Taro T

And that same someone wanting O'Reilly gone is a substantial portion of why this nightmare won't end. Don't punt O'Reilly, don't give Reinhart more time to think about how good it would be to be elsewhere, and then Eichel doesn't ask out of here. You'd still have Dahlin to go with them. Give Ullmark a LT offer at the time Reinhart should've gotten one and he likely doesn't bolt either. That's a nice core to be building around. Oh well. Maybe this next try with only altering the players and not those choosing the strategies they'll be attempting to implement will be the charm. (Is it already February 2 again? It seems like it was just yesterday that it was here. And the day before that. And the day before that. And ...)

For the cap, no. Because while stuff like this is pretty easily determined, you can get gray REALLY quickly and once you start trying to say well THIS counts against the cap but THAT doesn't, you get counter examples that look similar to A but were treated like B and it likely ends up ugly. Way easier to just say, we'll figure it out at the end of the season provided you don't have more potentially earnable performance bonus money in total than is allowable and we'll figure that out when you submit the contract to the league for approval. For escrow, yes. So that 20 game bonus will be likely be factored into the escrow calculations pretty early in the season whereas the SC bonus won't factor in at all as all regular salary will have been earned or expected to be earned by the time the last escrow estimate is made. And ALL of that will get factored into the final disbursement back to the players (or from them if the calculations were REALLY off) next summer.

Toews is a special case. He's over 35 and coming off injury. Notice the contract is only for a single year. There are 3 classes of players that can sign contracts which include performance bonuses: Players on ELCs who are allowed to negotiate bonuses for certain listed achievements. (Though the actual bonus itself can be negotiated as long as the total of bonuses if all achieved doesn't put the total earnable salary in any single year of the up to 3 year long ELC years above the rookie cap of ~$3.8MM. There's the rookie salary cap (minus bonuses) and then there's the rookie salary CAP (including performance bonuses.) Players 35 and older can sign contracts with performance bonuses provided the contract is for a single year. Veterans (players w/ 400+ NHL games credited towards pension earnings) that were on IR for at least 100 days in the last season of their most recent SPC contract are also allowed to have earnable performance bonuses in their contract provided the contract is only for 1 season. As long as the player contract doesn't put the player outside an allowable contract (can't be for less than the league minimum without meeting any bonuses and can't put the player over the individual salary threshold should the bonuses be met) then there are essentially no limits on what non-ELC performance bonuses are allowable. (Said essentially because the total of all earnable performance bonuses for those players qualifying for non-ELC performance bonuses can't cause the team to exceed the cap by more than 7.5% of the SC. (This is the team's "performance bonus cushion".)) And if the achievement of bonuses put a team over the cap, they don't get dinged for them in that season they're earned. They count against the team's cap in the next season. E.g. a team with $1MM in cap space has a player earn $2MM in performance bonuses. At the end of the year, the 1st $1MM counts against the cap in the current season and the other $1MM counts against the team cap the following year. (Similar to how when a team buys a player out, the cap hit doesn't all hit in the 1st year of the buyout.)

We shall see whether Bryam still as runway to grow. Byram JUST turned 24 a couple of weeks ago. Personally expect him to still improve this year and likely the next year or 2 as well. D-men usually seem to hit their peak around 26 and then stay there for a while. Which goes back to my big complaint about the trade of Mittelstadt for Byram. We traded Mitts away right at the point in time he was coming into his prime for a player that was still 2-3 years away from his prime. For the love of all things good an holy, Buffalo, stop being a friggin' development program.

And if they keep the pick to try to backfill for Östlund or Helenius, cool. But if they keep the pick and all their prospects, then what is the game plan? See what they can get next off-season when Dahlin and Thompson throw in the towel? Wasn't that the point in the movie where Bill Murray drove off the cliff with the groundhog to see if he could make the nightmare end?

Have said MANY times, personally don't want Peterka traded. BUT if he is going to be traded, bringing back a player that's actually better than him NOW would make it acceptable IMHO. And Robertson IS a better player than Peterka NOW. Will he still be better than him when the Sabres are actually ready to rejoin the NHL? Wtf knows. But if they decide to try to do that this year, the answer will be yes, he still is.

And yet the expectation is that both Peterka and Byram will be ex-Sabres by October.

(In honor of year 31 of the drought.)

Thanks for bringing that up. Was going to say something to that effect but got caught in a meeting. Not that any teams nowadays send fighters out to set the tone or change the momentum, but the Sabres fights ALL seem as being reactionary to somebody having had significant liberties taken and none of them, with the possible exception of Krebs who is a bantam weight at best, seem to have the slightest idea of what they should be doing in a fight. And, if the Sabres weren't getting liberties taken against them, they'd never be in any fights. (Which wouldn't actually be a bad thing. Don't need to see Thompson nor Tuch out for 3 weeks with a broken hand from punching somebody's visor.) Because it seems NOBODY EVER starts a fight because a Sabre took liberties against somebody else's teammate.

IF Quinn is back and isn't part of one of the packages that hopefully shake up the player ranks (considering they don't seem to be making any coaching changes (friggin' morons), can see him getting back on track to the 25-30 goal pace he was on in that injury filled season. Not only can see it, kind of expect it.

Not the Sabres giving him the bridge, the Stars giving him the bridge. The OP didn't see where bringing in Peterka saves Dallas any money.

Depends. They could give him a 3 year bridge and STILL have his rights for 1 additional year at the end of that to give him a LT deal. That would end up cheaper for each of the next 3 seasons than Robertson will be.

They fired the REALLY good coach they had because he got into a public pissing contest with Oettinger. Yes, on really rare occassions BOTH sides of a pissing match get sent packing (Nolan and Muckler being the example that immediately springs to mind). But that is EXTREMELY rare. Far more often, the guy that doesn't get punted ends up a key piece they build around. Don't see any realistic way Oettinger gets traded anytime soon.

Peterka, 9 (or the pick from Byram's exit), and a prospect (hopefully likely a Rosenesque one, not necessarily a Helenius) really does seem to be a realistic package for Robertson. Because it makes sense for both sides.

Tkachuk tore the adductor off the bone and also had a hernia on the same side. And he still played. And played well. It is absolutely AMAZING how tough these guys are. HE should've been OUR GM. Fack.

Watching it on TV doesn't do it justice. That friggin' trophy is SOOOOOOOO polished it LITERALLY seems to glow reflecting the lights in the building. THAT is truly amazing to see in person.

You're really asking this on a hockey board for a team based in the same city as the Buffalo Bills? (Well, same county. And OP is close enough for gubmint work.)

Yes, Dwight, we know. It's why he'll never amount to anything. 🙄 (Not a shot at you. Back in the day, we had a poster that made a VERY big deal about Miller's non-level eyes.)

You stay classy, Evander.

How do you figure? Didn't he get goals 1, 3, 4, and 5?

McDavid and Draisatl have been playing a LOT of hockey this series. Getting scored on by the 1st shot against has to be tremendously deflating.

And if this score holds up; Reinhart has 4 of the Swamp Cats 5 goals but won't get credit for scoring the series winner (this year).

UFA's: Bennett; Marchand; Ekblad; Schmidt; Nosek; Vanecek; and a couple other spare pieces (Sturm, Megna). They have $19MM to sign 7 more players presuming no trades or buyouts. They'll be fine.

Since it's in FLA is it a Rattie?

It ain't Stuart Smiley's fault. He's not good enough; he's not able to do it; and gosh darn it, people don't like him. (Swap Bob and Stuart Smiley (or Pickard) and it's a VERY different series. Sometimes goalies ARE worth $10MM.)