SabresBaltimore

I'm hoping we continue the momentum tonight. The Rags and Knights both have negative Goal Differentials, but the AVs are currently at +3. They are 2-1, and both wins are at home. They are coming off a 5-2 loss in Columbus on Tuesday, so they will probably be looking to bounce back tonight. While I want to see Ullmark get some time in the net soon, I feel like Hutton is playing too well to play Ullmark before the Back to Back November 16th/17th.

Oh awesome! My work PC badly needed this!

I haven't been following much of the preseason, so I'll be curious to see how they look. Can't be worse than last year, right?

Congrats to Minnesota Duluth. https://www.ncaa.com/news/icehockey-men/article/2018-04-07/frozen-four-2018-minnesota-duluth-holds-notre-dame-win-ncaa

And the final is set. Not an all Big 10 final, despite the odds: 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) April 7 7:30 PM (ESPN)

I'm assuming this to be an April fool's joke..

I think at this point I'm rooting for Notre Dame because they've never won it before, and have only appeared the once. OSU hasn't won it either (or been to a fina), but I just don't like OSU I guess. Talk about a good year for the Big 10. They are guaranteed to have at least 1 in the final, and very good odds someone from the Big 10 wins it all. Maybe I should root for Minnesota-Duluth. lol. Frozen Four Schedule: 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 1 Ohio St. (Big 10) April 5 6:00 PM (ESPN 2) 2 Michigan (Big 10) vs. 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) April 5 9:30 PM (ESPN 2)

Another 1 seed falls as Cornell goes down. Notre Dame and Minnesota Duluth are through to frozen four. With Providence out, do the Sabres have any prospects left in the tournament? Here's today's Elite 8 games: 4 Boston U. (Hockey East) vs. 2 Michigan (Big 10) Mar 25 4:00PM (ESPN 2) ------------------------------------------------- 1 Ohio St. (Big 10) vs. 2 Denver (NCHC) Mar 25 6:30PM (ESPNU)

Yeah, it was hard to get a shot through and like you said Hawkey stopped the ones that did, including a few really good chances. I'm hoping they'll be good again next season. I'm not sure how much turn over there will be. It sounded like Clarkson's top scorer was a 22 year old sophmore whose being heavily scouted. It wouldn't surprise me if he leaves for the pros. They also talked about having a lot of "old" players so I'm not sure if most of the team is upperclassman. To be honest I've followed the women's team far more closely the last few years than the men's. Even when I saw the men's team was doing well this year, I didn't really pay too much attention to the roster. NHL Network shows some college hockey, but it nevers seems to be ECAC. Most ECAC hockey seems to be on NESN or some other Boston area network. In other games, right now Cornell is losing 2-1 to Boston College in the third. I'm definitely rooting against Cornell. :) Tonight's Elite 8 Schedule 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) vs. 4 Air Force (Atlantic) Mar 24 9:00 PM (ESPN 2) ------------------------------------------------ 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) vs. Providence (Hockey East) Mar 24 6:00 PM (ESPNU)

Bummer. Clarkson lost 1-0 to Providence. Minnesota-Duleth and MSU-Mankato are heading to over time tied at 2.

The #1 Overall seed in St. Cloud State is out. I didn't watch the game but Air Force seemed to beat them quite handily. Meanwhile, it took Notre Dame almost all of the first over time period to beat Michigan Tech. Clarkson just started. Let's Go Tech!

Puck drops on the first game in about 30 minutes. I may watch simply because if Clarkson wins later tonight they'll play the winner tomorrow night for a chance at the frozen four.

Ah, OK. Anyways..I'm excited for the tournament! I may only watch the Clarkson game though. Hoping there will be a few more of those :) Notre Dame is going to be really tough to beat though, assuming they make it past Providence.

What I meant was going to college to me seems to give the player more control of how/when they go pro than juniors. Some players are good enough for the AHL, but not good enough for the NHL yet after 1 year. Juniors doesn't allow that if you're 18/19. I think that's dumb/hurts player development. If they are good enough for the AHL, they should play there. What good does 1-2 more years dominating in Juniors really do them? If they went to college instead, they could just leave college after their freshman year to play in the AHL and hope to prove themselves/earn a callup. Personally I don't really care about them becoming FA after 4 years in college. What I meant was if they don't make it right away/at all they have the fallback of a college degree.

Oh, and this may just be me talking out of my ass, but I feel like US Collegiate hockey is on the rise. Is that due to the rise of Big 10 hockey/the aforementioned D1 expansion? Personally if I was a Canadian kid who wanted/expected to go Pro, I'd rather do US college hockey over Canadian Juniors for 2 reasons: If going pro doesn't work out you spend 4 years playing and end with a degree to fall back on. If it does work out, you can leave school early without penalty. This includes going to the AHL to develop/get paid sooner. It's always annoyed me that our Juniors prospects have to play in Juniors or for the Sabres until they are what 20? I forget exactly, but those contracts seem to hurt player development.

I was looking at Clarkson's roster. They have 3 Finns, a Latvian and a German to go along with their typical Canadian heavy (17 players) with some Americans (4 + 1 dual citizen) mixed in roster. Looking back at old rosters though, having Finns isn't a new thing, just something they hadn't done in several years. During the lean years, it seemed to be a lot more Americans. I wonder if the success of the woman's team has had any effect on their recruiting for the men's team at all. Probably not, but it can't hurt to show such a small school can still compete with the bigger ones.

