Taro T

Depends on opponent, should they get in. Get FLA or a Metro Div Winner and they're almost definitely toast. Get the Loafs who love to exit in the 1st round or the Bolts and maybe they could sneak out a series win.

Interesting thought, but that doesn't seem to be it. A LOT of Cozens shots are coming from high danger areas and until the Detroit game hadn't seen Quinn in those areas at all for the most part. Kulich and Benson have gotten to those HD areas better than Quinn, but don't believe that Cozens has been avoiding passing to them. Other than the fact that right now Cozens literally couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, so personally don't want to see him take ANY shots, can't really ottomh think of a time he shot when the pass was clearly the superior play (again, except for the fact that right now his having the puck in the crease with no goalie is a lower percentage play than passing it away from there to a D-man at the blue line).

To the bolded, correct. Only Levi and Kulich can get sent to Ra-cha-cha without clearing waivers. (Benson would not have to clear to be sent down either, but he's not eligible to play in Ra-cha-cha.)

Yeah, the BJs are an interesting bunch. Their record is quite a bit better than expected especially with them playing minus their only star player. But not really giving them credit for blowing out the Eulers in a game that McDavid broke on his 1st or 2nd shift. Will be interesting to see how long they can ride the win for Johnny Hockey run. Expecting they'll be this year's Housley or Krueger era Sabres and the bubble will burst sometime by early December at the latest. Completely agree about Kaprizov. Were he playing in a more "relevant" market he'd be feted as the star he really has shown to be.

Good post. But not sure what your point about Cheatriots Place is. Shaffer stadium was around for about 40 years with NOTHING built up near it. That there hasn't been any development around Rich likely won't reflect on what happens around the new stadium. Pegula built a lot of stuff near the MMArena when there hadn't been anything but parking lots and Cobblestone along with the long since abandoned Aud there prior to his involvement.

You kidding? He's already looking at the fact that he needs to wash the glass before he uses it again and that's going to take even MORE water so it's at BEST 1/4 full and likely only 1/10th.

Speaking as one who's been advocating putting Peterak on his line, still say it makes sense to do so because by making that change not only will Cozens still be getting chances in HD areas, he'll get them with the goalie not square to him by the time he gets that chance. THAT's what jump started his scoring 2 years ago and expect it still will. As for moving him to wing. Unless they make a trade for another C that can play in the top 2 scoring lines, don't see that happening. And don't see that sort of trade made when they have Helenius and Östlund down on the farm and Kulich in a year or 2 also might be ready to get moved to C. (They aren't making a trade for a guy that isn't on Dahlin's overall timeline.) Could easily see them moving him to W 2 - 3 years down the road. But as soon as Mittelstadt went out the door, so did any possibility of Dylan moving to wing in the immediate future. McLeod is a great fit in his current role. Krebs and Lafferty can handle 4C duty but can't see either being useful in a 2C role. They don't have anyone else in house they can really consider for a 2C role right now.

Nice summary. Only 2 MINOR quibbles are, personally see Tuch as a true 2nd liner that has some chemistry with both Thompson and Peterka so he belongs on that top line. Remember, the Legion of Dorks had Rennberg working the corners for them. He was nowhere near the offensive player nor finisher of Lindros nor LeClair but he was a key cog in that line. That is Tuch's role on this roster. And, still say the PP is dreadful because of the coaching; not so much the personnel. The entries are still ridiculously bad and Cozens, the guy that LITERALLY can't put a puck into an unguarded net given multiple opportunities, is the bumper on that 1st unit. Won't even go into the minutia of what they do on the rare occassion they actually surprisingly gain control of the puck in the offensive zone. But entries and who mans the PP units are 100% on coaching.

Quinn is absolutely struggling right now. Said a few days ago that expect it's in large part due to not fully understanding what he needs to be doing now that for the 1st time in his professional career he has a coach that expects him to play within a structure and he's thinking out on the ice which you absolutely can't do with the speed of the game at this level. Sitting in the press box 2-3 games with one of the coaches right next to him explaining what's going on and what he should be doing were he the one on the ice will do wonders for his play. It also wouldn't hurt to get him away from Cozens for a few games, but with the other 3 lines all working, that's pretty much an impossibility rihgt now. Have advocated for putting Peterka onto that line when Benson is healthy as the expectation is that he'll get more production out of those 2 than the top line production will diminish. Had Quinn not gotten the ENG against Detroit, expect he would've gone to the press box rather than Kulich. But, when a guy that isn't getting it finally does something good, it's really not the right time to make a move that could be interpreted as a punishment. (Sending him to the PB isn't a punishment, it's part of him learning what he needs to be doing; but the timing would've been awful to send him where he should be.) And if you're Aube-Kubel what's going through your mind when you're told you're finally healthy enough to be in the lineup but instead of being with your normal line that you have chemistry with, you're going to be out there with the guy that needs an empty net to score on and the guy that can't even do that right now. Thanks, Coach. 😉

You say that like there was only a single 3 game win streak last year. They were WAY better than that. It actually happened TWICE. But sadly, those were the longest strings of W's the entire season.

Not happy with his play on the Cats 1st PP goal, but overall thought he was moving better than he had been in any of the earlier games this year. Maybe that injury that's been limiting him IS actually healing up. Their next 3 games are against teams, like Buffalo, that are looking to sneak into the playoffs. They're all winnable and with him having 3 days with no games expecting he'll be skating like he did last night at a minimum and hopefully even a bit better than that. That'll be a huge boost towards their winning all 3.

Really don't believe that is Cozens issue as he was playing poorly prior to the concussion. Personally chalked that up to trying to do too much to "earn" his contract and actually making himself play worse because he was 100% motor and as @mjd1001 states repeatedly he'd often motor himself right out of being where he should have been (and briefly was). Actually, thinking about it a bit, a case could be made that the concussion was a result of his playing poorly and not vice versa. At the point of the game that Cozens started the fight that got him the concussion there was no compelling logic to starting the fight there. Other than him being really frustrated at how his team was playing in general that game and he himself particularly was playing. He wanted to take out his frustration on somebody and chose poorly in picking an opponent. And now see his major issue as simply having no faith in his shot whatsoever so he's doing the proverbial "gripping the stick too tight" and the more he does that the longer his shooting %age will remain right where it's currently at. Maybe having Kubel causing traffic in front will help Dylan blind nut finding a squirrel (he's way past the blind squirrel finding a nut stage) his way into a goal which should help him tremendously moving forward. (Especially if he can luck into another one by the end of the weekend.)

Yep. The Bills might be really bad at decision making in the final minute of a game, but they probably have the best 3Q record of any team in the Allen era. And that, more often than not leads to them having leads at the end that are too big for bad last minute decision making to factor in. Would be really nice to see them with the less banged up D in the playoffs for once so that propensity to let teams off the hook late in playoff games gets stomped out. If Milano comes back in December, we might actually see that happen.

Which is a pretty good description of his mentor Andy Reid in his Iggles stint. Reid got a LOT better at the in-game stuff through the years. No reason McDermott can't improve in them as well. (And, he really should, if he doesn't already, have a "clock/situational" expert on his coaching staff to help him avoid stuff like the final Jest drive of the 1st half of that game in the Meadowlands (or whatever the heck they call their new mausoleum).)

March. 😎

Yes, they have representation on the rules making committee. But modifications to playing rules in large part have nothing to do with the CBA.

Why would that be a part of the CBA? Couldn't it simply be a modification to the rule governing shootouts?

Close. Won btb as October rolled into November but didn't do so again until the calendar flipped into January. Didn't win 3 in a row until late February.

One major difference, they've already had a 3 game winning streak. They didn't get to that until the end of February last season. And they'd only had a single 2 game win streak prior to NYD. And, along the same token, they didn't get a home winning streak (of all of even 2 games) until mid-January. They've won their last 3 home games too.

Considering the Sabres are in 3rd place, really don't know.

