Hoss

I’m fine if we lose Tage in the expansion draft. I’ve seen improvements from him but he’s going to be 24 at the beginning of next season and has yet to show me anything that makes me think he has an NHL future.

Probably nobody. Maybe Samson if freeman will let him but again, probably nobody.

What are everyone's thoughts on NHL Awards this season? It feels like the Hart (McDavid), Vezina (Vasilevskiy) and Calder (Kaprizov) are all already locked up. Fleury was my favorite for a while for Vezina but I think Vasilevskiy has come back to steal that one pretty easily. Cale Makar, Adam Fox and Victor Hedman seem to get the most talk for the Norris and I think Makar should be in the lead there. I saw a conversation on the twitterverse about Jakob Chyrchrun (remember him?) being in that conversation. Jack Adams is the most interesting one. Dean Evason in Minnesota, Joel Quenneville in Florida and Mike Sullivan in Pittsburgh are all in the conversation ... but I think Rod Brind'Amour deserves the recognition there.

When you've had good pizza your whole life and you move somewhere where there is no good pizza you realize it actually is possible to mess up pizza. There are a few edible spots and then your typical "wood-fired" style which isn't really the same thing.

I'm not throwing money at Nick Foligno nor am I making him my captain. I'd be open to bringing him in but not for a whole lot of $$$. Landeskog is a guy I would absolutely throw money at to "replace" Eichel, though. I'm opening up to a deal with LA that looks like Byfield, Turcotte, Kempe and a pick. I do not think LA is giving us much more than Byfield.

There are two "easy" steps to making sure the expansion draft goes as we want: convince Skinner to let us expose him and trade Risto for the best offer you get instantly. Instead of trading away an asset to make sure Borgen or someone similar isn't taken just get the best value you can get for Risto now and protect Borgen. If you lose Tage Thompson or Anders Bjork so be it.

I'm in Buffalo next month for a wedding and I'm absolutely going to let all the food ravage my body. I can't wait. I thought this was a comment about pizza and I was very lost. Stay on topic, jeez.

I work overnight and had some aches while working during the second dose but it's hard as hell to call off when you work overnight so I worked through it. Was totally out of it but work with a strong group so that helped.

Living in a bad pizza city now made me realize Buffalo pizza is in fact very good.

Sure. But they’re still prospects regardless. Guys do bust. You’d rather be getting young players who have already produced at the NHL level if you’re trading a franchise center.

There’s also only one super team currently in the NBA, to be fair (Brooklyn).

I could just send you my SoundCloud if that counts as a second like

Again, there is no such thing as a super team outside of the NBA. Other leagues don’t compare because no single player has the same impact in other leagues.

Definitely wouldn’t go this far - Albright was the only one who was damn sure of it. also: The Cardinals were definitely the ones who leaked the tweets with the n-word because they wanted him BAD.

Gotcha, I didn’t know they made that change but it’s logical. I was surprised when they said otherwise in previous years.

Neither will be protected, methinks. I just can’t grasp why Girgensons’ name even came up. This is something that’s been debated but basically the team that a player waives it for/to can choose to keep it in the contract which the Sabres would most definitely do if it meant not having to protect Skinner.

Defense is as good as it has ever been in the NBA but the rule enforcement just makes playing defense that much harder. You have your occasional clip of a guy straight up not caring on defense but you’d find plenty of that in any era if you had social media. There were guys back in the day in the NBA that had very little worthwhile skill and were there purely because they were hard to move or get around. That doesn’t make the game better. I think the fluid player movement makes “loyalty” that much sweeter but I also think “loyalty” is a farce team owners have pushed on us for decades as a means of controlling the cost of players and keeping salaries lower. Owners very rarely show loyalty but we always expect players to. It’s hard to compare other leagues in the “super team” sense because there is no major sport where one or two players makes that big of a difference. Not even close to the way it does in the NBA. Also, locking a 19 year old (as most NBA rookies are) into an 11-year employment contract at a location they don’t personally get to choose is absolute insanity. The concept of “paying your dues” after dedicating your life growing up to the craft gives off some very bad vibes.

And the NHL doesn’t even have to do anything artificial to push the offense-first mentality. Just enforce your rules. That’s what the NBA started doing is calling the fouls that are there (except for LeBron, that guy gets fouled every time he drives to the basket because there’s really no other way to stop him). Some players take advantage of it and you’ve got to find ways to penalize that kind of leaning into the rules instead of playing the game but the leagues are better when you let offensive players in these highly-skilled times take off.

If this team even considers protecting Girgensons it’s legitimately one of the dumbest moves in team history. He’s a nothing burger and he just missed an entire season.

“I cannot stand what the NBA what the NBA is and represents” 😂 my goodness what a lame statement.

Running back has always felt like a wildcard at 30 because the team clearly isn't getting the production it needs out of the RB position but there's also some thought that it's because of the offensive line. I've now seen three different reports that Etienne to the Bills could be a thing ... smokescreen or real thing?

Ryan Murray is the only bust of the ten-year stretch I looked at where it's fair to judge them by now but Nolan Patrick could soon join them. Otherwise you've got almost exclusively stars aside from ... Samson Reinhart (who is damn good in his own right). So point well made. If I'm doing a deal with LA I'd want to get Adrian Kempe coming our way. So maybe a deal like Kempe, Byfield, Turcotte and a young defenseman we do NOT have to protect for Eichel and Risto. If they'd like pretty much any of our scraps they're more than welcome to pick more.

This one has been the most frequently suggested offering and I still think it's a hell no for me. I'm not trading Eichel unless I'm getting at least two pieces I know can play in the NHL immediately. Turcotte and Byfield probably get an NHL shot next season but they could also be two absolute nothings and then we end up watching one of the most talented players in this franchise's history walk for zilch.

Devils should’ve coasted to two points but fumbled it gloriously late.

I mean has he scored 200 goals a season to dig them out of the hole? No!? Then he’s part of the cause. 😉