Kruppstahl

#14: The only place you can listen to Cellino & Barnes commercials all day every day is...yep! Buffalo, NY baby!

Calm down buddy. I'm not here to argue with strangers.

Well then he must be entirely unknown to all! Holland recently said that if Babcock returns, Blashill will not be prevented from moving forward with his career. I hope he comes here, as my #2 choice Todd McLellan is off the table.

Not sure how closely you follow hockey; Blashill has been a top up and coming coaching name for a long time.

Apparently it has come out that the Buffalo offer is $6 million + per year. That's also from McKenzie. You gotta love T.Pegs. At least he's trying.

I see. I don't know about the so-called "short term" deal. We'll find out soon enough I guess. But if Babcock re-signs, even for 2 years, Blashill will be gone. That's just my opinion.

If Babcock picks another city, some of what you write may be true. However, if Babcock remains in Detroit, effectively rejecting everyone that is not his home, our next coach does NOT look like a runner up. IMO.

I'm going off McKenzie's report that Babock is staying put. If he says that on the eve of Babcock's decision, it's probably accurate.

Bob McKenzie on TSN690 a couple hours ago: Signs pointing to Babcock staying in Detroit. Definitely not going to Toronto. It sounds like he is going to stay put. We'll need a coach. I vote for Blashill. This is true but that will change if/when Babcock re-signs with Detroit. Holland won't get in the way of Blashill's upward movement around the league.

#29-Hey, it's only 1.5 hours by car to Toronto, and 1/2 hour by plane to NYC. #28-One word: Sabretooth. #27-We get to have snowball fights in April.

I thought this last episode was quite good and the best of the season by far.

This. Times 1,000. If we threw everything at him including the kitchen sink and he is still heading out to SJ....it means he ain't coming here.

Thanks for the clarification. I think you are completely wrong. And even if we are to assume harder shot velocities require the knee pad to be 6" wider than is necessary for safety, all you have to do is go back to wooden sticks, which should have always been maintained the moment #99 and a few others started showing up with aluminum shafts. EDIT: For clarification, I would like to stress that I think goalies can be well protected while reducing the "frontal area" of their equipment substantially. Composite sticks have seen increased shot velocities across the board, but not outside of moderate tolerances. Whatever velocity gains have been achieved on average don't negate "old fashioned" equipment. If players started shooting 200 mph or something meaningful, that argument might have validity. It's an interesting analysis. What wins out? Massive over-expansion vs. increased pool of talent to choose from? There may be more talented players in the league now, but they are more spread out. Their addition doesn't necessarily translate to "more exciting" or "better played" hockey. I think the general level of athleticism has increased for sure among all players, but it was easier to concentrate talent 30 years ago for a variety of reasons. The true killer is the guaranteed contract, more liberal free agency rules, and the cap. For the record: I think play on a night to night basis, as the league currently stands, is poor enough as to make the games nearly un-watchable. At least for me.

Why won't we see a reduction in pad size? We may not, but it is certainly possible, easy to initiate and control, and it would have an immediate impact on the game. I would rather see equipment get small as opposed to nets get big, b/c the historical continuity of the game would actually be preserved with the former approach, and blown to hell with the latter approach. I totally agree with you that the desired outcome here should be the way the game is played, not number of goals. A super exciting, end-to-end rushing game that is 2-1 is the most exciting thing on earth. It places a huge value on scoring a goal and it's a big deal when a goal is scored. On weird nights when everything that is shot goes in, and the final score is 7-6...well...that is boring. Goals are cheap on those nights and you figure "no big deal" when a goal is scored, b/c you'll get it right back in 4 minutes anyway. That's called "basketball" where scoring is very cheap indeed and the winner is usually decided by who scores last before a clock counts down to zero. That crap is boring! Why do you say that pads will never get smaller? They have become absurdly HUGE over time, and it certainly is not a safety matter for the goalie.