And, forgot about a big one. Would allow teams in the playoffs to exceed the cap by 5% (but no more than that) with their top 23 guys (maybe even only 21 or 22 if they'd still be using IR to get guys that are up on the big team but not in the lineup into the lineup). Why let a team exceed the cap in the playoffs at all? Primarily because if a team is banking cap throughout the season they can "exceed" the cap at the trade deadline with their top 23 and still remain cap compliant even without any BF-LTIR shenanigans during the regular season. (It's the way a team $4MM under the cap 1/2 way through the season could add a $8MM player and remain compliant.) People wanting to force teams to be cap compliant in the playoffs forget that teams can be (and have been) compliant throughout the regular season without using BF-LTIR but still have a roster that technically wouldn't be cap compliant were the cap still a thing in the playoffs. And, no, don't expect them to do anything about the Knights or Bolts stashing players until the playoffs start with the POSSIBLE exception that they might go back to the unofficial interpretation of the cap that they used against the Sabres back in '07 - if the Sabres wanted to use Connolly (and IIRC Afinogenov too) in the playoffs they needed to play at the end of the regular season. But expect that's not likely to get reimplemented.

It woud be 4 years max of having draft rights retained, just like it currently is for drafted players regardless of the league they're in. CHL players go back into the draft if they haven't signed after 2 years and can have their draft rights obtained by a subsequent team for another 2 years. Expect that a player that starts out as CHL would once again be draft eligible after 2 years should he go to an NCAA team without signing with the NHL team that drafted him, but maybe they'd negotiate something else as a bone to throw to the CHL teams for allowing some players to be AHL eligible in the D+1 or D+2 seasons. I.e., if a player starts out in CHL but goes NCAA then the player's rights are retained for the full 4 years as if he started out in the NCAA. But it would seem with the NIL environment that if anything, it'd go the other way for the NCAA players in that as long as they don't actually get paid above X (likely as a signing bonus) on an NHL contract they could have a signed contract and still play NCAA. Players lose draft eligiibility after 2 years and players drafted at 20 can only be on a team's reserve list for 2 years before they become UFAs if they don't sign a contract. Don't see any reason why that would change. And ELC slides would be the same as they currently are. They only slide when players are 18 or 19 reflecting how a team maintains the draft rights of players in the CHL for the 2 years that they are either in the NHL or the CHL (barring the player's CHL team being willing to let them get loaned to the AHL) and acknowledging that very few players are actually good enough to be in the NHL at 18 or 19. Can't see a way the NHL would allow the PA to eliminate the slide altogether, and can't see the PA allowing it to extend beyond a player's D+2 season. So would be quite surprised if that changes at all.

Eliminate full no trade clauses. Leave teams at least 5 teams they can trade a player to even if the player really wants to be where he is. Am perfectly fine with vets being allowed to have no waive for purposes of transfer to a minor league clause; but you have to give teams a possibility of getting out of a contract that simply doesn't make sense anymore in a manner besides an outright buyout. Add a 3rd goalie that doesn't have to clear waivers but can play in the AHL. Would require that 3rd goalie to be on a 1 year deal that cannot be extended prior to July 1. (Keeps from having teams squat on good but not great goalies essentially forever. Having been in goalie purgatory for roughly a decade; don't want teams not playing in Buffalo being able to make it impossible for MY favorite team to get out of goalie purgatory should they go back there again.) Not CBA directly, but kind of, and similar to what others have wanted, adjust the NHL-CHL transfer agreement to allow players drafted in the 1st round to be put into the AHL if they are 19. Not going full alteration of the transfer agreement, but giving teams and strong players a little more leeway to continue the development of those players. As compensation to the PA to make those changes happen, would up the players' portion of HRR to 52%. Would NOT give the players a direct share of expansion fees. (Hoping that expansion fees are never again collected, but realizing that's unrealistic.) Because the expansion fee is a direct payment to the other owners for diluting THEIR portion of leaguewide revenues. The players effectively get compensated for having more players taking a slice of their pie by higher national broadcasting revenues (as the footprint increases, the national contracts go up) and by having more revenue coming into the league from the new teams via regional broadcasting fees, ticket sales, and concessions. Would bring the start of the regular season back to the 1st week in October. Would also force the end of the season/playoffs to be a week or 2 earlier as well. Understand that the league sells more tix after the NFL season ends; but don't care. Also realize this one is completely unrealistic. Am sure there's a couple of other minor items. But for the most part believe the CBA is the best in pro sports and wouldn't mess with it much.

For as limited as he is right now, he's really playing well. And, again, honestly believe he's finally getting a feel for what he can still do with his limited mobility. Which, SHOULD be viewed as a testament to his hockey IQ.

Seeing Lafreniere get that after getting past his "bridge deal," feel a LOT better about the Cozens contract. Danke.