Taro T

And he then went away from it for most, if not all, of last season because ... well, ... um, reasons.

Was thinking the same thing. McLeod has done nothing to warrant demotion and Malenstyn screams "plays the way Ruff wants." Expecting that line to be 2nd in ice time tonight behind the Thompson line as it will be expected to counter 1 of the Wild's top 2 lines. Has Zucker showing the kids how to play the right way while not overworking the elder statesman. And a totally revamped "Kid Line" (Krebs & Cozens are still kids and Benson has a while to go before he can even legally drink in this country) likely getting the usage the old RAV line got.

Why are we exercising the demons? Are we afraid they're going to overeat tomorrow and get fat and presumably lazy? Probably would be better to exorcise them and send them to TO where they belong, or perhaps Filly where they likely grew up. 😉

Hello Mr. Rosen. Columbus on the White Courtesy Phone. Mr. Rosen, please pick up the White Courtesy Phone.

100% This ^

Never been in the one in AZ, but Houston's in most towns is a reasonably upscale steak house. Not at all surprised Bissonette likes eating there; quite surprised a brawl broke out in one.

Like Ron White likes to say "didn't know how many of them it would take to whip me, but saw how many of them there were and knew it would be enough."

Don't see any way state by state (nor province by province) tax rates will get factored into the next CBA. It won't even address country vs country tax rates / exchange rates except in the manner it currently does. Talk about opening a can of worms. There's one other correlation that those FLA and NV teams that made it to the conference finals had in common (not sure if that Dallas team did this or not as well, but the 2 FLA teams and Vegas definitely did); and that is - they played very fast and loose with the BF-LTIR exemptions from salary cap compliance. Now THAT is an item that the league might actually address. That FL tax advantage wasn't much of a factor for the Swamp Cats when they were in the midst of an 11 playoff drought.

Because he's 23 years old and the team is already the youngest in the league. On day 1 he wasn't going to be in their top 4 so there really wasn't a compelling reason to have him on the Sabres roster sitting in the press box or getting bottom 6 minutes. He'll get his chances. But there is no reason for the team to intentionally make itself even younger without a player demonstrating he's clearly better than the guy he's trying to beat out. Been a long time coming, but the Sabres finally have an NHL caliber roster and kids are no longer gifted roster spots. (Well, most of them aren't.) And, his having to earn a spot on the big club is actually a great thing. MHO. Ymmv.

You get paid every day you are on an NHL roster. Pay is meted out on a ~1/187th rate (the approximate # of days in a regular season). MOST of your off-days, you are at home so the vast majority of your pay is earned at home. But IIRC a handful of states have really onerous tax rates on pro athletes showing up from other states. Recall having read articles to that effect, but don't know how accurate the articles were. (Supposedly, regardless of how the players get paid, they base their calculation on a different formula so that guys that are up from the minors can essentially owe everything they made on that particular callup. Take it with a grain of salt as personally have never verified those articles.)

One other positve in Byram's ledger. When Dahlin is paired with him, he really feels free to join the rush and concentrate on helping generate offense. The 2 did not work well as a pairing last year; which kind of stunk because Byram had been brought in specifically to be paired with Dahlin. This year, we were told in the off-season that Dahlin would likely be primarily paired with Samuelsson and Power. But Adams original plan seems to be working. Hoping that continues. Also hope that Adams can find Power a partner while waiting for one of Johnson, the Russians, or Samuelsson getting to a point where they are effective in an NHL top 4 role. While it would be nice to have another top 6F; believe the #4 D-man is a bigger need because he isn't on this team right now with the entire D healthy (yes, Samuelsson is injured, but he has NOT been a top 4 guy this year when he was healthy) but they are at least 6 deep and maybe 7 or 8 deep at top 6 when fully healthy.

Jiricek is someone that's right on Adams timeline and holy cow does the D look stacked in 2-3 years if they get him. If he could be serviceable as a partner for Power today would be very happy to see them pull the trigger on a move like that. Because right now, they are shy 1 top 4 D-man. Whether people like Byram or not, he's at least legitimately top 4 in the offensvie end and in transition. Expect that Adams would be looking for someone a bit more seasoned to help today; but all the moves he's made to date have been with Dahlin's timeline in mind and he'd be approaching his peak when Dahlin is firmly in his. So, maybe Jiricek might be in his wheelhouse.

Interestingly, the article starts out talking about "aggressive" expansion plans and then ends with '2, well, maybe more than 2.' Guess that they figure any expansion at all after a quarter century of no expansion counts as "aggressive." Thanks for the article and thanks for your insight your past few posts into the junior ranks.

IMHO the biggest reason that Reimer is the backup and Levi is in Ra-cha-cha is that Levi has looked good with regular usage but has not looked good getting very limited situational starts. And right now UPL is the #1 and they only have ~3 more 3 games in 4 nights stretches prior to the AS break so if he's healthy he'll be getting the lion's share of starts. Doubt they get to a point this season where they consider making Levi a 1B to UPL's 1A as they really don't start to stack btb's until March and if things are working with Reimer as the backup can't see them risking messing with UPL's psyche (and to a lesser degree the Amerks playoff push). The veteran presence is merely gravy, again, IMHO.

