nfreeman

Let's have 'em. I voted: No -- I cannot see a playoff team giving him the keys to their postseason. 4th-rounder -- I cannot see anyone other than a drunk and impulsive GMTM parting with anything of value for him. No -- there have to be consequences for being this big of a disappointment.

Why? Wouldn't his absolute best move be Mick's suggestion -- ie best contract from a good team?

It looked pretty bad to me.

I wonder if Howie thinks B-loo can be a good NHL defenseman with enough experience.

That would be great, but highly unlikely IMHO. He's out of gas. He'll most likely play 8-10 min per game with a bunch of healthy scratches, or perhaps they'll waive him as they did with Moulson.

How dare you. There is NFW that Pommer walks away from $5.6MM.

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I will reiterate my earlier claim that Lehner is the worst starting goalie in Sabres history. In addition to yet another late-game choke on the GWG, the GAs that ROR didn't score also resulted from poor goaltending (i.e. fat rebounds deposited on the doorstep). Yes, the team has many other flaws, but a young team simply needs better goaltending than this -- among other reasons, to close out wins and build confidence. I think it's at least 50/50 that they let him walk for nothing this summer. On the positive side, Reino's pass to Eichel for the PPG was very sweet.

I agree with most of this, except: - Taking Pommer's contract -- specifically, the increased cost relative to Ennis' contract -- was part of the price for getting Scandella. - I think McCabe is close to a lock to be here next year.

Well, 2 questionable TD calls on Philly TDs went against the Pats in the SB. How does that fit with the "the NFL wants the Pats to win" conspiracy theory?

I think JT is in fact going to leave in FA. Although the Isles appear to have an arena deal in place, there is a minimum of 3 more vagabond years before it's ready, and that's without any glitches, overruns, etc. -- which always happen in NYC. And I find the complete silence on JT's contract following the arena announcement pretty interesting. But I don't expect him to join the Sabres. I think a guy like that would want to join a team that is poised for multiple deep playoff runs, not one making a bid for DFL yet again. (Which, btw, is another reason not to tank.)

This may or may not be relevant to the above disagreement, but there are, interestingly enough, 2 guys in the NHL named Sebastian Aho.

Awesome Josie. Definitely avatar-worthy for someone.

I listened to this interview the other day and came away with the impression that JBott thinks very highly of ROR and thus that it's highly unlikely that he will be traded. Kinda makes me wonder if there are going to be any changes to the top 6 -- which in turn makes me wonder how TF can he not make changes to the top 6 given how little offense the team has produced this year.

Wasn't MODO the one who alerted us to the potential of Olofsson?

Well, if you read my posts, you'd see that I agreed that the refs are human and might, once in a great while, inadvertently make a mistake to the Pats' benefit due to some kind of subconscious belief that the Pats are so good that they don't commit penalties, but that the NFL system is designed to monitor and correct those mistakes -- and that what I was really pushing back against were the nonsensical, whiny loser claims that "the refs favor the Pats" and "the NFL wants the Pats to win." As for the NBA, I think it's pretty widely accepted that as a league it promotes and relies on its stars and that as a related point the stars get more leeway from the refs. Since you seem dug in on this, though, if I see a good article analyzing this phenomenon, I will post it.

What's your point here? Yes -- excellent (like a lot of the stuff in Players' Tribune, btw). Thanks.

Here's an in-depth article on the "Patriots get all the calls" theory: https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2018/2/1/16958718/super-bowl-new-england-patriots-bill-belichick-rules-penalties-study

I didn't like it either. I did, however, like Bowie quite a bit.

Mike Rodak says not to expect the Bills to take a shot at Cousins: http://www.espn.com/blog/buffalo-bills/post/_/id/31066/bills-fans-shouldnt-get-hopes-up-for-kirk-cousins-after-alex-smith-trade There were those of us who predicted huge contracts for Smith and Cousins...

They looked pretty good in the 1st and I thought we might get a really good game, but they didn’t produce any offense in the 2nd. I thought the GWG was another Lehner choke. (I didn’t think so initially but one of the replays from behind Lehner showed it kinda going through him.) Reino, KO and ROR are all much livelier than earlier in the season, and the D is much more sound. Eichel looks dangerous all the time. OTOH, Pommer and Kane are invisible.

That is good data, and the Zemgus and Larsson contracts do kinda support your position (not Beaulieu, which I think is inapplicable), but only to a point IMHO. The Zemgus and Larsson contracts were cheap, short-term "prove it" deals that a team gives a guy with some upside who can be counted on to fill a role in the bottom six if the upside isn't realized -- which is exactly what's happened with those 2. Most likely one or both of them will be moved out as their contracts expire and replaced by younger, cheaper guys with upside. A 3MM x 3 years deal, though, is a different kettle of fish. The team would essentially be committing to Reino as a top-6 forward for 3 years on the hope -- which is utterly unsupported by his play this year -- that he can magically re-assume his career arc as it was at the end of his rookie year. And I expect that JBott knows that just because everyone wants that to happen -- it doesn't mean that it will happen. Having said that, if he has a good 2nd half, I can see a 2-year deal for him as you propose.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

This is pretty obnoxious.

I've been pondering this myself. I certainly want the Sabres to keep winning/playing well, and I want to believe that doing so will be a meaningful indicator of rejoining the respectable part of the NHL, but I feel like we've seen this movie before and it didn't end well. And I think the reason for that is that when a team is really crappy in the 1st half of the season, their 2nd-half opponents don't bring their A games, so when the crappy team wins some games, it's somewhat of a mirage. The opponents either look past the previously-crappy team, or they are tanking, or they are fatigued or injured or otherwise not inclined to dig deep for a game against a lousy team in the dead of winter. So while I agree that the 2nd half will be useful for determining which guys can handle Howie's system and which guys the team should move on from, I am pretty reluctant to draw confident positive conclusions.

One of my all-time favorites. Season 2 is fantastic. Seconded.