Drunkard

$5.6 million in cap hit for a guy who put up 47 points last year is way f'n better than a $4.6 million cap hit for a guy who put up 13 points last year. We got a way more productive player so they can save $1 million in cap space.

I like this trade. Sure Pominville is old but for one $1 million more than Ennis in cap hit he was way more productive and it's the same term remaining. I'll miss Foligno but would rather have Scandella than him any day of the week. Swapping picks doesn't hurt at all. Looking at the rest of the deal I would have thought we'd owe them at least a 2nd without getting any pick back.

Any port in a f'n storm, man.

First class all the way. We're so full of win that we're going to get tired of winning I say.

I'm not pining for Shattenkirk by any stretch but your statement is a bit of a head scratcher. Did you feel the same way about Okposo because he was an extremely similar situation? We gave the guy a 7 year contract at 28 years of age and forwards tend to peak earlier and decline sooner than defenseman do. Shattenkirk will probably be playing better at the end of his contract than Okposo will be playing by the end of his. Of course I doubt Shattenkirk will be had for 7 years 42 million but the point still stands.

It was a tongue in cheek comment. It's funny that he couldn't do a pull up but it doesn't concern me nearly as much as it bothers Eleven. The name mispelling was just an honest mistake. I was so careful to make sure I did the el instead of le that I used d's instead of t's.

Minimal risk though. Even if he tore his ACL in game 1 and missed the entire season the guy would still get paid. If the Sabres tried to low ball him his agent would have no trouble soliciting an offer sheet from another team. All it takes is one and then the Sabres are either forced to match or rebuild around a guy who will start to decline in a few short years (O'Reilly), a guy they don't even consider a center (Reinhart), or a guy too weak to even do a single pull up (Middelstadt).

Eichel would be smart to hold off on signing a contract now rather than signing one based off a season where he missed time, played in a crappy system under a crummy coach, and spent some of his time playing at less than 100% since he was coming off an injury. It could be pride/ego or it could just be greed. He's not that good though. Guy is a minus player and doesn't even sport a lion tattoo.

I didn't think a contract could slide in the AHL? I thought that was strictly a juniors thing or a Europe thing, but hopefully you're right and I'm wrong. I realize that new contracts don't count until they actually take effect though. Either way we're going to need to start hitting on some later round picks though because we should be done drafting early and it always seems like the top teams get around the cap by getting top tier production out of dirt cheap contracts and our window for doing that is closing rapidly (it's already over for Ristolainen and will be over for Eichel and Reinhart after this season so our best shots to take advantage of it will be for Nylander, Guhle, and Middelstadt). If we're not seriously contending and drafting in the 20's or 30's by the time those guys get paid we're looking at the same damn issues as now, except it will be for guys like Okposo and O'Reilly who will be in decline mode as they hit their 30's.

Guhle's contract may have slid twice but I'm pretty sure Nylander just burned the first year of his ELC in Rochester last year. That will give him 2 years left at dirt cheap prices, but Moulson and Ennis are still under contract.

We knew this when we signed him though. It's the same with O'Reilly and Okposo. They front loaded the contract but stayed within the CBA guidelines with the idea that we'd be able to move them more easily later. Later should be now though. There was literally a brand new team that needed to be built from the ground up and we didn't bribe them to take him, Ennis, or Gorges. What other team is going to take these guys? Even Arizona seems to be going into win now mode. We can all hope that a team like Jersey, Colorado, or Carolina will do it but I doubt it. Looking at this: http://www.spotrac.com/nhl/buffalo-sabres/cap/ The craptastic 4 (Moulson, Ennis, Bogosian, Gorges) make up 37.18% of our cap. I'm not sure if that's 37% of what we're currently slated to spend or 37% of the upper limit but either way it's bad. Actual cap hits of $18.64 million combined for these guys. The same site says we currently have the most cap space, but we know we've got some major spending coming up on extensions for Eichel, Reinhart, and (hopefully) Kane. The cheap years of Eichel and Reinhart are already over after this season and they'll be over for Nylander and Guhle before these bums get cleared off the books. I guess we can pin our hopes to making a run by getting big production out of Middelstadt for dirt cheap in a few years, but other than that we should be at the point where we're no longer bad enough to rake in top 10 draft picks year after year. It just feels like we missed a big opportunity.

Only the rooms that have golden toilet seats, whether it's gold plated or merely colored that way after a Presidential golden shower party. I've got a memo somewhere, but it's hard to decipher with all these backwards E's, R's, and N's.

No, I'm actually happy that our talent has increased to the point where guys who were forced to lug the mail for us are now moving down to the bottom of the depth chart, I just hate that they take up so much of the cap. It impedes our ability to bring in further upgrades. We're hamstrung by these guys to a certain extent and passively just waiting for their cap hits to go away is just wasting time when we should be taking advantage of the fact that some of our best players are dirt cheap. I know we had to get to the cap floor and it's probably not easy to convince guys to play for a team that was unofficially trying to lose on purpose but we didn't need to give out such long contracts. I bet Moulson would have signed for something like $21 million over 3 seasons rather than $25 million over 5 years. Hell, we could have just given All Star MVP John Scott a bunch of 1 year deals for big money to punch people in the skull repeatedly if getting to the cap floor was such a worry. That's basically water under the bridge at this point, but I'd still prefer GMJB to be proactive in trying to clear these guys off the books. The Leafs managed to clear their bad contracts and the Rangers never seem to get stuck to the ridiculous contracts they give every big name free agent. We need to find some suckers as well and I still feel like he missed a prime opportunity to bribe Vegas into taking one of these guys off our hands (Moulson, Ennis, or Gorges in particular although I'll throw in Bogosian for the bunker crowd).

Cool. I'll check it out when I'm not at work. My government computer blocks twitter, youtube, and all that stuff.

So am I. Given his love affair with +/- though I was expecting him to offer something along the lines of a 1 year qualifying offer and a comment about minus players not being entitled to multi-year deals.

That 4th line is so f'n painful to look at. Almost $11 million in cap on garbage despite the fact that Girgensons only earns $1.15 million.

You want to give $5.5 million to a minus player? Where's that pic of the square jawed Schwarzenegger look alike that Doohickie usually posts? I am disappoint. Edit: Found it.

Was it basically a rip off of Transporter? That's the impression I got from the preview I saw.

Better lock him down for 8.

Is this in a vacuum or do we factor in things like age, contract, and potential to get better?

Not BPA. I heard there was another center rated .0000003 higher according to metrics. We're doomed! Doomed I say! We'll never make up that difference in talent.

I know. It's mind blowing. I was always a string bean growing up and usually struggled with bench presses but I could always crank out 6-10 pull ups at least without even breaking a sweat. I'm 36 now and never work out, but I have one of those pull up bars I can hang in a door frame and I make sure I can at least do a handful of them every few months or so.

That's what they said in the commentary after they announced the pick. Zero pull ups and a single bench press. I heard it and immediately thought of you.

He couldn't do a pull up though and only did one bench press. Who the hell are you and what did you do with the real Eleven?

That would be my guess.