Taro T

Fair enough.

Well, speaking as one who was on board w/ splitting up Dahlin & Jokiharju long before it became popular and who had him in consideration as one of their best performing D when paired w/ Scandella, consider Henri to be an excellent 3rd pairing D and an adequate 2nd pairing D in a pinch. Expect he can still grow into a true 4/5 or maybe even a true 4. But at this point in time really dislike him as Power's partner because the idea of pairing a rookie w/ a vet (and on this roster, Henri's an elder statesman) is to have the vet cover for the rook's mistakes, not vice versa. 2nd pairing still faces the other team's top line reasonably often & Henri consistently isn't up to that task. He lets himself get taken out of the play and runs around when there's a good cycle going forcing other teammates out of position. (In that regard, he's reminiscent of Risto though nowhere near to the same level.) He has improved greatly at understanding when to pinch, so he has improved in areas and likely still will get better. Know that you're perfectly fine w/ him as Power's partner, but am really hoping that Lyubushkin who played w/ Reilly in TO jells with Owen as he plays the sort of style that will cover for rookie mistakes.

The bolded is true. But people were also pretty hopeful/excited about the "big 4" prospects - Bailey, Baptiste, Fascinating, & Carrier. And the only one that became a regular NHLer was lost in an expansion draft. He kept the guys that didn't pan out & like you said traded away/ lost the guys that became NHLers (Armia, Compfer, Lemieux, Carrier - that can't be the entire list, can it?).

IF Granato runs a true checking line Ala the LOG line, he'll get a chance due to his size when Girgensons inevitably breaks. But if not, he might need them to get ~4-5 F's deep in injuries to get a chance.

If Anderson were replaced w/ a 30 yo like most backups*, that trims another 1/2 year off the average age. This team is really young. And if the ages were weighted by contribution / ice time expect it would skew even younger. [Edit: * - for teams w/ a young starter. Teams w/ older starters seem to have a younger backup. But either way, having a pair of goalies that doesn't include a 42 yo knocks 1/2 year off the team's average age.]

Cool beans.. Olofsson is likely the only one that arbitration would've worked out for. But it's still good to see that the players & agents expect they can work out a fair deal.

Ab-so-friggin'-lute-ly.

And maybe he just told her that because she really desperately wants one & he was afraid she'd buy it before he had a chance to get it for her birthday; romantic that he is. 😉 She made an exaggeration for a joke. It happens.

IF he makes the team could see either Pilut or Power picking up the scraps of PP time that Dahlin doesn't command. If Pilut isn't dressed, those last 20 seconds become Owen's.

Holy ####, is it October yet? It's gotta come soon, right?

You now DON'T believe the original tweet was from his girlfriend? Huh?

Pretty sure you're right upon closer inspection. Guessing SHE thought it was funny too. 😉

It was a Lance Lysowski tweet of something one of Davies' friends apparently posted. Was laughing at him having to "run" to Staples (per Lance) to sign his contract. He's played 20 some NHL games & 3 years of AHL hockey. Does anybody HONESTLY think the kid can't AFFORD a printer?

Smart move by both to ensure not following the Timmy Kennedy path.

Agree w/ you. But was curious if that's why he thought it was a bad year for him.

This is kind of funny.

How heavy is a green puck? Have seen blue, orange, & white; but not green.

My understanding is that there's a general insurance policy league-wide for contracts up to a certain value and then outlier contracts like that of Eichel or McDavid can have their own insurance covering the greater value. And the premiums on those are based in large part on the player's age & past injury history. The LaFontaine insurance policy kicked in after 20 games but after his concussion he became neatly uninsurable as the premium would've been nearly price of the full 75% remaining on the contract. (The unspoken of part of the reason for refusing to let him play in Buffalo but why ownership was willing to trade him to let him play.) But the only underwriters for such policies are groups like Lloyd's that have a very niche market. Absolutely agree w/ you that it would be good to see an actual policy & it's terms & riders. (Because the player isn't the beneficiary of these policies, they aren't included in the CBA beyond owners not being able to claim their premium payments as expenses when calculating net HRR.)

Didn't Z suffer a concussion or shoulder injury that kept him out of a lot of games that 1st AHL year. Maybe that's what the OP was referring to?

Yeah, this re-relaunch is significantly different than the '14 version in that there are players in "top 9 roles" currently better than the immediate draft picks & they'll hold their roles until the kids are ready to supplant them. The other big difference is though Murray talked of having some prospects that would be NHLers & some that wouldn't & he'd figure it out & trade the ones that might look like they'd make it from the outside, he ended up trading away a lot of high picks before they ever became prospects and he traded away a fair number of prospects that did make it & kept several more that didn't. So far, Adams seems to be following the line Murray claimed he'd follow. He's kept most all his picks and hasn't been trading prospects yet. That latter part will have to change in the next few years or some good prospects will simply walk at 25 as they'll become younger UFAs having never had the chance to play at the top level. Can really see the Sabres consistently having extra draft picks as they start to trade some of the prospects they don't have room for for 2nd & 3rd rounders. Thus keeping that pipeline stocked & rerestocked.

The Adidas sweater sleeves seem a bit longer than normal but not significantly. It's their regular LS shirts that have serious gorilla arms.

As mentioned in my post prior to the one you quoted, the Adidas 52 is the size of a CCM 48. And no idea why, but the Adidas long sleeved regular shirts have ridiculously long sleeves. Germans must have gorilla arms.

Mainly Bowman. He couldn't allow himself to just stay as the GM. He kept going back to coaching too and ended up not doing either job particularly well. When he finally got fired, Sator got them playing well for a while during the 1st part of '87 & it looked like they'd pass the Nordiques and sneak into the playoffs but then the wheels fell off again & they finished the year as they'd started it- dead last.

Great question. Expect that they could if the Q team that holds his rights would agree to that as part of him getting "loaned" there. But have never seen the actual transfer agreement between the NHL & CHL, so don't know for sure.

If 2 of the 3 hit, will be happy. If only 1 of the 3 hit, well, they're below the median for 1st rounders. If all 3 hit, will be surprised and ecstatic. And was fine with the strategy behind the Girgensons draft & the Ristolainen draft. 1/2 the 1st round picks hit. You need C's & D respectively. You've now got a 75% chance at least 1 C sticks and at least 1 D sticks. Still had a 25% chance of neither C having been any good & neither D being any good. (Neglecting the effects of having competence or lacking it in scouting at the time.)