LTS

Semin is Russian. As I see it... there is 1 Russian left in the Sabres ranks. I don't think Murray is even answering the phone if Semin's agent calls.

But picked up on waivers removes all control he has over where he ends up. He's still constrained to go to whatever team that wanted him. For what it's worth we've seen NFL and NBA players talk about not playing hard at times. We've seen players pull themselves from a game when "injured", we've seen teammates question each other when they don't return from injury. We've seen athletes straight up talk about how they are preserving themselves from getting injured because they have a future to think about. I think the mentality that professional athletes can never look out for themselves over the team is incorrect. And traded removes his control as well. I'm just saying, there were times last year when we wondered how Hodgson could be so bad. We had seen him play the season before and he was much better. So, I'll be curious how he does this season. He's not the talent he had been projected to be but I don't believe he is as bad as he was last year either.

So.. they could improve 40 points and still not be in the playoffs. They'd be winning more, in the game more, but still not be in the playoffs. Remember, they were so bad that a winning culture could still be developed without making the playoffs. 94 points last year puts them in 10th just behind Boston. That's 20 more wins in the season.

You want me to email him? I coached his son a few years ago. :) I'm not going to though. No need. It'll be whatever number he wants it to be and if it's above 30, 49, 55, 65, 82.. so be it... I think the only number that would be out of bounds should be 69. Hell.. I don't even care if he wears 99. Everyone wears 9 and 4 and there were some damn good players in hockey history who wore those. :)

I think it's fine if they miss the playoffs this year. In fact.. Murray is probably gearing up for that 9/10 spot and just missing. He'll probably laugh his butt off if the Sabres end up in the top 3 when that happens due to the changes. On the other hand.. if they squeak in at 7/8 then he'll be praised heavily. Either way.. win.

Umm.. you are missing what I am saying. Assumption: Hodgson doesn't want to stay in Buffalo. He doesn't like what his role will be. Assumption: He believes there is a 95% chance he'll be bought out anyway. (Murray didn't give him that horrible contract). Since the team was already going to suck. He's simply not going to try very hard. Why not do the little bit extra it might take to make the buyout 100%? Why? 1. He doesn't want to be in Buffalo. 2. He was going to get bought out anyway. 3. If he's bought out, he's not going to get any kind of good contract offer. He's on his third team in a short time frame. I'm not saying he was out there shooting the puck into his own net. I am saying that he gave up on the season and didn't even bother trying. He pushed the right buttons with Nolan to get himself reduced playing time. Reduced chance of injury, get through the season, get bought out, move on. All he did was assure it. Because what's the alternative? He plays well enough that Buffalo keeps him? Think about it. If he performed well enough for some other team to sign him to a contract worth even half of what he was getting from the Sabres do you really think the Sabres would have bought him out? I don't. Everyone is hung up on he's throwing away this money. If I was him, I would have assumed it was already gone.

He's too small. He'll never be successful. Loved watching him play. All the best to him.

He did. But he did sign another one. As I worked through all of this more... The initial thought is.. he wants out of Buffalo. There's already a solid chance he is going to get bought out. His contract is a dog and the end of the this league year presents the best chance of this happening. He knows this, everyone knows this. The other thing he knows is that if he's bought out he's likely to NOT receive a long term contract from anyone else nor will it be much money... at first. So, you try a little less harder than you can because.. you want to assure the buyout gets done. Then you hit the UFA market, you don't have to worry about signing a 1.5m year deal because you are still getting paid by the Sabres. Perhaps you have multiple offers, perhaps you don't. But you sign that 1 year deal like he did on Nashville. Let's say that he really has potential and can shine in Nashville. Next year he'll be on the market again and likely able to choose a location that he wants at a decent dollar amount and he'll still be getting paid by the Sabres. So, for 1 year of trying a little less harder, on a team that was already not trying hard. He assured himself of the opportunity to perhaps earn a solid contract after this upcoming season. And hey.. why try hard anyway on a team when you are pretty certain you aren't going to be around anyway. Always fun to think about.. the solid news is... he's gone. He's following the Derek Roy tour.. although Hodgson started his tour in Vancouver.

So.. quick primer. Uncompressed HD video is 18Mbps. Everyone uses compression, so you'll do just fine with 15M. The gaming thing is a different story. it depends on the games. The biggest impact to your gaming experience will be latency and packet loss. The second biggest will be any limitations or contention for bandwidth on your upstream as it is usually lower than your downstream and your system will likely send a lot of data to the gaming server. Latency - how long it takes the information to arrive and packet loss (how many packets have to be resent or might be lost for good) will impact the efficiency of your network connection. This is why some network connection types are absolutely horrible for gaming, no matter what you do. Still.. when it's all said and done.. 24/3 should be fine for you as long as you don't have a ton of connected devices using a lot of bandwidth.

Good call on Pittsburgh trying to up the value of the franchise before it begins to decline.

It's a dry tank though.

Sportsnet Stats @SNstats BREAKING: #Leafs trade Phil Kessel to Penguins pic.twitter.com/NWg9QDOeBd And it goes down..

Pierre LeBrun @Real_ESPNLeBrun Flyers have signed goalie Michal Neuvirth to two-year deal, $1.5 M in Year 1 and $1.75 million in Year 2 gave it a shot.

I think that gets harder when using Tweetdeck interface over twitter. Hmm.. I'll have to research.

So there is a significant difference in hops grown in any batch of soil. Think of it like grapes and wine. The local hops aren't a problem when you want to brew one off batches. It's when you want the consistency of a year round label that it becomes more of a problem. Although if you are using those hops in a year round and keep using them then you should be okay.

Today is the first day in months I fired up twitter. Is there a tutorial on how you guys quote twitter like that? Not that I plan on doing it. I read it I see some message in French that Beauchemin signed in Colorado.

Interesting.. I've found that most of their one-off special series were superior to their mass produced counterparts. I'm not saying I loved them.. but things like Merry Maker Gingerbread Stout Fat Jack Pumpkin (we did a blind tasting with people who work in the beer industry (ie. brewers, brewery reps) and it won. Third Voyage Double IPA Dark Depths Porter Verloren Gose Thirteenth Hour Tetravis I liked those.. the others I thought were decent enough.

Leino needs a center. So, on Hodgson. If you think about it... he may very well have orchestrated this for his own benefit. He knows that July 1, 2015 brings an important financial date into focus for Buffalo. So, he tanks a little bit harder than everyone else last season and does just enough to get Buffalo to buy him out. BAM... he's paid. It almost makes too much sense.

And then some pseudo-Japanese place, then a korean place.. or was it the other way around.. now it's a pawn shop.. that at least should do well in henrietta.

Yea.. I don't think you wonder too much.

Why would you ruin a perfectly good thread? Boston is entertaining at least. See kids.. this is how you don't play GM in the NHL.

Mike Richards is interesting? :)

Here is more on the Brewer Patriot Collection. http://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/683/

Cool... what team does his Dad coach now? He should be a star there!

I think there are two 69's in the league I play in... and low and behold.. they both have tinted visors.. and of course wear a designer mouthguard as well. So Rochester is no longer WNY? because the one in Rochester has been open for a few months now. They intelligently opened in a spot that has seen 3 restaurants open and close in the past 5 years or so. Brilliant!