LTS

White's article is pretty poorly done in my opinion. It seems like he just wants to whine (which he does well) about Murray not wanting to be handcuffed by the specter of the recapture penalty. He then cites no credible evidence. He points to the likelihood the cap will be higher (duh) in the future. He neglects to think about the Sabres needing every last dollar to hang onto their budding young talent. So, the $10M hit will be huge at that point. A one year $10M hit is a Jonathan Toews salary you can't offer. He also uses Luongo as supporting evidence of a team willing to accept the recapture hit. Of course there are a few problems there. First, Vancouver is on the decline. The Sabres are not. Second, Luongo was traded by the FORMER GM. He might want to ask Benning how he feels having that potential $8.5M cap hit hanging over his head right now. White also mentions that Murray might not be GM in 7 years. That's true.. but he just made a decision with the presumption that he's planning on being here to deal with that scenario. This is far better than having your GM believe he needs to make wholesale changes to his team now to save his job. Short term decisions that lack long-term vision almost always are the path to failure. Bottom line, a trade would have helped Buffalo but the risk of not signing a top star player later would be huge. Sure he didn't want to be here. Murray let him go. It's not full of malice like people want. Murray is to the point. I doubt he cares that Ehrhoff didn't want to be here other than the fact that it was a skilled player that he now doesn't have going forward.

JJFIVEOH - I am quoting you here because it underscores my biggest problem with this forum. You are not the only guilty person of course. That said, it's the escalating snark of this board that really starts to turn me off. The same people seem to pop up in thread after thread battling each other over petty crap. It gets tiring. The name calling, the lame responses, THOSE add no value to the conversation. In fact, when a response is directed at only one person and doesn't really deal with anything I think it's safe to say you probably should either PM it or just let it go. The self-acclaimed thread police are a bit over the top (as are the grammar police). A thread like this goes a long way to promoting healthy discussion (mostly) about how people feel about the topic. Posting in each thread that it's duplicitous and unnecessary is ridiculous. Same with the grammar. People generally type fast on here (or on a mobile device) and while you may not like it, mistakes will happen. Let it go. I'd love to see people try to take an approach to further conversation rather than shut it down. If a group is engaging a conversation on a topic or a variation of the topic and you've clearly stated elsewhere your opinions on that topic there is very little need to jump in and attempt to stifle the conversation. Let the people who disagree with you continue to discuss. If you are interested in what they have to say you might learn something new. If you completely disagree with them and you couldn't change their mind before why bother doing it again? Overall this is a great forum but far too often I feel as though people think there are some kind of faux achievements to be had by taking certain actions. The "Fixed that for you" achievement does not exist. I assume the purpose of everyone here is to discuss hockey and specifically the Sabres. I assume that everyone here wants to have their opinions considered. I would think that everyone would realize that taking approaches that work against those goals would be counterproductive. We are all guilty of going over the top at times. Some of the people on this board get there faster than others. Finally, be aware of how you are perceived. If you are perceived as commonly being a snark-fu master then you should realize that your actual harmless joke might not be taken the way it was intended.

A few thoughts on this.. 1. It's totally accurate that having him is not going to improve the team. They are going to be brutal and everyone knows it. The hope is that the youth plays better than expected. 2. Ehrhoff had a bad contract. It's a factor, no matter what. 3. He didn't want to be here. He's a veteran. The Sabres win points by releasing a player to pursue his dream. Everyone knows Ehrhoff was brought in to be one of the pieces to put the old core (remember them?) over the top. It didn't happen. Let him go. 4. He's one less contract on the books. 5. The Sabres could be looking to help out a few teams near the cap limit who need space to sign two superstar players to $11MM contracts. What's the play here? Think about Stafford and a couple of second round picks for Sharp, Oduya, and Chicago's 1st in 2015? Perhaps we toss in another defense to make it work? The Hawks remove $3.3MM next year and go from $5.8MM to $4MM on Stafford who is then off the books the following year freeing up space for the Hawks to sign their top players? I love speculating of course.

:clapping: He's in the Islanders system. I'm surprised they didn't trade him for a stapler yet.

The first day of signing UFA's is usually about teams overpaying. I'm not even certain how often it actually helps the team. The Wild broke the bank for Suter and Parise and they're still not all that much more improved. I don't see the Sabres going there necessarily. Murray has stated numerous times that he does not think about the salary floor. Players become free agents generally because they are overvaluing themselves or their existing team doesn't want them anymore. Most guys who are integral to their existing team's success are locked up. Granted I'm not thinking about every UFA signed in the past 5-8 years but nothing is jumping out at me as a player who put the team over the top. (I know someone will point someone out, I look forward to it.)

Actually his name has been pronounced that way by others. Google it.. you might be amazed at the history on it. Although in videos I've seen of him pronouncing his own name he says Cuba. That said, he's named after the country and if you pronounce it in Spanish it is Kooba. So.. there you go.

