Drunkard

Spoiler alert: The Patriots will cheat, they'll win, and they'll get a slap on the wrist from the league. Rinse and repeat for another 20 year until Belichick retires or dies.

I'm a heathen as well, but that's better than a hypocrite like McDermott. When all the stories came out about his chaplains and prayer circles, coupled with him strutting around like a poser in all his camouflage clothing, I did my part to take jabs at it and point out his nonsense. Kind of tough to take a pro gun, pro war stance while claiming to worship the guy who preached turn the other cheek, but maybe that's just me. Yeah it's off topic but so much of what gets posted on these and every other board runs off topic from time to time. I haven't been giving McDermott crap as much lately, but that's because I haven't been watching, not because the Bills have suddenly been winning. Otherwise I'd still be crapping all over his bible in one hand, rifle in the other schtick which is a cross between laughable and puke inducing.

Just for you, Hank. McClappy is a chickenhawk and when dies (just like the rest of us) nothing will happen.

Does this mean we like the loser point now that we've been racking them?

Don Junior - 2024. Let's Keep America Great and finish that wall! I hate that guy and I might vote for him just to watch the world burn. The Democrats will run someone who wants the government to fund gender reassignment surgeries for prison inmates and then that himbo will actually look like the reasonable candidate.

Yeah, there's no way to know for sure, but that's how I see it. He took less money from Carolina when he got his full NMC in his previous contract and it paid off in the end by giving him complete control to the point where he basically drew a circle on a map that only included Toronto and Buffalo (as NHL cities) on it and said these are the only places I'm willing to go. I'll admit the fact that my hatred of Botterill probably pushes me towards not giving him the benefit of the doubt in any way, shape, or form though.

I think Skinner had Botterill over a barrel and Botterill stupidly overpaid him on money, term, and a full NMC. Based on Skinner only wanting to be traded to Buffalo or Toronto we should have been able to get him to come off of at the very least 1 of those demands (8 years, $9 million season, full NMC) and possibly more. We held his rights at the deadline so automatically nobody else would have even been able to give him 8 years so giving a 26 year old an 8 year contract for that kind of money and a full NMC was dumber than dumb. The idea that he was gonna walk if we only offered him say $8 million in order for him to play someplace further away like Florida, Arizona, Vancouver, or Chicago (just examples) because they offered him $9 million for 7 years is so unlikely that Botterill should have used it to his advantage. Botching the O'Reilly trade and gutting our scoring depth left him completely unable to use any leverage he had though because Skinner, Eichel, and Reinhart were our only scoring depth at that point. If he had left Skinner walk the fans would have started sharpening their pitchforks and Skinner knew it so he got everything he wanted and Botterill got taken to the wood shed by Skinner's agent.

I would hope so, but Skinner looked great playing with Eichel last season as well and for whatever reason, Kreuger decided they shouldn't play together. Maybe next year Ralph decides to put somebody like Cozens or Mittelstadt on Eichel's wing and they flourish. Suddenly the Reinhart and/or Olofsson extensions don't look so great similar to Skinner now. It's not a guarantee of anything just something that I see as a potential concern.

I'm not arguing Reinhart and Olofsson aren't good players in their own right. I like them both and I think they are both good players. I'm arguing that (just like Skinner) their production is getting inflated by playing with Eichel the majority of the time and because of that, they'll both be more expensive than they would have been otherwise. They are both pacing near 70 points (Oloffson is actually pacing for just over 70 points at the moment). Do you think they would be scoring at that rate playing on line 2 with Johansson for most of the season? Do you think their production is going to have an impact on their next contracts? Oloffson and Reinhart would still both be good players without Eichel. My concern is that playing with Eichel might be giving them say something like a 15 or 20% boost in production than they would otherwise have playing on a different line and we may end up paying them more than we would have had to and if they end up playing on a different line after they ink their new deals they'll end up overpaid.

I agree. We could probably get a 3rd round pick at the deadline from a team hoping he'll be healthy enough to be playoff depth, but we'd probably have to retain 50% of his remaining salary to move him. Without retention, we'll be lucky to find a buyer for anything better than maybe a 5th round pick.

Gonna be hard to find the money to pay a new top 6 center after Reinhart and Olofsson get fat raises from riding Eichel's coat tails all season. There's not going to be nearly as much cap space to play with as most people seem to think.

I get it. I wouldn't try to sabotage the team in order to save cap space, it just puzzles me that they backed up the Brinks truck to pay Skinner like a 40 goal scorer and now they are overpaying him and he's not even on pace to score 30 goals at this point. I realize there was a coaching change but it's pretty obvious that Skinner is not a $9 million player when he's not playing with Eichel. Unfortunately that's how much we're paying him this year and for the next 7 years after that. Thanks to his full NMC he's not going anywhere. No, you put the guy you're already paying $9 million per year with Eichel because that's the only spot where he produces enough to earn his oversized contract.

