Drunkard

There is no way in hell Murray retains 50% of Hodgson's cap. The reason to dump Hodgson would be to free up cap space and a roster spot for a better player and if he was willing to waste over $2 million in space for the next 4 seasons then he's better off buying him out at 1/3 his contract value which can only be done before he turns 25.

Quality centers don't become available all that often and when they do they are usually either past their prime or in the thick of it and heading towards the down slope of their careers. Being able to acquire guys like Brad Richards, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Kyle Turris, Derick Brassard, or Tyler Seguin would have kept us from having to tank for a blue chip center, but it's all water under the bridge at this point and now that the tank is over, I'm happy to have Eichel and Reinhart.

Sweet. Then we can trade Eichel for O'Reilly and Reinhart for Lucic, force Gionta into retirement and not have a single right handed forward on the roster. We could be like that video game from the 80's. All your southpaws are belong to us.

Trade Hodgson or buy him out. If we go with what we currently have I'd go with a lineup of: Kane Eichel Ennis Moulson Girgensons Reinhart Larsson Grigorenko Gionta Foligno McCormick Deslauriers (if McCormick retires due to medical reasons I resign Kaleta and go with a 4th line of Deslauriers Foligno Kaleta) Gorges Bogosian Zadorov Ristolainen Weber Psysk

I'd like to see Larsson playing LW with Grigorenko centering and Gionta on the RW. Grigorenko seems like a more natural center but I think the 3 of them could form a pretty good third line.

Lucic's resume is way too impressive for that. We'd be lucky to trade Eichel for John Scott or Ville Leino. Their NHL resumes are more impressive than McDavid and Eichels combined NHL resumes. In fact we should trade all of our young guys and prospects for cagey old vets close to retirement. That would give us the best roster of past results possible and would be a sure fire way to win the Geriatric Cup!

Of course you'll always want to see your team win another one but 1 will always be infinitely better than zero. I'm sure the long time Chicago baseball fans who root for the White Sox and much more satisfied than the ones who root for the Cubs and that single World Series Championship is the biggest difference, even if it was 10 years ago.

The problem is you can't put handedness aside, or at least you shouldn't. Our possession numbers suck and having a bunch of lefties playing on their off hand while trying to win puck battles along the boards is going to make it tougher to win and/or maintain possession. It puts them at a disadvantage and going after even more lefties is just going to make the issue even worse. This misconception that it doesn't matter and you can swap them out however you feel like it needs to stop. Yes, it can be done, but it reduces their effectiveness. Same thing with defensive pairings. It's much easier for them to play the same side as they are handed. Yet people constantly lists lineups having Zadorov on the right side and Ristolainen on the left. If we are going to trade big assets and sink a big part of our cap into some top player we want to acquire, it should at least fit in with our severe need for right handed shooters. Unless we plan on taking both of our blue chip centers (Eichel and Reinhart) and putting them out of position as right wingers instead of at center where they belong.

Sign me up for neither. Both are overpaid and not what this team needs unless we plan on revolutionizing the game go trying to go with some kind of all southpaw lineup. I'd rather pick up an actual RW than add to our vast stockpile of LWs and left handed centers.

It's already done for us. Go to the link that assquatch posted and click the draft lottery lookup by club link and it opens up a 6 page pdf file. Our picks are all on page 2.

A serious Cup Contender for the next 10-15 years. Making the playoffs 80% of the time or more and getting to at least the second round 50% of the time with multiple trips to the ECF and hopefully a few SCF (and wins) sprinkled in there. No Cup doesn't mean the tank and rebuild was a complete failure, but it would be disappointing.

Why get a second Masters degree? If you're going to go that far you should just opt for a Ph.D in whatever field you have your first Masters in.

There's less incentive to tank going forward because finishing last only guarantees that you'll pick no worse than 4th and in most years the person that gets picked 4th isn't ready to play in the NHL right away anyway. Much harder to get excited about a guy who likely won't even be in Rochester for 2 years and even more difficult to root for losses to get such a guy.

