LTS

When you rely on the government.. you are doomed to fail.

The simple answer? People have different interests. My son knows the team is struggling and the organization has had problems and still wants to go to a game. The only reason he doesn't is because I'm not necessarily investing. But that's me.. there are others who are sick of being inside and want to get out. They've saved money because there's nothing else to do and they'll go do this. I know the wife and I just spent money on an innovative valentine's day dinner to support a local business. In normal years I would not have considered this, we don't do Valentine's Day and I wouldn't normally pay a premium for a dinner. But because things have been locked down and this is something different we're doing it. As for who would wear the other team's colors... if the ticket sales are restricted to STH I could see them saying that the STH must be the one to use them. I think that would reduce the amount of people showing up in other teams colors. But it's still possible a Devils fan has season tickets because they usually sell most of them... hard to say.

I like to think of what we could accomplish in space travel if we spent cooperated and spent money on that rather than building faster, more advanced planes that are designed to takeoff thousands of miles away and kill people from miles up in the sky. Sigh.

I'm glad this is happening and I think 10% is a good starting point. Better to build up to higher numbers than to start big and try and work backward if something should happen.

I'd say each of us can feel how we'd like about how this all came into being. There are fair points on each side. Point is.. cooperation over competition can make things happen at a much faster rate. Imagine if this was applied across the board?

Son played his varsity hockey game in a year last night. Man, that was something nice to have. The protocols in place change things quite a bit (barely in the locker room, not much time to warm up, etc.) but overall it felt like a hockey game and what it meant to the kids is beyond words. Part of the protocol requires masks. All players must wear masks at all times. Most are using the masks that attach to the cages on the helmets. (Fishbowls are actually not recommended at all right now). I wonder why the NHL couldn't do this. They could deal with wearing a cage with a mask on it. My son says it blocks a little bit of your ability to see the puck in your feet but you adapt. They also limit numbers in the locker rooms and many kids never even went into it between periods.

NBCSN is going away not the NBC coverage of hockey however. HNIC is not its own channel, in that regard the "national" broadcast of an NHL game on NBCSN (or USA or Peacock) will still be that national equivalent. But its produced to an American audience, so its going to be more like other sports which, to me, means less in depth information and more high level blah blah blah because people in the US prefer that. Play by play and analysts are very much a preferential thing... can't wade too much into it.

You can get an assist from behind the net? Whoa. Joking aside.. that had to feel really good being on the ice. Congrats!

That's true. You do not need bars, restaurants, or televisions. if the guy in the mountains doesn't need the vaccine before someone else because of a medical risk factor then the guy in the mountains should do the moral thing and not be in a rush to get the vaccine. As you progress down the list the size of the groups that qualify for the next criteria level will grow. Within that group there will be striations that people can point to and say "what about this or that, or me, or him, or her?" That's the luxury of playing armchair decision maker. I could very well be the guy in the woods. Although I'm not in the woods. I work from home every day. Do I need the vaccine right now? Nope. But I suppose if I want to travel around others and not wear a mask, etc. (when/if it gets to that) then I will have to have it. If I want to meet my parents (who will get the vaccine long before me) then what? They could still carry the virus and I could get infected. Again, what precautions need to be taken? All of those nuances are what make this whole situation a mess. There are going to be inefficiencies in how things are distributed. I'd like to find someone in this forum that works at a company where mistakes are never made, especially when things are rushed. Yet, people are in here blasting the government for their inefficiency. Which is kind of laughable given that governments have historically been some of the most inefficient entities to exist. Bottom line though... just because people like sports does not mean an athlete should get vaccinated. Now, those athletes that have compromised immune systems or other health factors should qualify. I find no harm in the question being asked. I think the conversation we have should move us towards an answer that brings our viewpoints together. Make a case for the guy on the mountain, or the teacher, or the athlete. If your case consists of, "I like to watch hockey." then I'm not sure how far it will go as there are plenty of people who don't like it.

sup Shmuff... nice choice. Good to see your NHL 21 screen in the background too. 🙂

Let me try and provide an alternate way to look at this. Assume you need to build a new city from scratch (county, state, country). At what point in the development process do you build an arena for a professional sports franchise? When do you build the movie theater? That's where they belong in the priority list. They are superfluous occupations that provide additive value but are meaningless if you don't have a television, a house, a job. In short, they are nice to haves, like a chocolate after dinner. it doesn't matter what it means to you, individually, it matters what it means to society as a whole.

Yeah, no one ever scored from Gretzky's office. 🙄

I agree. I don't like Skinner, don't want him on the team. I just prefer to put it in meaningful terms. Its like claiming to be the fastest growing when you go from 1 to 10 customers whereas your competitor goes from 100,000 to 102,000. They didn't grow as fast, percentage wise. Nothing more on that.