I would watch more Woman's hockey if it was easier to watch. Or at least Clarkson Woman's hockey. I graduated in 2004, so I just missed out on them having a team. I always feel bad they seems to have a much smaller crowd than the men despite the fact that they are the far better team, especially the last 5 years. They had a decent sized pep band in Minneapolis, but it sounded the pep band that went to support the men's team in Lake Placid was bigger. To be fair though it's probalby way cheaper/easier to go to Placid from Potsdam. I feel like the woman's game was gotten a lot more exciting the last few years. In the Olympics it usually comes down to US and Canada, but the Finns have a decent team now as well. One of Clarkson's top scorers is from the Czech Republic. Professionally first you had the NWHL paying its players and now the older/more established CWHL is now paying its players. I do know that for the first round of the NCAA tournament, Clarkson's website had a free stream of the game. It looks like it's maybe the same feed they run on the closed circuit campus TV station. The audio was the radio commentator I think. I need to see if that's available for all the games, or if they made a special exception for the NCAA tournament. Typically I just follow them via the Watertown news and UHCHO website. On the men's side, ECAC doesn't seem to be shown nationally. At best NESN shows a few games for like Harvard or Brown.

Yeah, I went back and did a conference breakdown. Just the automatic bid for them this year. Everyone else has at least 2.

The bracket was released. As a Clarkson alumni I'm super excited they got an at-large bid despite losing the ECAC final to Princeton in OT. That put's 3 from the ECAC in the bracket too. Princeton beat Cornell in the ECAC semis, but Cornell was ranked 2 in the country coming in. Conference Teams Atlantic - 1 Big 10 - 4 ECAC - 3 Hockey East - 3 NCHC - 3 WCHA - 2 The Big 10 is leading the way, with 4 teams (including 2 of the top 4 seeds). Here's the full bracket: https://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/icehockey-men/d1 ------------------------------------------------- 1 St. Cloud St (NCHC). vs. 4 Air Force (Atlantic) Mar 23 4:00PM (ESPNU) 2 MSU-Mankato (WCHA) vs. 3 Minn. Duluth (NCHC) Mar 23 7:30PM (ESPN3) ------------------------------------------------- 1 Cornell (ECAC) vs. 4 Boston U. (Hockey East) Mar 24 1:00PM (ESPN News) 2 Michigan (Big 10) vs. 3 Northeastern (Hockey East) Mar 24 4:30PM (ESPN News) ------------------------------------------------- 1 Ohio St. (Big 10) vs. 4 Princeton (ECAC) Mar 24 3:30PM (ESPNU) 2 Denver (NCHC) vs. 3 Penn St. (Big 10) Mar 24 7:00PM (ESPN3) ------------------------------------------------- 1 Notre Dame (Big 10) vs. 4 Michigan Tech (WCHA) Mar 23 3:00PM (ESPN2) 2 Providence (Hockey East) vs. 3 Clarkson (ECAC) Mar 23 6:30PM (ESPNU)

The men definitely have a tough draw. I'm just happy they finally got back after 10 years. The ECAC final 4 was on some channel I'd never heard of before called Eleven Sports. It wasn't live, but I watched both games. They looked very uneven. The went down 4-1 to Harvard on Friday only to score 3 goals in 4 minutes in the 3rd period. Then they scored super late in the final against Princeton, only to lose in overtime. The win against Harvard was enough to lock-up an at-large bit. Back on topic, there was a pretty good article on the Clarkson woman on USCHO yesterday: http://www.uscho.com/2018/03/18/nothing-comes-easily-for-womens-hockeys-latest-dynasty/ Oh and if anyone didn't see the goal: http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=22825585 Elizabeth Giguere is only a freshman too. I think their entire top line is back next year. Gabel is a junior and Michaela Pejzlova is a sophomore. Clarkson has a really tough road ahead next year losing 2 of their All-American team (http://ahcahockey.com/allamer/2018.php) players in Tiley and Harmon. Gabel is a Junior though. They may have to rely more on scoring next year to win games. I have no idea what their goal tending will look like next season, and Harmon provided a lot of points to go with her really solid defensive play. I wonder if Harmon will make the woman's team next Olympics. I'm hoping she plays for the NWHL next year. She was drafted by the Beauts. Then again last year's Captain (Caley Mercer) was too, and she entered the CWHL and is playing for a Chinese Team in that league instead.

Well it's a rematch from the ECAC final. Prior to Clarkson winning in 2014, all the winners had been from the WHCA, so either way the ECAC gets it's 3rd title. It's still way behind, but good for the league, and hopefully also for woman's collegiate hockey. I do find it pretty funny that the coverage is on Big 10 network, and the 2 Big 10 associated schools were eliminated. Last year they just showed the final, this year we got all of the frozen four. I think they signed a four year agreement. I think the men's tournament will be on ESPN. Anyways, Let's Go Tech!

As a Clarkson alumni, I'm rooting for the repeat.

Thanks!

I'm simply comparing the number roster size this year (26) to the projected roster size for next year (16) given current contracts. But that must be counting IR, since max is 23, so really the number is 7 not 10. However having exactly 23 people signed would give us no depth. Total contracts (which includes prospects and minors, etc) we're down from 45 this year to 26 next year. 45 seems to be the standard across the league.

I hope you're right, but until one of those things happens, I'm going based on what the current numbers say, which leaves us with not a lot of cap space to sign a lot of players for next season.