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Due to some past identity theft issues, have had a "freeze" put on new credit applications. Can do things like buy a car or get a new credit card but the lender/issuer needs to reach me via a particular protocol obtained from a credit rating bureau to confirm it is actually me applying for credit. Hadn't received my wife's replacement credit card for her expiring one & ordered a replacement. Didn't get it because the issuing bank couldn't reach me. Called back, tried again; same issue. Called one of the credit ratings bureaus about this. Yes, there's a freeze on the account. (Well, duh.) What contact info are you giving to the credit card company to reach me? Uh, none; we have no contact info for you. Htf does the credit ratings bureau, which knows more about where we've lived & our payment history than we know NOT have contact info? Unbelievable. Fortunately when we bought a new car recently the bank that issued that loan used a different credit bureau. One that actually was able to provide the bank a way to reach me.

Pretty reasonable take @LGR4GM. Expecting your prediction for the Sabres is too optimistic, but hoping to be wrong about that. Do believe if they get in 7th is actually more likely than 8th. My guess (without having looked closely at the lineups, may change it closer to opening night). Carolina Tampa Bay Florida Toronto Rangers Columbus Pittsburgh Boston Otters Sabres Devils Capitals Red Wings Islanders Montreal Filly Would've gone w/ Swamp Cats ahead of Bolts, but expect they'll miss the losses of Huberdeau, Weegar, & the coach more than they'll gain from the new additions. Expect Columbus could surprise & not sold the the Pens aren't too long in the tooth. Have been wrong too many times about the B's imminent demise, won't expect them out until they officially are. Could easily see the Sabres & Otters flipping on being the squad just missing out especially if it takes time for Ottawa's new additions to fit in. Caps are due to slide; can see it being hard if it happens. Maybe Ovie can will them to a stronger finish. Dumping Trotz doesn't seem to be a smart move for a team that has to live on it's D & goaltending. Filly & the Habs should both be horrible. If Hart isn't horrible again, Moe-ray-all might have the 2nd best Berard odds behind Chicago. If he is, Chicago has a run for it's money.

This seems correct. In '19, the game in TO was shown on Sabres.com & the 3 home games. Don't believe either of the other 2 road games were broadcast. Thought all, or all but 1, was shown there last year, but no data to confirm that.

Haven't seen any announcements yet, but in years past they were broadcast on the Sabres website and the broadcast was whatever the home team put together. Few, if any, made it to ESPN+.

Just got done listening to that. That was very encouraging. And hopefully he also got input from the Bills staff & medical as well because they train significantly differently than the rest of the NFL & last year they stayed very healthy. (And this year they're getting a bunch of injuries, but several of them are of the type (concussion, neck, etc.) that you can't really train away from in live action games.

4. They have to stay healthier than last year. They get the sort of injuries they did last year & even those 3 keys likely aren't enough for the 20+ extra points they need to find. Fortunately, being a very young team, the injury bug can be relatively avoidable.

Interestingly Krebs is with Blue & Cozens & Mittelstadt are with Gold. Would've expected Krebs to be on 1 of their lines. Get it that Thompson is listed as a RW rather than a C, but still a top 9 of Blue could be: Skinner Thompson Tuch Quinn/Girgensons Krebs Okposo Girgensons/Quinn Kozak Bjork/Murray And a top 9 of Gold could be Asplund Mittelstadt Olofsson Peterka Cozens Hinostroza Malone Sheahan Mersch Only 12 of those 18 (19 including Bjork) will be in the lineup against the Otters on October 13. Really looking like at least initially they're looking to roll 4 lines more or less. Nice to see there actually being competition for the top 12 & the top 6 with players that actually shouldn't be out of place there. (They've had competition for most of those roles the last decade, but not by players that belong in those roles.) And only threw Kozak into that top 9 role due to lack of C's in that grouping.

And had he been even remotely effective at selecting an NHL coach we might still be wondering what he has against CHLers & Russians. 😉 Were it not for Rolston, he'd have picked the worst HC in team history & then followed that up with the guy who would've been the 2nd worst.

With his skipping the prospects challenge expect he's penciled into the top 12 & it'll take a really bad camp to start the year in Ra-cha-cha. Prior to that thought Sheahan would be penciled in as the 4C & his being among the skaters dressing nightly would bump Peterka out of the top 12 & into the lead scoring role in Ra-cha-cha out of the gate waiting for the 1st injury to become an NHL full-timer. Still have his 2 games in Buffalo etched into the memory more than that fantastic playoff run which caused the expectation that it'll take him some time to really dial in. But do expect he'll give Quinn a good run for Sabres 2nd best rookie. Also expect him & Quinn stealing votes from each other for end of the year awards. Also expect him to become nearly as popular as Cozens before the season is over. He's fun to watch.

