shrader

With this team today? I just want to get them into the playoffs. To miss out on them after the 10 game run, they may never wash the stink of defeat off of this group. That's not to say that bigger move couldn't be made right now, I just don't think it's all that likely to find the right one available until the offseason.

I can't blame any comedian who has taken that approach. All it takes is one person to be offended today and it hits the fan. We're very slowly stamping out any personality or individuality. These things tend to change over times, so hopefully this culture you're talking about does a 180 at some point (ok, maybe not a 180, but how about a 45 or something).

I'd settle for a ground rule double. They need something and it's not going to drain the team of all of their ammo for the future.

Apparently the Hurricanes are trying to push hard for one. The owner truly is clueless. Does anyone really think the league would put one of these events in a market that is consistently one of the worst draws in the league, 5 straight years now in the bottom 3?

The point was that we have the what, but we are still pretty much clueless on the why. I figured that was obvious from the post, but I guess not.

In other words, we still have no idea what's going on.

At 6"7, 250, you'd hope that he'd at least plug up the meat grinder.

That should pretty much be the standard time frame for any pick beyond a certain point in the first round (a sliding scale depending on draft depth). The only others who might escape from that time table would be the older player drafted in later rounds. That's the pure torture that follows people who like to dive so deeply into the draft, it takes an eternity to actually see these guys take the next step.

I'm all for shuffling lines if it can generate offense. Zemgus and Larsson's primary goal out there is to shut down the opposing team, so yeah, I don't see where splitting them up adds anything here. If anything, all I can see with this is that they're distributing the defense across the bottom 3 lines. I don't see it kick starting anything.

You're free to visit that thread instead.

It's also pretty clearly the biggest Sabre-related topic right now. I know some may want to start 5 new threads a day, but this is still a very active subject.

I'll take it a step further. We know absolutely nothing about anything in this situation. You've got incredibly guarded words from Housley and random internet speculation. To suggest that Berglund doesn't have a leg to stand on is a bit crazy given that lack of knowledge. And then add on top of everything the fact that we don't have the slightest clue how this grievance process works if he does choose to explore it. The whole thing is incredibly murky.

I like the ones like Jaro Halak where technically they were a Sabre but not really. Best of all? Stephane Beauregard.

The trip plays on a loop in this link. The stick clearly hits the left skate, but it's the upward motion from Skinner that I have a hard time interpreting. The best I can come up with is a shift in balance due to the thigh to thigh contact. To me, the whole think looks like he tried to reach to the puck through Barkov's legs and it all went wrong. That's typically what happens if you try to make a play through anyone's legs. I chalk the whole thing up to bad timing, but the call on the ice fit it perfectly, tripping.

I just got an email from Directv offering the sunday ticket max for the remainder of the season for $102.96. A quick google search tells me the price for the full season was $395.94. Wow, thanks Directv and NFL for such an incredibly discounted rate on your offer of two weeks of games.

Ok, so that's your price tag for a first. That still leaves out the prospect side of the conversation. In a world where a fairly insignificant trade package lands you Jeff Skinner (granted there's a difference between offseason and midseason prices), the pool of available trades is much deeper when you focus on ever arrow in the quiver instead of just one.

I've gotten the "absolutely no" vibe from a few, including you. But fair enough, I'm glad to see what you've said here.

And he was.

And that trade is another reason why we need to pump the brakes a bit on the idea that seems to be prevalent around here that we absolutely cannot trade away any of our picks/prospect right now. There can be deals out there that make sense both short and long term.

It goes a little further back than that though. His walking away from the money was whatever the original suspendable offense was.

Sure, whatever they need to add, it's always going to take some work and luck to find the right piece for the team. It gets a little easier to do that without Berglund's money hitting the cap. Options are available that didn't previously exist.

That is instead replaced with a significant amount of long term cap relief. After next year, it comes down to the difference between O'Reilly and Thompson's contracts, so we'll probably be talking close to $6 million. I'd count that as a significant return. Maybe it's not one they wanted/were counting on, but that's what it is now.

It's kind of interesting that it has to go through waiver in order to terminate the contract. Obviously no one is going to claim him, but it's interesting that they allow for the possibility that one team is cool with violation of contract while another is not. Yeah, I know rules are rules, but it kind of makes me laugh a bit.

I probably left out some words as I typically go for short posts. I was never calling that play a dive. Skinner is a guy who will sell something for the purpose of drawing a penalty. Selling, diving, embellishing, turtling... it all falls under the same umbrella ultimately, things done to draw a penalty. That's a big part of Skinner's game. This particular instance yesterday? I have absolutely no problem with it.

I wouldn't be surprised by that actually. I haven't been in that building in ages, but it was something that would always drive me crazy at BU games. They would never show an anti-BU replay in that building. Goals scored by the opposing team? No replay. It always seemed incredibly stupid to me. Depending on your seats, there were plenty of times where you weren't sure how a goal was cored. Then there's all those times where you'll see the players watching the replay as kind of an instant scouting report. By cutting out those replays, you're actually holding back the team itself sometimes.