DarthEbriate

And another team of offensive stars is down. The Leafs drop.

An entire week sounds pretty silly, especially if everything is so dire that 1/3 of the scouting department needed to be axed plus all the other cost-cutting. I mean... Seattle unveiled an entire franchise (video, overlong speeches, name, and jerseys) in about 35 minutes. I guess there's desperation to distract us from the start of the actual Stanley Cup playoff?

My head canon is still going to call him GM Kheevyn, aka The Phantom Menace. But the question is whether he be victorious in the struggle to restore freedom victory to the galaxy Sabrespace. On that, will he be judged.

It's over! @Sabel79 has the high ground. It's a good hill. The horn should wait until the players huddle up or even begin to skate back toward the bench for their celebratory skate-by. That way you've got time for the officials to wave off the goal or for any disputes to take place before you start blasting everyone's ears/eyes with the production.

Can we edit the thread title to 8/10 instead of today's date? This will be good to finally have this out of the way and settled. I really don't understand why the league felt the need to drum up interest by splitting the lottery. Sure, 15 minutes of TV ratings is all well and good, but having the lottery before the 16-team playoff field was fully determined was ridiculous. I just tell myself that from the Sabres perspective there's nothing different between this year's lottery and any of the last 3 lotteries except for the timing. One team behind us leapfrogged us and we like to draft #8 anyway.

All tops. You're only given a little spark of madness... you lose that and you're nothing. (and... the line he does before leaves the dressing room in the opening... you know... for the rush). Eddie Izzard in Lego form, obviously....

Oof. Brutal offsides by Duchene to negate a goal for Nashville.

And you factor in a Krakendraft next season --- Hedman, McDonagh both need to be protected. TB should be looking to find teams willing to trade for McD, or Serg, or Cernak (ideally for them McDonagh), because they have to protect so many forwards. These are good problems to have. This is where we want to be. Edit: We want to be there... with loads of talent to protect that can be turned into future assets and the next sustaining wave of awesomeness. Not necessarily with everyone on a NTC,NMC.

Income tax or not... I'm really curious for TB for their Sergachev/Cernak situation. Provorov? Chabot? Nope, neither gets that much. But that next tier: Nurse, Barrie, Risto.... Sergachev only plays 2nd-PP time so his numbers are a little less than you'd expect, but he gets 40 Pts/season. That's into the $5M range by himself. Cernak should go 2-year bridge and bet on himself for a break out, but he's in that McCabe-y spot where $1.8-2M looks right on said bridge. Oops... I seem to have not gotten to Cirelli yet.

I overlooked him. (Ha!)

Here's everyone (I could find in a quick scan) on the "return to hockey" rosters of each team. Plenty of decent players. If you make a lineup --- they're just like our roster going into last season: plenty of defensemen, but lacking goaltending depth, a legit 2C, and scoring threats on the wing. AZ – Fasching, BOS – does Halak count? CBJ - Gerbe CHI – Caggiula (honorary dev camp); Nylander; COL – Compher; Zadorov DAL – Fedun, Sekera EDM – Ennis; Kassian FLA – Pysyk MIN – Foligno MTL – Armia; Byron NYR – Lemieux PHI – Grant PIT – Rodrigues, Sheary, Ruhwedel STL – O’Reilly, Scandella TB – Bogosian VAN – Myers VGK – Carrier, McNabb, Lehner WPG - Beaulieu, Kulikov

Don't forget Carrier's nifty goal, either.

I'll say. Your pond isn't frozen --- there's your problem. ?

BWCAW/Quetico -- even amidst a small forest fire. The bluffs of the Mississippi Valley in SE Minnesota. The night sky in central Australia. Avalanche Lake in Glacier NP. Sequoia NP. All things Mount Rainier. And this little ditty: I was driving through foggy bands on 101 near the CA-OR border and I passed a trailhead. Doubled back. The fog was mostly burned off, but Damnation Creek (attached). (I'm a sucker for pretty much any combination of fog/mist/drizzle, ferns/mosses, and redwoods or other immense old growth.)

Allll the IPAs. Although nowadays they're all hazy.

Should we worry about Asplund then?

By my charts: Kane, O'Reilly, Skinner, and... at the time... the Force Moulson. Some mid-to-bottom line/paring players have been fine for their role as well: McGinn, Bogosian, DesLauriers. The only "projects" that have actually become better while with us since 2014 are: Larsson, Lehner*. Jokiharju should join this list but so far we only have a baseline season, and I'm hopeful as well with Kahun, but I can't include them yet. There's an entire roster's worth of names that trended flat or downward that we've acquired in that time. *Lehner was getting better with us the first year, then tailed off, but is now solid again (glad he was able to get his life together).

I do not agree with this sentiment.

International players, too. They've been able to create a (for-the-moment) safe bubble by taking their health and the health of others seriously.

That's what they said about Frolik....

Kane can sign here as a UFA to help win a(nother) Cup as a swan song at $1-2M/year. Unless .... unless both players waived their NMCs and Chicago could be convinced to take Skinner for Kane, straight up... nothing extra. Then I'd consider Kane.

The board game is available on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/HomeStarRunner-com-TROG-CORE-Trogdor/dp/B07VDLXJK1/ref=asc_df_B07VDLXJK1/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385586961802&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6573939860927786337&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033290&hvtargid=pla-829624677280&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=78303637146&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385586961802&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6573939860927786337&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9033290&hvtargid=pla-829624677280

This. They had a great core and then movement-claused themselves in between a rock and a hard place when the kids exceeded expectations and are ready to surpass their predecessors. From a Sabres perspective --- pounce on them, but do not overpay. It's a buyer's market on TBL and others up against the cap.

I want Bubo on the screen. Maybe when an opponent takes a bad penalty. Instead of playing the Dragnet theme or some such.

I'm going to say 50/50. The flat cap will already be addressed by teams this season, so there won't be panic in preparations all at once. Teams (hopefully) learned from the Vegas expansion and will be smarter about it --- no one is going to give up a Marchessault AND trade Reilly Smith for a 4th, for example. And on our side --- we'll have Peak Eichel (TM), Dahlin entering the beginning of Prime Dahlin, a goalie of some caliber, and Cozens with a year under his belt. 2021-22 Sabres should be fun.