LTS

Should be entertaining.... or something.

Yea, I mean he could have just elbowed him in the head. What he's supposed to do is establish his position laterally or to the front of the player before hitting him. I don't know if he just made a line change or what the reason was for his approach angle but it was from behind the player. That's all there is to it. You can't hit him there, period. I agree that Sundqvist's motion makes it worse. Even if he hadn't released the puck the hit from Wilson would have been from a blindsiding angle unless Sundqvist turned back towards the blue line more. He didn't and probably would not have and in this case is hypothetical because it didn't happen.

Back on the ice this season... in the best shape I've been in since somewhere during my freshman year of college. Last night we played with 8 players... I felt like i could have skated another game afterward.... that's an awesome feeling.

Wilson's weight should be on his right side. As he makes the hit you would normally transition that from your right to your left to drive the check into the opponent. His elbow isn't relevant to the conversation. His angle is much more relevant. He's not coming from a lateral or forward position to hit, he is coming from a rear angle to make contact. Moreover, every time I watch it, it's not 100% clear his shoulder doesn't make head contact at the time his elbow makes body contact. The bottom line is, that's a hit that easily does not have to be thrown at all and could 100% be avoided. Appears he's getting an in-person hearing for it.

Personally I would prefer something after November if at all possible.

Ask Max Pacioretty how he feels about this assessment. The Tom Wilson hit is extraordinarily borderline. What should get him in trouble is where is point of attack comes from on the hit regardless of the head contact. His angle is from behind the player and as the shot is taken he is pretty much hitting the backside of the shooter's shoulder. The shooter is moving parallel to the blue line and Wilson came from the neutral zone, thus creating the angle from behind. I've defended Wilson hits in the past, but this one should warrant a pretty good suspension. Went and searched... this video should seal it. Look at the overhead at about :13-:14 seconds in.

It has to be said that you are stating your opinion and that others may feel differently. While not tracked accurately, most estimations are that since 2010 there has been a significant uptick in the number of Americans moving out of the country. Certainly those reasons can vary greatly, but it seems that there is at least a trend that would indicate a growing number of people no longer consider this the greatest place to live. For me personally I have many reasons why I would consider moving out of this country. Political atmosphere being but one of them. I think our culture is trending in a very self-destructive path. I'm not sold on our education system. I would very much questions whether this is the best place to live but since I have not lived elsewhere, I cannot say at this point. That said, I've been on the fence for a few years and were I single, I probably would have left.

They are similar, but they are clearly (at least to me) not the same. Curious what Swamp says.. here's what i hear. In Spirit - there is a track that plays a basic progression down from what sounds like A to F over 5 measures with what sounds like a few extra notes faintly thrown in that are on higher strings. In Led Zeppelin - the riff starts on A but the note progression is not quite the same. The chords progression sounds similar up until the 6th measure in Spirit. I'm just testing myself to see how close I come to being accurate. ?

It just had a different feel to me.

There's a significant possibility that I bring the family on a trip through there this year.. but it would have to be summer...

Hey @TrueBlueGED... I read your entire post. I appreciate you sharing the thoughts. I agree with a lot of what you said and especially the concern over the trending partisanship and political nature of the court. It's an ugly time for the US.

Enjoy the game! I'm so ready for the regular season.

Always interested...

That's awesome... the return of the Whale. I love it. Too bad for the people from Hartford....

Because you are in Oklahoma and they have regional covers printed.

Just letting you know that I did consider the second 10 games as well. I don't think it makes that big of a difference. The Amerks are designed to enforce the same system as the Sabres and are there to develop those players. Given that line juggling occurs quite often, the time it takes to mesh with another player isn't as long as people think it is. There are certainly advantages to playing together longer, but most coaches tinker all the time (and injuries happen). As I indicated, the REAL reason to not start them is that you can potentially move a veteran or two to another team, even if for a late round pick. If you just waive them, you get nothing. @Randall Flagg- I totally understand what you are saying. I understand the logic. Sobotka will be a bottom 6 forward on the Sabres and all that does is push someone else down to Rochester or onto the waiver wire, but it's not going to give a spot to anyone. I don't agree on the morale as they are professionals and know the game. We'll see what happens. We'll find out soon.

Here's the point that I think you keep glossing over. I am not saying that Thompson is NOT ready for the NHL. I am saying that Thompson isn't so much better than the vets that it will translate into wins within the first 10 games of the season. As such, Thompson can be sent down to the AHL (and it won't kill him) while the Sabres front office tries to move a few veterans to try and maximize their value to better the team for the future. The Sabres can retain salary in 3 trades right now... I would expect them to use that to their advantage in moving pieces off this roster to make room for the younger players. I remember last year, I remember pointing out how bad the Sabres secondary scoring was relative to other teams in the NHL. This years veterans are more to the middle. While the Sabres don't have O'Reilly and Kane they also don't have Nolan and Pouliot (8 and 19pts). They have Skinner, Berglund and Sobotka (26 and 31pts). No one is replacing O'Reilly's totals out of the gate. Let me try one other way of stating this... Last season the Sabres gave up roughly 1.4 goals for every 1 goal scored. Over the early part of this season playing the veteran roster I would expect they would give up roughly the same. Over the same stretch playing the younger players I would expect they would give up roughly 1.7 goals for every 1 goal scored. Please note that those numbers are only being used to demonstrate the relative changes and I am not trying to predict actual scoring rates. Essentially, I think with the younger players will score more and give up more goals and the ratio to goals against to goals for will be higher than with the vets. Later in the season I would expect that the younger players will improve such that they might even begin scoring more goals than giving up on average.

