JoeSchmoe

Not so fast... That was his first shot of the game. Fresh out of the NHL and all he can muster is just one shot in 65 minutes. To me, that's not going to help the team long term.

The first game I noticed them a lot and it kind of bugged me. Yesterday though, I think it was at least the 2nd period yesterday until I remembered there were electronic ads on the boards. Whatever ad it was that twigged me was a motion ad. Had it not been moving I likely wouldn't have noticed it either. Thankfully my brain has nicely tuned them out.

Not off a shot though. He's not shooting at all.

Did Thompson forget his shot got him the big contract? He's back to wanting the perfect opportunity rather than taking what's there.

JoeSchmoe: Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed message board, Scotty's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Coneline Line" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed message board, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a wookie from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about that; that does not make sense! DarthEbriate: Dammit! Scotty: What? DarthEbriate: He's using the Chewbacca Defense! JoeSchmoe: Why would a wookie, an 8 foot tall wookie, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two foot tall ewoks? That does not make sense! But more importantly, you have to ask yourself, 'what does that have to do with this case?' Nothing. Ladies and Gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case. It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a cheesy line name, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Let's call them the Chewbacca Line.

They didn't have a long stint on the team, but you gotta figure Gilmour is on the list and Fuhr has a shot. He'll probably get screwed due to the Russian political thing, my vote goes out to Anatoli Semonov.

Zorba the Greek. Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass https://youtu.be/_Rz5Z5t4B7g

I just thought I'd break out the discussion of signing prospects early instead of embedding this in another player signing thread. Here's the risk / reward. Scenario A- Wait to sign you're prospects until you're absolutely sure on what you have. This is safer, but the downside is you're going to have to pay so much for top talent that you're going to run into cap trouble before long. Scenario B- Sign your prospects early before they're fully developed. This way, you're hoping to save in the long run. The downside is if you guess wrong, you risk being stuck with a bad contract on an underperforming player. I think if a team were to follow Scenario A more often, it would be very difficult to field a team deep enough to be the very best out of 32 teams. I think you can be good, but never great. If a team followed Scenario B more often, there's more of a variation. A team that locks a lot of young talent early that underperforms can be bad for many years. On the flip side, a team with a good GM that can assemble a large stable of underpaid talent has a real chance to be great. Almost every cup winning team over the last bunch of years has had their top players on team friendly deals. I really don't think you can win the cup when paying all your players what they're truly worth. On that note, I am happy to see the team locking up all their players that they believe in as soon as they can, as cheap as they can. Especially in Buffalo, which is sometimes a harder sell to veteran players.

Did I miss if there were any updates from last year? Are they still doing individual songs? Are there going to be any updates?

The look on his face after scoring the EN goal kind of told the story of his game tonight. I'd still like him to be up with the Sabres for two reasons: 1. I'd like him practicing against NHL'ers. I think he can learn more from this than being in the AHL, even if he has to sit a game once in a while. 2. Having him in Roch increases the chance we'll see Bjork in the lineup. PLEASE- no more Bjork. Edit: inky said JJP should go to Roch, but the quotes were lost.

Not a solution when listening on the radio (unless they're playing Toronto 🙃).

This is not even close to being true. Sure, he had lost a step, but as someone who listens on the radio often (two kids playing travel hockey out of town), I could completely follow the game until the very end. He was great! Last season, maybe because it was his last year, I think he upped his game a notch. Maybe it was just that the team was more exciting too.

They should just get Dan and Duff to switch jobs. I think I might like Dan more in the Duff position. Duff is a little on the dry side. Dan has a little bit more personality from what I've noticed, but he just can't call a game that's suitable to listen to on the radio. I think Duff is quite good at calling a game.

At that time, I assumed the puck was cleared. No idea the Sabres were even still attacking. No idea there was a shot. Nothing. They were talking about the last scoring chance even though the Sabres were still on the attack.

I like Dan as a personality, but listening to him on the radio is just terrible. As one example of many, during Biro's 2nd goal last night, I had no idea what was going on. No idea whatsoever. I just heard a goal horn. It's almost not even worth listening to. I hope he could stay on as a host or some other capacity though, because he is a likeable guy.

If only this guy were a true national level coverage guy. I'd put him up on a pedestal as a guy that actually does his homework.

Preseason or not, is this the quietest GDT ever? 😁

Though you posted the PPG stats, with the possible exception of the Blues, the top lines on all those teams are way better than ours. I'm good running without a traditional 4th line myself. In the 1998 Olympics, Team Canada tried to run a traditional 4th line. It completely backfired, and they lost to Hasek and the Czechs in the semis (lost the Bronze medal game to the Finns too). Since then they've gone with the model of outgunning the other team with their scoring depth on all 4 lines and Canada hasn't looked back since. I think our pipeline is shaping up to allow us to do the same. Again, I didn't realize when I started this thread how far in the minority I was in thinking this, but personally I'd like them to run with the Team Canada model if they can, and not keep a kid down who can score (i.e. JJP this year, possibly Savoie, Kulich, etc next year), just because we need a plumber line.

He's a good guy and always worked really hard even in years when the rest of the team wasn't. But to be a cup contender, we're going to need better than 45th percentile guys on our 4th line given our lack of elite 1st line talent. I'd say we want top 20% at least on lines 2 through 4, since I don't see the 1st line getting much better than the 30-40th percentile.

You're missing the point. We have no MacKinnon. We have no Rantanen or Kadri. We haven't a Kucherov or Stamkos either. What we lack on our 1st line needs to be made up further down the lineup. Girgs level production on the 4th line will not win us a championship. I'll add to the above by saying neither team referenced could afford to do any better on the 4th line.

If this team is to win a cup, it won't be by running a traditional 4th line. We will win with depth scoring across all four lines... Our 1st line simply isn't strong enough to carry the team.

Given the chance, many high end guys can kill penalties, just as well as a 4th liner, they just don't. This is because coaches would rather have their JAGs expend that energy, to rest the high end guys for scoring.

Given the talent pool we've accumulated, we have the potential to ice 2nd line calibre guys on our 4th line (of course they would see more minutes than a traditional 4th line). I see Z holding up a lineup spot for some of those truly talented players. I know many here wouldn't want to deviate away from the traditional 4th line formula of crashing, banging, and low event hockey. But if we're ever going to win a cup, it won't be on the back of a high flying 1st line (a la Edmonton, Toronto, Boston, etc)... We just don't have the McDavid's, Matthew's, Marchard's, Kucherov's to do it. Instead, it will be because of our superior depth. Part of that will be our 4th line scoring a lot more than their 4th line. We won't be doing it by icing a line where the mentality is "We might not score a lot, but you're not going to score a lot either".