Taro T

All your 1st 3 rounders, that don't have other contracts/ NCAA aspirations, should get signed quick. The ELC contracts have very little range on base salary & it's really only a question of how many bonuses to make them eligible for.

Absolute no brainers. Now let's hope they show up sooner than later. Kulich's trajectory will be interesting.

He actually looked good IMHO when paired w/ Bogosian or Rostolainen prior to getting injured in his 1st stint. But he definitely earned Inky's derision after he came back that season. Don't have a clear picture of his play that 2nd year, but pretty sure he didn't play much w/ either which would make your impression accurate. There were several partners he did not click with.

OK. So, he seems to think (reasonably) that the clock was stalled while he was in Russia. (Again, I haven't looked into that nuance before, so will accept that as being correct unless we hear otherwise.) Really think he dropped a "1" before the 5 games to trigger the need to clear waivers. As he played 33 NHL games in '18-'19 and 13 in '19-'20 which puts him at 46, 15 shy of his 61st NHL game. Which would likely make him waiver exempt 1/2 to almost the entire year provided the Sabre D stays relatively healthy.

Let the rejoicing begin, @Doohickie. FTFY. 😉

Probably. But don't recall it.

Not sure how you're getting that. He was considered to be 23 for waiver purposes at his 1st contract which puts him 3 pro years or 70 60 NHL games away from needing to clear waivers. He's got 46 NHL games under his belt. Honestly not sure if the 2 KHL seasons count as he wasn't "loaned" there nor uner an NHL SPC, but expect they do count. So, expect he would need to clear waivers due to 4 years pro experience. But if not, he should be good until his 25th NHL game played this season.

Barring any other D being brought in, pretty sure the top 8 that will stay up are: Samuelsson - Dahlin Power - Lybushkin (sp?) Bryson - Jokiharju Pilut - Fitzgerald. Maybe one or 2 of the tweeners beat out Larry or Casey but not expecting it.

That's NOT Inky's definition. 😉

Yeah, is it? (Guessing not, as that was the hangup last time. But who knows.)

The bigger problem IMHO is they seem to be planning on riding a 4 line rotation of relatively even ice time (regardless of how the bottom 3 lines might get assembled) & at his current stage of his career, not sure Toews is still up for 12-14 minutes over 80 games. And it would have to be handled quite delicately if they decide to give him maintenance days. It could be done, and Adams and Granato could probably make it palatable; but it's a long way from team captain (of a multiple SC winner, btw) to healthy scratch overnight. Can see Kane here. Can't see Toews.

He needs to wait 2 more years to jump ship. So, he'll sign in the spring. Expecting he gets a game or 2 (though if the Sabres are right on the cusp, they might ride Comrie) to burn that 1st year of the ELC. Most likely he starts next year in Ra-cha-cha, but am really hoping he'll be up before that season ends. Realistically, he'll be in Buffalo that following year unless injuries or other derail him. Likely as the backup, but who knows, he's been making saves on NHLers in pickup hockey since he was a Midget. He might be special.

Right now, they're sitting ~$19MM below the cap. Whether it be through players that help now or stuff that will help in the future want to see at least 1/2 that used. Anymore than that left in April & it's a total waste of an asset.

Hockey Related Revenue. Owners get 50% & the players get the other 50%.

HRR will start to spike back, but the cap won't in the ST because players are still paying back their overpayment from the lockdown period.

Most entertaining, definitely. Not sure that we can say necessarily that it was better than Goober's 1st year. Better W% and just as much hope coming out of it. When Eichel's ankle sprained at the last practice of the next year, that next season was toast. Would say it was essentially tied for best. And the hope that this next year is better still exists. Should that hope be well founded, & next year is another improvement, could see swinging last season into the 2nd best & next season the best.

Most of October was pretty fun too.

Well, the Quinny cap space moves were shot to #### when HRR revenues in '05-'06 were far ahead of the early $1.8B projections upon which the '06-'07 cap would be based upon thus rendering officially just how stupid not signing any contracts over 1 season (except for ELCs which were required to be longer) in the previous summer was removing any uncertainty that may have existed regarding the stupidity of that strategy. Because nobody was being forced to buy out/ trade players cheaply which was the basis of Larry's strategy.

Welcome back! Since you haven't followed much, the Sabres should be a treat this year. They will at least be mediocre with an outside chance of competitively good. (Eat it Avs. 😉 )

Still curious just how happy McCabe is w/ the turn of events there. Totally get the "happy wife, happy life" mantra; but at some point he has to be wondering what playoff hockey might be like, right?

So much for him being a late summer signing. Oooops. (Where's the d'oh smiley when you really need it?)

We never really did see many 1st round goalies (or those drafted in other rounds, for that matter) make the NHL as 18 year olds. Ottomh, can think of 2 (Barasso & DiPietro). How many others are we missing over 40 years? Maybe a couple? Peeters didn't make it his draft year, nor did Luongo nor Lindbergh. Those were the 3 that had thought might've been in the mix. And even DiPietro took 1/2 the year to get there. Don't honestly believe anything changed.

Well, if Grier wants a Shark Tank, that'd be a good start.

Will agree to disagree.

Fair enough. Doubt we will agree, which is fine. But the other thing I'd meant to mention was by making the pick when they did, they were still getting THEIR choice of all the goalies. Whether they were right or wrong will be seen in the next 1/2 decade or so, but they got THEIR guy. And at this point, until they prove otherwise will trust their talent evaluation. They effectively used a 1st or 2nd on Levi as well & that one looks like at a minimum the ball is in the field of play and they'll end up on base and it still could be a home run. Them appearing to get that right buys them more faith that they might've gotten this one right, too. And though they really do need RHD's in the system, goalie was a bigger need system-wide. And don't want them in the position where they then have to trade for somebody else's prospect goalie. Would rather they follow the old SJ model and use prospect goalies to fill other holes after the big squad is set at 1 & 2. Combine that greater need w/ having 3 2nd rounders next year in what should be a deep draft, expect they can get the RHD pipeline restocked next year. And then moving forward, they should have the full gamut stocked & can finally truly get back to BPA when drafting. And back to the thread topic, the reason it would've been more reassuring to see them land anybody, including Comrie, earlier is then we'd know they got THEIR guy. He's apparently at best their 2nd choice; would've been nice for them to figure out earlier that Murray was NFW to coming either to Buffalo, working w/ Bales, or both. Maybe they end up w/ somebody higher on their list if they'd've been able to do that extra bit of homework.