Randall Flagg

Might be an age gap thing, everyone I know is ready to self-harm over the lack of live sports

I have a tough time seeing Larson getting any amount of money worth worrying about

Darcy took Jason's snail pace with Murray's ability to acquire a surly, handsome, two way top six center, and combined them with some actual freaking results on occasion

Two of my favorite sites for gathering stats the way I like to do it are no longer up/running, so I will do the best I can with this, and am kind of setting up how I'm going to try and answer this question on the fly. For example, I can get stats on a whole line for the Sabres, but I can't parse those stats for their performance versus specific players and lines. Because of this, I'm just going to use Larsson himself, and gather information about his time on the ice against specific players on other teams. All 5v5. 71% of Larry's total ice time came with BOTH of these guys on the ice as well, and doesn't include those wonky shift-changes left Larry and Kyle out there with a different LW like Vesey, or Larry and Zemgus out there with Samson, or things like that, which are quite common during changes on the fly as any hockey fan has seen, where you can get half a line out there but are then hemmed in for a while. Ralph may have broken that line up for a game or a shift here and there, but that line was largely his preferred spot for each of those three players. So just focusing on Larsson is the best I can do at present, and hopefully that will be an acceptable representation of the LOG line's results. The individual forwards that Larsson has faced the most this season (by total minute) are, in order, William Nylander, Auston Matthews, Kasperi Kapanen, Nick Foligno, Alex Ovechkin, Alex Kerfoot, Tom Wilson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Evgeny Kuznetsov, John Tavares, Filppula & Bertuzzi on Detroit, Boone Jenner, Connor McDavid, Evgeni Malkin, Nikita Kucherov, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Brayden Point, Dylan Larkin. I got bored of scrolling and sifting through goalies and defensemen so I'm stopping here. I think we can all agree that this confirms Larry's role - try and slow down other team's top players. What I think I'll do is go through a bunch of teams and sum up Larsson's Corsi for/against, goals for/against, and expected goals for/against, versus one representative skater from the top line for each team, as I'd be double-counting things if I used both Matthews AND Nylander. That will give some stats for Larsson's performance which weed out his time playing against Gauthier and Stephenson and other 4th liners. There are only a few teams I need to worry about having multiple elite lines anyway, and it's pretty clear how to split those guys up. I'll use Stamkos and Point as two separate lines in our Tampa games, Tavares and Matthews for Toronto, Kuznetsov and Backstrom for Washington, Malkin and Sid for Pittsburgh. There may be more doubles which I'll specify when I find them. I've collected these stats for Larsson's ice time against: TOR: Matthews and Tavares BOS: Krejci (with Debrusk, secondary scoring - he played only 3 minutes against Bergeron this season through all 4 games combined, there's nothing interesting there) MTL: Gallagher DET: Larkin TB: Kucherov (I wanted to do two lines for TB, but Kucherov, Stamkos, Point, and their other top 6 forwards all play with each other a lot, and so I cannot guarantee that I'm not double-counting data for this one, so I'm sticking with Kucherov, who he has played 13 minutes against this season) FLA: Barkov PIT: Malkin and Crosby (who have only played 22 total 5v5 minutes together through 68 games this season, and didn't against us from what I can tell) WSH: Ovechkin (another team I wanted to make two lines for but could not separate the players) PHI: Giroux (same deal) CBJ: Dubois NYR: Panarin NYI: Lee (who was on a line with Barzal, though Larry played against Lee for about 2 minutes in excess of Barzal, which is why i chose him for increased sample size, neither