Nolan probably held out for a longer contract because he knew the Sabres were between a rock and a hard place. Maybe Murray's guy was still under contract this year (fingers crossed it's Babcock from Detroit) so he couldn't bring him in or maybe his guy was available but he didn't want him to start with the team until the tank was over. If Nolan saw the writing on the wall and knew his fate was already sealed it made sense for him to demand more from Murray and it made sense for Murray to use Pegula's war chest to make it happen. Otherwise you are looking at 3 different coaches over the course of 2 seasons and possibly even firing the new placeholder who would've replaced Nolan and then you're looking at 4 coaches in 3 seasons.

I would step down but my blue collar work ethic just won't allow me to do that. I watched Teds Nolans when I was in high school and it ingrained into me the spirit of compete, hard work, and dedication, so standing down just isn't an option.

Unless it's players he calls out by name in press conferences for not trying hard enough or having the "compete" to satisfy him. I really like Nolan overall but part of me is relieved that we most likely won't be seeing our blue chip prospects demoted to the 4th line and given 10 minutes of TOI now that he's gone.

I'm sure my thoughts may change again before the season but at this point I would go: Moulson Eichel Ennis Kane Girgensons Reinhart Larsson Grigorenko Gionta Deslauriers McCormick Foligno Gorges Bogosian Zadorov Ristolainen Weber Pysyk I'm assuming we lose the lottery as the odds dictate and draft Eichel. I start Reinhart at RW to break him into the league and to avoid starting next season with 3 rookie centers in our top 9. Larsson and Grigorenko both make the cut but Grigorenko seems to be more of a natural center so he gets the center spot and Larsson shifts to LW bumping Foligno down to the 4th line. If McCormick is healthy he returns to center the 4th line and if not then Foligno could probably center with while bringing back a grinder like Kaleta to be the RW on the 4th line. Psysk earns a full time gig with the big club next year and McCabe becomes the first defensive call up. No other real changes to the defense.

Is there where we post "feck the tank" every time there's a game, or does that still go in each and every game day thread?

We may miss it live if it ever happens but we'd all be lining up to buy the Stanley Cup Champion dvd that would be synced to his call from the radio so in the end we'd still get to hear it.

I could see a line of Larsson Grigorenko and Gionta next year as our 3rd line. That would bump Foligno down to our 4th line.

I don't have a twitter account but my one time a few years back my brother sent me a link to a spoof twitter account for Jesus. You'd probably think it was sacrilege but as a non-religious person I found it funny. Anyway, the one tweet that still sticks out in my mind was something along the lines of "Whoever decided to call the day that I died 'Good Friday' is a real !". Good stuff.

Wouldn't it be great if Boston or LA missed the playoffs and won the lottery? That would be awesome and would make it so no teams ever tanked again to improve their draft position. Plus if those Massholes win the lottery we'll still get to see McDavid in Buffalo 2 or 3 times a year. Maybe he'll score some hat tricks against us.

If we screw up the tank and end up drafting 3rd or 4th, I'd definitely lean towards Marner at this point. I know he probably wouldn't be ready to play right away and you aren't supposed to draft for your immediate needs but he would really help the right side of our forward ranks and we'd still be solid at center (Reinhart, Girgensens, Grigorenko, Larsson).

Have Dark do it. I don't think he'd have any trouble going into dick head mode to help you out.

That's not a hard situation to fix. Explain your situation the same way you did here and let people know you can't/won't do quick turnaround jobs for peanuts anymore due to a growing workload. That gives them 3 options: 1. Accept the longer turnaround times 2. Pay you more money to make their business a priority 3. Find someone else to do it If your plate is full, your plate is full. The key is not to cave and make anyone's project a priority without payment reflecting it. If they think you'll cave and make it a priority without paying a premium for it, you'll continue to get suckered in.