DarthEbriate

While they do have to get to $50M as a rule... it's also incredibly easy to do without taking any bad contracts. The only bad contracts Seattle is taking are because they are receiving incentives to take them. They'll gladly take a shoddy contract for a couple seasons... but after Marleau's cap hit was moved for a 1st, that's what they'll expect. Okposo is staying in Buffalo. We let him play this season -- when healthy, he's still fine. Not worth the contract, but a viable NHLer. Then, buy him out next summer. Seattle isn't taking Eakin, Girgensons, or Miller without a sweetener from us going their way. They'll take any of the Asplund/Tage/Bjork or Borgen from us and get their meatier contracts from another squad.

The altered effect in this equation would be that Carolina doesn't have an Eastern Conference or Stanley Cup championship that season.

Three weeks to go! Time for the prospects by name for 2021. The order is from some sort of prospect list and has no bearing on my preference. Except Power, which is the clear favorite for names. Bonus picks included as we could have multiple firsts. Owen Power – Uncle Owen had better have that crease cleared by midday or there'll be hell to pay. Unnnnlimmitted Power! This one speaks for itself and is clearly the best name available for 'Ebriate purposes. Mason McTavish – Moff Tavish is a regional governor in the Galactic Empire. Somewhere Mid Rim. He could become a Grand Moff if he plays his cards right. Kent Johnson – Nope. Too old! boring to be drafted Star Warsy. Luke Hughes – Luke! Luuuuke! Hughes! Huuuughes! Be sure your defenseman speaks Bocci. Not enough Us to threaten Luukkonen. Dylan Guenther – Rebel officer. He wears a vest with a little insignia/rank plate. Matthew Beniers – Jedi. …. I don’t know anyone named Matty, but Young Beniers lives in both zones of the ice sea. He’s kind of a strange two-way hermit. Brandt Clarke – Is the E silent? Yes? Imperial officer. Probably serving on an Imperial Star Destroyer. William Eklund – Bounty hunter. Eklund wears a cape. Lots of hidden weapons. Simon Edvinsson – Junior member of the Galactic Senate. Someday he’ll be a character whose talent and importance is never really appreciated. Jesper Wallstedt – What is a Wallstedt? A cup? A ship? A speeder? I sense a ship. The Wallstedt. A Rebel ship. Aatu Räty – Ithorian. Denizen of a cantina/cantina-adjacent locale. Has all the latest off-world rumors. Sebastian Cossa – Mercenary/pirate. Seems like he’d know Hondo. Carson Lambos – Lambos is not a system. He’s a man. Card player, gambler, scoundrel. You’d like him. Fabian Lysell – On the other hand, Lysell is a system, not a man. Chaz Lucius – An alias. “Chaz! Chaz Lu… ci…us” is the kind of name an 'Ebriate would fabricate by reading nearby signs in an attempt to deceive our plucky protagonists.

A communications disruption disconnect resolution can mean only one thing: Invasion! Trade! Either right before the expansion draft (to force Seattle to make a very hasty decision) or immediately following the announcement of the expansion draft. If Buffalo is getting two non-exempt players for Eichel, they may push to wait until everyone is picked, then proceed. Likewise, if the opposing team is getting Eichel + roster sweetener (lets say, a Tager) to unload a cache of prospects, they may want Buffalo to hold off for the moment. Everyone protect the elements of the trade, follow through on your side deals with Seattle if any exist, then consummate the trade.

