Taro T

Just means he gets to go through 2 handshake lines in 1 week, both times as the guy right ahead of the coaches from the loser line.

Helped that with Illitch being willing to open his wallet wide for UFA's in the capless NHL that they didn't need to trade away much of their youth to stay in the mix every year. That and finding late round gems from Scandanavia and Russia really let them develop their kids the right way.

How mad at you does your former boss need to be to be so petty as to not let you sit in the seat on the plane home that he'd already paid for you to sit in after he cans your butt?

Figure out why he was told to find his own way back to Florida from Montreal after being canned by the Swamp Cats and you will likely find your answer.

It was this weekend.

For those going to the game; If going to the Dinosaur, you can order take out and then sit at the picnic tables outside. You'll get the food a LOT quicker. (Pretty sure you can take drinks outside, but haven't tried that in a long time so not positive about that.) But that still might be slow w/ the PGA in town. The golf course is only 15-20 minutes away from downtown.

And remember, Lombardi left San Jose after '03 and then went to the Kings. They had some pretty good goalies selected there after that as well.

Was referring to their efforts from the '90's when they were drafting 1 or 2 every year which after they developed allowed them to ride Nabakov and trade away guys like Kiprusoff & Toskala for what this kid had remembered as big hauls. (Though looking back on the Kiprusoff trade, he didn't net the "big haul" but rather just a 2nd rounder. Not bad converting a 5th round pick into a 2nd rounder a few years later, but had thought he netted a bigger return. Ooops.) Thanks for looking into it. 🍻

@Pimlach mentioned Filly as the "City of Brotherly Love." Pretty sure that was before they started throwing batteries at Santa. City of Brotherly Hate is a more apt moniker.

Flower City (which is an off-shoot of Flour City). Can't be Flour City with no mills though. So, on to "Flower City."

They do still play music during the play but it isn't done for the entirety of the game. Probably only 60% or so. But the PA announcer will be talking throughout trying to get the crowd to do the right chant / cheer. After a Vinc save: "What's he got?" "NOTHING." At random times: "Da, da, da, dah, dah, daaaaah" "Score (or charge)." After a Smith goal: "Goal by #92 the GREEEAAAT DAHNE Smith" "woof, woof, woof, woof, woof." Etc. Bandits finally got healthy before the end of the regular season and they destroyed a Georgia team that had an outside shot at the playoffs in their last game of the RS and they've just been tearing through their rivals in the playoffs. They never trailed once in their 1st 2 games and weren't tied beyond 4-4 in the 2nd and in last night's game, don't believe they ever trailed (though they might have been down 4-3; missed TO's Hamilton's 4th goal and not sure if it came right before or after the Bandit's 4th but they opened it up right after that. Vinc is an absolute wall and the transition and offense are clicking big time. They should fairly easily beat whichever team comes out of the West; but the Mammoth have given them fits this year and last year in the playoffs. The Mammoth goalie is big and comes very high off his goal line and their D take away passes. The Bandits tend to get beat to the loose balls after the save. And then the Mammoth clean up on the PP. But if the Bandits and Vinc stay on their game the way they have been; don't know that Colorado will be able to keep the formula working for them. And they might not get past Calgary who had a much better RS record. Hoping the extra week off gives the Bandits both time to figure out how to finally beat Colorado's D (presume they'll win as they're the tougher matchup for the Bandits) and to get the 2 remaining Robinson brothers that are out injured back heathy. If they come back, the entire team will be healthy for the 1st time all year.

Not that it matters, but does anybody know why the Friday thread was opened and then (apparently) immediately relocked?

YOUR Buffalo BAN-DITS begin their attempt to defend their Eastern Conference Crown tonight in Banditland vs the Toronto Hamilton Rock at 7:30PM. Game is ESPN+ only in the States. Game 2 will be in Hamilton on Saturday at 7PM. Another ESPN+ only game. Game 3, if necessary, will be next Saturday at 7:30 in Banditland. Also only ESPN+. Team has been rolling the last 2 weeks and are as healthy as they've been all season. The MMArena should be rocking. Let's Go BAN-DITS!!!

Good. Didn't like the idea of having to not like the guy because he was a part owner of the Otters.

And Marco Scandella arguably made Henri Jokiharju look like the best D-man on the entire roster. Chemistry is sooooo important at D and would love to see Power get a Scandella.

And unless you really are high on a particular prospect that slipped to the 3rd round, if no Russian goalies have been taken by the time you're on the clock, grab the best 1 that's there. Russia seems to be a goalie factory lately.

