shrader

I've started to subtly block people too. The people who jump up and rush the front the second the plane stops, that's one thing, but the last second rushers are the worst. I had one recently where I was back in the last 3rd of the plane. Seats emptied out normally one row at a time. But then when it got to be my chance, the guy directly behind me suddenly jumped up and forced his way past me. And of course he then had to get a bag from the overhead that was way too big and was stuck. Never again, I'm blocking those tools.

I can't wait for the day that Hutton is off this team. I'd love to see the language in Mike Bales contract because it's blatantly obvious that the broadcast has some contractual obligation to show him each game while Rob Ray showers him with praise. Last night it was talk about how he's done good work with the goalies. Meanwhile Hutton is having by far the worst season of his career, great work indeed. This organization had such a great run in net, but we've now been stuck in goalie purgatory for 6 years. Luukkonen better deliver because the franchise and the fanbase needs it so badly. Even then, we're still up around 10 years of purgatory before he's ready.

I think all airlines should put spikes on the top of the seats to prevent the "pull down on the back of the seat in order to stand up" maneuver.

The Sabres are at the cap and Montreal is in the bottom 3rd in the league. So yes, Montreal does have a greater ability to retain money.

Well he was, but then he came back... then died

Two teams trading for him over the course of the season suggests that there is a market for his services. So yeah, it probably is the best offer that they could find as of today, but the thought that there was no other offer out there at all is just as impossible to prove as my stance. At this point, I'm very comfortable in the assumption that whatever Montreal got, it was going to be more than they gave up. And yeah, they took on money, but that's essentially nothing to them. They're in the bottom 3rd of the league in total cap hit and the franchise can print money at will. They wrote a check for around $1.5 million and improved a draft pick. The rich teams will take that any day. I get the impression Nelson isn't in the plans anymore. He's a UFA at the end of the year and hasn't sniffed the NHL this year. Both sides will be moving on come July.

You're right, the trade deadline is a convenient time to find good value in a trade.

I witnessed probably the rudest moment of seat etiquette the last time I flew. The second he sat down, this 20-something kid in the aisle across from me put his knees up on the back of the seat, at around his chest level, and gave a good push. Over the course of the flight (fortunately a short one) he continued to slouch further and further down. By the end of the flight, his ass was completely off the end of his seat. Meanwhile, this super timid college aged girl was in front of him, was clearly frustrated, but wouldn't say anything. Meanwhile, the flight attendant walked by several times too and didn't bother to do anything. I'm probably an ass for not saying anything, but I wasn't going to cause a scene.

I'm still not crazy about it from the Sabre point of view. But from Montreal's point of view, it's a great move. They're already in the bottom 3rd of the league in terms of total cap hit and absorbed just shy of 40% of Scandella's total contract* for the year and improved a draft pick by about 40 picks or so. That's an easy move for a franchise that can print money at will. And I'm not going to factor in Bouwmeester. They were going to get a similar return from someone over the next few days if St. Louis didn't come knocking. *He was there for ~25% of the year and then they take on half of his money for the remaining 25% of the year.

My guess is they get the 4th round pick if Scandella re-signs. That seems to be the typical conditional deal. But yeah, ouch. Botterill got a 4th for him and now Montreal got a 2nd (and possibly a 4th too). Clearly he could have done better. But at the same time, it does give a little hope that the price for rentals is higher this year... Now if only we had more than one or two attractive rentals.

Oh yeah, his face is pretty clear given those clues.

I’ll be curious to see if Nylander heads back to Europe this summer. He hasn’t been able to escape from mediocrity this year. It might be time to go thrive over there for a few years before giving it another shot in the nhl.

You’re not paying attention if you don’t know the immediate answer to this question. I know people want to crap on him, but this idea that people want to parrot about him making horrible trades is just plain lazy. Yeah, that one trade really hurt, but don’t paint every single one after that with the same brush.

That's who I was thinking too.

But is it those tiny cones that they do stick handling drills around or is it the giant ones that little kids lean on when they're learning to skate? Except this doesn't mean that he's gone. They're probably looking to see if anyone will take him off their hands for free. If not and he clears, that doesn't mean he's off the roster. He can, and probably would be kept around. At that point, they'd be able to drop him off the roster in the upcoming week if they need to open up a spot during the trade deadline. Yeah, he's gone at the end of the year anyway, but not necessarily today. I'm wondering if we may see him swapped in about a week for some other stiff who just cleared waivers. Those type of deals tend to pop up a few times each year. Why wouldn't that other team just claim him and not give up a thing if they really wanted him? They don't get to dump dead weight of their own if they do.

I just watched this. Was Michel Grosek not available for 90s night? They traded him away in March of 2000.

If you can get some good value then by all means trade him. They'll have a chance to re-sign him in the offseason if they really want, but at the same time, it's not a huge loss if he doesn't want to.

I'll be curious to see what Montreal gets when they trade Scandella. That will be the ultimate evaluation of that trade.

DC has their own streaming service in the US. To the rest of you, sorry for the tangent and brief escape from complaining about the Sabres.

And sometimes you get more. As a DC fan, I'm jealous each time you mention watching Titans on netflix. I'm sure there's crazy legal issues involved, but I really wish stuff from media sources wouldn't have these region restrictions.

The ice bucket wasn't a challenge. It was an ultimatum.

I'm just shocked that I was actually able to play a TSN video in this country. They're always "blocked in this region" for me.

Would he be able to play in a band with a female singer?

Roster manipulations like this happen throughout the year. But now that we have twitter, people can overanalyze things that they never actually saw in the past. With three guys on IR and then Hutton's family emergency mixed in, they more than likely have to play some games to keep below the maximum roster size. The ELC guys are always the ones who wind up riding that shuttle, so Pilut's that guy. But 24 hours later, he's back up and playing in the next game, all while getting one extra game for the Amerks. Nothing crazy happened and it wasn't some display of inept management. Sometimes people need to sit back and wait a few seconds before ranting about what ultimately is nothing.

I watched Game of Thrones over the last couple weeks and that show taught me why the Mandolorian has to wear the mask. Running head-first into a wall will do that to you. I enjoyed this series and look forward to more. I wish the episodes could have been a bit longer, but other than that, nothing really bugged me too much. Ok, maybe the weekly release of new episodes, but I can deal with that. The stormtrooper conversations at the start of the last episode made the whole thing worth it. It's nice to see something that picks up right after Return of the Jedi. They really missed the boat on that with the new movies. I'd like to see at least some signs of how things pretty much returned back to where they were over those 30 years.