David Quinn or Mike Haviland behind the bench in Buffalo? they could both be great hires. Ive met Haviland before when I was w/ a friend that had played for him on 2 different teams. Haviland was really nice, he was at a local rink watching his kids play. He came down to our locker rooms and gave the kids a nice talk.
trevor gillies and the boys have a message: [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hNaarPVZfg[/video]
once upon a time they were. NCAA champs, couple of Hobey winners, some CCHA titles mixed in there. hard to steal Mich. kids from MSU and UM, gotta have a strong pipeline in Canada, Ontario specifically. I'll bet that I met Bylsma when he was at BGSU when I was a kid. I definitely remember some of his star teammates- Rob Blake, Nelson Emerson, Brian Holzinger & more specifically Holzinger's gorgeous girlfriend. Rob Blake used to wear a fur coat in college.
Ballard wouldn't let the soviets in maple leaf gardens, we had to play the czechs, that super series was fun, the new years eve habs vs red army was a classic as well as the flyers jan.11th game.
Here's a nice follow-up article to Skinny's post. It's a direct comparison of the McEichel amoeba at the combine in Buffalo. Unfortunately, there was no report on the hot wings eating competition. Oh well. http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/mcdavid-vs-eichel-nhl-combine-results/
Would Buffalo be willing or able to swing a deal for Mike Richards? He has $5.75 per over 5 season left and clearly isn't worth anywhere near that. The Kings would have to add in a top notch prospect/player (Martin Jones) and/or pick along w/ Richards. My thinking is that Buffalo could then buy out Richards with their vast array of Pegula bucks and also acquire help in the form of the additional -player(s)/picks acquired from LA. The problem would be the 5 years of the cap penalty. Might even be 10 years at 1/3 the cost ($1.91 per) of Richards if Im remembering how the buy out works correctly.
The able part is a resounding yes. And it could be worth considering since he still brings strong leadership traits to the club, and that may be as valuable as goals and possession stats for the '15-'16 Sabres. The willing part is more doubtful. It's not the $5.75MM that bothers me; it's the 5 years. In five years Buffalo is going to be real concerned with the cap ceiling. They'll have a ton of good players coming off their ELC within the next few years. The LAK would have to offer a real sweetener for TM to bite on Richards. That said, the two teams do have a recent history of doing business with each other. In the end, I probably will not love it if they get Richards, but I won't hate it either.
Yeah, but the kicker is that Terry Pegula has no problem with paying someone to go away. Since CapGeek went away I do not really trust any of the cap calculators as being reliable, so I do not know the annual cap hit if, for example, he was bought out after two or three years. That could still hogtie the Sabres a bit, but I doubt that TP would stand in the way for the mere pittance of a few $ million. Richards would be a very positive lockerroom presence.
the buy out is 1/3 of the original cap hit over twice the term. i think the Garth's just finished paying Yashin and his cap hit. did Buffalo use up their 2 compliance buy outs before last season? they aren't in play anymore, I'm just curious.
Yes, they used them on Ville Leno; no surprise that they wanted out of that abortion of a contract. In a bit of a surprise they used the other on Ehrhoff. His cap hit at $4M was actually below market value for a player with his stats, and he was young enough to possibly play out the remaining seven years. Some team would have given Buffalo a good trade return for him. The problem was if he retired before the end of the contract. Buffalo would have been on the hook for something like a $10MM cap penalty. I'm glad it was Pegulabucks and not my money.
I recently commented on this on the FA thread. I have no hard info. on this; it is my opinion that Grigs is using this as leverage to force a trade. However, it is not an idle threat since even in today's KHL he could expect to make more money in Russia over the next couple of years compared to his first post-ELC. My hope is that CHI would make a play for him - something like Grigs & #31 for Saad.
