LTS

This is why I don't fish. Why would I want the opportunity for a fish to ruin my time drinking beer and hanging out by the water. 🙂 Enjoy your time off.

I find it entertaining that his range of rankings is.. 1 to not ranked. I guess there's a variety of opinions on him.

They followed the rules. All teams hold players out until they need them once they are on IR. ALL TEAMS. LTIR, IR, it doesn't matter. Since you can't always assign players for "conditioning stints" the league lets the players take extra recovery time to get in better shape to return to play. The rule sucks, there should be a salary cap in the playoffs, it's that simple. This would fix the problem. Change the rule, yes. Did they cheat? Not at all. You are greener than Kermit dude. It's 100% not the truth. And let's hope Tampa gets blown up this off-season.. because the Sabres need to play them a lot more next season.

Some assumptions here? From what I have read on police reports, the fireworks being used were legal in Michigan and the operator of the fireworks was sober. Basically no laws were violated (as near as they can tell at this moment). Sometimes unfortunate things just happen. Certainly one could argue that being around explosive, incendiary devices increases ones chance of being injured or worse by them. To that end, driving a car increases your chance of being injured or worse. Also, do you anticipate the local authorities to drive around and administer sobriety tests to people setting off fireworks? They don't even drive around and stop people from setting them off.

How much is that a trade is completed and they are just waiting for the end of the Final to happen so they don't upstage the league? I have to imagine that if they aren't at 100% they are 95%.

No bueno my friend. Hoping things are discovered and you can get to recovering.

They put their hopes in one player over the two threats they had. It might be a better long term move for them but long term moves in Washington come with the added meaning that you are looking at post-Ovechkin time (if the guy slows down). I think Detroit makes out far better on this deal. I didn't pay a ton of attention but I did not see Mantha making that big of a splash in Washington this season. Bowman is from a bygone era. I think there were quite a few exceptional coaches then. He certainly fits the bill. I was thinking more along the NHL in the past 20 years.

Sure Babcock was the guy he wanted, but Babcock also failed in Toronto, with more talent. Murray also didn't do Lehner any favors once he got him and ultimately the Sabres didn't help Lehner with the mental health issues he had. All on Buffalo for failing that. When Trotz signed coaching contracts were generally for lower amounts. Babcock, Bylsma, etc. raised the bar. Trotz was right to want more and he got more. Meanwhile Washington might have been happy with one cup but this past season they made an absolutely terrible trade for Mantha in a desperate grab to get back to the Cup Final. I think they care. Either way, debating Trotz is fine, but he's the only coach who really has had a profound impact on a team when he joined and continues to have that. He may also not win it all on Long Island. For me proven coaches are a concept. The only thing most coaches have proven is that they are good at providing a small boost and not destroying a team. Very few are perennial winners, at least in the NHL.

Saw a stat this morning.. can't readily find it again right now. Since 1901 four times has a player pitched 10 strikeouts and hit two HRs in the same game. Some guy in 1954 Some guy in 1971 Shohei Ohtani in 2019 and 2021. He leads the league in HRs. Here is quote from MLB He's kind of insane. I'm not even a fan of MLB but what he's doing is too good to not notice.

It's a different feel because we're not used to it. I think it will continue to grow and become more commonplace and in a few years you won't think anything of it. Just like with male announcers, there are good and bad. In the realm of women PBP there probably isn't a big pool of talent at the moment but as it grows the best will rise to the top. I keep thinking of AJ Mlezcko. The first time I heard her it was different. She also was not good. She was lost, didn't have the flow, the points she made seemed disconnected. Now I absolutely love hearing her analysis, especially if it means Pierre Maguire was not doing it. I'm happy she's on the ESPN list.

https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/5-things-to-know-about-sabres-coach-don-granato/c-325513248 In the YouTube video he references Dallas Drake, who had been in the league 14 years coming to him in a panic over whether he did the neutral zone forecheck properly (the head coach had laid out the system). His inference is that Dallas Drake may have 14 years but he realizes if he doesn't do what the coach wants he's not a superstar and could be benched or scratched, etc. Granato's response was, before the coach laid it out you were doing it fine, do it like you know how and you'll be fine. I see the same for Dahlin. He made a mistake and he's on the bench. He lives in fear of making a mistake so now he's thinking about making mistakes or not making mistakes and he's not supposed to be thinking, he's supposed to be reacting. The time for thinking is off the ice, not in the middle of the play.

Dahlin's quote on Granato sums up why he improved. If you add that to the YouTube video posted in the Granato thread where he talks about coaches getting in players heads over adherence to a system versus following their instincts you can see why Krueger destroyed Dahlin and why Dahlin showed incredible improvement under Granato. Watching that YouTube video was very telling and provides great insight into the little things that make coaches different.

