise it'd probably be about 1/2 way between the $7.5 he should've got & the $9 he did get. (Assuming the cap went up 2% each of the past 3 years.) The $9 is ~11% of the cap and $7.5 would be ~9%. The $9 w/ a typical appreciation would be ~10% today. Either way, it won't limit Adams next year nor the following one. It MAY be restrictive after Frick & Frack earn their big deals those last 2 years of Skinner's current deal. But am expecting it to not be terribly restrictive.

One of the kids on my one son's youth team had big time helicopter parents. Drove the other guy that coached with this kid nuts, but just knew what was coming & dealt with it. Was what it was. They were nice people, but had different views on parenting than yours truly.

You think his contract will cause ANY problems in the next 2 seasons? Not a chance. Quinn & Peterka will still be on their ELCs & the cap will be at least $4MM higher with Hodgson's deal finally off the books this year. Okposo will be gone or making a fraction of what he does. Now, the last 2 years of the deal, some hard decisions might need to be made. But still don't expect they'll have to pass on somebody they wanted because of not having an extra $1.5MM in cap space.

Ricky Notes would be more entertaining and only marginally less legible.

His contract doesn't affect things next year and likely doesn't affect them the next year either. His final 2 years could make things a little tight but Adams shouldn't have too much difficulty working around it, and nearly 1/2 of his overpay effectively goes away at the end of this season as Hodgson is off the books this April.

If the deal were $7.5/yr nobody would bat an eye. The thing is, because the Sabres are so young and accordingly being paid so little on a per player basis, his being overpaid by $1.5/yr actually let Adams get away w/ only buying one BF-LTIR player contract. If he were paid what he should be paid, they'd've needed another contract to reach & stay comfortably above the cap floor.

IF they get Chychrun, it sets up an interesting dynamic. Do they pair him w/ Power and go w/ @Thorny's nightmare scenario of the top 4D all being lefties or do they slightly balance the 2nd & 3rd pairings a bit more keeping the top 4 as is & bumping Bryson into the pressbox?

Nashville never had centers. The Sabres have them in spades. Now, Nashville had/has great goaltending. The Sabres? Well hopefully UPL continues to improve & Levi is the next Sarros. Unfortunately, hope isn't a strategy.

To the bolded, that is true. But further, if you DO badly overestimate how good a kid will be, you can buy out the deal for only 1/3 of face value rather than the typical 2/3's.

Considering they do other teams & sports as well, would be shocked if they didn't have navy backplate. Sabres Store might be able to help as well.

You're welcome. But, had the person quoting my 2 sentences quoted the entire post or at least the context, those 2 extra words would not have been necessary to add.

Which is all fine & dandy. The OP you responded to was in response to a post that speculated that because of the Horvat addition that they'd surge & make the playoffs. Sorokin hides a lot of warts. But unless the Horvat addition results in more than a 1-2 game adrenaline rush from the rest of the team, he isn't getting them into the playoffs. And with only a 1 game sample, there is nowhere near enough data to say his addition will translate into sustained success. It might. But won't write them into the playoffs just yet.

Jost signing? As in he's been extended? Is this breaking news? Because his getting claimed off waivers is on @Zamboni's list.

It COULD be. But let's see them play more than one game with him before we decide they are anointed a playoff spot.

Casual fans IN BUFFALO don't give a rat's rear end about the mf'n Canes.

Didn't read the article twitter thread, but with Fehr being the current union head figured he was mentioned in the article so no need to remention him. Also didn't mention the guy that briefly followed Goddenow because couldn't recall his name ottomh. Liked that guy, but his paranoia was his undoing.

