nfreeman

What does this mean?

Interesting. It could certainly be a precursor to a sale of one (or both) of the teams, or at least a move intended to make it easier to do so. It could also be as simple as eliminating redundancies -- if they are going to limit their operations to the 2 teams, a parent umbrella organization, and its executives and employees, probably isn't needed. It does seem like this, along with the recent announcement that arena improvements are in the offing, plus a rising salary cap and a (hopefully!) team on the rise, and of course Kim's health situation, make a sale in the next couple of years more likely. We'll see.

I agree -- I think unless he gets an extension offer he really likes, he's ready to take his shot in UFA.

I think it's pretty clear that Pesce wants top dollar. If he's not willing to give Carolina a hometown discount, he's not going to do so for the Sabres. Which begs the question: what can he reasonably expect as a high-quality, top 3ish defensive defenseman who is turning 29 in November and whose career high is 30 pts? Orlov's scoring #s aren't much better than Pesce's, and Orlov just got $7.75M per year, but only for 2 years. Parayko has similar scoring #s -- he just got $6.5MM x 8 years. So I'd guess Pesce wants at least $7MM per year x 6 years and wouldn't agree to an extension with the Sabres for much less than that in either AAV or term.

Here's the google translation of the obituary: I hate to say it, and I hope I'm just misinterpreting the translation, but based on this it looks like Gilbert and Carmen lost a child at some point. Awful. RIP Carmen and God bless her family.

Such a great bit. I still don't know how he knew where they were from.

You are free to dislike him -- he's provided ample reason to do so -- but we need to deal in facts here. Last season he had a major injury and fell off the table. The season before, at age 33, he had 92 pts (14th in the NHL!) in 78 games for a crappy team with a 56% FF% and a 54.5% XGF%. It's quite possible the surgery doesn't take and he never gets his wheels back. If he does, though, he's a major weapon who can score it and pass it at an elite level, with a ton of playoff experience. And he'd be playing in his hometown, trying to help the franchise turn the page from an awful, misbegotten era to an exciting new one. You want a loud, raucous, sold-out arena that creates a real home-ice advantage? Here's one way to help get there. If he's healthy, it's a no-brainer IMHO.

If we get to New Year's and he's all the way recovered and healthy, and willing to sign a 1-year deal, I think he'd be a great addition. But both of those conditions need to be met. He was a shell of himself last spring with the Rangers and pretty ineffective.

Logically this seems like it has to be right. Helle's not re-signing there so they need to get whatever they can get for him and move on -- and no one is going to give them a rich package for a guy who is demanding a huge contract or else leaving in FA in 1 year. Still, they did make the playoffs last year. If no one offers a first-rounder or a very good prospect, I could easily see them deciding that another playoff run is worth more to the franchise than, say, UPL and a 2nd-rounder. I would love to get him for 2 of UPL, Ryan Johnson and next year's #1. I kinda doubt that KA would give up UPL and one of Rosen or Östlund, and I think Savoie, Benson, Kulich, Quinn and Peterka are all NFW.

So leaving aside for a moment the anguish over OT, MLB and general sloppiness, the FNG looks pretty nice:

It depends on the price, as always.

"Hijack" on Apple TV was pretty enjoyable -- solid B. I gotta say, I'm a bit disappointed in "Yellowstone." My wife and I are about 25% into Season 2 and it's not doing much for either of us. Kevin Costner's character is a DB and his kids are all really annoying. Right now I'm at a C-plus to B-minus. "Jack Ryan" season 3 was decent. Also a B.

Well, their 3rd pair last year was Boosh and Bryson. They were pretty bad. I think Joker/Johnson will be far superior (same for Clifton/Johnson if Joki beats out Clifton for the spot with Power). FWIW, Joki's fancystats weren't very good, but they were materially better than Boosh's for the most part. Overall, I think there's reason for optimism about a broad improvement on D -- another year of experience for Power and Mule (plus Dahlin and Joki), upgrades to Boosh and Bryson in Clifton and Johnson, playing better and with more confidence in front of Levi, greater emphasis on team D from the coaches, etc.

The Bills are going to have a major problem this year if the play from both OTs isn't substantially better than it was last year. Last night, Dawkins and Brown were just as bad as they were last year. That doesn't mean it will be same once the real games start, but it sure wasn't a positive sign.

I did some digging on this -- Loobie was indeed at or near the bottom in a bunch of team D fancystats. OTOH, Bryson and/or Stillman were worse than Loobie in several of them. I think it comes down to (i) which fancystats they consider important and (ii) not wanting to play hardball with a veteran they signed in free agency who wanted to play more -- in his contract year -- than the Sabres thought he would play. For those who didn't know (like me until just now, for example) Moneypuck has a great customizable fancystats tool: https://moneypuck.com/stats.htm I think there are valid reasons to prefer Loobie over Bryson and Stillman, but not over Joki. Frankly I don't think it's even close.

Got an example of a winning team acting differently in a similar situation?

Interesting. it could be a precursor to another move, or it could simply be treating a veteran right by sending him somewhere he can play instead of being healthy-scratched most nights. I liked him but he certainly had limitations.

Good to see you sir although I'm sorry for the circumstances. Thanks for the beautiful post. As others have said, I hope you pop in from time to time. You've been missed. Be well.

This is one of my all-time RJ favorites:

You were great Rick. One of a kind. Gone but not forgotten. Rest in peace.

Speaking of Poltapov: he was drafted in 2021, and is under KHL contract until 2025. Does that 4-year gap mean that he could decide not to sign with the Sabres and just become a UFA in the summer of 2025?

I think Quinn and JJP could both develop into stars.

My 16-year-old nephew is a really sweet kid who has unfortunately developed fairly severe anorexia (rare but not unheard of in males). He was already skinny and lost about 35 lbs through a combination of starving himself and doing situps, pushups, etc. obsessively. He was hospitalized for almost 3 weeks while they got his nutrition back to reasonable levels and is now going to enter an inpatient adolescent eating disorder facility. I think my complaint here is that there seems to be much more pressure on kids now than there was a generation ago. It's hard to identify the cause -- I think it's a combination of social media, increased competition for college admissions and jobs, increased economic pressure overall and other factors -- but regardless, I think the effects are real and harmful.

He's probably going to treat himself to luxuries, but he's not going to spend an extra $300MM to $1B on cost overruns driven by graft, corruption and unions. No one does that.

Good question. Seconded.