DarthEbriate

Poor decision to retaliate by Hagg after what whatever was high up on him. Elbow, glove, whatever.

I got your Hiney right here!

Only a Sith GM deals in absolutes.

An NHL-caliber skater doesn't fall there. An NHL-savvy player loses their edge there, though. Bummer.

Skinner just doesn't play with enough haste or gumption on the PP. (or on the walls in the defensive zone) He's an easy pressure to attack. Rasplund!

Nice draw, Mr. Locomotive of Latvia!

Olofsson single-handedly calmed down the PP. That's the most coherent we've looked in 2 weeks.

All entirely possible. The injury risk is the biggest risk with him. We might have to overpay anyone the next year or two. Maybe it's an extra year at $5M for the #1, or it's to give the next level down guy --- like a Mrazek type --- #1 money for a couple seasons instead of letting him go be a 1A/1B on a contender for $3.8. But either of those options is better than Dell/UPL as the backup to Anderson --- based on the last couple seasons' work.

And that's for the inoffensive Sabres today thread. Let's go. Lock S-foils in attack position!

Nothing 100%, but paging through this thread https://www.sabrespace.com/community/topic/29799-linus-ullmark-signs-with-boston-bruins/ It looks like Ullmark wanted more term from the Sabres considering the next couple seasons were going to be pretty rough, and he took a year or two less to go to an established Bruins squad. Now, whether it was 5x$5M or 6x$5M is just whatever was forwarded by the Sabres to the Buffalo News and other outlets. Asking for another year considering the GM is going to ice the roster we've got this year --- that's within the player's rights considering his team is planning to blow the next season or two by trading away Eichel and Reino for prospects. The goalie list is just to show that everyone signed this summer to be the #1 was getting about $5M.

This summer's UFA goalie contracts, 1-way, more than 2 years, and for a goalie expected to be a starter, not as a split starts guy: Cal Petersen 3 x $5M Elvis Merzlikins 5 x $5.4M Ilya Sorokin 3 x $4M (contender, with Varlamov still on roster) Juuse Saros 4 x $5M Carter Hart 3 x $3.9M (coming off a horrible year) Philipp Grubauer 6 x $5.9M Frederik Andersen 2 x $4.5M (including despite only 2 years: contender, with Antti Raanta also added) Linus Ullmark 4 x $5M Thatcher Demko 5 x $5M Jordan Binnington 6 x $6M Boston lost Rask and paid Ullmark to be their multi-year starter (and traded Vladar to avoid losing him for nothing in expansion). It was not an overpay. GM Sheevyn simply didn't want either the extra year or the extra cash or the injury risk. But those weren't the reasons given. The reasons given for anyone moved was that they were blocking or they didn't want to be here.

Today: They haven't started playing yet. Here I am on Sabrespace and it's still over an hour to go. The gutters are cleaned out, football is over (at least games of interest), the dog is sleeping after a run, the banana bread is baking and the chicken soup stock is ready for all the tasties... The game should be on now to appease me.

That's the biggest fear -- he's had two non-contact knee injuries. But LTIR is always an option when injured and then it's not a cap concern. The team played hard in front of him and had confidence he'd give them a chance to win (and certainly if they got it to a shootout). But with Hutton... the team had no confidence. If he turned into an average .915 guy... that's better than the .900 the Sabres were lucky to get from everyone else. An additional year or an extra million were not insulting demands. That was the market for starting goaltenders.

An extra year and an extra million? Ullmark was not going to block UPL this season. And if Ullmark is a block in 3 years, then that means they're both playing well and UPL has made it and projects higher than Ullmark, so you trade Ullmark when it gets you a good package. This team had no cap issues for the next couple seasons. (And then Okposo either comes back for $2M or retires, and we can buy out Skinner in June 2023 with only one more bad cap hit.) But Dell was trending downward each of the past few years while Ullmark has been trending upward every year. And Anderson was retired. So... I think we could've gotten Ullmark and Dell, or Ullmark and Anderson and have better overall goaltending than any of the previous 3 years. But the trouble was Ullmark didn't want only $750k.

I think Darth Pegulas the Boss told us the reason: Effective, Efficient, and Economical. No need to pay for AHL coaching when the league was shut down for the near-term. And Taylor was likely a perceived threat to HC RaKru based on filling in for Granato to start the previous season.

The funny thing about not blocking the youth... the youth still needs to be good enough to surpass the block.

Taking butcher out of the lineup and inserting Joker is a net plus. I wouldn’t mind seeing Fitz get an extended look in the second half of the season. Right now, let’s get our top players on and see how it goes for December. Then add Tuch for January ‘22. And add Samuelsson for look in February/March but back down for a hopeful playoff run.

If everything is equal: smarts, tenacity, speed, heart/courage, edge work, speed of release, stick checking, playing with leverage, Acceleration, etc., then the you always take the bigger person. Because the advantages of reach are real. But, size is detrimental to agility, quickness, leverage, getting a stick on a puck really quickly when it’s between your skates... all very important in hockey. And we don’t have enough 6’7” 335# players in the league to show the detriments of being so big that even the big guys skate circles around you. Just remember... our late ‘90s squad was small and fast and tenacious compared to the big bad physical Flyers. And we bounced them from the playoffs every time.

The Flames have now won 9 games... 6 of which have been shutouts. I almost made the comment this morning that we needed to score first or we weren't going to score at all, but I didn't want to jinx us into a shutout. Or appear too prescient because of my ability to see the future and all. But ... the Flames... wow. That's a solid team now that they've had Gaudreau and Monahan on the trade rumors for 3 years. They're on pace for what -- about 50 wins and 33 shutouts.

Even their point shots are dangerous. I don't know that we've had a scoring chance where the goalie actually had to make a save. Cozens had one shot, but put it high and wide. Jiminy! Who is on the PP? Tonight... I feel the good in you, the compete. There is no compete. (tonight)

Dell's gotta go in to wake up the skaters, right?

Speaking of delicious bowls of soup and chili...

Sutter has the Flames playing very staunch defense and choking the life out of games. Their goalie numbers, both Markstrom and Vladar, read like dead puck era numbers. The Flames have 8 wins.... 5 of those wins are shutouts. This game should be fun to see how Granato attempts to attack.

I know it's super silly, but giving up only 12 shots all game is... too few? We constantly see a goalie not face a SOG for like 10 minutes and then the first one they face is a goal. No excuse for 3 goals against... but I can see a bad one sneaking past when you're not in any flow of the game whatsoever as a goalie. Still would've been nice to take them off the list of unbeatens when you outshoot them 2:1.

How are the play features of AHL TV? Easy skip-ahead, skip-back dragbars? Little pop-up icons where the goals take place and periods start? (like what NHL TV had and what ESPN+ is sorely lacking)? I mean... DarthEbriate can't start commenting on the Younglings games, too. That's too much effort. But I could watch the games.