PerreaultForever

Well that part I definitely agree with. I said that year if he didn't sign by the deadline he should have been deadline traded and KA should have started looking at other options (goalies were moved around and we could have taken one to make him expansion draft exempt for example). Assuming he could sign him was dumb. JBot let Skinner hold him hostage, KA got leveraged by Ullmark. This team needs to realize it can't take players on faith. We are not a desirable destination at this point. As for Ullmark not wanting to mentor UPL etc. he would have if he'd signed. It's his character. Everything I've heard about him is he's just a likeable guy and other players love him. He didn't go to Boston to mentor Swayman, but they bonded as team mates and he doesn't view him as an adversary. So he accepts the mentor role and they help each other. He's a positive team influence, that's all. I'm sure Craig Anderson is a good influence as well, it's just that he's too old. He should coach, not play. Comrie? I have no idea what sort of team mate he will be or if he will be any good at all. On paper, we have sub par goaltending - AGAIN.

My take at this point (although the last two episodes might reveal some info that changes it) is the B&W is because his life is empty and as I said, the obvious metaphor lacking colour, because he was addicted to the life, the thrills, the money and power it brought, and now that it's all gone he has nothing and finds he can't live without it. So in the end he will do something foolish and come to an end from going after that thrill/life rather than settling for a lesser boring anonymity. So maybe as a viewer it'll be ambiguous and you can take it as a suicide of sorts or a Dostoevsky type resolution, but I think it's just addiction. He simply can't live without being Saul rather than Jimmy or Gene. It's who/what he is, even if it's a fiction he created. I just hope they give us a little more on how Kim left. It's a little unsatisfying at this point if she just "left" without more details. To me anyway. Everyone else we already know how they ended from Breaking Bad.

Unless they are just saving money 🙂 I'm going to assume the black and white implies a lack of colour in his life, i.e. unhappiness.

I don't get where this notion comes from that young rookie goalie prospects will stay away from teams that already have goalies. If that was the case all the young goalies would sign where exactly, cause most teams already have starting goalies. Does it look like Swayman's having a problem with Ullmark being on his team? I know you probably hate the Bruins but look at them closely and tell me Ullmark wouldn't have been a great mentor for a UPL, Levi and/or Portello?

Please don't start with insults. You wouldn't talk like that to my face so don't do it here. Words like you are "ignorant" or "obtuse" do not belong here. Disagree with me if you like, but don't go down that road. You can be better than that. There's 20 million in cap space. There's plenty of room to carry a decent goalie, even if he's slightly overpaid. Ullmark's contract is on the high end for his ability but not way out of line if you compare it to other goalies. We have a few RFAs coming up in a year but so far only Thompson looks like he will get a substantial raise. Cozens, Samuelsson, Asplund, have all only earned modest lower end salaries at this point. The D will need some money the year after, but again, nobody there has done anything (yet) that screams huge increase. Cap will go up, and you have about 10 million from salary currently going to players who could be bumped off the roster by rising youngsters (Kyle, Zemgus, Vinnie can all be let go). So once again, there is plenty of money for a goalie overpay.

I hear ya, most irritating to pay fees when you're losing money. I did better when I self directed and did my own thing but 2 years ago I decided to let the professionals handle it and relax. Not a good decision but kind of stuck riding it out now.

It is not the same. Not at all. Losing the lottery is something that happened with no control over it. F'ing up our goaltending was either a huge mistake or a conscious choice. There have been many many many other options. Goaltenders have swapped teams all over. Not all of them had us on a NTC. Like it or not, this is a fact. Ya, so why overpay Ullmark when you can buy up Bishop's contract and dump some of your money on him instead. Sure, makes perfect sense.

It doesn't mean anything though. Most teams use analytics. We were just behind in that department. It's not like, oh, we've got an analytics department now so everything is fixed. At least not for me. If Comrie was signed as a back up, sure, I'd be all in on that, but if he's your expected number one it leaves a big question mark at the position. Let's put it this way, if 2 years ago someone had suggested dumping Ullmark and signing Anderson and Comrie instead would you have been jumping for joy? I don't think so.

Well sure, but you don't have to be friends with everyone you work with or cross paths with. I'm sure Kyle has many friends and could live quite well without Jack being one of them. But it doesn't really matter. these days all the players pretty much are friends. That old fashioned animosity is rare any more. Free agency probably killed it. For the most part.

