Taro T

The Rat leads the Cats back to the swamps of South FLA.

Who do you think hired the coach who's team nearly pulled off a miracle this past season and ...?

Wtf knows? These are the same idiots that are putting game 3 on a Monday leaving Saturday and Sunday hockey free. If the series goes to 6 games they'll finally have a Saturday night game in this Final. They are pretty much utter and total bozos.

Get 'im @Weave's #. He'll show 'im all the good fishin' spots. (Not the best ones; gotta keep careful watch on those, but he'll share the good ones.) 😉

Yes. And they were in 4th place in their division in a WC spot (by points; they were 9th overall in point %age and made the expanded playoffs that season) when the league stopped playing after 70 or so games. And they won their 1st round series, so the "officially" qualified for the playoffs that year too. So, wth Zito and without Bobrovsky and Panarin they still made the playoffs. Wtihout Zito, they've pretty much been the Sabres.

Just realized one thing about Kekalainen's record in C-Bus. Yes, his teams made the playoffs in 5 of his 1st 7 full seasons as the GM. (From 2013-2020) In August of 2013 he'd hired Bill Zito into their front office. In September 2020, Zito left to become the GM of the Swamp Cats. C-Bus has not made the playoffs since Zito left, including 3 years that Jarmo was still there. And the high water mark of those final 3 years was 81 points. Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, but ... This may not be the droid we are looking for. 😞

May he RIP.

iF DeBoer would go for this (and that is beyond a HUGE IF), expect Ruff would be open to it as he welcomed Andrew Brunette onto his Devils coaching staff while Brunette was between HCing gigs.

Which Rockies? The Hardy Astrom backstopped boys in all primary colors led by Grapes or the nearly MLB team of the same name (and roughly the same caliber of play)?

He was just trying to let his owner know that he'd left half the meal (and thought he could share it with the one of them that was on the job) and more importantly he'd left a lousy tip. Service dogs are nothing if not conscientious to fellow servers. 😉

Really, 8 characters is too long? Guess them Massholes prefer stubbies. Too bad. You could've swapped out one or more of the B's w/ an 8. (Kind of looks like a B and then they REALLY be confused.)

Wonder if you could get BGDGGBGB? They'd probably consider that even more profane.

Betcha if you wanted LFG12 they'd've been fine with it. 😉 And THAT actually WOULD BE profane.

Would be very interested in the "opponent weighted" analytics on whether he's better on the right or left side. The team's 2-4 D when all are healthy (at least prior to Bernard-Docker getting brought in and used primarily with Power) have pretty much all been lefties putting Dahlin on the right side. When he's paired with a righty, he's likely facing the other team's 3rd and 4th lines. A Norris caliber D-man SHOULD eat those guys up for breakfast. If he isn't getting easier matchups when on the left side, well, as Emily Lutella used to say "nevermind."

Is it because the cans with the can weren't impressive enough to have anybody (except possibly @shrader) look at the gif long enough to start reading the can?

Yeah, pretty much. The differentiator seems to be did the attacking player start out in the crease before contact was made by the D-man? If the D-man makes contact w/ the attacker and doesn't clearly propel him away from the goalie; the goalie seems to become fair game. If the attacker is already inside the crease, it's the opposite. Even if the D-man pushes the attacker squarely into his goalie, the goal is almost always coming back for GI. Walman has to realize he's up against Bennett who is going to take any opportunity that he'll give him to mess with Skinner. And the amazing thing about that one is it pretty much resulted in the only other Swamp Cat that would have been guaranteed to have landed on Skinner were he in Bennett's spot on the 1st goal ending up being the scorer of the 2nd goal.

Not that it's here nor there, but the game in Buffalo is actually the 2nd game of the series. The 1st game is 2 days before in Cleveland. Then the series final 2 games are in Canada.

Because he's in the media center of the hockey universe and Tuch plays for a team that is simply bad, not absolute bottom of the league bad, and nobody bothers thinking about anybody on that team when it comes time for end of the season awards. The voters remember Matthews name because he's talked about quite a bit. When's the last time any of them gave any thought to Alex Tuch? Most likely is was the last time the Loafs played in Buffalo. And he was forgotten as quickly as TO left the rink. How was Ovechkin voted into the end of season All Star team as both a LW and a RW one year?

