apuszczalowski

My comment was just an age joke about their team

Fallon may have grown up in New york, but he is a HUGE Red Sox fan, he even did that movie with Drew Barrymore that was about him being a huge Red Sox Fan.

Cole of the Canadians would be one of them, he is alreqady talking retirement next season because of the CBA

I would assume Network Schill, but if he is a hockey fan, i would assume his teams the bruins since he is such a Boston guy. The only time its obvious that he supports is the red Sox

Until I read this, I was wondering why teh NHLPA hasn't tried raising a stink over this. I figured they would be pissed that teams are preventing players from coming out to play so they can ensure tehy go uninjured until they can be bought out. If I was the player, I would be torn, its great that I am going to get paid huge money to sit out this season, but if I want to keep my career going, how hard is it going to be to try and get another deal next season if I have to sit out next and can't try to improve my play? I would tell the team if they don't want me to show up, trade me or cut me from the team, I won't sit out just so you can buy me out this summer. I would take Gomez here after he is bought out if he would take a short contract for a few million to try and get his career back on track........

So they pretty much have the same roster now?

hard to really argue what you have, there will probably be a surprise or 2, but on paper I'd say this is close. My only issues are with the Caps, there was some fighting between teammates in the lockout, could there still be some issues in the lockeroom when the games start? And as for the bruins, the loss of Tim thomas could really effect them, No one really knows if Rask can handle the full season without Thomas I do have to wonder about some teams that made big additions, like the Canes, if it may take them a while to gel and get used to playing with new teammates? If this was a longer season I don't think it would be a worry, but starting out slowly for a few weeks could really finish a team off before everything gets started.

I knew it was something said between them, I just thought it was DR about BB, I stand corrected although I thought that there was a response about Burke being similar that he is hard to deal with. Darcy wasn't hard because of his attitude, he was hard to deal with because he didn't want to let guys go.

Thats what I assumed, I just didn't know if it was a possibilty as I could see that being a loophole some teams might make work

Phaneuf is still a good player, just not what he was projected to beAlthough around here, toughness most of the time = superstar

In other words, the leafs new owners thought he was a D*ck and didn't want to deal with him, some rumors were that they felt his attitude kept him from being able to make deals with other GMs (something IIRC I believe DR basically said around a trade deadline)

Is it possible to keep just half the Salary, or just half the cap hit? This could really make it interesting, trading a player to a lower income team looking for a cap hit to reach the cap floor. Say the Rangers trade someone like Redden to Florida, and they agree to pay 50% of the remaining Salary, but Florida will take 100% of the Cap hit for him. Florida pays less in actual cash, and gets a big cap hit to get them to the salary floor (just using those 2 teams as a random example)

I would think that it would be whatever is left to be accounted for in "Salary Cap"When you think of the Salary Cap, the cap hit has to eventually equal the amount of actual money/Salary that was paid out to a player. I would assume that you would only be able to trade and keep half of what is owed in the cap hit along with half of what is owed in actual money

New Management (Rogers & Bell) took over during the lockout and from whats being said, they weren't fans with him and the way he conducted himself (his attitude)Also sounds like Nonis (his protege who is taking over as GM) was more for going after Luongo then Burke was (although Nonis has said he refuses to give up any of their top prospects to get Luongo) As for the timing, the only thing that I can think of is that they decided to make the move as soon as they knew work would be starting up again for the GM, and they didn't want him trying to make anymore moves. They have to pay him anyways so they left him on the staff during the lockout while nothing can be done to give them more time to decide if they were willing to continue working with him, and then when it was announced the NHL was getting back to work they made the move to dump him and promote Nonis. Thats the only way I understand this move being made.......... As for the moves he made, many think the Phaneuf deal was genius because they say Calgary was fleeced in it since only one of the players is still on the Flames roster, and I know alot of Leafs fans (my wife included) that are really pushing for a Luongo deal right now

I got lucky, got married during the lockout so I wouldn't miss anything, unfortunatly it was the week After the Bills Bye week this year so I did miss one Bills game (also was the week after the hockey league I'm in had a week off due to the arena being booked for a tournament). It did suck that the last day of the honeymoon was in Arizona, and it would have been the same day the Sabres were in Phoenix to play the Coyotes this year, I would have ahd to debate extending the honeymoon one extra night to catch the game there, or my original plans to get back in time that night to not miss another one of my hockey games

But how can they afford it?

But how is it an advantage at all when it gives the other teams in the league the exact same "advantage"? My argument is that the old way may give the Sabres an advantage because now a player will have to decide that Buffalo is a place they are interested in enough that they will take the time to fly out to Buffalo and meet with the team representatives. Would Brad Richards have taken the time and flown out to Buffalo to meet with the team at their place if he isn't really interested in them in the first place? If he is in a room and teams line up to visit and speak with him, he is more likely to sit down for a bit and meet with a team he might not have on his list because its another option and they are already there. The only thing this new rule will do is make July 1st a bit busier for the sports stations because deals/signings will be announced quicker cause deals will already have been agreed to in principle prior to that time. It also will allow teams to meet with more FAs because they won't be focused on meeting with someone while others have the chance to sign elsewhere I think the coverage of the Trade deadline was much worse then the coverage of the opening of Free Agency......

How do the Flyers have Cap Space? http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=413187 The Rumor now is they have inquired about getting Luongo from Vancouver with the plan to buy out Bryz this June................

well the Leafs let their apology/thank you to the fans slip out earlier today with the firing of BurkeWonder what the rest of the league will do?

yeah, so we skipped the first 48 games this year and therefore should be like the last few months of the season last year where tehy were one of the better teams!

You brought up the question of St. Louis and having HOF players not tied to the Blues living thereHow many players without ties to playing for the Sabres, or without previous roots to the WNY area have decided to just move here?

I don't understand why they didn't just add a week to the end of the schedule and go with 50 games, that would let them make the games against divisional opponents at 5 each instead of 2 @ 5 and 2 @ 4

Regier is probably the only guy that I would take as a GM of the Sabres over Burke, and that includes GMs in any and all sports on this planet Dion Phaneuf............ What are we doing? Naming Leafs players now?

So for those that say "Its entertainment, I will come back as if nothing happened", do you get mad or complain about players/coaches/GMs when the team plays poorly? I mean, its just entertainment, why would you be upset? The issue that most have with what happened is that it is entertainment, and the entertainment was taken away because they needed to argue over how to divide the money that we give them for this entertainment. We the consumers are what make their industry possible, and they show now respect to us and just expect that we will come crawling back to them to give them more of our money because they have given us our entertainment back. The point of an form of protest against the league is to show that you as a consummer of their product/entertainment are not happy that they do not respect the people that pay for their product and that we the consummers are not improtant to them

I don't live near and have never really followed St. Louis so I don't know, but if you go with that logic, the only teams that I do know that have former NHL players still living in the area after retirement are Buffalo and Toronto. Do you know for a fact that the St. Louis area has no HOF players that never played in St. Louis living there?