MattPie

It's going to be sad if Wilson is good this game and then disappears for the next 20.

At least RJ and Rob are honest, that was offsides. EDIT: Yep, with the further repay, I think they all tagged up. I don't think being the puck being in the air matters, but I think they all were touching the blue line at the same time.

Not for me, woot!

It's be cool if the athletes got to pick their own medal song if they're neutral. I'd pick the first minute or so of Musogsky's Baba Yaga if I were Russian. I might pick it anyway, because it's awesome.

Appreciation you say? Lucky. Some of the things I've read suggest that housing prices on average just keep up with inflation. Sure you might get lucky/smart or do a bunch of work and make out, but on average a house is a savings account and that's it. For fun, I punched my parents house purchase price (from 1978) into an inflation calculator and it came out on the low side of what they'd probably get for it today, but that doesn't include interest paid.

There might be a taker for $2.5M cap hit / $1.5M actual salary MM that wouldn't pay the whole thing.

I'm no expert, I'm not really fluent with the actual stats, just the high-level concept. In the example above where a big dude is dominating in junior, you could sprinkle in some height-weight above league average stat to discount some of the numbers and see if it correlates. For instance, straight up "player points / HWaLA" would tell you if a player is 10% larger than the league average, maybe he should be scoring 10% more points. NS, one more try. You're an accountant, right? So basic stats (goals, hits, +-, etc.) are like the raw taxes, assets, etc. an entity has. Analytics is saying, we'll, it's OK if you paying $4M/yr in takes if you're gross income is $16M, but not good if you're only making $8M, you should convert capital into assets so you can write off depreciation and reduce your tax burden (I am absolutely not an accountant, I hope some of that makes sense). You look past the raw numbers and mash them together to get more important data.

Oh, and house: I doubt he moves his family. At least I wouldn't unless they want the experience of living abroad.

For the first one, yeah. Maybe after riding the AHL bus for 5 months and taking cheap shots from guys trying to make a name for themselves, he says, "I'm getting too old for this smurf" and retires, leaving 12% of the contract on the table and retires comfortably on the money he has. Does that really seem that impossible? On the flip side, maybe MM has spent a ton of his money on team dinners and doing the math figures he can't live the life he wants on what he has left and when an offer comes in from Locomotiv METALursk for $5M/yr, he goes for it. Also not impossible.

There are certainly social implications of living at your parents house after graduation. (just to be clear, I didn't, I moved to the Binghamton area after college in Buffalo). Second note: buying a house is not a particularly good financial decision, especially now that it looks like I'll be back to taking the standard deduction if the tax plan goes into effect how it looks now. Yes, you build equity. It's unlikely you're going to build equity faster than the 7%-ish return you'd get investing the money you save renting.

Here, try this on. Analytics are an effort to take raw stats and refine more meaningful data out of them. Here's an example, hits. Eye test says: man, that guy is great, he hits a lot. Analytics says when that guy is on the ice, his team takes 50% fewer shots per minute than the game average. Conclusion: that guy is probably a detriment as his team; you can't score if you don't shoot, and you can't shoot if you don't have the puck. If you're looking at two guys, this guy and that guy, both have the same number of hits, but this guy's team shoots average or more shots per minute while he's out there, you take this guy even if his traditional stats are identical (goals, points, hits, shots, etc.). Just keep layering factors on to try to compensate for other factors and that's what they're doing. We're in the birth of this for hockey, there are going to be wrong assumptions and bad data as things work out, but in the long run I'm betting on analytics. Even if there are players that look great and the analytics are terrible, it's entirely possible the analytics just haven't caught up to an edge case or the formulas need to be changed. It's directly akin to science; you observe, try to model and see if it works. If the model seems to work, go with it until some new observation blows it up and you start over with this new knowledge and build a better model.

Depends on how much he likes playing hockey, I guess. He's made at least $22M in the last four years, it's not like the other $3M is going to make or break him.

Yep, living at home. Unfortunately, it's the one I bought and have to take care of and not my parents. :)

Meh, that would require effort. :)

Part of the problem with football is the game just doesn't function (at least I can't imagine it) without the violence. Hockey is kinda in the same boat, although I have an easier time imagining an NHL without excessive hitting[0] than an NFL. [0] excessive hitting: essentially every hit Kaleta or Scott Stevens made after the puck was gone. Non-excessive: D pinning a guy against the boards on the rush, a forward bumping D off the puck, etc.

Those millennials should just go get a steady job and they'd be able to afford a house like I did. - Ray, 63, South Buffalo

Unless at least one of those 1sts is a top-5 and the rest top-10 I pass laughing the other GM off the phone. I'm not trading Eichel for a bunch of teen and twenty picks, where you're doing good if you get 2 bottom 9 forwards and really lucky if you get one top-3.

I should note that I'm not sure they'll improve under Housley, but the team as-is can play better. I'm not laying it at Housley's feet, but it may be a case where a coaching change would make a ton of difference by being a large shake-up in and out of the locker room.

They are all better than they've been playing, otherwise they wouldn't be in the NHL. I'm guessing it's a case of compounding frustration and lack of confidence.

Which is good. The numbers say the Sabres have to be the best team in the league for the rest of the season to even have a shot at the playoffs.

Did you see how miserable he looked at the Bills game! (No, you're right)

Definately seems like J-BOT is going to try to keep the Amerks together for the year and fill in the Sabres with pieces until their ready to make the jump.

Yep. The only thing I got out of it is D-Lo should be playing D.

True, I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking more about the asset a GM would have to give up to get either (realistically, a non-1st round pick and/or mid-level prospect at best).

I think the Sabres don't have to pay Moulson if he retires or otherwise refuses to play wherever the Sabres send him. Retirement + KHL might be worth it. It looks like he gets paid $3M in actual dollars next year, so playing somewhere else might be worth it he really wants to play and/or the new team pays him that much.