Would have to go back and see how the divisions were shaping up at this point in time in some previous years, but it SEEMS that the pace to make the playoffs increases as the season goes along as teams like the BJ's this year start dropping back down to their actual level and the better teams start rounding into form. So, being barely over 0.500 today when they'll need to be 0.600 or barely below it in all likelihood come April very possibly could be good enough. Presumes that UPL will keep on keepin' on and that the team will get into a groove of simply being able to play the way Ruff wants them to do rather than having to think about how to do so in addition to doing so. Getting to their 1st 4 game win streak in more than a season would be a great indicator that they are getting it. Especially with the way how the 1st game back from a road trip has been a letdown way more often than not during the drought.

Roy was assigned to Ra-cha-cha to start that season. He was not waived to Ra-cha-cha. And Thorburn wasn't waived in '05 to Ra-cha-cha (he didn't need to clear waivers that year). He was waived and claimed in '06. D'oh! Sorry about having that off too.

People forget that '04-'05 counted as a professional season for all the guys that actually played that year. And he, and Thorburn too, were a couple of guys that likely would've had callups that season but the Sabre season never happened.

Yup, Pominville cleared waivers. Thorburn got claimed. Both had long careers but 1 was a top 6 player and the other a career 4th liner. Sabres got lucky with that one. Edit: Thorburn got claimed the following year when he'd become waiver eligible. Was off a year on that one. No idea why was thinking it happened a year earlier. D'oh! The 3 players that were waived to Ra-cha-cha to start that year were Pominville, Bartovic, and Janik. Bartovic was traded to Chicago the next day for Leighton.

Yeah, a LOT of articles about why the Jints should fire Daboll (and some saying Schoen should go too) but there doesn't seem to be anything credible saying it has actually happened. (But wouldn't be surprised at all if 1 or both are gone after they get humiliated in Dallas; presumes they'll get humiliated in Dallas, not a given but doesn't seem like too risky an expectation.)

Making that streak slightly more impressive, 3 point games weren't a thing until '99-'00 (pretty sure that was the year the "loser point" was born) so you actually had to win 1/2 of the games that had a decsion in order to get to that 0.500 winning percentage. (Guess it also makes that stretch during the drought that much worse too.)

The Bruins are mortal and the Bolts are looking that way as well. The teams that have been in the Sabres boat the past couple of years haven't improved more than the Sabres have and though the Habs still seem to give the Sabres fits; the Sabres are one of the few teams that they do. Dahlin, since finally getting healthy, is playing as well as we could hope for offensively and has been ok (overall) defensively and he likely is still learning Ruff's system. They still have a tremendously difficult time getting into the zone and maintaining possession on the PP; BUT once they do so, they have actually been really effective. UPL is looking like a legit starter and based on all of a 1 game sample, it looks like Reimer could be a Shields/Roloson that can go ~0.500 in occasional relief. (If they get even better results when he gets his occassional start, awesome; but having the backup flirting with 0.500 is usually enough when you have a legit starter.) At the moment, there are only 5 teams in the east that are at/above the NHL 0.600 guaranteed* playoff pace and only 1 of them are in the Adams (though FLA is pretty much a single win in their next game from that threshold themselves). So, there's an opportunity for 2 (or 3 if we don't include FLA) teams to up their output and join them in the dance. (Amazing how bad the east has been since that weird year when all 8 playoff teams were well over 0.600 and all 8 non-playoff teams had been pretty much eliminated by the 1st of March.) All that says, the table is set that if they keep working and getting more comfortable in understanding what Ruff expects of them and executing it, then playoffs are quite doable.

He played a couple of games in Ra-cha-cha. But in trying to get more info on when they happened it seems they were on a conditioning assignment, not as a transfer at the beginning of the year. Had been thinking that was at the very beginning of the year before Don Waddell got a hard on for trying to trade for 1 of the 3 but it seems it was later in the year when Regier finally agreed to look for a trade for him. Spent way too much time trying to find which games he actually played for them that year. Just know he lost both of them. So it appears that no, none of the 3 were waived that year. Oops. EDIT: His time in Ra-cha-cha was on a conditioning assignment from Feb 28 - Mar 5. He was recalled on Mar 6 and was traded to Vancouver on Mar 9. So, no, he never was waived to Ra-cha-cha that year.

Very good night by Reimer. Will admit, did not think he had this kind of a game in him at this point of his career. Real important for the team moving forward, because the coaches now know that they can trust him and that they can decide who to play when based on keeping the workload they want for UPL and not having to overthink whether they can "risk" playing James. What a great way to head into a mini-break right before the holidays.

Yes, he was. Please point out where in the quote you quoted it says differently.

Never? '90-'92 were just a dream? Andreychuk Malarchuk Hawerchuk Here a 'chuk, there a 'chuk, ev'rywhere a 'chuk 'chuk.