nfreeman

Bergeron is also a much better player today than Chara was when the Bruins let him go.

Well, here's a somewhat non-schadenfreude reason to care: if Eichel really is bad medicine, then KA made the right call in identifying him as such and sending him away. That would reflect quite favorably on KA's judgment, as well as on his guts in seeing it through, since the conventional wisdom would be to hang on to a guy with Eichel's talent. And it would be nice to know that our GM, for once, is pretty sharp.

This is reasonable, but at the same time, this is a thread about VGK firing their coach. It's also reasonable that in a thread about the fallout from a disappointing VGK season in which they traded for the Sabres' former franchise player, who left here on bad terms and then criticized the fans when he returned, and for whom the franchise stupidly threw away a decade, there will be some speculation about whether that player is bad medicine.

You are certainly right that proving a negative is tricky to impossible, and that many here have an ax to grind with Eichel. And as others have noted upthread, the Sabres were highly dysfunctional for Jack's entire time here, so it's unfair to pin everything on him. But still -- there's more than a little smoke indicating that he's not a great team guy, and Vegas' record got significantly worse immediately upon him joining the lineup, and when he's on a team, coaches get fired. And we're here on the internet in the offseason speculating as to whether he's a big problem for his teams. Is it really unreasonable to ask whether anyone's seen any positive indicators about his team spirit?

I wouldn't do this, as the owners are essentially defrauding Airbnb -- and if they are unscrupulous with Airbnb, they will conduct themselves similarly with others.

Serious question: is there any evidence, circumstantial or otherwise, that Eichel is NOT a destructive, toxic presence? I know a number of his former teammates have spoken in support of him, but I kinda think they're just following the rules, and there are also plenty of his former teammates who have spoken negatively about him. Has he ever been part of a positive team situation? For his 1 year at BU, he led the team in scoring as a freshman and they made it to the NCAA title game, so presumably that was a great season. Does anyone know whether that was regarded as a close-knit team? He put Eichel's face on it though -- so he improved the meme.

I don't think it was obvious, or conclusive. Separately: brutal loss for Pittsburgh, which led this series 3-1, and had 2-0 leads in games 5 and 6 before losing both. They also led this game in the 3rd and were 6 minutes from advancing, but the Rangers tied it and then won on a PPG in OT. Still, I'll shed no tears for them. Sabres fans of a certain age may remember losing to Pittsburgh in OT of game 7 in the 2nd round of the 2001 playoffs, Dominik Hasek's last game as a Sabre. The Sabres led the series 3-2 and were winning game 6 late in the 3rd, but then Mario Lemieux, in his first season back after missing 3 seasons with Hodgkins disease (a type of cancer), tied it with less than 2 minutes to go. Pittsburgh then won game 6 in OT to force game 7. The Sabres led that game in the 3rd also, but Pittsburgh tied it with about 11 minutes left and then Darius Kasparitis won it for them in OT. Hasek forced a trade to Detroit that summer, and the Sabres missed the playoffs for the next 3 seasons. The 2004-05 canceled season would've been the 4th season post-Dom, and then the Sabres returned to the playoffs in 2005-06. The best team in the NHL that season was Ottawa, whose goalie was...Dominik Hasek.

TB going full Alamo mode. Vasilevsky is playing great.

TIL that Jim Lorentz's grandson, Steven Lorentz, is a 4th-line winger for Carolina.

So Carolina was up 1-0 close to the end of the 1st, when Taylor Hall took a really dumb 4-minute penalty: Carolina scored on the PP early in the 2nd to make it 2-0. Smart play, Taylor!

I haven't watched much of Carolina vs. Boston, but it looks like Swayman took the starting role from Ullmark in game 3 and has started each game since then, including game 7 today.

I wouldn't call this awesome as I'm not a fan of the band, but @Sabres Fan in NS might:

Awesome. Thanks. I thought so too. That should be a suspension.

Well, I'm glad that's settled!

Roger, Roger. Welcome to both of you!