player was on the ice for a goal for or against with Larry out there) CAR: Staal (he didn't play against Aho/Tuevo for more than a minute or so in all the matchups combined) NJ: Hall (debated throwing this one away as it was only for 4:01, Larry played against grinders in these games, but the Sabres did outscore the Devils 1-0 in that 4:01 - but i'll leave this player out of the data as I'd like to keep only players who he played at least 6 minutes against) EDM: McDavid COL: MacKinnon DAL: Seguin WPG: Scheifele NSH: Forsberg VGK: Marchessault CGY: Tkachuk ANA: Rakell (played on a line with Getzlaf, used Rakell because of another two minutes of data) He didn't play against Chicago I think, as there was no data for Kane. He doesn't appear to have played against Minny either. I also didn't use Ottawa (no discernible "top lines," different every time we played them, no real superstars anyway) and he only got negligible minutes against non-grinders versus LA and Vancouver and San Jose. So those teams are missing. Larsson played 256:11 against these skaters at 5v5 this season, which is about a third of his 5v5 ice time, against these skaters and their lines. More ice time than this third came against lines not mentioned, for example, whichever of Tampa's deadly top six lines didn't have Kucherov, or the same with Ovechkin (it appears that they used Ovie with Backstrom and Kuzy with Oshie in our games), or lines in those teams I didn't include, or the Laine/Ehlers line in Winnipeg, or any time Draisaitl may have been split from McD, or Kadri/Burakovsky, or Domi, Trocheck, etc, in addition to the times he did spend grinding along with other teams' bottom 6. Larsson basically spent 1/3rd of his 5v5 ice time against about 23 of the best skaters on the planet, and faces of the teams he played against that night. In those 256:11 on ice, the Sabres had the following results: 226 Corsi for, 196 Corsi against, or a 53.55 CF% 12 goals for and 12 goals against, or a neutral +/- 10.67 xGF and 8.14 xGA, or a 56.73 xGF% This is pretty ***** good. Restated another way, when Larry was on the ice with Matthews, Tavares, Krejci/Debrusk, Gallagher, Larkin, Kucherov, Barkov, Malkin, Crosby, Ovechkin, Giroux, Dubois, Panarin, Lee/Barzal, J. Staal, McDavid, MacKinnon, Seguin, Scheifele, Forsberg, Marchessault, M. Tkachuk, and Rakell/Getzlaf, the Sabres controlled the shot attempts, scoring chances, and kept the score even, while holding those skaters and their lines to just 12 goals in 256 minutes of 5v5 hockey. The other lines (mentioned above) were outscored by the Sabres to a tune of +8 while Larry was on the ice in those other minutes. He had his toughest games against Matthews, Ovechkin, and MacKinnon - Matthews' line scored twice against him in four meetings, and so did Ovie's in 2. He managed to hold MacKinnon's line scoreless in the two meetings, despite racking up 10 minutes against him, including in a game that we lost 6-1. He held Kucherov's line scoreless in over 13 minutes, his line outscored Barkov's 3-0 in 11 minutes, he broke even with Crosby and Malkin in 25 combined minutes (1-1, though out-corsi-ing them 24-14), Larry's line outscored McDavid's line 1-0 (17-6 Corsi) in 13 minutes over two games, and in 9 minutes against Scheifele they outscored them 2-0. His line better handled that of Tavares, with 2 goals to their 1, and a 13-5 shot attempt edge. It's interesting that Matthews and Ovie were impervious to the line's attempts to stop them - I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that those two can score at will from any location, rendering keep-them-outside tactics fairly useless. If we are confident that we can build a fourth line without Larry and Zemgus that is capable of eating a few hundred of these minutes against these skaters while breaking even on the scoreboard (and going above even otherwise), then we don't need to keep them. I look at the 4th lines of the 2012-2018 Sabres, next to Botterill depth acquisitions of the last three years and our prospect pool, and don't feel that confidence.

