IKnowPhysics

Make no mistake, we need immediate improvements to defense. But unless you're taking generational talent, that draft choice won't improve your D the first year. Take the best player available, fill up the pipeline in later rounds, and address your immediate needs in FA and trades.

I am the liquor.

JBot says he's open to anything, that he'll take the best player available, and that this first round is effectively flat enough that the draft order is not set at all. Sprinkle on wheelin and dealin George McPhee and you have a recipe for total unpredictability. Should be interesting.

It's not hard to meet the cap floor. Murray showed that.

Maybe something coming back for exposing Carrier?

Per the protection rules, there's a wealth of veterans that aren't protected. It makes sense for McPhee to parlay some of that into the future. Why try to make a squad good year one when you can make a serious stab at making it good years 3-9 at a fraction of the payroll? Plus, draft picks are more fluid in the trade market, so he could always cash those back in for year one/two talent.

I would happily and patiently wait a few more days for a coach in favor of Pittsburgh not winning. Also, I like Boughner, but I feel Housely and Tocchet are better candidates, so FLA hiring Boughner is positive.

Six stripe socks or bust.

Pit getting their tossed. Good.

TBN article todays says that, according to the top three or four prospects, we took it easy on the prospects in the interviews. Vogl points to the change in leadership. However, noting that some of the staff is still around (like Kevin Devine, thankfully), taking it easy on the top prospects could mean that we don't plan on trading up. That would fit with the notion that we may move picks that would otherwise be used to trade up to acquire NHL-ready defensemen.

PenguinRaper or JBOT. One of the two.

If no price increase is announced, it could be because the 2018 Winter Classic, played in NYC, is a home game for the Sabres, which possibly (probably) means that the Sabres season ticket holders will only have 40 home games truly at home. 2.4% less product.

*Unzips* I ain't got enough time to read that.

I ain't got enough time to nitpick your counterpoint apart. But if you put Fedun or Falk into Gorges' role, they would end up tossing salads with jelly and syrup. The WOWY shows that if Gorges had the same usage as Franson, they are defensively more successful (see 6 with 4 in black). It also shows that when Gorges isn't being used the same as Ristolainen, Gorges is more defensively successful (see 4 without 55 in blue). [side note: see how bad it is when you don't play lefty-righty and you put two lefties on the ice (77 with 4 in black).]

Player Usage. I mean, look at this . And yeah, Gorges has bad Corsi, but I contend that he sucks because of his usage, not because he has suddenly become an awful player. He lead our defense with a +/- total of -3 in 66 games. Bogosian was -17 in 56 games and Kulikov was -26 in 47 games. Is Gorges replaceable? Hell yeah he's replaceable. But when you're forcing Gorges to unsuccessfully play top-pair minutes because your roster forces you to shelter Fedun and Falk (and Franson and Kulikov), take note of what the real problem is. This isn't news: we need a top-pair defenseman and likely another 3/4 defenseman right now. That will allow the coach to play Gorges in a role where he might be successful.

Today is Chris' birthday. He just retired three months ago. Kathy was a teacher; this would have been the beginning of their first summer off. Awful. Hang in there, Chris.

Gorges is an okay stay-at-home #4 defenseman, but according to his player usage, he gets the hardest minutes among defensmen on the team (strongest opponents and highest % of defensive zone starts). That's not who he is or what he's capable of, so he struggles. Because he plays against the league's best night-in-night-out, he appears slow, weak, and inconsistent, but it'd likely be far worse if you plugged in someone else in the current roster (for instance, Franson; Risto gets similar usage as Gorges, but he's capable and improving). It'd be far better for Gorges performance and the team performance to find someone else capable of this role. $4M is fair pay for what the Sabres are asking Gorges to do every night, but it's a little high for what the Sabres should be asking him to do every night. Gorges is suffering the same fate as Robyn Regehr. Regehr was an alright stay-at-home #3 defenseman in his later years who got beaten like a rented mule with extremely hard player usage by Ruff, because he was the unfortunate best defensive option on a weak roster. Fans turned on Regehr because they thought he sucked. I never hated much on Regehr during his decline- his usage was the result of the GM not building a complete roster. If the new GM doesn't improve the back end of the roster, Gorges will go the way of Regehr. And maybe that shouldn't be the case. Gorges is serviceable in some role on a contender. Also we can't replace four defensemen in a single offseason.

Going to Scotland for three weeks starting Thursday. Planning on visiting at least nine distilleries: Isle of Arran Springbank Laphroaig Ardbeg Lagavulin Oban Talisker Highland Park Macallan I'm also attempting to bring back the legally allowed maximum number of bottles (5 bottles x 2 people). I am the liquor, Randy.

Almost. One person watches each team with a laptop running custom software, and they probably just track individual player changes, and they probably do it pretty quickly with decent software and lots of practice. Line changes at the whistle would be easy, real time player changes are probably a little trickier.

The Olympic break.

If Pittsburgh were to win it all (barf), Botterill would get his name on the Cup and better position himself in salary negotiations in Buffalo. I'm not surprised that any candidate would wait until their team were out of the show. The guy's been there for 10 years; from his perspective, it'd be a nice capstone to get the Cup for a day.

They sure can. The face of the new Las Vegas franchise will be an NHL All Star like Jake Virtanen, Pavel Zacha, or Matt Tkachuk.

Funky Cold Pegula.