Personally want a goalie at least 3 of every 5 years and typically 3 of every 4. Am fine with drafting college players provided they are the best available at their slot and that they aren't being chosen because the GM has a bias against other sources of prospects. But you know they don't sign all their skater prospects, too, right? Especially for the skaters drafted beyond the 3rd round, the only time most of them will ever get to wear the NHL team's sweater is when they're introduced to the media or during the team's prospects camp. San Jose used excess goalie prospects to keep their competitive window open for a very long time. Florida won game three in OT a few nights ago courtesy of what they got for a 1st rounder last year and a goaltending prospect they'd selected in the 7th round recently. How many other prospects drafted in the 7th round would've been a key piece of landing that guy? Goalies also can be loaned out to other franchises if you have too many in your own organization. From Kolzig through to Binnington, teams find places for guys they need to get playing time for. Drafting a lot of guys has pros and cons just like anything else, but personally don't believe you can ever truly have too many A grade goalie prospects, just like you can't have too many grade A D prospects nor too many grade A Center prospects.

True to the bolded. But the NFL will still possibly move games from Sunday to Thursday on a 2-3 week whim this year and even if the Gints owner wins the fight this year about not allowing that; it's coming. This is a TV driven league - they don't care about the people in the stands nearly as much as they used to do.

Mildly surprised by the Jones choice, but the job of team presidient is different than that of GM. He's more in charge of building the relationships of the team with outside parties. What better choice for that role than someone that is generally viewed as being likeable (even though he's a former Phlyer) and has many powerful friends/contacts within and outside of the NHL? Pretty sure the size of his contacts list is more important for his new role than how well he can identify which 17 year old is going to become the next Gagne or Giroux. (Briere needs to have that latter skill (and because of who he works for, hopefully he doesn't have that one down particularly well).)

Grier too.

But that is ONLY the enforcers that have died to date. There are 310 that are still alive, MANY of which are well above that 47.5 year "life expectancy." It is true that of those that died, the average age of death was 47.5 (presuming that is true, haven't looked at the individual ages at the time of their death personally) but it is NOT true that the life expectancy of an NHL enforcer is 47.5 years. They also don't look at whether there is a causation within the 11 enforcer deaths that they consider correlated to head trauma. For example, look at the drug usage, for the less than a handful that had drug related deaths, did those players that had a propensity to become enforcers have a propensity towards developing an addiction to drugs and did that lead them to be more likely to become enforcers? The ones that died in auto accidents, did the personalities that allowed them to become enforcers also have a tendency to lead those players to be "risk takers?" If it was within the personality to be risk takers, they'd be expected to have more and more severe automobile accidents than the average person. Also, am having a hard time understanding (and or finding what the meaning is) that of the players from the enforcer group and from the non-enforcer control group that the control group had SIGNIFICANTLY more deaths that couldn't be associated with head trauma (by the criteria established by the researchers to be proxies for head trauma) than the enforcer group had. 23 deaths out of 330 is double that of 10 out of 320. The study doesn't even seem to acknowledge that as they are ONLY trying to see if they can correlate additional deaths to the head trauma. It would seem that in their attempt to "match" the fighters to non-fighters that they have done a poor job of that as the deathrates from non-head trauma related causes are significantly different between the 2 groups. And they are significantly higher for the non-enforcer control group. And the authors would seem to be implying that the players that died from head trauma would've died anyway but about 10 years later without the head trauma. (That does appear to be the result they are presenting.) But from a cursory review of the study there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe those same players would have died anyway (just as there's no reason to assume they wouldn't have died). On the surface, and without referring to this study, it would seem quite plausible that people that routinely suffer head trauma would have lowered life expectancies than those that don't routinely suffer head trauma. And this study supports that presumption. But, and again only took a cursory look at the study, it doesn't seem that the study as constructed actually lends much if any useful data to answering that question.

Auto-de-fe, what's an auto-de-fe? It's what you aughtn't to do, but you do anyway.

Yep. And the fact that they did trim out so much data leads to the question of WHY? Were they just lazy or were they needing to do that to get the results they wanted or did they actually have a truly legit reason for doing so? REALLY doubt it's that 3rd option.

And at least one of those enforcers (Kordic) that killed himself was definitely one known to suffer from "'roid rage." And doubt that Brian Spencer was considered 1 of those enforcers but he likely wasn't in the control group either as his death was definitely of unnatural causes and due to being a drug dealer in later life. It seems like it's a very interesting study, but not sure just how much reliable info will be coming out of it based upon the way the study was set up. (Again, this is only after a VERY cursory review of the study's methodology. The methodology may be more rigorous than it appears at 1st blush (then again, it may be even less useful too).)

Personally would like to see the Sabres keep that 13th pick and make a trade with Olofsson and 1 of the 2nds (plus an A-/B grade prospect if necessary) to land either 1 of the 2 D they should be looking to obtain or a goalie that's expected to be more consistent than either Comrie or UPL. And then grab the other D they should be bringing in via FA.