Taro T

Wonder if the band's name might've hosed them in much the same way the Payola$ had issues getting radio play in the States at the height of the payola scandal in the record industry.

The 2 goals he was responsible for at the time the post was made for 1 thing. What does Ruff and management have against them? They're the ones that sent your boy back to the A.

Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum Runnin' around robbin' banks all whacked off of Scooby snacks. ba-dum ba-dum

That's quite possible. But they were practicing Metsa with Byram. Kesselring was working on the 4th pairing with Bryson.

No idea. But it seems a fairly common practice under Ruff. Guys coming back from injury seem to get a lighter workout than those that have been healthy even when the plan is to play them in the next game. Could be as simple as letting the coaches make sure that they're getting worked into the rotation no more than the pitch count they'd decided for that guy.

How much more actual practice time would he get playing Saturday rather than Tuesday? They presumably have a real practice today. Tomorrow they have a morning game day skate. Wednesday they travel (or do they fly out late Tuesday after the BJ game?). Thursday game day morning skate. Friday - travel (see Wednesday's comment). Saturday game day morning skate. Suppose that could get him more back into the rhythm; but it won't really gain him much practice time. Would much rather they wait a couple of weeks to get him back inbetween the pipes; though that's likely a pipedream.

iF they are bound and determined to give UPL one of the next 3 starts (personally not completely convinced of that), they have to give him C-Bus. That is going to be the easiest of the 3 tests (when crowds are factored in along with talent of opponent). Friendly confines; no Ovechkin. Am hoping for Lyon - Ellis - Lyon with the B's game being a tossup between riding Lyon all week and giving Ellis the other start he's earned.

Wow. Would've guessed all of the others combined were a smidge less than his contract. Because even Lyon is well under $2MM/year.

Helps explain why they were the league laughing stock pre-AFL merger.

If you saw someone on the street wearing just the shirt, you'd wonder which EPL soccer team they were a fan of.

So, he had the stats to go along with the eye test that he was causing them trouble. 🍺

Is the question what we'd do or what we expect Adams to do? Expect Adams will roll with the 3 headed monster for a month or 2; but doubt that Ruff gives either of the 2 backups much work. Hopefully Ellis gets more of it than UPL but don't have a good feel for which one will get the bulk of the ones Lyon doesn't get. Personally, would keep UPL on the big squad as the 3rd goalie until he either gets back to form and then would give him A game to see where he's at or until they have to risk putting a guy they don't want to lose through waivers as guys come back from IR at which point he'd get waived to Ra-cha-cha because honestly don't see anyone trading for him with his current deal and would be shocked if anyone made a claim on him. (Presuming you need to punt him to not risk losing somebody else on the 23 man roster after IRs start to get healthy) Let him split time with Levi or backup Levi in Ra-cha-cha until/ unless Ellis shows he's not ready to be the backup on the big team. Should that occur, reevaluate. Should UPL play too well to stay in Ra-cha-cha, then try shopping him again when he might have some value. And in ANY case, get him a sports psychologist or a life coach or whatever you want to call someone to help him get out of his own head on the ice. You've got too much money invested in him to just let him waste away, or even worse, to torpedo another season showing some potential because you don't want to just waste the money by not playing him.

Hoecht seemed disruptive though not sure he had much in the way of personal stats. Never noticed the other guy. But Eddie O, until he broke again, Bosa, and Epinesa all were getting the personal stats. Expect Hoecht was a big part of that.

Glad to see you're on the 0.600 pace per a set of games segment team. Personally like to look at it in 5 game segments; but poe-tay-toe pah-tah-toe. Take 6 points every 5 games or 12 points every 10 games. Get to 96 points through 80 games and expect you'll need 3 points out of the last 4 which puts you over that magical 0.600 NHL threshold; but you can probably get away with only 2 of those last 4 points. (And there've been a lot of years that you can get by with less and MAYBE you'll be able to do so again; but shoot for 96 through 80 and 99 through 82 and you are almost guaranteed to be in the dance.) Win Tuesday and then figure you have to go 3-1-1 over the next 5 to be able to just go 3-2-0 all the rest of them. One other thing that's good about looking at 5 game segments rather than 10 is even if you've gotten ahead of the pace; look to win 3 of the next 5. Always look to win 3 of your next 5 unless you're behind the pace you need in which case getting 6 of the next 10 points in the minimum acceptable outcome and know you've really got to do a bit better than that. It's a doable mindset. Getting to 6 of the next 10 points keeps an urgency (well, sure we just dropped 4 in a row, but all we need is a 6 game winning streak and we're back to good vs we just dropped 2 in a row; we need the next 3 and let's start with this one) without seeming too daunting. Winning 6 of the next 10 might seem a slough; but just winning 3 out of 5, easy peazy. (Even though in reality they're the exact same thing.) Should they get the win Tuesday (and they SHOULD), they've got 14 5 game segments plus the 2 bonus games at the end to get that 1 point they're behind pace made up. They've only got 7 10 game segments plus the 2 bonus games to make it up. One other way to look at it which is a slightly tougher pace, but builds in some cushion to the 0.600 pace is win 2 of every 4 road games (or 5 of 10, or whatever segment you like) and win 3 of every 4 at home. (You actually only need to go 3-1-1 every 5 (-7-3-0 every 10) at home if you're going 2-2-1 every 5 on the road (5-5-0 every 10); but 3 of 4 is easy to think of and work toward and you get 10 of those segments (plus 1 bonus game) to get there.