I assume no other team was going to offer him that. But that doesn't matter to Jeff Skinner. He had an opportunity to put a price tag on the table and say, agree or I am gone. The worst decision was matching the Vanek contract in my opinion. Another one of those, you are doomed if you do and if you don't scenarios. Matching only prolonged the inevitable. I disagree. I think far more people would have been very upset about Skinner leaving. He's a marketable personality, with that great smile, and pointing at his teammates when they set him up for a goal. He appeared to be what they needed. I think those who really knew were okay not signing him, but those are the fans that stick around.. they are also a much smaller group and don't pay the bills.

It's one more day to get Reinhart healed up.. I'll take that.

I think he looked improved. But I would want him to produce before I buy in. That said.. his value will go up if he does look improved. How many games is it, that's all that mattered. Otherwise we all know there were very few games played in that whole time. It's still an extended drought, but it's not a normal situation.

They would have. That's very simple to understand. He had the Sabres over a barrel. walk away and get blasted by the fans for giving up on a 40 goal scorer that you acquired for peanuts or pay him $9MM. take it or leave it.. and the Sabres took it because the fans very much would have blasted ownership. There would be arguments about how they could get him for less. Why? Why would he accept less? It was $9MM or nothing... As for teams that have money tied up in crap that's not helping them win? I posted elsewhere. This was posted on Twitter the other day. The Sharks.. in last place. They have: Karlson, 30, for 7 x $11.5M Burns, 35, for 5 x $8M Vlasic, 33, 6 x $7M Jones, 31, for 4 x $5.75M Couture, 31, for 7 x $8M Kane, 29, for 5 x $7M

At least we're not the Sharks? They have: Karlson, 30, for 7 x $11.5M Burns, 35, for 5 x $8M Vlasic, 33, 6 x $7M Jones, 31, for 4 x $5.75M Couture, 31, for 7 x $8M Kane, 29, for 5 x $7M And are in last place the last I looked. As for panic? I am happy if they win and I don't care if they lose. They aren't worth the effort it takes to care. I don't even get mad about that. It's just a game. I can appreciate why others get bothered over it however. It's not exactly been a good news story for quite some time.

Well, on the bright side, people are spared a night of testing their new anger management skills. There goes my excuse to not have to shovel tonight. (or snowblow depending on the volume of snow that falls).

yeah.. this leads straight into the next Dr. Strange movie... I think they could still achieve House of M if you put it into the multi-verse..

I dunno man.. you've been paged to the "courtesy phone" a few times to chime in on "hard" conversations and usually do. 🙂

The assumption here is that the system allows these players to reach their shooting average. Skinner by virtue of his usage will get less shots per game. The goaltending might not improve because the system changes how they play. I like your optimism but the little things I see are indications that the coach isn't exerting enough attention to detail on these players. They might be saying the right things but they are not doing the right things.

The cannon is still effective in running from below the line. The key is to make the defenders have to continually turn. In the cliche 1-3-1 the defenders can 99% face up ice. Every defender is taught not to go behind the net on the PK so that space is open. Also, most teams don't use the cannon, they rely on the FO shooters more. Teams have gotten real good at how to put the right pressure on and only teams with highly effective shooters see success (thankfully that's the Sabres this year). I would drive it below the net all day long. A good QB below the net can still get a pass up to the cannon on the blue line.

I see a lazy team pretty much every time they touch the ice. They are sloppy, have been sloppy, and they generally play like they don't care. They lose more puck battles than they win simply because they aren't even there to contest the puck. I've counted at least 4 times this season, and 2 in yesterday's game, where Ristolainen backed off the blue line rather than pinch. In every case he's had at least one forward in good defensive position to cover his pinch. Each time he looks hesitant, like he wants the puck but somewhere in head is a coach saying something about his system. This team is not on the same page. They are missing little plays. That's usually a coaching issue that manifests itself in the players. I'd love to see their practices because it appears as though this behavior is tolerated in practices. I didn't want to say too much after a few games but this is continual. If I cared enough to spend more time breaking them down I could probably get more technical. But I don't care. I joked in the beginning that 1pm games give me an excuse to be lazy... I'd rather scrub the toilets in the house than watch the team I saw yesterday. What I am seeing this year is finally putting me over the edge with this team. I've not had faith in ownership, I don't have faith in KA, and while I was reserving judgement on RK it's definitely not trending in the right direction. I've long had concern about Eichel as a player and definitely as the "C". Hearing that he demanded to stay out on the PP2 unit over Tage Thompson in the first game against NJ concerns me. First, TT had no clue out there, so Eichel is not wrong, but that's a coach's call. The other thing that concerns me is him putting the team on his back, like a "C" should, but then crumbling from the weight of it. There are flashes of what this team could achieve if they stepped it up, but I just don't see it happening. I don't think they have the right pieces, the drive, the leadership to turn it on. I'd love to be wrong, but 10 games it certainly feels like more of the same.

Good god let it be that they want Casey to look good so they can trade him... That's all I have at this point.