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I post I usually make every year....updated from this January (last time I posted it) The odds of winning a stanley cup are pretty simple. 32 teams in the league, 14 times the cup is awarded. Simple odds are 43.7% a team will win a cup in a 14 year period. 1 in 2.28. Odds of missing the playoffs 14 years in a row? Simple odds are .0045%. Or 1 in about 22,000. Odds of missing 15 years in a row? About 1 in 44,000. A simplified version: A lot of things can determine your odds for making/missing the playoffs. For example, the Bills drought...much of it was contributed to by Brady being in the division, but in Hockey its different. Statistically, you can say you have a 50% chance of making or missing the playoffs in a given year. For any time, after 2 years, the 'odds' are 25% you miss both years, 25% you make it both years, and 50% chance you miss one year and make it the next...and so on and so on. Now, with expansion, the odds change slightly. It hasn't always been EXACTLY 50%, sometime you had a BETTER chance (beginning of the drought, 8 of 15 teams in the conference made the playoffs, so your odds to make it were even better than they are now. So, what are the pure statistical odds that any hockey team would take a 12 year period and not make the playoffs even once? 0.018% chance. Or, in other words, a 1 in 5,531 chance that, over the last 12 years, any team in the Sabres division/conference would not make the playoffs one time. If you 'simulated' an average team through 12 seasons, 5,531 times, only ONE of those times, on average, would a team miss 12 years in a row. Chances of missing 14 years in a row? 1 in about 22,000. Or 0.0045% If you could find a sportsbook to give you odds that ANY team, starting today, would miss the playoffs for the next 14 years.....you would likely win about $2 million dollars on a $100 bet. Chances of missing 15 years in a row? About 1 in 44,000, Or 0.00225%. Odds on a $100 bet that would happen for any given team, probably pay out about $4 million on a $100 bet. So yes, they made the decision to tank, but again, those are the numbers for ANY team with a few years of 8 out of 15 teams making the playoffs and most other years 8 or 16 making it. Hockey Heaven? The sole reason for them existing is to win the Stanley cup? You would think that even if you TRIED to be that bad it would be hard to do so. That can't be all bad luck..or it can't be a new owner 'learning curve', there has to be a whole lot of ineptitude in there.

What, ugly Bradley Cooper and Adam Sandler’s non-talent acting friend don’t do anything for her?

Ruff reports directly to Pegula?

Not interested in playing the OS game; we need our 26 1st for any semblance of safety if things go belly up again. I don’t feel McTavish will give a boost this season to assure us a playoff berth or that he might ever reach his contract level.

We live about 1/4 mile from the River here in Niagara county, take a walk down the street and we can see Canada. We really don't even think of crossing the border anymore. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad? I don't know, just I don't feel like dealing with any potential aggrevation....so until things clear up quite a bit, we probably won't be going to toronto/the falls/NOTL anytime soon.

1st numbers are the raw total, 2nd is where his numbers rank statistically in terms of the average NHL depth chart ie #7/8 forward equals a 3rd liner. Names are players with similar numbers in that particular category

OTOH, my wife never saw an Instagram photo of Roy or Vanek (duh) and said “oooh - who is he?”

I appreciate your digging into those #s, although I will admit confusion in how they’re presented. As to the “pretty solid” assertion: I’ll agree to the extent that, if Krebs is a fixture on your team’s 3rd line, then your team is most likely an ~82 point squad. Dude’s mid. I pine for the days of players like Roy and Vanek carrying the third line.

There are 500,000 Canadians that live within 45 minutes of downtown Buffalo and the Sabres count on these fans. Unlike the Bills who mostly play weekends, Sabres games are midweek and you need people close by to attend. Losing Canadians fans is another big hit.

Unfortunately, you know we lack the creativity, intelligence, or will to make such a move.

How many years does that chart go back, I forget!!!! This is the year!!! Go Sabres!!!

Well, ya - because it’s a choice. They aren’t actually stupid, they understand they are literally handcuffing their chances of winning by prioritizing savings. They are bad on purpose, in that very real sense Nachoooooooooooooo

Krebs lol Can tell it’s mid July

Here in Ontario a pint of IPA is running about $4CAD. Some a bit less some a bit more. I learned this from my cider making days. I was meticulous, while my friends that also made it (as a group) were c'est la vie. I can still remember two of their batches... One was drinkable but it had a BBQ sauce aftertaste. Another was so bad that no one would even touch the stuff unless they were way beyond the point of caring, but there was nothing else to drink. On the other hand, people would tell me they liked my cider better than the stuff you can buy. I would make mine hard and dry, sometimes adding a few cans of frozen raspberry or cranberry juice concentrate.

What’s the pricing like on your side of the pond for IPAs etc? It’s getting ridiculous with some companies charging £5 a 440ml can in the supermarket. (6-7$). Fortunately our low cost supermarkets have made partnerships with some of the smaller brewers and keep prices reasonable. Tonight’s tipples come from the north east of Scotland - Peterhead (known as the blue toon).

You couldn't have said that better. Hazy IPAs are so overrated. I don't mind the odd one but its gotten out of hand.

Adams: “Here Jarmo here is a bucket of black paint. Go start painting stripes on Power. This is the Sabres way”😁

I have a huge family in Buffalo. I have 7 nephews and 4 nieces in the area ranging from 21 to 38. Six of the boys played youth hockey and love the game. None of them will by Sabres tickets, the last one that did just gave up his seats for this season, he is 34. None of the girls or their husbands attend games either. I think the new school hockey people don't like the Sabres approach either. An entire generation of the fan base only knows losing. I don't think you can find a single demographic that likes the Sabres approach.

But they are not here. You can't say we have the guys we got from picks we traded for if we are unloading the guys we picked to get those picks. There's no progress there. What we got for Eichel and Reinhart does not equate to what they are. Dahlin as I said was one of the two first overalls. I'm not going to say "we drafted well" when we pick the top ranked overall #1 pick cause we were first pick. Nobody is going to say Islanders GM was a genius this year for picking Shaefer. You could also argue we should have taken Draisaitl not Reinhart but what would be the point of that? The point is IF we were truly great at drafting we'd have a roster filled with our draft picks and we would have hit on several lower picks as our bottom six and depth at least so we wouldn't have to trade for that and keep getting that wrong as well. Considering how high we consistently get to pick and how many extra picks we have, our drafting has been mediocre at best.

Good info @LTS. I don't know if the hockey ratings are straight percentages but a quick Google told me that TV ratings are expressed as a percent of the population (1.0 is 1%) so it is a reasonable assumption to say yes to that question. The second part - factoring the cost of living and average amount spent on entertainment is beyond the scope I am willing to go. First part - As you know "Buffalo Metro" does not include the portion of Southern Ontario that comes to their Metro area regularly, attends Bills and Sabres games, and spends money. This is an unfortunate disadvantage and it makes their scores lower than the reality of the actual situation. So is your bottom line that the NHL should not care about Buffalo and they are not a viable market? What will happen in Salt Lake City if they go even 4 straight years of no playoffs? The league would hate that after they failed in Phoenix.

I’m no connoisseur, but the varieties I have tried are quite simple. Imagine a honey wine. I am interested in adding other ingredients during the process to make different flavours. There are lots of YT channels that illustrate the process (including the aforementioned Golden Hive mead).

👀

Who ??

Here is the chart of Sabres playoffs: