TrueBlueGED

I dunno. His system was the same thing he did in Pittsburgh, so I'm not sure he specifically tailored it for the roster here.

Because I'm bored at work, I'll pretend we can get our pick back for an offer sheet and that Botterill would do it. Would you rather throw this offer at Tkachuk or William Karlsson?

Indeed. The thought of any Boston team, let alone the Bruins, winning another championship is nauseating. However, the Bruins should give us all hope. I know they were starting from a better point, but they have basically zilch to show for Seguin and Hamilton, and botched an entire draft...and they're still in the Cup. I mean, DeBrusk is a nice player, but a 40-point winger isn't exactly something to crow about.

I honestly have no idea how to value a trade with Risto. On the one hand, I think Miller is straight up a better player than Risto. On the other hand, I'm not convinced that's the general perception around league GMs. At the very least, we have no idea what Brisebois values or is capable of.

Maybe. I generally like the hire, but doesn't every coach say this before they actually have to do anything? Every new hire by every team in every sport talks about putting players in a position to succeed or equivalent cliche.

Well, some of that isn't only special teams related, but overall ice time related--Risto averaged a little over 7 more minutes of ice time per game at even strength. If we look at rates, Risto was at 1.03 points per 60 minutes of ice time at even strength, while Miller was at 1.79. That's not a trivial difference.

Why? I don't think he's anything special. I'd probably have to be convinced he's more than a Guhle-level prospect. Absolutely. I'd rather do that than take on Callahan's carcass.

Even if I see it, I still might not believe it.

It's not closing soon, but it is open. All of those teams have been competitive for a long time around those players. It's not like this was the first season any of them did anything.

Of course we should pursue RFAs. Also, of course, we won't. And nobody else will either (at least not via offer sheets).

The team isn't that young. Most of the core pieces are in their prime. We have a franchise center and defenseman. The future is now. As to whether the Sabres go this path or not, I'm not sure how long Botterill can expect to be employed if he misses the playoffs for a third straight season after icing two of the worst teams in franchise history *while trying to win.*

Well, my plan revolves around adding someone like Miller via trade, keeping Skinner, and adding via free agency. If we take on Callahan, that's not really very likely.

I like Miller a lot, but he's merely a good player. If the only way to acquire him is to take on a useless hockey player for $5.8M, then Botterill should probably be fired because he's clearly incapable of the job.

And the Wild want to move on from Rask. What a turd of a trade that was.

That's the other thing though: just because something results in self-service doesn't mean that was the pure intent of it. LeBron is the biggest star in his sport, and arguably the biggest of any sport--literally anything he does is going to get attention, even if it's coming from a genuine desire to do something good.

The flip side is that we'd be spending $26M this season for what amounts to nothing useful (I like Sheary, but if you're gonna lump him in with those other names...). Hard to make the playoffs getting 0 production from almost a third of your cap (and almost 40% of your cap once you count Okposo in the useless bunch). I'm not inclined to flush away another prime season of Eichel and Reinhart, while wasting another of Dahlin's entry-level years. I like Miller a lot, but he isn't so valuable that he should necessitate taking on Callahan.

1st and Pilut is probably fair value, but I'm not moving Pilut. I'm mostly thinking Tampa will want somebody who can play in addition to a pure future asset. Not sure what else we have to offer there if the trade isn't Risto-based.

I'm really tired of taking on expensive cap dumps.

It's only a good basis if you think Tampa is going to value Miller as a pure cap dump. Don't get me wrong, I'd love it, but I think we'd have to add a non-trivial piece.

I'll never understand how anyone thinks LeBron is disingenuous. He's a legitimately good dude, good father and husband, does a ton for charity including funding a public school to help underprivileged kids get to college. The collapsing to the court crying after bringing Cleveland a title? If that was fake, he's among the greatest actors of all time. And so on.

The last few pages of this thread make the 2018 Bills offense look pretty good.

I think basically everyone agrees the show suffered for setting a firm end and a shortened final 2 seasons, while also being negatively affected by running out of source material. But as often happens with nostalgia, fans are forgetting that the last two books weren't exactly masterpieces themselves. Assuming Martin ever finishes the series, I'll be pretty shocked if the final two books end up holding a candle to the first three. I also think that hardcore GoT fans are approaching Star Wars fans status, where literally nothing will satisfy them. It's what happens when you spend years hyper analyzing and reading/writing fan fiction masquerading as theories.

Well, when he was murdered in the books, his wounds were described as smoking. But I tend to think of "birth" in the case of the prophecy in a more metaphorical sense. He was born by the ashes of King's Landing (smoke) and his tears (salt) while killing Dany. Overall I think the finale was "okay." Ultimately, once the decision was made to cap the show at 8 seasons and truncate the number of episodes for the final two, I think this was probably the best we could hope for. This is a really good point, and if the last two books are any indication, his end product (should he ever finish) has a good chance of being just as messy and disjointed as the show's storytelling became.

I'm not going to say I liked it, but these are the endings Martin has planned for the main characters.

The hilarious thing is they let him spend a bazillion dollars in free agency.