DarthEbriate

This is the bestest part of the entire conversation. And if we were at a bar, this is where I buy you the next round, because the debate can go for years. And it comes down to your subjective definition of sporting. Where does the continuum end in what makes a game vs. what makes a sport? Because chess and poker can both be games played by you and me. They can also be played by professionals of the utmost skill, craft, and practice. Working on bluffs, practicing reading tells, practicing faking tells, going over complex game and tournament strategies, even more diligently than a matchup between a cornerback and a wide receiver at the line of scrimmage throughout a football game. Then, it gets really fun. Does it simply revolve around exertion levels? Is golf on a hot day a sport, but on a nice 50-degree cloudy day, it isn't? Is a biathlon a sport, while competitive shooting is not? Is placekicking in football not a sport, whereas the rest of football is? If you're a DH and you're walked in each at-bat, but your team wins because your pitcher pitched a no-hitter shutout, did you play a sport or a game?

For the record, I just wanted to do a The Shinning (do you want us to get sued?) reference. I don't care for Tocchet, either. Arizona "surprised" and treaded water a few years there, but that shouldn't be sufficient to earn a job here. We're drowning and need to get out of the water entirely.

Hehehe... It'd be so much a better joke if it hadn't been our GM. There's a reason our franchise is the laughingstock of the hockey world these days. I don't think JBott gets enough flak for this trade. He should be pilloried for this action. I don't know if JBot understood the Concept of Trades in the NHL. He traded the first 6th for a 6th with a team that was in Cup-contention mode (or at the least a certifiable playoff roster). It doesn't matter if it's the 6th round and therefore the stakes were low. Let's apply the same concept to this year's first round: "Hey Toronto, we'll trade you our 2021 1st (first overall) for your 1st pick in 2022. Come on...". What in the absolute hell? The other thing is his trading-up/trading-down garbage. In the NFL draft, you're picking 22 year-olds who've essentially been playing in your league's sole minor league. You can trade down and accumulate cheaper/controlled players you know will turn into backups/special teamers. In the NHL -- it's a crapshoot after the 2nd round (and really, starting late in the 1st). So, more picks is better in the low rounds, but it's not like the NFL where you can take a guy who's slipping down into the 5th round because he had a) an off-field transgression or more likely b) a late-season injury so you're essentially redshirting his rookie season. That happens all the time. In the NHL, you're taking an 18 year-old prospect who's years from anything. But! The best part of this JBot early-6-to-late-6 trade is then he traded that pick to move UP INTO THE 5th ROUND the following year. I can't all-caps that enough. We traded the 2018 TOR 6th (177), and our 2018 BUF 7th (191) to move up to 143rd to take Cederqvist, who's maybe a 15% chance to even play a single NHL game. If you like him that much, wait until 160 and take Cederqvist instead of Rousek (although Rousek was more highly rated and projects better currently, too). Better yet, wait until 177 and take Cederqvist with that pick. It's silly fun.

All hockey and no coach makes @TheCerebral1 something, something... Don't mind if I do!

Goooood. Gooooood! The question is: Is Dreger a recurring guest? Or is he simply being interviewed as someone who doesn't have the full information yet and therefore... shouldn't have been asked/paid for the interview today because there's no information? The main problem is simply that: "I don't know yet." doesn't make a good interview. So he has to take up an entire show segment saying "I don't know yet." in various ways.

And yet, televised on ESPN. This is really the fun part of the discussion of where something goes from contest to sport. I admit, I had to look up what the Smackoff is. But it appears to be just a popularity contest. It's game vehicle doesn't have rules and appears completely subjective, with the only rule being a time limit so you can't talk on forever. So... it's a contest. Like a bodybuilding or beauty pageant where it comes down to subjectivity. There's no subjectivity in a spelling bee, or a fishing contest by weight/size, or in a basketball tournament. And in some cases, there is subjectivity (did the player step out bounds, was that holding) but it's at least attempted to be removed by rules.

Or in Backstroke of the West... But we can will account and then account for Jack's package.

Poetry slams absolutely could be sporting events. Just look at the national spelling bee (hours and hours of training, nationally televised, and I'll bet some wagers are placed on the side to make it more interesting). Or the 4th of July hot dog and other eating contests. They're incredibly wasteful --- no one needs to eat 60 hot dogs, let alone practice eating lots of anything in order to compete --- but eaters are athletes of a sort. I don't know enough about them, but I imagine if you set some guiding rules (topic, poem style [sonnet], and fixed development time) you could get a really solid competition going and then you'd be able to have some basic judging criteria. It'd be figure skating. Welcome to Poetry SLAM XVIII!

Well, yes, obviously. Go open wheel or you might as well be driving a minivan in a circle all day.

As I stand next to my Buffalo Sabres reverse retro uni race car... If you can convince sufficient numbers of people to gather and spectate upon an event and it has as non-premeditated outcome based on competition vs. other humans or other sentient creatures or vs. a clock, then you could consider it a sporting event. And I like to add that it's strictly for human recreation --- if it were removed from society, then society can still move along just fine. (That addition is to help separate sporting hunting [either for a big head on a wall or for a couple deer during deer season] from subsistence hunting and gathering where if you don't successfully hunt, your family dies of hunger or needs to move to another area for food.) Whether it requires supreme athletic skills can be kind of arbitrary, although that's definitely a bonus. Mental skills and lots of practice are always present. So --- auto racing is a sporting event, from a certain point of view. All these are ways to separate the folks who play Chutes & Ladders at home once or twice with their kids as a game... from those who play high-stakes Chutes & Ladders in professional Milton Bradley leagues around the world. Then, it becomes a sport. Pew! Pew! Pew! 🍺😇

It does leave everyone of note on the table for the Sabres.