Does your 5%-9% calculation exclude road games in other states? Does Florida provide credits for income earned while working in another state? What I am getting at is that athletes are required to file taxes for every state they earn income. So, they may not pay for income earned playing home games or other teams in Florida but they owe NYS for the games they play against the Sabres, Rangers, and Islanders.

Meh.. if you can use predictive analysis for ticket prices you can do it for players. :) It's a foot in the door... show them how ticket prices and customer loyalty are improved by drafting certain players and you'll be doing both jobs.

What are the odds that the Sabres try and outbid any moves by the Islanders in order to keep them on the path to suckitude? "Oh, they offered you $4MM? We can give you $5MM." The Sabres do have more cap space.

Saying a player would want an "A" as part of his negotiation would pretty much mean he is out for himself. You can want to be a leader all you want, but that won't make you a leader. Saying that a having a strong "C" and a strong "A" on the ice would alleviate the problem does a good job of insinuating that the chemistry issue brought up by granting an "A" to someone based solely because he demanded it is no longer relevant. Thus my comments about chemistry. There are actually reasons as to why I say what I say. Your comment about throwing stuff at walls was interesting. I'm not sure how you want me to respond to that. Should I just ignore it as some completely ridiculous and superfluous comment or did you want me to be offended by your claims and respond with some additionally ridiculous and superfluous comment?

Fixed. I like turtles.

Not that the Rangers make it to the Finals with him... but anyone else think Callahan wishes he signed that offer now?

I posted links to his convictions for discriminatory housing actions. Are you choosing to ignore those items? Those are words of others.. the words of the court system saying, "Hey Donald, you're discriminating against people. You are GUILTY." The NBA had ZERO choice. So taking action when forced to take action does not deserve any credit. It's like congratulating someone afraid of water for jumping in the pool when they were pushed in.

In a vacuum you might be right. However, there are other guys on the team and they aren't going to be interested in playing with a guy who is all out for himself. They might have regular season success but in the playoffs they will fall apart. You wonder why players don't come to the defense of another player when it's time to put up or shut up and there's your answer. It's because they don't feel he is there for the team. So you get a player who waltz's in and says I need an "A" to play and I'd turn him around and say "Good Day, Eh?" I won't even begin to buy into the argument that locker room chemistry doesn't matter let alone the chemistry on the ice.

It will be interesting to see how complicit the NBA has been in the past regarding this guy. We keep acting like this just happened. This ONE incident just happened but long before anyone even mentioned Alzheimers he was already a proven racist. There will be dirty laundry galore and the PR teams are going earn some extra billable hours. Sterling is already screwed so his best bet is to slam the NBA. Everyone knows he's a racist.. so they will likely show that the NBA, for a long time, knew as well but just let it go. If that's the case then the entirety of the NBA will be on trial and it the message will be that the NBA doesn't care about racial equality so long as it can make money.

In Buffalo everything is different.

The question of where a player belongs is no decided based upon his playing skill alone. In the world of no contracts, no minor league limitations, etc. the best players make the team. That is not always the case when it comes to professional sports and especially the NHL. In the NHL a player may not be put where he belongs based on skill but based on where it benefits the team over the long haul. So, a player who is eligible to stay in the AHL can provide flexibility to your team should injury occur. The decision for Zadarov is based largely on his ability but also into the long term plans of the Sabres. Just because he can learn in the NHL doesn't mean the team benefits by having him there. He'll learn next year as well and he won't be burning a year of his contract. His development this year in the NHL, while important, will have marginal impact for the Sabres if there is nothing else capitalizing on it. The question is.. does his development this year warrant expending a year of his contract? The answer is probably no. Assuming you are going to aim for top draft honors in 2015, the development of Zadarov can be stemmed until then because that's when the Sabres really want their new young players to play together. I'm not saying any of this will happen this way but it's absolutely a factor in the decision making process. GM's cannot afford to handcuff their roster flexibility for one player.

Any well played hockey series should always go 7 games and be decided in no less than 3 OT periods. But hey.. I'm not greedy.

I'll freely admit that I'm completely just throwing this out there.... but is Armia capable of playing a role like Patrick Sharp? Because if so.. I'm good with that. :)

Is it really fair to blame him? He only created the analytic framework.

I thought Team USA was going to announce their new jerseys were designed by the same people who did the Sabres turd jerseys this year. Oh well.. the announcement is way better than that.

This suspension should be longer than Prust's for no other reason than to send the message that retribution should be in the form of goals scored and not head shots. The Kreider/Price incident was nothing like this in my opinion. If they want to say it precipitated things then so be it but it's not even in the same area code from my perspective.

USA Hockey has traded the rights of Ryan Miller to the KHL.

Well said. Just like every other person who makes bold claims. If you are right you'll point it out and if you are wrong no one else will point it out because no one cares. We live off hyperbole. We live to make outlandish claims. It's our pathetic way of trying to be noticed and be more than we really are. I love our society. On another note.. what if the NHL stopped performing the role of disciplinarian and turned that over to the NHLPA instead?