Taro T

The Original 6, Phlyers, Kings, possibly the & Knights are about the entire extent of teams the league would want to move even less than they'd want the Sabres to move.

The border opening won't help as much as it would've had that happened over the summer because people like @Zamboni that would've been to a lot of games will likely only go to a couple of/ a few games. It WILL help with next year's attendance.

Fortunately they do seem poised to have finishers he can play with when he's ready to move up to the big squad in the near future.

Krebs got a breakaway & had it roll off his stick just as he was about to shoot. Utica goes down the ice at the next faceoff and UPL's night is through. 4-0. UPL back to having trouble w/ high shots. Going to go back to watching college hockey.

Pretty sure you meant to quote a different post for your 2nd comment. As to the 1st part, yeah, they eventually will be relevant again. But it is hard to blame people for not wanting to spend money on this team. Never thought they'd see attendance this poor but also never thought they'd be working on their 2nd decade w/out playoffs, never expected the border to be shut down, & never expected to see a 3rd reload in only 7 years. Really thought this market was bulletproof. Guess not. (And realize there were downtimes attendancewise in the past, but flipping the calendar into the new year was always the cure. Not nearly as likely this year, though that'll help.)

Without an open border AND in the 11th year of a playoff drought in a year the team traded it's 2 best forwards for futures & had its best defensive defenseman & planned #1 goalie both walk with no FA signee making over $1MM/year AND had to buy an effectively retired D-man to guarantee they'll hit the salary floor all year. Those 2 forwards having been deemed by ownership & prior management to be worth intentionally making the team the worst in the league for 2 full seasons. Show me ANY fan base that could support a team through all that. If this team didn't come into the year with all that baggage, the fans would still be in the building in reasonable #'s even with only 1/2 of the fanbase having access to the games. Only loons would still be paying to watch this show. 😉

Just found out I've got 4 tix to Amerks games. (Wife'll want to hit up at least 1.) So can catch up w/ you at least twice. Always have a blast at their games hanging w/ you.

Well, yeah, it is. Except they didn't have to blow everything up. Yes, yes, we know there was no way guys that were going to FA a year from now would re-sign and the captain was a doody head &, & ... Maybe it works out, but considering it's 2 more years of losing hockey, it becomes frustrating. And maybe those guys do re-sign. Anybody else remember the angst TB felt when Stamkos tested FA? How'd that work out?

OK. Missed the sarcasm of your earlier post. Sorry. It was a long week and our oldest gave us a good scare today. Beer is good.

Mike Peca & Brad Marchand say 'hi.'

They've only got 1?

Was a Bandits STH when they beat Filly for their 3rd league championship.

Oh, well then, guess we already know the backstory. 😕

Nice write up. The other thing that seems to be getting ignored is that growing up, the bigger kids predominantly get selected to the AAA/ Top Tier teams & that only the really highly skilled smaller players make those teams. So, pretty much all the smaller kids that make it to the point of getting consideration to be drafted are really highly skilled & have competed against guys much larger for a long time. A larger portion (note, not saying even a majority, just a larger portion than that of the pool of smaller players) of the bigger prospects have been able to use their size against smaller younger guys &/or weaker big younger kids to get an edge while growing up. Unless they have a lot of skill to go w/ that size, they won't be able to succeed at the NHL level except in a niche role because only the best 750 hockey players on the planet are in the NHL. (Or 750 of the best 1,000 to account for guys like Jagr deciding to play overseas while still capable of being an NHLer.) It's not as simple as smaller skilled guys will necessarily be able to take it to the next level though they can excel against really big kids their own age because while many can gain enough strength to stay relevant at the next level not all of them can. And it's not as simple as big kids can necessarily take it to the next level because when they have to deal with EVERYBODY being strong & quick that size advantage can either be neutralized or no longer exists. Personally, am deriving great pleasure from this thread. It's a fun read.

In the distant past, believe that's correct. But recently it's only been the Championship game. Altitude shows the Mammoth games, but that's the only team that had a local cable deal AFAIK. Will be nice to get the Bandits games w/ a reasonably high quality legal streaming service.

Wonder what the real backstory on this is? On the surface it is an entirely #### move, but have to believe something happened that caused Bowness to go out of his way to shaft the kid. Whether that trigger was enough to warrant the decision, don't know. But it would be interesting to learn what it was.

Really liking that the default wasn't line him back up w/ Dahlin.

Son's trip to Urgent Care didn't even result in stitches, just some superglue & those butterfly sutures. Nothing broken & no structural damage. Even got out of a meeting. Fantastic.

That makes much more sense. Thanks.

Not sure how his signing a contract in the off-season significantly affects his trajectory forward on a team that he's been a healthy scratch the entire season to date.

Pretty sure it was Eakin w/ an equipment issue that caused the line juggling. They went Cozens centering Asplund & Skinner, Thompson centering the checking line, R2 Rou2 centering Cozens wingers, those 1st 2 lines again, R2 Rou2 w/ his line, then Eakin w/ Thompson's wingers & then Cozens line & they've been back to normal since. Though Dahlin's been actually starting off the draw to Pysyk's right.

No more games on lunar eclipse night. The tides are too strong.

Audette got cheap shotted by Muni & blew out his knee. Don't blame him one bit for the stuff he did to try to keep people from taking further liberties.

Would make sense. That'd make the upcharge ~$0.80 which seems plausible.

Yeah, the response was harsher than necessary. Apologies.