Porous Five Hole

I was going to head down for the game tonight until I saw game day pricing. Upper deck between the blue lines is $27/ticket…after fees online, it is $36. Compared to the big club, I guess that’s a deal…but eff that. What a shame.

Absolutely, it’s a 7.8M cap hit until 25-26. The actual dollars are a lot less(only 6M in actual money paid over the remaining term), but it’s going to take quite a bit to get a team to invite that atrocity into their cap. Unless someone plans to hover around the cap floor for the next four seasons.

Congrats to the Denver Broncos for going from having the 4th best quarterback in the AFC West… to having the 3rd best quarterback in the AFC West. 😜

I would use hindsight at the conclusion of his current contract, so the conclusion of the 25-26 season. He was under team control until that point.

I’ll take Jaro over Rhett. Spacek had more points in one season (45) than Rhett had in all three of his qualifying seasons (00-01, 01-02, 02-03). However, both were plus players each of their three qualifying seasons and Rhett played a heavier game. I suppose it just depends on roles.

Well that was probably the worst rendition of Oh Canada in my lifetime.

DG’s brother Tony Granato head coached the Aves and currently head coaches U of Wisconsin.

I’m far from a Granato apologist, but I guess I don’t know what y’all were expecting from this team or this head coach?

https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=6965 I am sure must know DG’s history, but it isn’t for a lack of experience. Was he a cheaper option? Probably. But I don’t know how attractive the job was to established veteran coaches in the market, I do believe in the Krueger stench, and the Sabres are among the least talented teams in the league. Just recently has a top line emerged as a legitimate top line and just recently did we regain our replacement level NHL goalie.

Honestly I loved the post-horn retaliatory slash by Dahlin on Spurgeon. It was one of those, “don’t eff with me, punk” moments. He has worn his big boy pants as the year has gone on. He’s embraced contact and played more physical. His mix of physicality and skill is in a good place right now.

I think he should try it on for size. Not trying to be a 🍆. Remember the ascent of Brian Campbell? That was fun.

I believe you’re over-simplifying the financial picture of a football team worth two billion dollars and an owner whose net worth is at least five billion dollars. If your home improvements (the Bills new stadium) are akin to 15% of your net worth (which the Sabres are half of that 15%), are you really selling that tangible assets to cover the balance? My position is you aren’t.

You and I agree. I’m not saying the Sabres aren’t on the block because I don’t know that…but someone needs to explain to me how selling the hockey team furthers the Bills long term interests. The owner is worth five billion dollars. He doesn’t need to sell the hockey team to build a stadium. Debt can be utilized to build a stadium. I think people are putting too much emphasis on Twitter rumors. And I’m not interested in fighting the Twitter mob. But it just doesn’t make sense to me that the Sabres are for sale. Someone, please, make it make sense (ducks). Are people saying Terry & Kim are so butt hurt over negative press that they don’t care anymore? Is this what it is all about? Because I’ll die on the hill that it isn’t about money…regardless of how big their yacht is.

You sunk my battleship

I only listened to the podcast once today and it was while I was driving, but it struck me that these offers were unsolicited.

I just cannot believe with an army of analytics staff, or his own eyeballs, that Adams (or Terry) are going to say, “let them get their heads kicked in by poor goaltending AGAIN.”

I listened to that and Friedman said he heard interested parties/outsiders. He never said he heard the Pegula’s interested in selling a majority stake.

Not to my eyes. He hasn’t been a reliable number one since 2018. It might be a short term deal or it might be a trade for not much term remaining, but the move will be more legitimate than the above.

This is Harrington projecting. There’s no comment from Adams or Meatballs on this. I am not saying Adams is going to try to improve the position in the off-season, but after the last two seasons…it’s very possible he makes a move for a legitimate goalie to bridge the gap of the college kids. The need is clear. Actually, I would be willing to bet on it. So I guess I am saying he will improve the position in the off-season.

And Friedman has repeatedly said he has heard nothing of the sort. I understand Peters connecting dots with the Sabres absolute minimum budget, but there hasn’t been one smell of actual smoke from any reliable source on this. It also doesn’t make any sense. We all know Terry loves the Sabres and they’re finally starting to rebuild properly. Could he get sick of the losses year after year?? Maybe. But his wealth has probably increased over the pandemic as most other billionaires. Selling the team has nothing to do with cash flow. The only thing that makes sense is if Kim says she is done with hockey and the negative press/fan backlash. Other than that, I don’t see Terry selling.

I wonder how seriously the arena will take the vax requirement for the TOOL show tonight seeing that the policy changes tomorrow?

I agree with his stance that Ovechkin is a chicken *****, but wanting to suspend all Russians is insane. HOWEVER, the Sabres don’t have any Russians in their lineup, so NHL go ahead…might make a few Sabres games watchable the rest of the way.

My eye test says he is faster and more agile on his feet this season (versus the past two). Perhaps a “normal” off-season after injury plagued back to back years did him a lot of good.

It depends on how you assign worth. I agree he is worth his value in terms of being paid as a top five player on this team. His points are in the top five on the team despite averaging the least minutes per game. He oozes effort. But it is tough to quantify leadership into six million dollars annually. It certainly doesn’t appear contagious. He’s got 130 NHL players ahead of him in points this season. That doesn’t scream six mil to me, but this team has to spend it somewhere…so why not KO, I guess.