Very small changes to the underlying rules governing a sport can have huge impacts on the game. As an example and a little thought experiment, what if the base pads in baseball were moved from 90' to 93'. The geometry of a baseball diamond is actually remarkably well thought out as is. A guy hits a ground ball so hard, it has to go so far, a player has to field the ball, and then throw it to 1st base. The hitter/runner has to drop his bat and start running from a dead stop. He can only run so fast within certain tolerances. This somehow forms an equation which often creates very close plays at 1st base. As a rule, 90 feet is about right. It's not so close than any sort of infield ground ball is a hit, yet it is not so far away that it is very difficult or impossible to get an infield single. If that base moves out to 93 feet, it means 1 or 2 extra strides to the base for the batter and that could possibly result in a reduction of singles by 60% or something. A huge number. All from a very minor alteration to the game. Much fewer singles means much fewer base runners more outs against the batting team. The next thing you know, the scores of most games are 2-1 and everyone wonder why scoring is down. My point is this: over time, a subtle modification has actually occurred in hockey similar to adjusting the distance to first base. The goalies have have gotten physically much bigger across the board, and their equipment is now huge. That slight adjustment to the game needs to be corrected and it has had a fairly large impact on the game. A goalie can form a wall in front of the net that was not envisioned 75 years ago. To counter this, offensive players started to realize you can't try to beat the goalie honestly. The wall will stop the shot. So you have to beat him the only way you can most of the time and that is with a sudden re-direction of the puck that human reflexes can't keep up with. In order to do this you need to "generate traffic" in front of the net so there is something there to re-direct the puck. The fact that the goalie can't see the shot very well or at all only helps further, and still his wall of equipment stops most shots of that type. This phenomenon has led to a certain offensive strategy that is what we call "NHL hockey" these days. Get the puck to the point, get traffic in front, screen the goalie, hope for "puck luck" or a nice re-direction. That is a BORING approach to hockey. Get rid of the wall of padding and you may start to see a modification to how offenses approach the game. As an example, with small, skimpy equipment, offensively skilled players might realize that if they drive hard to the net with the puck and cross in front laterally, they can make the goalie have to move. When he does that, he will open up a ton of holes b/c his is not inherently blocking 60% of the net mouth. That could become the new go to method for scoring a goal, and that would completely alter how the game is played. These are just theories mind you. Here is an idea, NHL. How about making goalie equipment as SMALL as possible to still be safe, and then make all the goalies where that stuff in the pre-season? Let's see if it impacts the game at all, and if so, how.

My 2 nephews are now 15 and 12, living in city of Buffalo, born and bred there. Their interest in the Sabres is below zero. The younger's sports hero is currently Ibrahimovic from Paris St. Germaine. The older is, God forbid, a Bayern München fan. I guess it's not the 1970s anymore. I'm not sure I knew what soccer was at their ages and I was obsessed with the NHL, the Sabres, and the Bills too. Yes but are elite "all star" teams that play for the best nations on earth in an international tournament the proper yardstick to measure by? The NHL is horribly talent-diluted and long since over-expanded. Guaranteed contracts have destroyed individual player motivation on most nights. A big ice surface between two mediocrities (that's most teams in the NHL) on a random Friday night in December with one team playing 3 games in 4 nights and the other coming off a big west coast trip, etc., is more "reality" for your average NHL game. Not an international tournament composed of the best 40 players in the game. Or close to that at least. I'm not sure the impact of more ice is fully understood yet.

:lol: :lol: I still consider that "song" one of my all time greatest finds on youtube. Just stumbled across it one day.

For those who thought Dave "The Hammer" Schultz only knew how to throw his fists:

No need to develop a new Sabres song. We already have just what we need in the archives. Just have to dust it off and possibly alter some of the names in the lyrics a bit. This is funny. I watched the first song you listed and thought "nah....but hey, this reminds me...whatever was that song the Whalers used to play?" I then scrolled down another couple inches and there it was! LOL Ah, if only we still played in the Adams Division, the Whalers were still playing that song, and Quebec City had a team! Hockey was better back then. Way better.

Big time playoff game decided by puck bouncing off Dominick Moore's shin for Christ's sake. Hockey is in a bad spot right now. I'm hoping for better action today at 3pm.

so much for that. go team canada!

Eichel really looks at home taking that elbow from Malkin, if you know what I mean. Grigorenko was completely lost when he was thrown into the NHL prematurely. Samson wasn't much better. Eichel is ready to play among men in the NHL. Looking forward to the PP to start the 2nd.

So far USA hanging in there and playing Russia pretty equally. I'm waiting for our boy Jack to light up the score board! :flirt:

Anyone watching USA vs. Russia online? Streaming just started.

20 minutes to game time, more or less. I'll be setting the DVR and then heading out to do some stuff. I have hated afternoon hockey my entire life. It just doesn't feel right to me. I'll watch this thing in prime time tonight. I can FF through commercials and intermissions that way too!