shrader

We may like to think that this is a Sabre problem, and to some extent, it is. But attendance across the league is down too, and I'm guessing you'll see similar numbers in other leagues over the last few years. The average attendance has dropped from last year for 21 out of the 31 teams. It's early, so those numbers can catch up. There's also the issue of what numbers actually get reported in each building, but either way, whatever they're reporting, it's down. A lot of the numbers are fairly small, so for the hell of it, I'll look at those with a change of +/- 1000 fans per game. You have 8 teams who decreased by over 1000 fans per game vs. only 2 teams that increased by over 1000. I'm not sure if there are any new arenas or if there were any renovations that drastically changed the capacity of any arenas, but I doubt that would explain away all these drops. And one completely unrelated note while looking at the attendance figures. Minnesota has played 10 home games and 20 road games so far. That must suck for them.

When it comes to depreciation, $120k banana has officially knocked cars from the top of the list.

Impressive accuracy? Half the teams in this league make the playoffs. On average, half the teams in the league will win over half of their games. So the teams that win are more likely to make the playoffs? That’s truly shocking stuff. What we’ve created is a new way to say that the win column is the most important. We’re one step away from solving world hunger.

10 minutes of 3-on-3, after that, it's a tie.

The Sabres have never won a "President's Trophy". That's a scientific fact.?

I'm not completely sure where you're going, but please tell me it's a ginger joke.

I love your description here. You may be the first person I've seen to be on the same page as me in saying that the bonus point actually goes to the OT/shootout winner, not the loser.

When are the playoff teams determined? At the end of the season. So the only column in the standings that matters at that point is the points column (other than tie breakers). So if one team has more points than the other, aren't they doing better?

It's a completely arbitrary cutoff though. You've just shown that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The points per game metric though, is identical to the actual standings. The top 3 teams in each division in points per game always make the playoffs. Then the top team in points per game out of the remaining teams in the conference also makes the playoffs. Tie breakers will be used in rare cases, but these criteria are met 100% of the time. So if you want to talk about literalists, points per game literally does decide who makes the playoffs. So yeah, if you want to push for a different metric, that's fine. But I'll stick with the one that the actual standings use.

It's not an elbow.

If he holds course, I can't see any reason why the team wouldn't qualify Johansson. They need some bodies in the system, but they will also need a non-ELC goalie to expose in the expansion draft in 2021. Unless they surprise us and add a veteran starter, he's that guy.

You'll find that I pretty much always refer to a player using their actual name. Just a personal preference really. I'll make exceptions for special cases like calling Phil Kessel "lefty".

I think the longterm question on this one comes down to whether or not they think they can develop Johnsson enough up to the level of NHL backup. He's still only 24, so he has a chance. If they think he has that potential, he needs all the AHL time he can get right now. I'm not sure if him splitting time evenly right now fits with that projection or not. Luukkonen* is going to get his shot whether or not he spends the entire time this year in the ECHL. *I'm officially starting to focus on that spelling now. It's going to take time for that one to set in.

Do we really know whether they're traveling fans or just relocated fans? Lately I've had the impression that in most cases, it's the latter.

A team 10 games below your .500 cutoff was 1 game away from the western conference finals last year.

I really don't know what to make of this now that the Bills and Sabres are the same organization. Does the current success of the Bills give the average fan more trust in the Sabres as well? I would think that the average fan would at least think right now that Pegula is in fact capable of hiring the right guy. I don't mean to suggest that this will translate to butts in the seats, but it should at least have some impact on the public opinion of the chances of the Botterill/Krueger regime.

Late bloomer becomes AHL regular. It's a tale as old as time.

I think injury is the only way he leaves the ECHL. He needs the playing time no matter where he is and each team already has enough bodies. The only real mystery on the depth chart was Johansson and he looks to have earned his spot up to this point.

So we're losing him to Boston already? It figures. Well canadians is known for their friendliness.

Yeah, the clip earlier doesn't really show me enough of the play to know exactly what happened. Scanning through the box score though, I see that he did get penalized for an illegal hit to the head. I think that will be enough right there to get him a suspension. I'm not really sure how they usually escalate the suspensions for these incidents, but with it being only his second game back, I would hope that earns him one or two more games than they would usually hand out for a second offense.

I know one team that will get votes. Here's a hint: it ends with "a-b-r-e-s".

Yeah, that was my thought. He could get the book thrown at him if that connected. So the hits themselves are pretty different, but the timing could not be any worse for Cernak. If the league finds it to be illegal, he's getting a good amount of free time with his family for christmas.

Thanks for the reminder. I need to cancel Netflix. I'm not really sure what they have to offer at this point at their price. I can always pick it back up short term when something like Ozark puts out another season, but they really don't bring much to the table right now.

So the answer is yes. How on earth did they settle with that one? I mean, at least they didn't go with Maneater.

And can you imagine the "state run media" complaints that we'd be flooded with?