This is really it. GMTM was a death by a bunch of paper cuts, not a single move. This trade was about clearing out softness for some grit. We all agreed then we needed it. It was successful in that regard. Bogo had something like 13 hits in his first game with the Sabres. Kane once fought 3 times (and won) in a single game, which was more than Myers or Stafford had done in the previous two years. (In later seasons, Stafford was always good for 1 fight a year so he could point out that he did, in fact, step up to protect his teammates.) If it isn't this trade, then we move Stafford for a 2nd at the deadline. Myers still has to go for some heaviness/grit because GMTM wanted to be the LA Kings east. Armia wasn't becoming the elite shot he'd been drafted as any time soon. Lemieux, whatever. The 1st could definitely have been useful. Roslovic, Beauvillier, Sebastian Aho (don't worry, GMTM would never have drafted Aho) were all soon to be taken. Agreed. The McNabb trade was bonkers for the "prize" of a 4th-round Fasching. And I liked Fasching's game a lot. An issue to keep in consideration was that we had acquired too many assets. You can only have 50 players under contract and so we were going to pool some larger quantities to get fewer items in return, but hopefully collectively of higher quality.

This is terrible. And it's still so early in the summer.

It can't always be about the almighty dollar. I figure we're good with metric for any of the various units: liters/litres, grams, dollars.

As a continued tangent of conversation, IF we trade into the top 10 (either Reino or Eichel) what is everyone's preferred draft scenario? Alternately, what is the worst that could come about? Because I'd be ecstatic with a draft haul of Beniers/Eklund, and only slightly behind would be Power/Eklund. And if we get 8-10, I'm kind of good with looking at Beniers/Power and Wallstedt as well. But Eklund/Wallstedt would disappoint me. What is your best two-pick top 10? Your worst?

Hmmm.... Yes. I think I'd have to also question our currency being metric because it appears to based on a decimal system with the primary dollar unit on a scale of 100 instead of 10s. Now, with a cent (centimeter) it makes perfect sense (ha! homonyms!) because century/100 and all that. But formally, we'd be calling those centidollars. And dimes should be decidollars. And instead of dropping Hamiltons we'd be dropping decadollars. Kilodollars for 1,000s. All of our veteran players would be signing seven-figure megadollar contracts instead of million dollar contracts.

Within 5 minutes after @Brawndo posts the practice lines of the morning skate before the first preseason game.

It's probably something boring like the weight of gold in grams as measure of then gold-backed currency. For myself, I propose a guess that Benjamin Franklin was flying a key from a kite, got struck by lightning, measured it in 1.21 gigawatts, and that's when he drew the diagram of the flux capacitor which is what makes time travel possible. That, or the use of parsecs as a system of... <mumbling something incoherent>

If cool names are all that you love, then that's what you'll receive. And Uncle Owen Unlimited Power is a cool name. I'm on record as Beniers-preferred. However, as stated up-thread and in many other conjectures, if the Sabres were to land Eklund with something other than 1st overall, I'd be pretty stoked (with the draft, not necessarily the other elements of the trade) with either of Beniers or Power first. Please do not diagram that sentence.

I've had visions of the future and have already made my decision. The good news is that I will only share my feelings on this matter in an "I told you so/familial connection plot twist" sort of way. Beyond that, I try to judge coaches on a quarter-season basis. 20-game chunks are sufficient to evaluate how they're handling lineups and goalies, practices, "effort/compete" levels, line-matching opponents, and in-game adjustments, while still taking into account injuries and a goalie getting hot or cold.

The "Mr. Trololo" song would be an awesome goal song. However, my wife has told me that singing the "Mr. Trololo" song gets really old, really fast.

If it weren't the GMs in charge of making these rules to make their jobs easy, I think stealing a version from the NFL might work. You can designate a couple players as PUP/LTIR before the season and you can free up the roster space/cap until the midway point of the season. But then you have to decide to either activate them (and meet the cap requirements thereof) or shut them down for the entire remainder of the season, including playoffs. It's LTIR, it should give you that mid-season option in case they're healing well, but if you use it later in the season, they're out until the start of the next season start (July 1st UFA period). In this scenario, once we lost McCabe, we could have put him on LTIR to trade for his replacement for the remainder of the year (you know, if we were contenders). But fast forward to next season -- at the beginning of year, McCabe isn't quite ready so we keep him on LTIR until midseason and then voila, he's back. It could also create an early unofficial trade deadline as LTIRers return midseason and a wave of veterans at modest prices get released to stay compliant.