I'm lucky I suppose. I don't have many problems at all with Spectrum. See what package they'll give you. If nothing else it might solve the problem for this year while we all hope the powers that be get smarter before next year.

Many defenders make that pass, I've made that pass and I suck at hockey. It happened once and you are acting like he's going to always make the play. He's made a LOT of mistakes. He has a TON of talent. Finally, for the record, I didn't put him in Rochester, I just didn't put him in the starting lineup. I've already said that he will start due to injuries to Bogosian. I would honestly consider playing Pilut or Nelson before Dahlin right now. I would expect them to rotate the 5/6/7 defensemen for now. The bottom line question, and the thing I pointed out, was that in the first 10 games of the season, do you think there's an appreciable difference in the number of wins that the Sabres will have if they ice the veteran lineup over the younger players? I don't think there is. As such, given that the first 8th of the season will end up roughly the same and given that the younger players will still develop in the AHL, I can see why they would ice the veteran lineup to start the season. The STRATEGIC (i used the word twice) play is to see if you can move the veterans before the youth forces their way into the starting lineup. They will make the strategic play. Why? Because there is no difference in the first 10 games in my opinion. They may look faster, they may play faster, the mistakes will cost them games. Whether they lose by giving up 6 goals or 3 goals it won't matter because at the end of the season it's still a loss. These younger players will belong in the lineup before the end of the season. At the moment, I don't think it matters if they are in the lineup, not from a Wins and Losses perspective. At the moment they are serviceable... but they are also not playing against a full NHL roster. They look good against their peers and that's all they've proven. They DO need to push those players out of the roster spots, but I don't think they've been so amazingly good in the pre-season to make it happen. At this point it would be change, just to change, and while I understand the desire to get that line-up on the ice, it does not offer the opportunity to maximize the value of all assets for the future. The only time a team makes moves for the NOW is when they are pushing for the Cup or pushing for last place. It would be damn near unprecedented for a GM to insert that much youth into the opening night lineup when there were veterans who could still fulfill the role at nearly the same level. Botterill has no history of being a guy who rushes youth into a lineup. As such, I think it's likely that the veterans are there to start, I hope they are not there for long.

Players suffer concussions and some return and are the same player and some return and people believe are not the same player. Who is to decide what the cause was and how much of the "same player" they need to be? Would you be able to terminate Kyle Okposo's contract right now? I could just as easily make up anything else and it wouldn't matter. The point is that without a hard metric there is no measuring stick and without it there will always be room for debate over what constitutes sufficient evidence to terminate the contract.

No worries. I expect it to happen, because that's the business aspect of hockey taking over. My post just prior to yours had said I expect most vets to be in the lineup on Day 1. We don't know, but how many trade rumors do you hear right now? There are very few, presumably because everyone is too busy figuring out their existing assets before they go looking for what can be replaced. The Sabres don't really need them off the books at this point. Ahh absolutes. There is always a chance. However, given Bogosian and Hunwick injuries, the chance is slim.. mighty slim. Dahlin has not looked that great out there and there are others who would appear to give the Sabres a better chance at success. If that argument is going to be used for the forwards why would it also not apply to the defense? I understand the "#1 pick" emotional aspect of it. However, if others are performing better and Dahlin needs time, then he needs time.

The worst team in the league may waive players that are still better than the worst player on another team. I think Baptiste and Larsson get waived. I think Bailey makes it. Mittlestadt might make it as a healthy scratch. I doubt he's on the ice to start the season. Same with Dahlin, barring the injuries which probably do put him in the 5/6 pairing.

Let me guess.. you are not in Buffalo or Rochester. This works for you. For those in the market, those games are blacked out for 48 hours. Truthfully, the most legal and slightly dishonest thing you could do would be to sign up for NHL.tv and then use a VPN to obfuscate your IP address so it appears you are out of market. The risk is that the streaming service blocks that VPN. At least you are watching a legal stream, you just happen to be avoiding the Terms of Service with the company. It's grounds for termination but not really anything criminal. You could even use a well known VPN service so as to lessen the risk that thing are not above the law. There are reputable ones out there. You might even be able to use the Tor Browser. In the end you still have to jump through hoops...

I get the sense that would have only increased the value opportunity. I was the driver... I was not getting kicked out. ?