Since Brandon and Berchtold got shown the door, they've been pretty tight lipped at 1BD and SHKIIIP. And with players & staff (at those that haven't been canned by teams not afraid to can people in the front office/hockey departments) and staff still under contract until the end of this month, there aren't a lot of sources besides player agents to be dropping names. It isn't likely a rival GM is going to be too aggressive saying they're interested in a particular player when he's under contract to another team unless a deal is imminent; tampering provisions and all.

STILL to this day believe the actual reason the Pegulas wanted O'Reilly gone wasn't because of his sads at losing his love for hockey. It was because they were embarrassed that just about the very 1st thing their 3 big prize of that off-season when the instruction went from tank to try to win (to go with Eichel & Lehner) was drive his truck into a Timmy Ho's. Rich folks can take most anything you throw at them (:eyeroll:) but they really hate getting embarrassed. And they had several GOOD pieces there. But they really needed to get rid of a horrible HC and they did (with one nearly as horrible, d'oh!) and they were about to add Dahlin to supplement the core they already had in place. But instead of adding to the core, they replaced a piece that was in his prime at the time for one that finally is in his prime. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Nah, may be old, but ain't anywhere's near PA old. 😉

We do agree that the playoff drought would've ended. How much more than that they'd accomplish is pretty much impossible to say. Were Botterill still the GM, and in a world where he doesn't punt O'Reilly (as he did with ownership's blessing at a minimum if not their prodding) he very likely would've been retained longer, doubt the team would be a true contender though do expect they'd've won at least a series or 2 by now. It's a team that would have a perennial Selke candidate on it, a perennial Norris candidate on it, a Vezina candidate on it, and as it turns out 2 other F's that can play pretty responsibly in their own end now that they're actually adults. But ownership very well may have tired of Botterill. Thing is, with all that on the roster, you aren't compelled to move Kevyn Adams into that role when Kim and Terry decide it's time to move on from J-Botts. If we get lucky and they tire of him when they did, Bill Zito is still available, and considering he was interested 3 years earlier and the Sabres "tank fruit" are finally ripening there's no reason to believe he wouldn't still be intertested in the job. (We know he likes a BUNCH of Sabres from that era.) It's all what ifs and conjecture and there really isn't much point to the exercise, but not much else going on now as we have absolutely no idea what Kekalainen is recommending to Adams and likely won't until close to the end of the month when the draft finally arrives. (And am VERY much looking forward to the day when the draft is something that we don't really put a whole lot of energy nor interest in as picks in the 20's and 30's definitely aren't expected to help out for at minimum 2 more years and more likely 3 or 4 more years.

No "perfect world" at all there. Well, O'Reilly handing the keys to somebody else the night he decided to create a new drive thru at Timmy Ho's, but that's the only item necessary to let the rest of it play out. And, does it REALLY take a perfect world to have a decision that seemingly insignificant at the time to have been made differently. (And yes, that decision could've had much more tragic results, but it didn't.) Btw, they HAD a goalie - Ullmark. One more key piece allowed to simply walk out the door. And, yes, that core would need players added around it. Obviously. But that core about 2 years ago would've been in a position to be winning a round or 2 and when you have that who knows how the chips may fall through the rest of it. And had it actually been allowed to play together it should've been able to at least get to the dance earlier than that. Remember, winning the lottery after Housley's last year gave Botterill the ability to "pivot" so we never saw O'Reilly and Dahlin play together as teammates. But, literally, the reason this team is on a 14 year playoff drought is because they not only decided to tank but decided after that to switch direction at minimum 3 times and arguably at least 4 times and with each major reset you take a couple of steps back before you can just get back to where you were.

Truly don't expect him to make any trades for prospects and picks. (Unless, say it's Rosen for a D prospect that is on that same ~1 year away timeline.) Ruff and Kekalainen aren't going to be on board for any sort of a tear down now. There aren't going to be any roster players traded away for just prospects this summer.

You'd better be able to get a 2W and 6D for Byram. But if all you're expecting back that's useful is a 2W, then why not add a prospect or other sweetner to the deal and get a top 4D as part of the package? They don't need any more bottom pairing D and should be able to find as many as they may want in FA.