nfreeman

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.

We're kinda counting angels on the head of a pin here, but since there isn't much else to discuss, I'd respond by saying that although you're right that this doesn't give us the deets we needs to evaluate anyone, it's still meaningful that an experienced journalist has stated publicly that there are some really bad people on the Jets' roster. I'll refer to your pre-KA-rebuild take on the Sabres -- which I think was correct -- that the team's culture was fatally flawed and a total cleanout was needed. That situation was a bit different, as you had identified Eichel, Reino and Risto as guys who needed to go, and on the Jets we don't know who the problem children are. Still, though, I think this similarly is an indicator in favor of a significant rebuild. I'd like more info, but I still think this was noteworthy. Certainly if, say, John Vogl had tweeted this about the Sabres, we'd be deep into the weeds on this board about it.

Well, it's hard to say exactly, but I'd guess the general meaning is morally compromised in a profound way. I doubt we'll get details on any specific bad acts. FWIW, this isn't some twitter rando -- my understanding is that he's been a writer for the main newspaper in Winnipeg for 20+ years.

Outstanding.

I'm pretty intrigued by Markstrom plus Hanifan. Markstrom has this coming season plus 2 more at a $6MM annual cap hit, which is kind of a lot. Hanifan has just this coming season at $4.95MM and then is UFA. Not sure how much I want to give up for those 2 contracts but it's interesting.

Yikes:

Did you complain about the post (which preceded the one you complained about) decrying capitalism? Did that one get moved? Was there any sinister moderator behavior underlying the failure to move that one?