Thing is, while guys like Jones & Kraft will continue to want mausoleums to their own hubris, the league is becoming increasingly TV centric & focused on maximizing those revenues and the local revenues are just gravy on top. Each team gets over $300 MILLION from just TV game broadcast revenues alone. ($312.5MM to be precise.) To put that in perspective a team w/ an 80k seat stadium w/ 8 home games with an average ticket price of $100 and w/ an assumption each person in attendance generates another $100 is only $128MM. (Yes, it's a simplification and misses some revenues (like luxury boxes, preseason & postseason tix; the latter of which is highly spread throughout the lrague & doesn't primarily stay where it is generated), but it also isn't looking at expenses. Just doing this as an order of magnitude type exercise.) So, game day stadium revenue is roughly 40% of TV revenue and TV revenue provides ~70% of all revenue. And TV & internet revenues will only keep going up for the foreseeable future. Which is great for a small market club like Buffalo because the Bills not making as much locally as the Cowboys make isn't a death blow for them staying in the league and staying competitive competitive.

Alan Eagleson Bob Goodenow Those were the 1st 2 that really moved things along. Eagleson totally screwed the players over for years. Goodenow crushed the owners twice, though initial reports had the owners winning both negotiations. He then severely overplayed his hand and cost us an entire season. Either name ring a bell?

Kanpai!!

If Power does go LT w/ the next deal, it likely is for less than you're proposing because a lot of that contract will be years that he'd remain an RFA. Not significantly lower, but likely lower. Where Mittelstadt fits in is a great Q. As recently as last season, he was viewed as one of the face of the franchise players by the Sabres. Granato never gave up on him & w/ the acquisition of Jost, he's finally been put into the role they envisioned for him heading into the season. Would expect to see him get a 4 year deal w/ minimal no trade/no movement clauses. Keeps borh sides options open in the LT.

My understanding is that the Sabres have started generally selling tix at a discount for the rest of the season & the Canes game was the 1st game they were doing that for this year. Don't have the details on it, bit expect they're on the Sabres website. (Thought they were offering some $20 seats, but not positive on that.) As @PromoTheRobot mentioned, through their partners like LECOM they have been offering discounts for different groups, but pretty sure those are all cases where the 3rd party (LECOM, TBN, etc.) pays the difference between the discount price and at a minimum the ST price. They have to be careful just what they offer on their latest discount program because am pretty sure they still advertise that STH are supposed to get the cheapest available prices. If they don't then could see where somebody would sue over it. Don't believe people should, but just because they shouldn't doesn't mean they can't & won't. It was in the past. Not certain it was this season.

Covered that in the follow up post.

What people keep forgetting is that through pretty much the entirety of the era from MMArena opening through THE lockout, attendance was always poor in the fall but picked up after the Bills season ended & we got into "hockey weather" and then from February through the end of their run the attendance ranged from good to sold out building. The difference between then & now is, poor attendance was 12-14k (though even that was gained during the criminals' era by freebie seat giveaways goosing attendance) on a weeknight vs the Thrashers or Whalers or the like and now it is 4-8k on a weeknight. Really expecting poor attendance at the beginning of next year will be in the 10-12k range on those poor draw opponent weeknight games rather than as bad as last year or even this year. But like the old days, they should be selling out or getting reasonably close to sellouts in October on weekends. Even that Cane game that people were decrying the poor attendance was 2/3's full which is a big improvement over weeknight non-name opponents this past October. (And, yes, the Canes are very good, but the casual fans still don't give a rat's rear end about them. We're the ones that find them a good team to watch & measure the Sabres progress against.) IF the team is as good as this kid expects them to be next season, by mid-January they'll be selling out nearly every night & '24-'25 could see close to Slug Era attendance.

Could see Jost getting either 2 or 3 years. He really could be the Sabres version of Boston's Paille. A guy that rounds out the bottom of the roster that had a good pedigree but couldn't live up to 1st round expectations w/ the club that drafted him. And that's his floor here. Who knows what happens if Granato works his misfit hockey whisperer magic on him. His ceiling could be legit middle 6 200' player. But can't see Girgensons getting 3 at this point. Expect you're right that his will be a 2 year deal.