Taro T

Still expect 71 or 72 points. But would not be surprised to see mid-70's. Anything over 82 & Granato needs to win the Jack Adams.

If you are expected to miss 7 days you can be placed on regular IR. That designation can be made retroactively. When on regular IR you still count against the salary cap but don't count against the 23 man roster limit.

Not with the way Knox has been playing. Too bad, would've been fun having formations with both of them on the field.

Hate seeing that it's a broken wrist for Mittelstadt. His mitts are his game. Hopefully there's no soft tissue damage to go with it.

Still not sure what happened to Mittelstadt. It didn't look like anything happened to him, but the shift before the PP 1/2 way through the 2nd period, he just skated off the ice & straight down the tunnel. Wonder if Gallagher's hacking him on the 2 on 1 w/ Hinostrosa broke something. Never saw what happened to Jokiharju. Wanted him and Dahlin separated but not this way.

Did not announce Eichel. As if completely cutting him out of the team's promotional materials didn't say strongly enough that he's persona non grata,this was the exclamation point. Couple of other observations from the game: There were 4 sections that had 25 or fewer fans in them. Section 301 took the crown with only 15 people in it. Official attendance was just over 8,000 but there's no way there were more than 3,000 people that paid to be in the building. If there were 8,000 people there that's including every single concessions stand worker, the reporters, the coaching staffs, & both teams. Considering how few people were in the stands, believe we did a reasonable job of making noise. Was at the Hasek banner raising ceremony, had forgot that Robert & Gare carried it out onto the ice. Not sure how the Sabres managed to introduce their players in numerical order but had both teams players listed alphabetically in the program. Yes, they really did list the players in alphabetical order. At least it was in alphabetical order by last name rather than 1st. Anderson played like he always does in in our barn. He was the 3rd star but could easily have been the 1st star. Hopefully they don't burn him out. After he scored, Okposo was on fire. That 1st PP unit was awful. Even if Mittelstadt can play tomorrow, they should be making some adjustments to it personnel-wise. Hope Mitts isn't out long. Did not expect to see Bryson on the PK, but he did well there. It was Moe-ray-all he was going against who might have a historically bad PP, but the PK looked good in general. Cozens seemed to pick his game up from where it was in the preseason. Hinostroza seemed to be around the puck a lot. 2 bad teams (Moe-ray-all minus Price & Weber is NOT good) but a fun game to be at. Arizona is very beatable - here's to going 2-0.

IF they don't get Dahlin, then they DON'T make the trade of O'Reilly. Dahlin wasn't the driving force of why Botterill & the Pegulas wanted him gone. But without Dahlin, they don't risk the fan backlash that was sure to follow.

That's what was being reported. That by getting Dahlin, it would be easier to effect a teardown. A lot of us here hoped it was misreporting. But based upon events that June 30, it wasn't.

Nah, it can't be that; they're still making us pay for the beer. 😉

If Dahlin doesn't grow from here, that would be a nightmare scenario. Recall, it was winning the Dahlin derby that made Botterill believe he could effectively pull off a teardown. (Aka, trade O'Reilly away for magic beans.)

They are HOPING the develop the kids this year whole still getting an A1 prospect after the season is over. (Both from their draft pick & whatever they get in return for Eichel (who may get moved in-season, who knows).) Having lousy goaltending is a good way to have reasonable assurances that the latter goal will be achieved. But if lousy goaltending forces them to play a stunted version of in-zone D to attempt to hide the goalies' inadequacies, then the former goal & their main talking point goal is in jeopardy. And that will set this Rebuild #n back at least another year. Really hoping Tokarski ends up a Tim Thomas, but hope isn't a plan, and an NHL GM HAS to do better than have hope as his plan. Anderson & Tokarski #1&#2 (or maybe 1A & 1B), 2 of the 4 C's on the opening day roster are Thompson & Eakin, & the #1 pairing gets blown up in their own end & give up far too many odd man rushes. Heck of a job there, Kevy.

Am simply saying if it didn't bolster their opinion they certainly wouldn't be bringing his opinion up. But expect that his opinion at minimum is what kept the Sabres position what it currently is & may have been instrumental in arriving at the decision as well. If one of the absolute premier surgeons in the field thought the ADR was the right way to go, the insurance issue would go away IMHO. (Insurance companies do have their opinions swayed on occasion; would expect that'd be cause for just such an occasion. But his opinion concurred with theirs, so ... here we are.)