I'll give it a look when I can. I wish I had seen enough from Asplund to make me similarly comfortable. i really like having those two as 13th and 14th/15th forwards, and am worried about relying on them for spots 11&12 with Botts specials being brought in for depth behind them.

Is this game one? Somebody has had to get this on YouTube since the Sabres have stopped. I desperately want to watch game one buffalo-ottawa

Would he? Asplund wasn't very impactful, and often was sorta bad, last season. I'm rather tired of writing multiple players with that descriptor into lineup spots and assuming they've grown or it'll work, that's the main reason we have had such anemic hockey teams over Jason's tenure

Those two skaters are answers to different questions. I don't want Toffoli centering the fourth line at all. I'd easily choose Larry for that role over Tyler. I don't want Larry as a wing, he's awful on the wing, and I don't want him on a scoring line. I'd easily choose Tyler for that role. They shouldn't be put up against each other in any way. This was the summer of having cap space or whatever, we won't have to make a decision like this He is, unless you like a fourth line that gets caved in at tank levels for 10 minutes per night, if you think that's conducive to winning, over a fourth line that can outscore its opponents while shutting down other teams' elite lines

I was going to ask this question - back when almost nobody in the west, save a few small twitter accounts, were talking about this as if it would have ramifications for us (late December into early January) and then early in China's struggle, I recall seeing the worry that immunity after infection wasn't the case with this virus. I havent seen anything since that says we are SURE those infected are now immune from getting it again. It really seems that this is an aspect of the virus we don't know much about still, unless someone can link news/studies I've missed

None of this counters the point that it would be so Botterill to be forced to write in a player who we only know for sure as bad, before we even get to see him play, because of waivers. And he only played one game for us, but was just as deer-in-headlights, cripplingly-slow-processing-speed as ever. I'm not holding my breath This doesn't get talked about enough. Our forward prospect pool is egregiously typical for a team supposedly now doing it the right way

I wouldn't be able to prove it, but I would probably place a wager that we don't bring in a Larry replacement should he walk, with Lazar as the reason why. I recall reading something suggesting that Larson was open to remaining a Sabre, though I can't find it now. I don't think it's as certain he leaves as others do

Wao, John Oliver

It would be so Botterill for us to force a bad player onto the roster because he was a main peace in Jason's defining trade Last we saw Tage he still had miles to go in the hockey sense department to be considered genuinely ready to be a positive NHL player

Still reeling from the realization that the substance of religion/theology goes (light years) beyond my old dorm-room, Four-Horsemen-brand atheism's projections, which I began noticing a year or so ago. Especially its place for people who have experienced how dark life can get, and its role in evolutionary psychology of the human being and its society/civilization. (Again, I'm still in the stage of being stunned by the existence of monstrous depth I was unaware of, not that I have any sort of grasp or ability to explain or understand these things, which I don't)

I loved Dave Strader. i love Chris Cuthbert

Dammit Ethan Bear, why didn't you liquidate your ELC house purchase, while the economy is teetering on the edge of recession or worse, so that you can give more moneys to corona?!? Greedy douche!

Nobody can know for sure, but I'm more inclined to think that Vanek's late-career bouncing around was a function of his abilities. He could still score, but was simply horrendous defensively, during his last few stops. Teams thought they could mitigate the latter for more of the former, giving him one year deals to test it out, and would find it not worth further investment (in Detroit and Florida, they wound up having similar issues/characteristics at the team level, needing immediate fixing). I always wished 2013 Vanek could score like 2007 Vanek, and that 2007 Vanek had the vision and playmaking of 2013 Vanek I can't vote in the poll because in every instance there are multiple players I know nothing about

They didn't do that in a vacuum. He lost his job to TD Mike. Who won the job fair and square by being TD Mike.

Which is why he'd better do a good job with our other open spots, and not just count on our guys stepping to fill 4 other holes!

Capable of either winning a Selke or flirting with/hitting a point per game

Strome-centered offseason I'd be okay with: Skinner - Eichs - decent forward acquisition, nothing crazy Olofsson - Strome - Reinhart Johansson - Kahun - Cozens Girgs/equivalent - Larry/equivalent - Okposo, where equivalent means I don't want prospects here, I want established NHLers that can continue this line's role, maybe Reaves or something if we can't keep these two. MAYBE I'd be okay with Lazar full time there. This gives, for organizational depth and injury callups, Asplund, Lazar, Tage, Mitts. Different skill sets depending on who is injured, and Casey and Mitts can do what guys like Drew and MacArthur did in 06/07, which is probably where they should be right now. Strome-centered offseason that would make me angery: Skinner - Eichel - Reinhart Olofsson - Strome - Kahun Johansson - Mitts/Cozens - Thompson Asplund - Lazar - Okposo Very little depth for call-ups, too much in the way of players who have only shown to be bad at this level, way too much dice-rolling once again.

This hockey discussion is downright therapeutic to be honest

It's my spidey sense

Not sure, but I don't think it'll be too high.

I'd at least be intrigued enough to go watch some of his Chicago games. Like you imply, I think he'll wind up being the best available option.