MattPie

Knife and fork, charlatan! I had to stop wearing my monocle though, the sweat of my brow would make it fall out and land in the sauce. I lost partial sight in my eye when I failed to clean it properly, never again!

Elma/East Aurora, Blue Cheese is an abomination and ruins a perfectly good wing.

Huh, all these years and never knew. Thanks!

Curious: the OP solo skate; is that a "thing" for local players, 1 overall picks, or ???. I don't think I've seen that before.

The COG line, I like it.

I prefer hot BBQ when I'm outside Buffalo. The Hot are rarely good so BBQ is a more enjoyable experience.

Level 2: never date the songwriter in your band. "Go Your Own Way" was written by Fleetwood Mac's guitar player, Lindsay Buckingham, about Stevie Nicks who then had to sing backing vocals every time it was performed.

Keep your dirty well-researched facts out of this. 🙂 I forget which era it was (I think 2006-2007 teams, but might have been the late 90s), but the Sabres had 1 guy over 30 goals, but 6 with 20. Those teams were way more fun than Jack and the JAGs. Keep Olofsson, create three (or four) dangerous lines and roll. As someone pointed out above, there are 50 guys in the league that would be in the AHL since the recent expansions; the third pair D on every team isn't getting better.

The schadenfreude is real.

And yet: Biron and Noronen both had seniority. Sure, dumb stuff happens, like Fuhr getting starts over Hasek but none of the players we're talking about now are established NHL players. Somewhere above, re: Bleed Blue and Gold Levi made his decision bleeding whatever colors Northeastern wears. Next year, it's entirely likely he'll sign with the Sabres and start bleeding blue and gold. It does seem like the guy sticks with his team longer than many would and I take that as a good sign.

https://accidentallywesanderson.com/

Swiss Francs are apparently ~1.08 USD, and the average salary for the one team is something like 290,000 francs. I'd hope an NHL-maybe would be at the higher end of that. Looking at some other numbers, the average AHL is $51k USD, and the highest paid players are barely up to that Swiss average. Can't imagine why players would play in the AHL other than the NHL teams make them, I'd assume a lot of guys would get paid better in Europe and not get wailed on by some guy making $20k USD trying to make a name. https://swisshockeynews.ch/index.php/shn/11-swiss-ice-hockey/nla/25841-the-average-salary-of-a-hcfg-player-is-chf-290-000 https://sport-net.org/what-is-the-average-salary-in-the-ahl/ That might be it, "I'm sick of the garbage plate, it is literally garbage. I want some chocolate."

I could see a longer, mid-value contract (I almost picked the 3 x $4M+ option, but I don't have a handle on if that's a decent contract for the production). The injury factor is one thing, but LITR/retirement would "fix" that for the cap (I don't much care what Terry has to pay out). I think his game may translate, since I don't feel like it's based on max speed, but more on smart plays and power, which seems like it'd keep longer than speedy player that isn't any more.

I agree Ullmark would have likely been better than the Sabres 9 guys they iced this year. He's signed for 4 with Boston at $5M/yr, and has played 28 games and is ranked by stats between 20-30 in the league. If Swayman is Boston's answer, they're going to have a $5M backup for the next three years. The Sabres would have been in the same place, possibly. He'd be better than what the team has today, but he's not *good*, and I don't think you sign anything less than good to a four or five year contract.

I'm not sure the "mediocre overpaid goalie with term" merket is as strong as you make it out to me. This seems like to road to having to pay $10M cap for the net.

Oh, more: https://buffalonews.com/sports/sabres/sabres-goalie-prospect-erik-portillo-preparing-to-take-over-starting-job-at-michigan/article_6b29dd52-ce02-11eb-bf56-f3d526154ea3.html

Okay, was interested enough to look for Portillo: Drafted at 18 or 19: check Drafted Late June 2019 by the Sabres Played USHL 2019-2020 Played NCAA 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 So, the question is, when is he a bona-fide college student? From the sounds of it, it had to be before June 1 2020.

Agreed. Also, with the Sabres depth, VO that can't shoot might still be better than the replacement player. I haven't watched, has he shown improvement in other aspects fot he game?

I don't think he'd be a bad captain, right now though I'm not sure I want to roll the "22-year-old captain" dice again. A more experienced vet (Tuch, etc.) makes more sense to me right now.

Not sure how to parse the latter part of that. If I player leaves college early (like let's say Portillo quits school next week), but doesn't sign with the drafting team, are they UFA on August 15th? Or it sounds like A still applies, but then I don't know when all the B stuff would apply since A would always be later.

Love that these two topics are next to each other. Hope never dies.

If it matters, make sure there's usable internet there by calling Spectrum or whatever. A lot of the "Available in your area" type stuff on the net and FCC website is based on zipcode, not on street address.

This is a really good point. The backup may be looking at the team outside Levi and think he's going to look like garbage next year since it's unlikely he's going to have one of the top seasons in NCAA history. I don't know if the guy has a shot at the NHL, but looking awful in the NCAA probably isn't the path to get there.

I think this is spot on. Even if it wasn't the Eichel dynamic directly, the ASG seems to be the turning point which wouldn't have happened with Eichel being on the team. It's probably a combination of whatever Dahlin and Hedman talked about, or maybe casual comments by other players (a simple "damn, that was a amazing" from a superstar after a play would be an eye-opener for a young player). Whatever the case, Dahlin is feeling it and given the time factor, I hope it's not just a string of good weeks.

Beat me to it, lol.