The ESPN coverage crew.

https://www.nhl.com/news/barry-trotz-resigns-as-washington-capitals-coach/c-299101550 https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/things-fell-apart-barry-trotz-capitals/ There was more to it than just the pay. Yes, one might argue the Caps chose to act this way to encourage him to leave.

Gerard Gallant has not lasted more than 3 seasons with any team. With Columbus he never made the playoffs, with the Panthers he made it once, lost in the first round and was left looking for a cab the next season. Vegas was never as bad as people thought and that is evidenced by their continued success. Despite his success in Vegas, the team declined in the second year, and he was fired in the third. IN short, Gerard Gallant has a track history of not lasting more than 3 seasons and I would think that would be something Sabres fans would be concerned about given all the changeover that has occurred here. I'm not worried about consternation on this board. Vegas was a team that was riding a city high excitement wave, with no expectation of success, and was a better team than people realized. Gallant capitalized on that but let's not pretend he did anything special. The team was close to being back in the Final this year. They've been good this whole time. Do you think the Rangers weren't poised to make a big jump next year already? You can give Gallant credit, but that team is already set to make waves next season. Let's see how long he lasts.. As for Dudley I understand now that you were comparing him to Lamorello. Dudley has proven success, but the Sabres didn't want him before. Washington didn't let him go. He left Washington, after winning a Stanley Cup, to join the Islanders. When the Sabres went for Krueger (over anyone else including Q) I think it was a strict "we want this guy" and we all know it was stupid. Bylsma was not an unknown however. Housley was a rookie. Interestingly enough... Granato is here and he was an assistant under Q and now Granato is the coach. How much of the Q mentality is here in the form of Granato? And Granato is in a hockey family, through and through. He's not completely from the outside.

How candidates other than Don Granato answered that question. I'm fine with this hire as I outlined elsewhere. Whether fans like it or not, this is a team that is about to change again. We've lived through it for a long time and hate but the players and coaches have not, well, not the players that will still be here anyway.

Not sure I agree and here's why: The Rangers season point totals before and when Torts joined: 05-06: 100 pts 06-07: 94 pts 07-08: 97 pts 08-09: 95 pts (Torts coached 21 games that season) 09-10: 87 pts 10-11: 93 pts 11-12: 109 pts (this was the most successful year - 3 seasons after he took over) 12-13: 56 pts (Torts was fired after this season) 13-14: 96 pts (The team reverted back to its routine point totals) Similar results with Columbus. 13-14: 93 pts 14-15: 87 pts 15-16: 76 pts (Torts coached 75 games) 16-17: 108 pts (sounds impressive, but was only 3rd in the Metro that year) 17-18: 97 pts 18-19: 98 pts 19-20: 81 pts With Columbus he never made it past the 2nd round. As I see it with Torts, the good team was already there. He managed a season boost for each of them but then faded out. I'm not doing Paul Maurice, but he's maintained a team but not put them over the top yet. Gallant took the Vegas job with a team that was well stocked and had absolutely nothing to lose in a city that was going crazy for its first year of hockey. The next year didn't go as well and the year after that he was fired. I'm just not buying into it. He's now inheriting a Ranger team that is set to move to the top. I am sure he'll be looked on as going something miraculous but he's getting a very good roster. Trotz turned the Islanders completely around in 1 season with pretty much the same lineup and has kept them there. Fine on Dudley, I'd take him too, but the Sabres have already told him once they were not interested right?

Gallant was once left looking for a cab by the Florida Panthers when they fired him and he didn't get it done in Vegas. Is there any indication Dudley even wants to coach? He's made his career as being and adviser, not as a coach. See below for one more point. The only coach I can think of in recent history who had the track record of getting the job done and then left his current team to move to a new team (on his terms) and continued to get the job done is Barry Trotz. Mike Babcock never got the job done in Toronto. Peter Laviolette still isn't getting the job done. Boudreau never got it done. Perhaps there are some others, but the odds are greater that a coach will fail than he will succeed. At one point in 2014 538 had some research that showed NHL coaches survived on average 2.4 years with a team. That indicates to me that more often than not, a team does not get the coaching hire right.

I am 100% undecided between 1 of 2 potential paths: Path 1 - Own a distillery/brewery/restaurant that bordered either a large sea or ocean. Nothing big, large enough to sustain itself. Basically live a somewhat carefree life (not that owning this would not bring stress) and help people reach a peak stress-free people in their lives while they visit my establishment. I have a certain passion for large bodies of water (the Great Lakes are nice, but just not BIG enough). I think the ocean is the best way on Earth to demonstrate how relatively insignificant we are in the Universe. When you realize that, you can come to a peace and harmony with it, and that's where the booze and food come in. Recognize the flavors of life and accept your place in existence. Path 2 - I am highly inspired by Anthony Bourdain's travel show career. No one can mimic what he did or how he did it. I would love to travel the world exposing people to the life in a country that's not exposed in tourist brochures or on the news (what little of it we get in the US to begin with). I think its important for the history of other countries and cultures to be told to the citizens of this country so they can better understand not only what is happening in the world at large but understand the immigrants from those nations who end up in the United States. This satisfies a different passion of mine, the need for constant change. This may seem strange against what I said above about oceans but given the everyday bustle of life, the same monotonous pattern develops and its boring. In Path 1 I would live this change through the constant change of people who were visiting me whereas in this path I visit them. And thanks for starting this thread. Really needing a break from the number of Eichel/coach/draft threads that inevitably all come back to the same discussion points. This is a welcome change from it!

