nfreeman

@GASabresIUFAN — it would be great if you’re right about Mitts, but you are taking the victory lap insanely early here. Mitts looked better last year in the last 30 games of another lost season than the useless blob he had been previously throughout his career and he put up some points in garbage time. That all that happened.

Good.

Ya think?

Please keep all commentary regarding political figures in the politics club. Thanks.

Dude -- exulting in anyone contracting a potential deadly illness is a pretty bad look.

No -- I'm in a pretty evenly divided congressional district that went blue in the last election. But my point was that WNY is blue just like NYC is -- Erie County voted blue in the last election by 57% to 42%, which is a pretty wide margin. I'd be curious to know when the last time Erie County didn't vote blue. Also, FWIW, plenty of those bumper stickers and flags exist in NYC too. I guess I have generally thought of WNY as being primarily Erie County, since it's a pretty large county that is only about 25% located in the city of Buffalo. You're certainly right that the rural counties west of Syracuse (if that's how you think of WNY) are much redder than Erie County.

Well, I’ve spent about 90% of the last 19 months in a town of 3000 people in upstate NY. What is the political divide you are referring to? Certainly there are many differences between WNY and NYC but I guess I don’t see how politics is one of them.

I’m not aware of a political divide between NYC and WNY. Both areas are quite blue and have been so for a while.

Is anyone who doesn’t live in WNY getting the bills game? I am getting the other game on NFL network here.

As I've said previously, I'd predict that he'll struggle initially in the playoffs, but by his 2nd playoff season he'll find his stride and play pretty well.

The pre-injury Tarasenko was an elite first-line RW who was also one of the most exciting players in the NHL. But he's played 24 games and 10 games in the last 2 seasons, has a possibly permanently damaged shoulder. He's got 2 years left on his contract at $9.5MM per year. It won't happen, but Thomas, who is a pretty solid young center, and a healed Tarasenko with something to prove and showing the way to the young Russians coming up in the system, plus picks would be a great return for Eichel.

Again -- you keep saying this, but there is no change in the underlying facts. If Eichel gets the new surgery without the Sabres' approval and it doesn't work, he's lost $50MM. He's not going to take that risk -- at least not anytime soon, and definitely not this summer. He wants either the Sabres or whoever trades for him to take the risk. My guess is that he thinks it's pretty likely that the arbitrator would say he can have the standard fusion surgery but not the disk replacement surgery, and he wants the disk replacement surgery -- and once the arbitrator issues that ruling, Jack's position in arguing for the disk replacement is much weaker.

Well, to really judge this or any other situation, we'd need all of the facts, and we of course don't have anything remotely approaching a complete picture. I don't think it's rash to think the Sabres screwed up the medical team hire, especially since (i) they've screwed up a lot of other hires and (ii) they've since replaced that medical team. OTOH, in light of the statements here supporting the current medical team, I'm inclined to believe that they've corrected that mistake and now have a good group in place. Also, if Lehner didn't do so on that podcast, it would've been nice if he had credited the Sabres (as @Brawndo pointed out) for digging him out of the abyss.

Good call. I didn’t realize Rivet was referring to total savings for the contract and not per year.

This is good info, but I think the key point is that Florida players must pay state taxes to the states in which they play road games — so NY, Michigan and Massachusetts for divisional opponents. NY and Massachusetts are high tax states, while Michigan is relatively low. Does anyone know whether the players pay taxes to the road jurisdictions for games in Canada? In any case, the state tax rate paid by FLA players is well above zero. If there are 41 road games in states with an average income tax rate of 5%, those players are effectively paying 2.5% in state income taxes. That’s still a nice savings compared with 8.5% in WNY, but it’s $60K per $1MM in salary — so $390K for a $6.5MM salary — not over $1MM as Rivet apparently claimed.

I appreciate the support for the Sabres, but there’s a lotta closing ranks going on in here, and it should be remembered that the organization being defended has been a complete poop show for a decade.

I agree with much of this, and I like KA, but criticizing him is far from ludicrous IMHO. He was GM of a team that finished DFL, and he certainly wasn’t trying to achieve that outcome. He also appears to have neglected the most critical position on the team 2 years in a row. Yes indeed. I agree with much of this, but if KA doesn’t bring in a credible goalie by opening night, I think there will be I way to avoid the conclusion that he is tanking, which I find unacceptable and, like last time, a stupid and shortsighted plan that is highly likely to keep the team in the basement for another generation. If that happens I will probably do what I ultimately did with the Bills — not turn my back on them entirely, and watch the odd game, but pull back quite a bit in terms of time and emotional investment, and not plan my days around watching them. A rebuild is fine, but they have to try to win along the way. Trying to lose is freaking terrible.

Good thread @bob_sauve28, but make it a poll, eh?

Good hockey talk here boys. IMHO, if they don’t bring in another goalie who is more credible than the current group, they are clearly tanking, which I will not be OK with. Yes. Vogl reported this.

Oh goody. The Prius of NHL defensemen.

Ugh. Talk about a depressingly plausible prediction.

USA vs France tonight at 10:30 pm for the gold in basketball!

Awesome.

Serious question: Portillo will be a junior at Michigan in the Fall. If he sticks around for his senior season, he becomes a UFA, correct? Given the state of the Sabres, plus the fact that there are 2 other young goalies in their system, there would seem to be a real risk that he bails on the Sabres like Cal Peterson did, innit?

And the goalie!