Goodness, we'd be upset. As he's here in Seattle instead, all I can say is "meh".

Seattle has announced a "livestream announcement" --- so... a press conference --- today at 10 AM PT/1 PM ET. With one month before the expansion draft, this should be the coaching announcement. Once that falls into play, well, now we're really picking up speed.

I do not like this trade., but if we wanted to have plug-and-play players, between the expansion draft and before the entry draft: Jones (with extension), Merzlikins, Texier, 2021 1st (5OA). I like this more: Add an unprotected 2022 1st so that we have two shots an high-end impact player. If Jones really wants to try UFA (and let's be fair: Buffalo is not even a lateral move from Columbus), then I really don't see a package that Columbus would be willing to give up because then I'm looking at four 1st round picks, no protections... offer sheet style. As others have said, they just don't have the centerpieces.

Even from 2007 we've made enormous advancements in storage, bandwidth, and video capture technology. If a team today went solely to video scouting it'd still be controversial, even if it's now possible.

Nah. The last 3 years we had Hutton. We didn't need to change anything. 🍺😇

Drieger is interesting. He's ascending. But he's also only played 38 NHL games (35 in the last 2 seasons with a very defensively sound FLA squad). It is a very small sample size. He's due for something like Ullmark's expiring bridge contract... $2.6M. So in the $2.5-$3M range. The question becomes: do you offer him that to be a 1B? Or do you think he's sound enough for a true median starter in the #3.8-$4.5M range, and then spend the $2.5M on someone else to be the 1B?

Of course, in 2001 the available video would have been someone with a JVC and needed to be copied/moved, etc. Today, everyone has a hi-def camera on their phone with the ability to upload to the interwebs directly. We have a more extensive video scouting library available to us on YouTube (without even subscribing to any premier video services) than xGMDR would have had available. As a result, that video drafting dragged the Sabres down (as well as many other factors), whereas today I'd argue a team could probably get away with video for the bulk of the work. You'd still need the scouts for conversations on your targeted players. Off-ice, character, practice habits, etc.

We’re a month from the expansion draft so I want to make sure I've got things in order. Everything changes if any of Eichel, Ristolainen, or Reinhart are moved, but there’s a good chance that GMs are happy where they’re at for expansion (because they’ve been planning for it for years) and therefore will wait until between the expansion draft and rookie draft to make any blockbuster trades with the Sabres. Here are my protections: F: Skinner, Eichel, Reinhart, Mittelstadt, Olofsson, Asplund, Thompson BjorkBjorkBjork is the odd one out for me. Sure, he kills penalties and hustles, but he lacks Asplund’s hands and doesn’t have Thompson’s ceiling (height jokes!). However, any of Asplund, Thompson, or Bjork is a sweetener to get a top-end prospect in a deal. My guess is GM Sheevyn protects Bjork because he was acquired in the Hall trade. D - Dahlin, Jokiharju, Ristolainen I like Borgen, but right now Risto has greater trade value. My counterargument is Seattle doesn't like Risto's metrics or salary and JBott knows exactly what other teams were offering for Risto and he'll never garner anything more than a single 2nd at the deadline. G: I offer Ullmark 3x$5M this month to get him and us through the flat cap seasons. Then I hunt for a 2-year backup. However, if Linus wants to go UFA, more power to him, and I protect the Toker. Incentives: 10 draft picks is a bunch. So I offer Seattle the 2021 MTL 5th (from Staal trade) to pick C Cody Eakin or the 2021 COL 6th (from JJ trade) to pick D Colin Miller. Either pick gives JBott the chance to tell his new master about his latest William Worge-Kreu. I also check with Seattle on anyone JBott really loves in our system and might want to acquire. Think XGMTM going back for some Ottawa folks (Lehner). Maybe we can do a little dance with the Kraken. For example, Laaksonen for the 2nd overall pick….

The good news from an Isles perspective is that it was not the closing game of the series. A game 6 win and this is forgotten. Unlike say... what we did to the Flyers in the '01 quarters. The Flyers have to live with that shameful beatdown forever. Forever.

And a happy Poof to you as well.

The Tampa skaters were all on ice for a shot on goal, so their Corsi has that going for them. Which is nice.

It was the best of hockey and just a continuous one-upping of great efforts. Killorn pinches the puck and gets it to Kucherov. Kucherov with a beautiful chip to get that puck in front to the wide-open McDonagh. Varlamov knows there's time for one shot and charges out -- there's nothing to shoot at on the forehand, especially with a great dive by Nelson. Aha! But McDonagh out-greats them and tries spinning (I have it on good authority that that's a good trick) to the backhand for that one shot. It's away! Negative. It didn't go in. Just impacted on the Pulock. The greatest effort of them all... Pulock sees McDonagh go to the spin and crashes to the ice to take away the goal. I love hockey.

This current Sabres squad needs a Peca/Kadri/Perry in the very worst way. And it can't be a DLo, or a Kaleta, or a ... Pekar... or even an Angry Larry. It can't be a 4th-line guy. It needs to be someone in the top-6 who's just simply tough to play against on every shift and is going to cause chaos. And can score 20+.

I had been known to yell "Speed kills!" at the TV when we played Philly in those days while we skated circles around those lumbering oafs. Holzinger and Sanderson had elite speed. Primeau, Rasmussen, Brown, etc. were fast young guys. But defensively, they all relied on clutching-and-grabbing just as much as the opposition did on them. That's the re-learning. What concerns me more when I really think on it are ... Peca. Peca was borderline then. We can't have our captain getting suspended left and right. Today, he'd be worse than Kadri. And Smehlik. Smehlik would be in trouble in today's game.