Pretty sure Lance only put the GEO line 4th to keep heads from exploding. If they get less 5v5 ice time than the Cozens line will be shocked & will be surprised if they get appreciably less than the Thompson line. Ruotsalainen working through as a D-man in drills. Annoying but understandable until there's an 8th healthy D-man with him being out of the top 12. But fer cryin' out loud, get him in the top 12. Will be interesting to see if Eichel gets announced at the start of the game. Samuelsson will be. Will put it 20/80 that Jack is mentioned. That could be, how do they say, um, awkward.

It seems that way. And expect that after he agreed to review the medical data decided that ADR was not right in his opinion for Eichel for this injury. Had his opinion been otherwise, the Sabres would never have had that opinion brought to light. IMHO.

You don't expect that to change until 9:30-ish? Sir, you are what they call an optimist. 😉 (Truthfully, could actually see them winning tonight. Habs lost a tough 1 last night, still have no semblance of a PP, & likely will put in their 3rd stringer rather than a tired Allen.)

No awards given out this season, as giant meteor crashes into the Earth on April 28th. We don't even get RJ's last broadcast. 😞 After rubble is finally cleared in November league decides to just put big asterisk up and declare everyone's a winner for '21-'22. As such, the entry draft lottery includes all 32 teams and the Sabres get the 31st pick. Shockingly the Loafs get pick 32. (Daly is heard muttering something about the league finally getting tired of carrying water for those Hosers; they'll just screw it up again anyway.) Bolts win the lottery. Rags go 2nd.

Really not sure that the word "hard" belongs in that sentence. (Shaddap, Inky. 😉 ) Adams did try to sign him & reportedly expected him to sign the deal they'd worked out. But reportedly he only offered a 2 year deal for the same money the Bruins offered at longer term. That isn't exactly putting much effort into signing far & away their best goalie for at least the next 2 years & possibly 3 or 4. Considering the "good" part of Plan B was a guy on the verge of retirement, there really seems to be little effort spent on that position at all. (Yes, Levi might be great in 3 years. That's a long time away.) And we all saw how well it worked out the last time a guy that came to the Sabres that was considering retiring after (rather than before, hopefully that's an important distinction) becoming a Sabre worked out. Agree that the outcome was a fail.

Yeah, saw the price was just $60 yesterday evening. Grrrrrr. Not sure it's worth the time to make the call to save $10.

How good can it be? They tell you up front that you'll only want to take 1 bite. (Yes, get it that it's his shtick for his pizza reviews, but pretty sure looking at the "appetizing" version on the cover of the box that it's actually a double entendre.)

Rat farts.

Try that kick next time you're on the ice and see just how little force you can actually get on the puck and how little control of the puck you get while making sure the blade doesn't break contact w/ the ice. The league already allows goals to be scored off kicked pucks - everybody knows that. It's just that motion isn't "distinct" which is a huge weasel word. And, if you really want to, though expect it is unneccesary, you can add a stipulation that if additionally any part of the blade is more than a puck's thickness off the ice, no goal. And if it isn't readily apparent whether it was 1" or 2" off the ice, it defaults to a predetermined outcome (either good goal or no goal, just have that decided ahead of time). It doesn't have to be complicated & it removes the discretionary ruling of what was the player's intent. Was he trying to kick or was he just stopping/ changing direction? Don't care. Was the skate on the ice? Yep. Good goal. Nope, ok, no goal.

Implies?!?! Pretty sure we're beyond the implications stage. 😉

Never said the entirety of the blade needs to be in contact w/ the ice. If any part of the blade is on the ice, it is on the ice. If none of it is, then it isn't. The blade needs to touch the ice through the entire motion. If it doesn't, then it's a kick. What if it's too close to say? Well, you default 1 way or the other. Personally would default to that being "no goal" but could see a case for going the other way. Either way set that in writing ahead of time. Again, the point of the rule is player safety. And unless we're talking Chara vs Gerbe, there's no way a guy is cutting another player's leg if a portion of the blade is on the ice. And if your toe is in the air, you aren't making much contact w/ the puck; blades being rockered and all. 😉

Yep. If the skate stays on the ice through the ENTIRE "kicking motion" it's a good goal.

Would make it much simpler than that. The rule was put in place to make sure guys weren't kicking at the puck creating slicing hazards of other players legs. So, what they were trying to eliminate was the skate blade coming off the ice. So, if the skate blade leaves the ice, no goal. If it stays on the ice, good goal. This would cause the very rare 'guy skating across the ice in front of the crease & the puck totally fortuitously hitting the raised skate & deflecting in' goal to not count. But it makes it real easy to say whether a goal should count or not without worrying about intent. And, if being the NHL, they need to complicate things and add a subparagraph dealing with that skating motion goal situation, so be it. The bulk of the reviews would still be cut & dried.