Doohickie

Wait, isn't he supposed to be hot trash?

JJ's already demonstrated top-6 play at the NHL level. Not just scoring though... he is an excellent checker, using speed, persistence and an active stick to separate opponents from pucks. His passing is pretty impressive too. And he does all this while moving really, really fast.

Malt Whiskey

I suppose it depends on which bones are broken and where. Broken eye socket? You might wanna let that heal a bit.

Maybe adjust if it doesn't work, but I like separating Bryson and Fitzy.

The hard part was knowing what to cut and what to keep for the team he is building.

He also surgically removed the cancer without harming the good parts of the body. That's the really hard part.

I think it's ascending quickly.

I would love to know the conversations between TP & KA where KA convinced TP to relieve RK. ****** I've presented my conspiracy theory previously that frames Keyvn's ascendancy to the GM position as "coup". It's kind of dramatic and stuff, but I really do think that Kevyn used the resources available to him to convince TP to make him GM. These resources included: Kevyn's existing relationship with the Pegulas including understanding what makes them tick. Kevyn's understand of the team- the players, the locker room dynamics, the politics, based on observations. Botterill's style as GM including his strengths and shortcomings and how that affected the roster based on observations. Krueger's coaching methods based on observations. And importantly, Don Granato's takes on the team and the coaching situation. Whether Don approached Kevyn or the other way around, I'm pretty sure those two were talking together prior to Krueger's firing, and perhaps even prior to JBot's firing, and that Granato was kind of a "mole" in the room reporting to Kevyn. So when Kevyn did his coaching search he already had an active relationship with Granato and knew Donny checked all the boxes. Bear in mind that KA was coming into the job as an "outsider" to the profession but had enough knowledge to have formed opinions of what he wanted to do. From that perspective he didn't necessarily see previous NHL HC experience for the Sabres coaching job as a hard requirement, so people like Budreau and Gallant and such didn't have an inherent advantage over Granato who had limited experience at the NHL level.

Hey... you doin' charts this year?

That represents tickets available, not who's there.

I don't know, sounds like he had vegan parents. Offseason signing for AHL/depth for NHL. And here he is.

There's a helluva lot he's done but yeah, that was probably his best. I'm also very impressed by the way he handled the Eichel situation and eventual trade.

Don't be embarrassed because you are not alone in being seduced by the word master at the podium. He struck me as a BS artist from day one. It just pained me to talk because he would use lots of words and either say nothing, or contradict himself. For a while I was okay with him, reasoning that it doesn't matter what I think of him as long as the team is winning. But when the tide turned I felt he needed to go. Granato is so affirming, not that he coddles the players, but the he finds what they're good at and tries to fit that into the system. I look at Casey Mittelstadt and he just doesn't seem like he fits the mold of the rest of the team yet Donny gets a lot of utility out of him for the things he does well. I think for the Casey haters a lot of his talent is in support roles- backchecking, penalty killing, passing, and it just doesn't get the big headlines like a Tuch hat trick or an Ollie one-timer. It seems like even his shorthanded goal is already fading into the background. But the point is Granato uses the tools Casey has to the benefit of the team. He doesn't try to make all his guys use the same tools like Ralph did.

Damn! I know it must pain him to have Vancouver at #32. From the comments on the video: "the East is 26-5-4 vs. the West so far this season, which is crazy."

Perhaps. I'm judging based on a period (of time, not a single period in a game) when they played together last year. They both have some upside still.

Done.