ska-T Palmtown

I am an optimistic person by nature - even after being buffalo sports fan for over 40 yrs. I am sure my shrink would call it a "coping mechanism" 🙂 That said, I have seen nothing from the team that makes me feel pessimistic, so I rolled with it. 🎵Rollin' with my hooo-ooomies

If you have gmail you can just keep adding a "." at various points of your email address (gmail treats them all the same, but many systems are set up to think they are different!) to keep getting Fubo trials 🙂 That will take care of NHLN and TNT games. Just make sure to cancel because you have to opt for the "pay quarterly" package to get NHLN which could cost you like $300 if you forget! Beware of ESPN+, they are very good at detecting VPN and not allowing you to watch.

I want to jump in and ask if a player can sign their ELC during a season ... but I am afraid of getting hit in the crossfire. I hate it when dad and dad fight!

Go bold or go home? 🤷‍♂️

a free trial of fubo with a well placed "." in my gmail account and we are streaming, baby! Now, I just have to remember to cancel before the $300 quarterly fee kicks in 😬

I see you are one of those "details matters" guys 🙂 🧐🕵️‍♂️ I did say "overall" 😉

To expand this ... the constant "our guy won a SC" drivel is really getting tiresome. When I looked, less than a quarter of the players on Florida were drafted by Florida. Tkachuk was way more important to their overall success than Sam AND Kyle combined. The most pressing need for Sabres success is so the fanbase can stop this senseless self-flatulating and "whoa are we" moping about. (Is it "woe"? "Whoa" does not seem right)

lol, right? "You guys aren't going to like me?" What kind of neanderthal shiznit is that? 🤣 He's been with these guys for years, and they have already been around each other for over a week straight, but he gets some extra fabric on his sweater and NOW he changes? Fastest way to alienate people, in my opinion. To me, he earned it when he was blocking empty net shot attempts in meaningless games because he is so sick and tired of losing.

ESPN in their "bold predictions" article ... so at least someone thinks it might happen, lol

The good teams have one, right? Barkov, MacKinnon, Crosby (although Pitt is not so good anymore), Bergeron/Marchand, McDavid ... from the article about Dahlin getting people together and running a mini camp over the summer, I am hoping we have ours!

I'll always have a soft spot in my cold dead heart for Rayzor. I really admire the hockey life he carved out for himself by getting punched in the face and hanging around. Dunleavy? He has the unfair curse of following the GOAT ... poor guy.

Topical and relevant - Going to see The War on Drugs open for The National at the United Center in Chicago tonight. Mostly to see TWoD, but will probably stick around for half of the National show, then beat traffic on outta there!

To put it another way, my theory is that if they only had Bo-Power or Pow-lin, the two high draft picks on the roster end up with more points than they do when you add in a third super high-end Dman. Does it affect Ras as much as the others? Probably not, the puck will be on his stick plenty. But obviously Bo-Power each have more points if Ras is not there. I guess maybe my point is that Power (and probably Byram) would have more points if they were THE guy on a different "up and coming" team, so judging them purely on points might be a touch unfair?

The AP has weighed in on the debate: https://apnews.com/article/nhl-buffalo-sabres-dahlin-captain-fab1f4a3f00a53610a11790860a0026d Great read. 😍 for Ras!

Agreed. To be clear - he should have high expectations this year. It is interesting to me that the Sabres have two #1 and a #4 pick on defense, all of approximately the same age. It is probably better for their overall games, but also probably shaves a little off the top end of the statistics of each, since if they were the only "top pick" D-man on a team, all the stats are belong to them.

Isn't this season, the one that has not started, the first of his new contract? He was probably a bargain on his rookie deal last year, no?

Please also accept these for lending a helping hand! ❤️❤️❤️

So, if there are 32 team, and thus 32 "1st line center"s ... 16/17 is "the middle" and some sort of band near that would have to be "average" for that group. Assume 4 to each side. With that logic, "above average" is, at worst, 12th best in the league, but you say he is not top 15? 😜 Of course Edm skews the data by having 2 of the top 5 - but since I am playing fast and loose with facts, I rest my case. 👩‍⚖️

I fixed my "answer" ... imagine playing in the NHL at 18, then being sent back to the WHL at 19??? Talk about a shot to the ego! Not that I think he will. At all. Just sorted popped into my head.

Oh man, I was afraid you would ask for details .. 🙂 I just remember last year it was discussed that he would be Buffalo or WHL this year, too. Hopefully someone with a few active brain cells will swoop in and save me from myself. Source: The google AI text at the top of a search: "To play in the AHL, players must be at least 18 years old by September 15 of the season. Canadian and American-born players must be 20 years old by January 15 of the season." Benners (Benny? Benns?) will not be 20 until MAY, dear god, what a wee baby he is!

Obligatory mention of Benson being Buffalo or WHL this year - not ROC eligible ... unless my brain has completely shat the bed over the summer?

Sweet! Yeah, I have gone on a Benson/Quinn/Peterka kick lately. I only have a handful of graded cards. I tend to stick to HOF types for the premium you pay for graded. That said, I got a Dahlin and Power Young Guns, both graded 9, for pretty reasonable prices. I'll post some pics of the young Sabres once I get the rest delivered and cased up. I have a card for pretty much every player in the HHOF - anyone that played before 1950, they are not cards from their playing days, too expensive, but maybe some day? (Also, at least 30 of the players in the HHOF played before there were even hockey cards out there, so tribute sets are the only way to go - oh well) I started collecting in 1990, so Griffey Jr was my white whale. I never had the big deal Upper Deck Griffeys, but I had some others. Obviously, anything from like 1988 - 1998 is so cheap now unless you find a perfect one graded 10, so I have a few pages of Griffey in my baseball book.

I spared everyone full quote 🙂 The Bad around here is league parity. B-Leagues and above in and around Chicago are dominated by ex-Div 1 college players or higher. Fine, you can have your B-Leagues and your Elite A's (usually featuring several ECHL alum and sprinkling of former-AHL guys). The bad comes in when the "older" (like, late 20's) guys from that league don't want to have to skate as hard as they need to in order to keep up with the fresh crop of 23 yr olds and they drop down to C. We are not talking 4-yr starters at a major program, but 28 year old NCAA D1 guys who played a year or two at decent programs are now out there skating around with true beer leaguers and potting 6 goals in the first period before they have to leave because everyone wants to fight. 6'-3" D-men taking 80+ mph clappers from the blue line and laughing as they skate up to you to see if your leg is still attached after you accidentally blocked it. Total D-bags. Other than that - holy crap do I love playing!!

I know you were probably talking about peeps in WNY - but I finally got on the ice at the age of 35 and have been stinking up Chicago-area beer league hockey going on 10 years now! Thanks to the Kane/Toews Cup runs, beer league hockey in Chicago is amazing. I am on 5 teams at 4 different rinks and could probably play more if I clone myself. The thing that took me way too long to realize is that you don't really get that much better playing in games. I found a good partner to go to stick-n-pucks pretty regularly about 18 months ago and have definitely improved more in that time than the 8 1/2 year before that. The Blackhawks' practice facility is required by the city to be available for public use when the 'Hawks are not using it - lots of drop-in chances and two sheets of REALLY nice ice. Playing hockey is just so much effing fun!!

They are all too afraid of getting heat from 'Spacers about how they chose to spend their CBA mandated free time ... wise move, this place is brutal to those who have fun 😜