No issue w/ the owners' kids getting to be around. (It's one of those perks that come w/ being the princeling.) PROVIDED they don't end up pushing themselves into actual scouting roles and trying to get their voices heard over Adams & the rest of the actual pros. Wilson's daughter thinking she knew more than she did was a not insignificant portion of why Ralph decided he didn't need Polian around. Let him design more BS hats or whatever it takes to keep him from providing scouting reports.

Expect that's a big part of Granato & Mittelstadt saying Mitts might be a W this year. Expect they'll have those 2 together w/ someone (Olofsson?) and they don't see Krebs being able to transition to W but Casey can. Could see them covering the roles like Hecht & Briere did & then Leino & Briere did.

Am hoping the answer to the Q is "never." Expect Girgensons to be useful in his 60ish healthy games played and don't see much of a trade market for him. Hope he gets a 1-2 year contract this off-season & the Sabres getting 1-2 more good years out of him but at his age,, if he does take a step back, no point in trading him because they won't get anything of value back.. So he then retires a Sabre. Darn few guys have gone cradle to grave w/ the Sabres; would like to see him add 1 more to the list.

Really don't see the Sabres tanking. Neither hard tank (obviously) nor the soft tank. The ONLY way they're running a soft tank is if they EXPECT Comrie to be Hutton. And just can't see them having gone after him as they did if they expect him to only be Hutton. A much stronger case for a solft/stealth tank could've been made if Murray was the only NHL goalie brought in this year. But, really expect they were going to go after Comrie even with Murray figuring Comrie can get them 45-55 quality starts & some combo of the other 4 guys could get them another 30ish quality starts.

If Comrie doesn't start at least 50 games, this year's goaltending will be a hot mess. (It might be even if he does get that many, but not expecting that.) Comrie 55 Anderson 21 UPL 3 Subban 2 Levi 1

Not only that, the D has pitched a shutout in the 2nd 1/2 of both games. (Actually, they're outscoring the opposition 7-0 in the 2nd 1/2 so far. Fun. 😉 )

Already said above why the GM should be under contract for 2 more years than the current year rather than just 1. Why you so concerned about saving the Pegulas $'s if things go sideways?

He stops getting paid at the end of the regular season. The contract ends ~ Jun 30 (whatever the last day of the league year is & 1 day before FA opens up; traditionally the 1st day of the new league year is July 1; it hasn't been the last 2 years).

So you want him fired too because your boy Botterill got canned after refusing to restructure the scouting department? You didn't answer the question of are you fine having Adams become a free agent at the end of this season & THEN negotiating a new deal with him? Because, either he gets a new deal now or after he holds all the cards should the Pegulas want to re-sign him.

How so? Pretty sure he was starting his last year under contract (it was a 3 year deal originally, right?). You going to wait until after the season and he's a free agent to negotiate with him? There is no downside to this other than it costing the Pegulas more money should he not be able to continue the rebuild. Don't care about them wasting a few bucks if in fact they did. Jury's out on that but expect they didn't.

Personally always want the GM under contract for at least 2 more years than the current one & the coach to be under contract for at least 1 more year than the current season. Want to make sure they aren't thinking about their next stop while they should be fully focused on making things better here & now. (Butler tanking his last draft for the Bills still chafes.)

Personally would set it at 91.5. They get to 92 points, they can be kicking themselves all off season how those two 3 game losing streaks cost them the playoffs. And all it takes beyond that is winning 1 game they'd otherwise have lost in regulation every other month to sneak into the dance. If they can legitimately play at a 92 point pace, find 1 extra win in October, December, February, & April and they're in the playoffs or the very 1st team to miss the playoffs with a 0.600+ record in at least 50 years.

Actually, by artificially lowering his own salary, he's definitely giving (some of) his teammates more money & if the Avs stay under the cap he's giving every single player in the league a few extra shekels as the demonimator used to adjust everybody's salary to an aggregate 50% of HRR is that much smaller.

But MacKinnon seems to understand that: 1. You CAN have enough money; 2. With a hard salary cap, if he leaves a couple extra $million on the table, it's available for ideally teammates that can help him win; and 3. If the Avs have the right culture, it could actually convince some other guys like Landeskog that could break the bank to leave a small amount on the table & then there's that much more available to be able to afford 3rd & 4th liners that aren't TOTAL JAGs. He needs to have faith in management to do so, but he had that faith at his previous contract negotiation & now he's a SC champion for his faith.

Don't expect many goals (12 or so seems realistic for his usage/ role), but expect that Granato will be running balanced lines often enough to see him real close to 30 points total.

Expecting we see ~65 points again. Low 70's is possible, as is sliding back, but with the expectation they'll be pretty much rolling 3 or 4 lines 65 seems about right. Also, expect he'll be the top line C by 5v5 ice time.