Randall Flagg

The NBA seems to be a great league and I love Kawhi and Lebron and Steph and Clay and many other stars but I just have such a hard time watching actual basketball games except for the last couple in a given NBA finals I have no feel for the sport and its excellent plays make far less of an impression on me than those in hockey or football (which are the two sports that take up 98% of my time)

In principle, yeah. In practice, we all have reason to be skeptical that it will. And I just think Vesey is a pretty bad hockey player, and am worried he will not fix what ails a middle six line - instead merely being a continuation of the problem while ensuring we don't adequately replace it in at least his position this offseason, since we already "addressed" it by bringing him in this worry is what drove me to say I'd spend a 7th so that we didn't trade a 3rd for him, a few weeks ago

None from me

Will he be used over Tage Thompson, or as justification to send an Olofsson back to Rochester, or an ERod away in a trade with Risto?

Sheary won two cups and then promptly came here and dragged us back

We said these same things about Sheary last offseason (and I was leader of the charge). Maybe we can quibble about "going to the net" but I can show you an hour of film of other Sabres going to the net and being useless there, despite having a decent number of goals in the "ES" column too. I'm not even sure I know what it means anymore I haven't watched dozens of games of Jimmy Vesey, but I've probably seen ~15. Please convince me this situation tangibly different from the Sheary one, and that I shouldn't worry about the fact that Vesey appears to be notably worse than Conor in their own zone, because I was the guy that said two weeks before the trade was made that I'd pay an asset to make sure we didn't give up an asset to roster Jimmy Vesey

I would say that this signing puts me over the threshold bare minimum for being 'okay' with the big acquisition being a winger rather than a center. Not thrilled, but I'd watch with intrigue. This is under the assumption that there just isn't a reasonable avenue for a very good center this offseason. Man, I thought we were done with this issue, it's so painful to still be discussing it ?

Also with Sobotka vs. Mitts, it should be noted that Phil definitely caught on to Vlad about 60 games in. Combining with an injury, he kinda lost his place to maybe Rodrigues. There was a distinct time where I would definitely refer to Vlad as the 2C, and then games after that where he wasn't at all which started to lower his TOI numbers

Where's MODO with the Peter Griffin clip

With the proper big move we're all waiting for, this offseason becomes an unambiguous positive. Let's hope tom webster is right and it's coming.

Eichel Skinner Reinhart Mitts Vesey Rodrigues Johansson Larsson Zemgus Kyle Sheary Olofsson is a full roster, but it's not a roster I'd be happy with. We need that one last big splash at forward, and then we can see where things fall into place.

Yeah I don't mean to compare their quality as players, just the "always listed as a W/C and you shouldn't just pencil them into C and you should try to get an established 2C anyway" type of thing. I can't say I know much of anything about Johansson other than I wanted him when the Devils signed him.

I feel like this guy's a center the way JT Miller is a center the way Sam Reinhart is a center the way Ville Leino is a center

Huh. That's a solid deal, no?

Sign somebody to kick the ***** out of him please

Whatever it is, please continue to post these insights whenever you have them!! tom, how far along do you think they are in their "roster surgery"? Just based on what you know, what would your guess be for number of trades remaining and how big they are?

Lol my Saturdays are free! I did most of the work for that post in April, May, and June. I did almost no work when I posted it! Just finished up some video editing.

You make me a much better hockey-watcher. Their third period was unbelievable and showed the exact type of thing that would have made me call GMs later that night to get in a 2C, but the first two periods of hockey made me want to cry. I agree that gunk is hockey - but it's so hard to analyze that when I'm looking for things that might explain large discrepancies in whatever stat, I need to grab onto something else! Do you think we're better or worse at gunk hockey than other teams? Sometimes they surprise me with their puck battles. When they fail, what's the reason? Sheer size and strength? A technical ability (thinking Sid here)?

The gap between him and a 2C on a weak roster in this eastern conference isn't something I'd even bet a penny on him crossing in one offseason full of golf and fortnite so far by the looks of it (Yes, I am sure he's training hard haha) He doesn't have some natural niche as an elite player among his peers such that it should be expected he slides into that position ever, even - check out any of his past three seasons - whatever success he gets he's going to have to work his tail off for, and it's going to take time This can't even be a backup plan for Jack Eichel's fifth season, Jason Botterill's third, Dahlin's second ELC year, after the last six years we've just gone through, given what the roster looks like now.

No idea where the discussion was for this, and no idea if Aho would have accepted a contract from us, but MTL, if you're going to offer sheet Aho, do it with all capital letters, don't just toss something easy to match. He was intent on 5 years anyway, and CAR has no issue with 8.4 mil. I'd have gone up to obscene AAV to force them to give him to me Stupid Bergevin

When you find this guy he's going up to play with Jack and Jeff, not on our fourth line. When Botterill finds this guy, it'll be the first time in thirteen tries - the other players have all been worse than Zemgus

I would have never given up an asset to add Jimmy Vesey to my team. But given that Rags fans were talking Rodrigues/roster players/even McCabe coming back, I'm not really upset that we gave up a third two drafts from now, so whatever. Hope he works out for us. Not sure I like the identity of the third line we're going to end up seeing here and don't really want him in the top six

If Vesey is 2LW, I'd like a big center acquisition. If that doesn't happen and Mitts or a small acquisition (Turris, your homeboy?) plays 2C, I'd really like a Risto for Ehlers type of thing to hold down that LW. two great wingers and an unproven/lesser center, or Vesey with Sam and a very nice center. If it's Skinner - Jack - xxx Vesey - Mitts/Turris/Wennberg/something - Reinhart Sheary Olofsson ERod KO Larry etc etc etc then we in trouble

dork is an indispensable part of my repertoire of insults

I'm going to start calling this the GAP argument goals assists points I use it myself all the time but I think I'm going to stop because it makes me like bad hockey players and dislike good ones