Got it. Not end of story as outlined above it would seem. Yes, well things have changed. The "worse" of yesteryear would certainly end up with Child Protective Services showing up at your house.

Given that he was still deciding I am guessing the prep school didn't have a vaccination mandate? Or did they and was he deciding whether to attend or not as part of it? The next big fight. Reading this morning that JP Morgan is considering mandating vaccinations for its employees. Read another article where a nurse (in Houston?) was fired because she refused to get vaccinated. It's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out in courts, both those of law and public opinion.

Normal yes. So, let's say my child is 100% steadfast against being vaccinated. As a parent what do I do? Do I FORCE them to be vaccinated and then deal with the fallout of how i have "ruined" their life? When I try to get them in the car for the shot and they refuse, what do I do? Do I use excessive force to get them in the car? Do I constrain them? If I get them to a vaccination site and they refuse to cooperate then what happens? My point is not about rights, I know I have the right to decide. But reasonably, my child has the ability to act against my right. Given some of the conversation I have heard going around my 14 year old daughter's social circles... I really only expect it to be a matter of time before there's some legal case over it. I've already seen one child runaway from her parents because they decided to move her to a Catholic school so she wouldn't hang around a group of friends who supported "non-straight" relationships. They thought their daughter was being ruined by their beliefs. The girl didn't get far. She's threatened suicide. These things happen. As a parent you have to balance that with what you believe is best for the child. ---------- Stepped away after I posted this and I wanted to add more. Right now we are also dealing with a few families who are against the vaccination. They won't let their children get it despite the child wanting it. There are some parents who don't want those children around the group any longer. For the moment it's creating quite a stir. I've no idea where that will go but the odds are probably not in favor of a amicable outcome. So you couple things like that with the crap these kids get into online (not going to debate online access, that's another topic). Not just the ideologies that are shared but a lot of influencing on what their behaviors should be like in response to certain social issues. When Alabama was first in the news about blocking gender assignment treatment for minors regardless of parental permission there were a few people in my daughter's social circles that began to go on about getting rides to Alabama to protest. Rides from people who were offering to pick them up and drive them there to protest. As a parent, that's some downright crazy stuff to know about. Those days and these days are nothing alike. These days your child communicates with people from all over the world, instantly. In your days your social circle was largely limited to your school and any organizations you were part of that were outside your community. We see the ideologies that are spread within adult communities but its not just adult communities. I could go on with some of the things that I have seen. For the most part you want to chalk it up to kids' just blowing off steam or venting. But you know, there's those moments when a kid rolls into a school and starts shooting. Those stick in your head and you can't just ignore it.

Yes, it is. The way the world works these days is that you might be the adult but you aren't necessarily the final decision maker. I suspect a child will challenge their parent in court at some point. Beyond that, I can force a lot on my children. They in turn can make my life hell. It's not a one way street.

He wasn't all of a sudden a Conn Smythe winner. ROR was the same player with the Blues. He had the best playoff on that team in that run. It's not like he's followed it up with anything. He did not elevate the Blues. The Blues fired their coach and they improved when Berube came in and Binnington joined the club. Since then they've been back to the same team they were before. ROR is a very good hockey player. ROR did not jive with the ownership. It is what it is. Eichel is an exceptional hockey player. There are clearly issues or his name would not be in trade rumors. Whether those issues are enough to impact the team performance, regardless of who you bring in, will be a mystery because if he's traded we'll never know. If he's not we'll get a chance to find out. If Eichel is pushing his way out then I wouldn't be blaming Sabres ownership for trading him except that they could not build a team... but also Jack wasn't going to be patient enough to see what transpired. Both sides get blame. I'm not an advocate for or against trading Eichel. I simply have no idea at this point whether he is enough of an off-ice issue to register an opinion. All I know is I am sick of hearing about it and I only care if the Sabres win. Yes, I am not trying to insinuate that ROR would drive the success of a team. I am saying he was not the reason that the team succeeded. He wasn't the difference maker for the Blues and he hasn't been since then. He's been the same player all along. But more value is ascribed to ROR because they did win the Cup and he did win the Conn Smythe. I don't think that value is warranted.