And see the source of this kid's confusion. When I said if they believe in UPL they should've given him the starter's net in practice tomorrow and the game on Tuesday, meant in a world where Ellis got the start last night. Not in a world where Georgiev or somebody else got that start. So, when you said they should give the next one to Lyon, somehow read that as they should've given the next one to Lyon from the perspective of Saturday AM. D'oh!!! And while was leaning towards giving Ellis Tuesday's start and then Lyon Thursday and Saturday; would rather go Lyon, Ellis, Lyon (and if he gets little enough work on Tuesday, run Lyon, Lyon, Lyon).

Ah, thanks. And yeah, go Lyon, Ellis, Lyon (C-Bus, B's, Caps).

Eh, could make sense. The team would be leaving for TO around 11PM and have to go through customs. He wouldn't get a full night's sleep riding the bus with the team. And they'd apparently already made the decision to have UPL ride the bench that game. Why not let him go up early and get a good night's sleep when they don't have a reason to not let him get it? And the game was early. So, he wouldn't get his full day of ritual in anyhow if he came with the team.

If Lyon felt he'd be good to go, sure. But almost postive the plan was for him to not even dress yesterday. So, you're asking a guy that's 2 months shy of 33 to go from not planning on playing at all to getting the start about 8 hours before the game. ST probably is the best option; but what are the odds he tweaks something with not having gone through his normal full night before through day of preparation? Am not risking it unless Bales and Lyon are both 100% with that plan. If they are, yes, go Lyon. But expect they weren't both there.

Playing UPL was reasonable for the ST but a poor choice for the LT. If we all know UPL is a head case, surely those working at SHKIII Plaza know it as well. He has played exactly 1 game that matters (and that only mattered at the minor league level) and hasn't practiced with the big team yet during the RS. There was little to no chance that he'd've been in the right mental place to believe he had the situation under control; and it turns out that was how it played out. He played slow and he played small. Which is how he plays when he's not sure of himself. It was smart to not play Lyon. Will accept that they didn't want to pull Levi up especially after having played the night before (though in college they ALWAYS played 2 days in a row so it's not like he's never done that before). So, as much as this kid hates the idea, to keep from messing with UPL's head, they should've pulled Georgiev up even though they quite likely weren't going to get the 1 point either. IF they believe UPL can be redeemed (and it's pretty clear they do, or at minimum did prior to last night, and doubt they changed their opinion in 1 night); they should've given him the starter's net in Monday's practice and the game against the BJs like the plan was originally. And personally, would've kept him down in Ra-cha-cha for the full 2 week conditioning stint to get his head in as good a place as it could be. But that horse had already left the barn. Though short stints, UPL has gotten out of his own head, even for 2 months that 1 time. But he's always needed to be their only legit option in net and he's needed to trust his hips won't explode if he goes full out and he's needed to have management and teammates showing him the love. None of that was the case last night. (They likely were talking him up; but everybody knows that at least for now, the net is Lyons when he's able to go.) Will be pleasantly surprised if UPL does manage to get out of his own head again this season barring Lyon injury.

Their rarely having early leads under Granato isn't true? Don't know if your stat is correct or not, but will give you the benefit of the doubt it is for sake of discussion. Donny coached them for 274 games. You've got them having a lead going into the 3rd 68 times. That's having a lead heading into the 3rd just under 25% of the time. How seldom does it have to happen to be considered "rare?" Under Donny they were rarely ready to go to start the game. He did have them play better in the 3rd (and playing well in the 3rd is truly important, but so is showing up to start the game) but they were regularly behind the 8 ball by then and score effects are real especially when a good team doesn't take a bad team seriously.

They never blew 3rd period leads because they rarely had leads before then. They were awful in the 1st under Granato (especially hos last year) and bad in the 2nd throughout his tenure. They had to pour it on at the end to get their W's. Way easier to protect a lead for 4 minutes than for 40.

Whatevs. Haven't bothered finding the tablet's keyboard from the suitcases and the little hunt & peck keyboard doesn't just suck it also autocucumbers a LOT.

Someone here posted when UPL came back up that the Sabres had a plan to give each goalie 1 game of these 3. And guess it makes sense to have UPL as the backup in both Loaf games to get him back to a "normal" NHL situation. And if Ellis really couldn't go tonight, it makes sense to give UPL the game. Better than risking an injury/ exhaustion to Lyon and you weren't likely getting Levi from Cleveland to TO in a handful of hours before the early start. Am glad they got the lower point (that didn't happen in this sort of a situation last year), but they had a real chance to convert a 0-3 start into a 6-4 start which is exactly what they need for playoffs. Doubt they give up on UPL immediately. But he has to be on a short leash, and the team HAS given up on him before on a few occassions. Could see him in Ta-cha-cha legitimately by Thanksgiving, if not sooner should the rest of the squad get healthy and he not get his head out of his bippy. And, yeah, he gave up 3 bad goals, but he easily could've given up 8 if TO didn't shoot every other chance just wide. Play Lyon or Ellis vs C-bus, win in trip 2 to Beantown & give Lyon the Caps game. And if Ellis IS legitimately going to miss time, flip Levi & UPL and hope the Blues return the favor when UPL is on waivers.

2nd goal was horrible too. Should've moved his body towards the post & not just his leg. 3 bad goals in a game they lose in OT. Did they name him the 1st star? They should've, he was their MVP & without him, they'd've lost all 4 points this weekend.

8 years from now, give or take a couple of months. Was in the Charlotte Airport today & toyed with trying to change flights and get a ticket, but it was a LONG (but fun) week. Plus there were a couple of issues w/ the house when we got back. So, probably good that our plans didn't change. Go Bills.