I'm not judging him really. I've said I hope he surprises and is good, but facts are facts, and he isn't a proven commodity. I'm the same on all the prospects and everybody else. This team has to prove it to me on the ice for me to believe in anything. I'm not buying the spin on anything, and the cold objective facts are that Comrie hasn't been and isn't a number one goalie. We will see what happens. I hope he is good. I hope somebody is good. I just want to win and we won't without a good goalie. Until proven otherwise, KA gets a fail in finding us one. No blind belief from me anymore though. Been a fan a long time, but skeptical now. Don't want to get my hopes crushed yet again.

why?

is he the high hockey IQ 2 way guy or the guy who likes to hit people I can't remember?

See, you have to lower the bar to the bottom to consider Comrie a success. There have been many better options over the last 2 years but for whatever reason(s) KA doesn't want to make any sort of real move for a goalie. I would say it's 3 years to Levi and probably 5-6 years to peak Levi, but when the peak hits it will be a high one. I don't see a Carter Hart scenario unless they are foolish enough to bring him into the NHL next year. UPL however, is definitely in the Carter Hart rushed into service category.

No, but it's worse than having Ullmark. Last year was just about the worst goaltending this team has ever had. This year isn't much better unless UPL breaks through somehow. Comrie might surprise me, but I doubt it. idk, my personal philosophy is great goalie first and foremost and build out from there. Sabres seem to have that in reverse. I do not believe we will be any good until we have better goaltending. Right now my hope is that we have Levi and he will develop quickly. otherwise, I just don't know.

true. Klondike Days are just ending. That's just about the only other event they have. It is the one season the snowbirds are actually in town though.

Apparently ticket sales are way way down and some people with tickets say they won't even go due to the scandal. This was on the CBC news last night. At the moment, it looks like it might just be a total flop.

Ducks basically paid 7 million for somebody's high draft choice (when they deal him at the deadline). Bet they do better than we did with Taylor Hall too.

Boy that sounds like some of that shady back room rich getting richer stuff. Well goof for him. Maybe we can stop being a cap floor team then?

This is true, but there are a lot of issues this year and a lot of question marks. 1. Marchand, McAvoy, and to a lesser extent Gryzlyck. How soon do they come back from injury and will they be fully effective when they come back? 2. Goaltending. Will Swayman keep developing forward or will he take the young goalie backwards step that they often do, cause Ullmark is pretty meh. 3. Bergeron and/or Krejci still not part of the equation. 4. Foligno and some of the other lower end players have not been good. Will they bounce back or are they done, cause they have to bounce back considering all the injuries. 5. Will ANY of their kids like Studnika or Zboril finally step up and become NHL regulars. Montgomery was partly hired over Cassidy because of Cassidy's reluctance to play their kids. Question is are any of their prospects actually any good? They still have a solid D (if healthy) and Pasternak, Hall is a ? but does play well with Pasta if they have a decent center. It could possibly come together, but if a number of these things listed go badly their run is over and they will be bottom of the division soon enough. Sabres certainly have a much better looking prospect cupboard than the baby bears do.

As ever, Dumba would be the likely player they would try to move. Perhaps Zuccarello. It would be a nice pick up to add Dumba to play with Power.

Taylor Hall type scenario. See what they get for him at the deadline. Gryzlek also. And I think they might be out longer, might miss the first half of the season. Boston might be in trouble.

Ya, exactly. It's never a problem to have too many decent players. We've just been crap for so long we've forgotten times when other teams wanted the discards we threw on waivers. Man, it would be nice to have that again wouldn't it? Really, you end up with a prospect cupboard overflowing you simply trade some of them away for future picks. You start doing that old way back Montreal thing where you trade for somebody's first 3, 4, 5 years later and that GM makes the deal cause his job is on the line now and then your prospect cupboard overflows forever. It's never a problem.

Man, some people have WAY TOO MUCH time on their hands, but yes, if you looked up all the game references and they were real references, it would give you the timeline. So there it is.

Unless I have forgotten something they've never given a time frame for when the Gene thing is happening. It's presumably around the same time but could be later too.

I read somewhere they will both make an appearance before the end. I suspect it'll be a flashback type scene. Maybe Gene thinking back to how he got there or some such thing.