TheAud

http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/15-goalies-who-could-start-for-vegas-next-season I'm not saying this guy knows jack-squat but he does list 15 goalies (plus another 6, actually) that he thinks could end up on Las Vegas. Ullmark is not among them.

Largely agree except I do enjoy the earlier Aerosmith as one of the finer Rolling Stone derivations to have come down the line. I was in HS and college during the Metallica and Nirvana salad days and never understood it.

To me, the eyeball test and the analytics align well on Gorges. He is at best a 7th D, maybe good in the locker room, at worst he is a 2nd pairing AHL guy. I tend towards the latter opinion. If he is on the team next year, something is wrong. Better to buy him out or bury in the AHL and replace with a Fedun/Falk type (maybe Nelson).

Yes, technically a home game. But I get the feeling the Sabres will be lucky to keep their last line change rights in the game itself, let alone the NHL giving a rat's ass about Sabres season ticket holders. But maybe I'm overly pessimistic on this. I mean, they did win the spinning wheel for Perreault back in 1970.

This is a great story! Thank you for sharing. Good call on not rooting for the Bills, btw. No reason to suffer that way. I wish I was psychologically capable of changing my NFL allegiances, but so far, I'm not able to break free.

Does it really work that way? I.e. the league determines where MSG can broadcast Rangers (or Islanders) vs. Sabres games, or what MSG channels DirectTV or the cable company chooses to carry for each package offered to consumers? I live 3 hours from Buffalo and 4 from NYC and get all the Rangers and the Sabres games without any special sports packages. If I switch providers that may no longer be true. If you mean the definition of "in market" vs. "out of market" for NHL game packages (on DirectTV or online) then maybe that is by fiat of the NHL. BuI I have to believe they are drawing the lines to maximize revenue there as well, as opposed to 'fairness'. My experience (granted it was a long time ago) was that once you hit Albany the Sabres/Rangers mix starts to tilt towards the Rangers, but Syracuse/Binghamton is still more Sabres area. I'm sure this is all known in some great detail by somebody at Google or FaceBook.

So Sabres get 40 home games next year, Rangers get 42. In terms of not playing the game at New Era when there just happens to be an ice surface set up... I understand the arguments about the logistics around hosting two events on the same ice in a short period of time, but at the end of the day it's about the NHL's lack willingness to focus resources on it. We already know the NHL will prioritize the Rangers over the Sabres for any number of reasons. The logistical challenges associated with the WJC are great excuse to not bother investing the resources in activities that result in being "fair" to the Sabres. The NHL isn't particularly interested in being 'fair' to it's franchises, it's interested in maximizing revenue and ticket prices and ratings will be higher with a game held in NYC. Disappointing as a Sabres fan, but not at all surprising.

I don't think he's a dark horse per se. I fully expect him to play a key role on the Amerks blue line this coming season. ;)

That was out of control.

I agree with this assessment. McCabe's usage on the Sabres is a potential indicator of how far along the defense corp is over the next couple of seasons. On a team with a great blue-line (say, Nashville and Anaheim) I'd say McCabe is a #5. On a typical decent to solid blueline McCabe is in the 3-4 range. On a team with a weak blue line, McCabe is #2 defenseman...i.e. the 2016-2017 Buffalo Sabres.

Hah! I have noticed guys losing their edge and falling down a lot this past season. I agree, can his ass. (Wait a second....that was Ennis when someone breathed on him. Forget it).

I graduated HS with a guy who literally "sharpens skates" for the team. He has been a loyal and hard working (and I presume, competent) employee for more than 20 years. I don't know how much he makes, maybe $40k per year? Gets some health benefits I presume. So a bunch of millionaire coaches and management types, and millionaire players suck at winning hockey games for 5+ years and the way to fix that is to fire a bunch of people eking out their living? I can't believe folks are seriously suggesting to fire laundry washers and ticket sellers to have a "fresh start" on the ice? Frankly, that's appalling. We really need a new GM and Coach to start talking about how to upgrade the defense and play a more modern system and who should be the goalie, etc as opposed to firing the Earl of Bud to upgrade the team's Corsi.

Interestingly, they haven't made an announcement to lower prices either. It appears prices are, thus far, unchanged. I predict that the current trend will continue. Or, prices will change. And when they change, they will go up or down. Or perhaps both simultaneously in a complex dynamic pricing scheme depending on opponent, day of the week, weather conditions, and what has recently been released on Netflix.

My early year concert slate has been completed: Clapton at MSG Blind Boys of Alabama - Corning Museum of Glass Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn - Corning Buddy Guy at UB Summer schedule thus far: Tedeschi Trucks Band in Rochester Boston in Syracuse Taking my 13 year old to see Boston after taking the older two when Boston came to Big Flats, NY (Tags) two years ago. She will love it. Saw TTB last year at UB and they have a fantastic new live album out. I highly recommend. Edit: Just bought tickets to Tommy Emmanuel and David Grisman in Ithaca in November, and I forgot about Arturo Sandoval in Corning in September. Shaping up as a great year for shows!