The original. Not the pretender, but the original. Original palace song, y'all.

A few years back we drafted Dahlin and I was excited for us to look like Toronto. Up-and-coming offensive talents, with a puck-moving/rushing squad of defensemen that Housley/JBot were clearly in synch on. And then... in a couple years, learn the defense as we go. But at least be fun and attacking. That didn't happen. So... maybe now we can try that again but with HCDG as the commander. I'm curious to see the breakdown of: 1) HCDG pre-practice (immediately after his hire, no practice, the losing streak continuing). My heart tells me to throw this stretch out of the data. 2) HCDG practice, through the time Ullmark and Okposo got injured. That seemed to be the most competitive and upbeat part of the season. 3) The season end-game with AHL goalies and playing out the string.

Even the best head coaches have to be a first-time head coach at some point (that point being at the very beginning).

Execute Order 39! A long time ago, GM Sheevyn appointed Don Granato as his personal representative on the Sabres Bench. But he was only given the rank of Interim. It was outrageous. It was unfair! He had more meatballs than any of the coaches there. How could you be the head coach and be only interim? But now, vindication. When players return to the ice, Granato tells them, "When I left you, I was but the interim; now I am the Head Coach."

More than a little scary. The wildfires have gotten prolonged, enormous, and are health hazards every summer lately. Mt. Shasta (14,000' = 4200m) barely has any glaciers left and by the end of a summer is a skeleton ribbed with snow pockets. In the 20 years I've lived here, Mt. Rainier (4392m, I looked it up!) has looked more and more sparse each fall. Anecdotally -- because I don't ski -- west coast skiing season used to start at Thanksgiving, now it's generally near New Year's. Others would be able to more accurately discuss that. The US tried to convert to metric decades ago, but failed. We lack fortitude.

I love that so many folks like the idea of making food/beverages to make people happy. I enjoyed working as a cook, but didn't like the hours and would rather cook for and with friends/family than for strangers. Since being the starting free safety of the Green Bay Packers was unattainable physically and being the drummer in a rock band (although fun) wasn't really ever the dream.... I'd be an overly-detailed world-building fantasy novelist.

Being a long-time rock-and-roller with a technically excellent band (and immediately recognizable sound) would be pretty awesome. While the previous band would be fun to jam with, this latter band... they're brothers. That's cool. Bolded for emphasis. Posting professionally on SabreSpace is a pretty good gig.

Roger, roger. All y'all keep drinking. (And check in on your neighbors/elderly folks if they don't have AC.) It's hotter than Mustafar in the BC, WA, OR, ID world out here. Inland at least they're a bit more used to the heat. The areas west of the Cascades and Canadian Rockies, though... It's ridiculous. The Pacific's oceanic effect usually has us at 3 to 4 days of 90+. Breaking 100 happens occasionally in a decade. We were breaking all-time records yesterday at 105, and today is forecast for 112. 112! What is this, the southwest?

If it's Granato, great. Let's play some run-and-gun high-event hockey. But! Then we'd also need to be able to lock it down and go full non-event and counterattack once the playoffs start. (Yes, I assume playoffs at some point when hiring a coach.) Likewise, if we hired a Tortorella full-defense style coach, then I also want him to be able to get a team to go full-tilt offense when it's required during a comeback. But no matter the coach, if the team plays like it did for Kreuger it is doomed (and apparently how Kreuger wanted them to play), and if we have no goaltending beyond 20 games from Ullmark, then the coach won't last very long regardless.

Ach -- it's supposed to break 100 degrees before noon today. I would love for some 50s and clouds; it would be a tremendously nice day. Oh my... that would be the nicest day possible after this ridiculous furnace weekend. 🍺 I'll just leave it as any objective- and rule-based game can be a sporting event if it gets itself organized and attended. They're on the same continuum. And any sport can just be a game if it's not organized.