We'll see if you feel the same way if Reinhart pots 70 points and they end up giving him an 8 year, $64 million contract. I know most people still think he won't get that much, especially since William Nylander signed for a shade under $7 million with better numbers, but contracts go up every year and Nylander was only locked up for 6 years. I imagine if Botterill wants to lock Reinhart up for the full 8, he'll have to go up from Nylander's number. If we had already locked Reinhart up instead of bridging him, this wouldn't be an issue.

Since this is the last year of his ELC I believe he'd have to pass through waivers to go to Rochester next year, so if he doesn't get sent down this season, he's probably not going down ever.

My biggest issue with the lines is it's they have 2 guys who are both up for new contracts getting the lion's share of their ice time playing with Eichel. Last year Skinner played with Eichel most of the year, got his stats padded, and now he's overpaid. This year Reinhart and Olofsson are both pending RFAs up for new contracts and they are getting their stats padded playing with Eichel. Seems stupid if you ask me, especially if they end up like Skinner by getting moved to a new line after signing their big contracts. Seems like a recipe to overpay guys.

It wouldn't matter either way. Sobotka's contract will be done by the time we found out the final results in April.

We have a log jam on defense and he needs to get some game time in before his next semi-annual trip to injured reserve. Otherwise he might not be able to sucker a new team into giving him his next contract.

It's that line of thinking that got us Berglund and Sobotka. No need to keep a good long term center like O'Reilly. All we need is a stop gap to keep the seat warm for Mittelstadt. Botterill counted that egg before it hatched and 1.5 seasons later it still hasn't. I'd rather not give a 7 year deal to some 28 year old center either, but I wouldn't effectively take half our options off the table just to pencil Cozens into the 2C spot when he hasn't played a single minute in the NHL yet, let alone proven he can be the #2 center behind Eichel. He may not be good enough, he may prove to be better on the wing, and even if he works out as planned you can always shift someone else to wing and actually build some center depth in the top 6 for when injuries hit.

While a 3-2-1 setup would probably be more accurate for reflecting the best teams overall in the standings, it would reduce the "parity" in the standings and cause more teams to get eliminated from playoff contention earlier in the season. That's not good for the leagues finances. They exist to make money, not to necessarily put out the best product, and they definitely don't exist to make the standings the most accurate reflection of league parity.

I agree with you, but the loser point wasn't some oversight. The league did it that way on purpose in order to keep more teams alive for the playoffs later into the season. If your team gets eliminated in February I imagine the number of butts in the stands and eyes on the televisions drop off significantly from that point until the end of the season, so the best way to delay that is to get as many teams as possible statistically alive for the playoffs for as long as possible. Heck even during the tank years we weren't eliminated until February or so, even though everyone and their uncle knew we had zero chance at the playoffs from the initial puck drop of the season.

No, I want him dead. If dying in a fire is too harsh though, I'd take his giant head on a pike instead. This times 1,000. There is absolutely zero reason to keep a spot warm for a damn teenager or 20 year old on an ELC. People can always be shifted to wing. If you can get a good 2C, do it. If Cozens blossoms early that's great, he can play 3C or shift to wing. If the light turns on for Mittelstadt the same thing applies. Maybe with more than one legit top 6 center in the fold we can actually fill out a top 6 that isn't held together with crazy glue and duct tape and we might actually have some depth if/when injuries hit. We can't bank on perfect health when a season lasts 6+ months. A major injury to Eichel or Johannson and we basically have to write off the entire season. Heck, just a relatively minor injury to Johansson almost put us in a hole they couldn't get out of. Imagine if he missed an extra month.

Sounds about right. Hayes isn't even a top tier #2 center and he got a 7 year $50 million contract from Philly last summer. It's ridiculous but that's the going rate I'd say. And I'm going to stop here rather than re-hashing the trade that shall not be named, but first I'll state once again that Botterill should die in a fire for making 2C such a need to begin with.

A real #2 center. Johansson is solid and is actually doing better than I expected him to but this team has no real center depth is the other options are 4th liners like Larsson or guys who aren't ready like Mittelstadt, Cozens, Asplund, etc. Johansson can then either move down to the 3rd line or shift to the wing so we have a backup if/when injuries occur and have some actual depth at the position.

Looks like it's just more red meat for the base. Trump is trying to stick it to the "squad" and their supporters for their pro-Palestinian stance or anyone who may question the unlimited support for Israel. That's just my guess though. I only skimmed the article.

Belichick should be banned from the NFL for life or at least for a full season the way Sean Payton did. It will never happen though because the NFL doesn't want to tarnish the last 20 years of tainted game/season results. I'm just glad I no longer spend money on their product. How many times can they get caught before the league stops letting them get away with it?