DarthEbriate

Schaefer at 32 is... fine. I'd want a more dynamic offensive player in the first round, but he's definitely solid. I think he'd project really well to a bottom 6 who will cycle strongly and then get to the front of the net (something the team will need as Okposo and Girgs get older/retire). Edit: Also, I think Schaefer is still available in the 2nd round -- perhaps at Sabres #41. He is having a really solid WHL playoffs. The T-Bird I'm wary of is LHD Korchinski at 9. I see a really solid puck-moving D who picks up a ton of assists, but who does not control the game in all zones. Big caveat: yet. His Draft+1 year is when I'd expect to really watch him closely and expect him to crush the WHL in all zones (ala Mark Pysyk or Cal Foote). I'm wary at 9 (and I'd rather go top-skill forward), but if he slips to 16 for some odd reason... sure, nab Korchinski.

The T-Birds move on to take on the Blazers. On the Kozak side... I don't have anything beyond the stats, but we may learn he's dealing with an injury. He was averaging 20+ faceoffs/game in the playoffs as a top-six center. Then in games 6 and 7 (both Portland losses) he took 0 and 6 faceoffs, respectively.

Yikes. Amerks didn't show up to the home ice opportunity to close out the series....

A skater removes his own helmet... he has to put it back on or immediately leave the ice/get a new one from the bench. But for goalies... just a whistle or in this case: a penalty.

Grumble grumble. Go get it back!

https://www.audacy.com/thefanrochester

True that. Cue a TL;DR Ebriate flashback... When I was a wee Ebriate I was one of those super short kids who was sneaky good at sports. So in my age-11 Little League year our team got a shiny new super light TPX bat. The entire team used it. You can imagine the diseases just floating on that thing. I didn't use it because I was rocking the 28" Easton that was in the team's regular equipment set. So one game we're facing a "the best pitcher in our division" type pitcher. The kid was one of those freaks who's already 6 feet tall at age 12. So I'm thinking... let's go ultralight. I swing the TPX. Late. Late. Late. That kid struck me out twice that day. I don't ever remember striking out before. I'm sure I had but I never remembered striking out before. I was flabbergasted. My manager (who was a very good kids coach) was like "what are you doing using the TPX? Go back to the 28". I did. I did not keep tabs that season but I probably batted .400-.500-ish. I was good and I loved baseball and was going to be a left-handed shortstop in the majors (but probably center fielder because the some would consider the mechanics of a lefty short to be... unnatural, but I made it work). Fast forward to age 12. The final year of LL. I'm ready to be a rockstar again. And the 12 year-olds graduated (and with one of them, his dad the manager). So I was ready to be the bestest of the best for the new manager and young team. And then I took a baseball in the eye in the backyard playing catch. The ball went through a tree branch just like it'd done a thousand times. I froze. Time slowed. It hit me. That season I batted .000. .000! Every out I made was a strikeout. I went from batting leadoff to batting ninth. I went from an upright batting stance to one of those annoying super-short and crouched Craig Biggio types. The new manager stuck me on first base. The worst base! I used the TPX and the manager never told me to go back to the 28" Easton. Our team sucked. I hated playing baseball. My complete lack of plate confidence was my weakness. But I did keep track of at-bats that year (limited appearances from a family vacation + maybe out sick a week + I definitely called in sick and skipped one game out of spite).... I batted .000, but my on-base percentage was .714 between throwing/fielding errors and crouched-over walks. The rookie manager gave me one steal sign all season which I converted.

Tyson Kozak (and the rest of the Portland Winterhawks offense) have gone ice-cold in their two attempts to close out the T-Birds. They have only 2 goals in their last 69 shots on T-Birds' goalie Milic. It's now to a deciding game 7 tonight in Portland.

This has been a weekend long remembered. It has seen the end of the Bruins and Leafs, and will soon now has seen the end of the Penguins.

Fantastic pass and the 0:40 second of the video freezes leaving those two forever waiting to connect their high five. Tales of R2's departure were premature. Whatever parts or gears were necessary for the playoffs were given to him.

Good. good....

I don't care if he's 4'2" if he can negate would-be deflections, box out would-be screens and block shots, and punt an opponent into next week they take a late hack at my goalie's glove after the save is made.

In my rise and downfall of Jackikin Eichwalker saga... Threepio is the most difficult character to define. I thought maybe Rick Jeanneret because of the narrator/translator aspect and the end-to-end participation, but RJ is much better as the Ric Olie character who provides exposition and even has the same name. I think in the end Threepio will be a bunch of different persons as he goes through different transformations in each of the prequel films. The more you know!

Signing an offer sheet = the ultimate "does he wants to be here?" test For Otter, probably $6M (1st and a 3rd) is the starting point. But Dallas has Radulov and Klingberg coming off the books so they'll have the space to refocus on Oettinger next season. They do have Khudobin and Bishop still signed next year, but Bishop may be on LTIR for the duration of his career.

You don't have to break the draft pick bank on an RFA offer sheet. I could see a team giving an offer sheet at the 2nd-round (under $4.1M) or 3rd-round level (<$2.05M) for one of those cap-strapped teams' depth guys. For example, Nicolas Roy of the Golden Knights would make a solid 3C addition on many rosters and Vegas might simply have to take the pick if Stone is healthy. (Case in point: the Sabres would have a tremendous upgrade replacing Eakin with Roy, in my opinion. And they'd still have 2 2nds in 2023)

Now *this* is podracing gameday threading.

That didn't last too long. Time to put on the headset and get back between the benches.

Weird. He's a darn good coach. They started the season as wanderers while the arena was completed and then had one of the biggest COVID outbreaks in the league. In mid-December, they were 8-12-6 as a result. The back end of the season they were just off a playoff pace. Not great, but not really "fire a really good coatch" worthy.

Highly recommended! Maybe visit in later May so it's just a touch warmer, but before the summer heat and tourist season mayhem. Or in autumn.

All the locations were great, but I did like Slovenia quite a bit. We only passed through Ljubljana but I thought it was really charming and would've loved to go to college there in an alternate timeline. Bled and the Postojna caves were both nice. As to the statue... we did have a guide give us a 10-second side note on it, but in the same breath mention that the President/First Lady basically treated their country with disdain, at least from a Slovenian point-of-view. I didn't hear anything about re-erecting said statue.

True. Maybe take Laaksonen instead of Bryson in the 4th after a Farrance pick. Laaksonen is still only 22 and was a definite long-term project pick so the jury is still out. He's also only listed at 172 pounds and 6-2... he needs to drink more beer. He had the 2nd most points as a D in ROC this season. It's just disheartening he can't get into the lineup for the playoff experience on a team with a famously thin D-corp this season (once Muel and Fitz were gone). Not even as a 5/6+PP specialist.

Doing some after-the-fact follow-up... Not a good look for Laaksonen to get scratched when the team is dressing 7 D because Weissbach is hurt and Samuelsson is also injured. Do we know if Laaksonen has an injury as well?

Three really wonderful weeks in Italy-Slovenia-Croatia. Minus some COVID for folks in the traveling party and COVID tele-health host no-show shenanigans. And a Happy Ramadan! (if that's an appropriate salutation) for your time away.

Power finished the season +3. He'll be a career + player for us.

The odds: tell me! Gimme gimme gimme all the odds.