shrader

College guy goes 4 years after becoming draft eligible and he's a free agent. Major junior guy goes 4 years after becoming draft eligible and he's a free agent. That's exactly the same. The only difference is that the major junior guy can re-enter the draft after two years while the college guy cannot. The only thing he could possibly be getting at with those comments is the AHL restriction. If he's got an issue with that, it's time to talk to the CHL about it.

Against guys who may or may not exactly be throwing their best effort out there. It's tough to take too much out of what they do in these summer leagues.

It depends on the player, but if it's someone who has just hit the market and hadn't yet entertained offers in previous years, or course he is going to be responsive when a team comes calling.

I actually already have a bug treatment program in place. It's quarterly and the price isn't bad. They will come in and spot treat for free if you ever have issues and they are doing it at some point today. The spiders are out of control in this area if you don't treat, so it's pretty much a must to do something. The treatment also takes care of crickets and some other random stuff. The caterpillars aren't part of it, but that was a rarity and I just happened to be the unlucky house it seems. They were easy to kill with readily available stuff too, so if they ever come back, it'll be fine. Here's the interesting thing, at least to me, that I've come across now while reading about black widows. Praying mantises love to eat them. Over the past month, we had a mantis hanging out on our back porch. It was out there every day and always in the same area. This past week it was no longer out there. Fastforward a couple days and the widow shows up on the screen door. It's possible, but I can't help but doubt that it's a coincidence. edit: As for the caterpillars, I'm not the least bit worried about them. More than anything, it was impressive to see how quickly they tore up the tree. Nature can do some crazy things.

Over the weekend it was the caterpillars damn near killing my tree. And now I spotted a black widow on my sliding glass door last night. I've been getting a crash course on southern bugs this week. I wouldn't be surprised if all of this came from the builders tearing up all the landscaping of the model homes that are about to be moved into. My goal now is to never actually tell my wife which kind of spider I found on the door and quietly have the bug people come out and treat the house.

It should be interesting when we get to the point where you start hearing about certain guys accepting tryout deals at different training camps. Buffalo is certainly setup for that.

I can't say much about Gallant, but both Hynes in Jersey and Housley here have long histories with USA hockey.

You know, you may be onto something there. He never did say where his hand was while looking at the eclipse.

That view is way too simplistic. It's only applicable this summer and maybe the next year or two. By the time year 5 of that McDavid contract rolls around and average salaries and/or the cap have increased, his contract has stayed the same, but the reference point for those about to sign has shifted upward. Look no further than Duncan Keith's contract for a perfect example of why you can't compare a player today to a contract that was signed in what might as well have been a lifetime ago.

But then who would kill all the rats and do all the other Charlie work?

How do you nearly go with someone when you're dropping the first guy that comes to mind?

It was pretty uneventful here. I'm only a couple hours away from the peak spots in SC, but it didn't get much darker than normal here. It just goes to show you how much of that sun you need to block out in order for it to get dark outside. I think I heard a number around 85% for what we would get here.

It will actually be announced ON the eclipse. Look closely and you'll see it written out.

I haven't clicked on the link, but my initial thought when reading the original post is that people should be taking issue with that Matthews ranking. Your reasoning here is the exact reason why.

Last December? Try December 2000.

On friday I saw two kids from the neighborhood standing on the sidewalk in my side yard picking at stuff on one of my trees. I was going to mess with them a bit by sneaking up and asking them what they're doing, but decided to stay inside (working from home so I should probably actually do some work). I wish I had. Yesterday I was out for a walk and I noticed that the tree looked much thinner than it should. So I decided to go and see exactly what the kids were looking at. There had to be over 100 caterpillars going to town on the leaves (I need to send these things up to Toronto). There were so many that if you got close enough, you could actually hear them eating the leaves. I sprayed the tree and killed them all, but it's got to be close to 75% gone. On the plus side, it looks like a caterpillar warzone out there now, bodies scattered everywhere. The tree is only two years old, hopefully I can get it back to health. I'm going to hit it with some fertilizer later and water it heavily over the next couple weeks.

Except SDS. That guy's a genius and can do whatever he'd like.

I guess that would explain Byron Leftwich. Is there a less intimidating name than Byron?

The only new one I have to add is that the very first name that popped into mind with #3 was Garry Galley. Strangely enough, up until right now when I googled him, I never realized the stupid spelling of his first name.

It's a shame that he's not some 6"5, 230 pound guy. That's what you need to be with a name like that.

Better yet why do we constantly post pictures of the military vehicle when the word is clearly referencing something like a septic tank? Those images would be a bit too disgusting I guess.

I believe that's code for "he got implants".

It always bugs me when I see stuff like this. It's a hockey board, so post your hockey thoughts, whatever they are. Sure, you might not want to get involved in stuff like the advanced analytic discussions, but there's going to be a thread somewhere for just about any type of Sabre fan.

The out of office message one someone's work email right now says that she'll be back on August 185th. What would that be, around 5 months from now?

No distractions for Eichel talks anymore