I believe it's worth $73,248. Not enough to turn down an extra million dollars per year for 5 years. The thing is people rarely determine that the reason they are the hated guy in the room is because of themselves. In Kane's mind, he just happened to have a bad situation in Winnipeg. He's not the problem and wouldn't be on his new team either. So why would he take less money?

Interesting article making the case for Futa: http://www.thehockeynews.com/news/article/sabres-would-be-wise-to-seriously-consider-futa-for-gm-job#cxrecs_s Campbell is sort of a blowhard but he is knowledgeable.

NHL.com says 8PM Edit: for announcing results. Maybe there is a show talking about it for 30 minutes beforehand if that's your thing. I'd rather clean the bathtub than watch that.

If he played 15 games or something, sure. But he played more than 40 and took 200 faceoffs and logged 100 minutes on the penalty kill. Whereas any of Bailey, Baptiste, ERod, Carrier, or even Cal O'Reilly or Cole Schneider would have been more productive. But I think Byslma saw him as that veteran (in terms of age) face-off/defensive guy "concept" even though in actuality, he sucks. But he did win over 52% of his face-offs!

I was thinking along the same lines. Slightly different group of players to compare, aggregating their totals, normalizing to 82 games played and 12 minutes per game: GP G A PTS +/- PIM ATOI SOG SPCT Age William Carrier, LW 41 5 3 8 -1 21 9:00 50 10 22.4 Evan Rodrigues, RW 30 4 2 6 -7 4 12:56 51 7.8 23.8 Nicholas Baptiste, RW 14 3 1 4 1 6 9:14 16 18.8 21.6 Justin Bailey, RW 32 2 2 4 0 4 10:38 36 5.6 21.7 Totals 117 14 8 22 -7 35 10:27 153 9.2% 22.4 82 games 82 10 9.8 6 15.4 -5 25 10:27 107 9.2% 12 minutes/game 82 11.3 6.4 17.7 -6 28 12:00 123 9.2% GP G A PTS +/- PIM ATOI SOG SPCT Age Zemgus Girgensons, C 75 7 9 16 -7 18 13:10 112 6.3 23.3 Tyler Ennis, LW 51 5 8 13 -10 12 12:50 89 5.6 27.5 Marcus Foligno, LW 80 13 10 23 -1 73 15:28 97 13.4 26.7 Johan Larsson, LW 36 6 5 11 -7 20 16:51 49 12.2 26.8 Totals 242 31 32 63 -25 123 14:34 347 8.9% 26.1 82 games 82 10.5 11 21.3 -8 42 14:34 117.6 8.9% 12 min/game 82 8.6 8.9 17.6 -7 34 12:00 97 8.9% Recognizing that there are many other differences here (special teams playing time, quality of opposition and linemates, etc) and that I am not talkign Corsi% or anything more sophisticated, it's still striking that the more veteran (and except for Zemgus, older) group is in not at all more productive than the rookie group based on last year's performance. Presumably the younger guys have more upside and we know are a lot cheaper. Same # of points (18), more shots on goal. I really hope the new GM and Coach combo can figure this out in a way that ExGMTM and DDB could not. (edit: Obviously I need to learn how to format stuff on this forum)

In bold...I think that was the Derek Grant concept.

Is this Paul Hamilton math?

Is the face-off thing such a big deal? ROR was at 58% and Larsson at 49%. Assuming 1000 faceoffs (which would easily be #2 on the Sabres this past year in terms of # of FO's) that's a difference of a little over one face-off win per game. If Larsson could improve enough to split the difference we are talking one more face-off win every other game. Don't get me wrong, that would be nice but it pales in comparison to other things like shooting, passing, defense... Am I missing something here?

Like Keith and Brent Gretzky?

This is where I'm at as well. My earlier point is that the 5th round tender and not matching is not a terrible move at face value, like say giving up a 1st and 4th to move up a few slots to draft Watkins or giving McCoy a massive extension when he is already under contract, but it's not the play I'd have made. 2nd round tender at $2M and no offer sheet comes in.

Maybe not. If it's a 2nd round tender the Pats don't make the offer at all. So it's Gillislee at $2M, playing for the Bills vs. $1.2M in additional cap space and a late 5th round pick. It all depends on your perspective of how well Gillislee will perform relative to his replacement in Buffalo (like J. Williams) and subsequent RB's they will pick up on the cheap, and what's the value of having the extra pick (in this case, Bills need more young, quality players badly) Personally I liked TD Mike and hate to see him go but it's not at all obvious this is a "massive cap mistake" and may or may not end up being a good or bad move. (Like I said, I don't like it but it's defensible)