shrader

That's the big one right here. We'll know exactly what we have with this guy once Skinner and Olofsson are back.

Booked a trip to the Dominican Republic last night. Might as well do these things until the purse strings tighten. I hope I get to fly in a plane that looks like a whale.

They were hoping that Paul Tagliabue was in charge. He knows what to do with illegal video tapes.

There is no requirement to make a play on the puck. The purpose of a check is to remove a player from the puck. Kassian had the puck and was hit by Tkachuk. He then lost his mind. Sure, the previous hit is fresh on his mind, but each individual play can only be judged by the refs separately from earlier events (or at least they should be). The refs must have factored in the previous stuff though. There's no other way to explain why he only got 4 minutes plus the misconduct. It should have been a fighting major and he should have been ejected from the game if they were actually calling it by the book. Instead, he's allowed to return halfway through the third. Once he throws a punch or two and sees that Tkachuk isn't responding, he needs to stop. He would wind up with the roughing minor, but that would be it. Instead, he's a hot headed moron who continues on the attack and more than deserves his two games. I don't care whether or not a guy is turtling, you need to be smart enough to realize it. If a player can make the conscious decision to turtle in reaction to an attack, the other player can also make the conscious decision to pull back once the turtling begins. For whatever reason, they're almost always too stupid to realize it.

I know he didn't get fighting. That was one of the plays that came to mind.

Boarding. It was a bit of bad luck, but it was the correct call.

Here's the rule: "46.1Fighting – A fight shall be deemed to have occurred when at least one player punches or attempts to punch an opponent repeatedly or when two players wrestle in such a manner as to make it difficult for the Linesmen to intervene and separate the combatants. The Referees are provided very wide latitude in the penalties with which they may impose under this rule. This is done intentionally to enable them to differentiate between the obvious degrees of responsibility of the participants either for starting the fighting or persisting in continuing the fighting. The discretion provided should be exercised realistically." I really don't know what to make of that second piece, but it clearly states that you don't need "two to tango". Kassian should have gotten a fighting major there and I don't understand why they wouldn't label it that way.

And if you watch that penalty from a different angle, it only happens because Larkin (I believe that's who it was) trips over Bogosian's leg, which causes all of the contact.

Fighting has definitely dropped to near non-existent numbers at this point. I don't question that. Still, I feel like I've seen a few different times this year where punches were exchanged but only matching roughing minors were assessed. It makes me wonder.

After the Shero firing, I found myself thinking that a game against New Jersey right now would do a lot right now for my game viewing enjoyment. I guess Detroit doesn't hurt either (even with the poor 2nd period). The older you get, he stays the same age?

I think there may be an argument for the first hit, but I can't see the second one qualifying as a charge. He moves in quickly, but he kills a lot of his momentum with that pivot, or at least changes the direction of that momentum. At that point, it's more Kassian running into him than anything. And if it's true that Kassian did not get a fighting major for that, it's all the evidence I need to know that the NHL is trying to suppress fighting numbers.That many huge haymakers thrown? He's fighting. But hey, if they want to say fights are so rare now, it's easier to back that up by not calling the penalty.

After the Indy fiasco I don't know why anyone would want to hire him.

I'm willing to bet that call stands (or gets corrected to a safety) if the play happened in Orchard Park.

But I hear that there are scouts from 23 different teams present at the game.

And you know it's only a matter of time now before a teams uses that signal to fake out the coverage team. But hey, common sense now cancels that out. I can't wait until they add that phrase to the rule book.

The rule also includes "making no effort to advance". He was walking forward as he tossed the ball, so that potential defense is killed. An interesting thought comes to mind after reading that one though. Those plays where a player is about to score but instead parallels the goal line in order to run off clock... shouldn't that technically count as giving yourself up? Sure the player does still have the intention of advancing eventually, but there's too much subjectivity in the current rule. They really should require that the player goes to the ground.

Right, but they did have to give up more than just Carrier. A minor detail but they were also one of the teams freely handing away draft picks, granted a low value 6th rounder. But on that note, I'm still of the thought that they were conned out of that pick. Vegas was never taking Ullmark. McPhee was able to pull that same con job on several teams. We'll have to wait and see the quality of Ron Francis' poker face.

Minor nitpick: They gave a 6th round pick to Vegas in exchange for them taking Carrier.

I'm forever biased on this one, but I'd love to see Bonino is a Sabre jersey.

Sending him down is as much of a mental move as it is a performance based one. Hopefully that side of the move is starting to work. People set the bar way too high, but hopefully they can salvage him as a middle 6 player.

I can't count the number of times I've heard this complaint. Oh wait, yes I can.

Seattle Team is one of those dark horse candidate names that I could get behind. Just for fun, I'd make the logo a giant "I".

And Asplud getting time on the top line tells you a lot of what they think of him and the way he's playing. He's a guy who projects out to a bottom 6 role, so I do thing he will be moved back into that slot and Lazar gets returned to Rochester first. Thompson should be a pretty obvious choice to go back to Rochester, at least initially. I can't see how he wouldn't need that rehab stint with the amount of time he's been out.

And to give the vast majority of the league some much needed down time.

That seriously beaten up action figure where the arm routinely falls off?