carpandean

"Objection." "Overruled." "Oh, no, no, no. No, I STRENUOUSLY object." "Oh. Well, if you strenuously object, then I should take some time to reconsider."

Toronto is a lot closer than they would be, having gone 9-4 in shootouts. Other teams that had strong records: St. Louis (9-3), San Jose (10-7), Pittsburgh (6-2), Montreal (6-3), LA (8-4), Columbus (5-2), Calgary (6-3) and Buffalo (7-4). Washington went 10-10, so they got a lot of points in the SO, but no more than a coin-flip amount given they were in so many. Anaheim (2-6), Philly (3-7), Nashville (2-8), Carolina (1-4) and, of course, NJ (0-11) were particularly bad. Nashville and NJ are on the outside, in part, because of that.

Detroit has had 5 SO wins and 8 SO losses, so their actual goal differential is only -8. Their record, when expressed as ROW/ROL/SO(W or L) is: 32-33-13 I know that SO's are part of the scoring system, so you can't completely ignore them. However, even the league acknowledges that they are different by tracking ROW. If I were trying to create a model to predict playoff performance, I would likely treat them as a tie or something much less than a normal win/loss. In fact, look at the current records as I describe them: Dark Green = In (locked), Light Green = In (not locked), Yellow = Out (Not Eliminated), Red = Eliminated NJ is out because they have been unimaginably terrible team in a meaningless (come playoff time) part of the game.

Sadly, Leino's price is per season, so in the long run, it would be cheaper to ice an Abrams.

M1 Abrams - $8.6 Million Challenger 2 - $7.0 Million Leopard 2 - $5.7 million Merkava - $6.0 Million Type 90 - $7.4 Million Tanks ain't cheap.

(Italics, underline and caps added for emphasis.) Are you f'ing kidding me?! That was about as blatant and straight-forward of a head shot as you get. They should print a screen capture, poster size, with the caption "Don't do this" and have every team in the league put one up in their locker room. Even with the playoffs game conversion rate, he should be out more than the phone hearing max.

My biggest problem was that they didn't even try to make him look like the same character. Original: New: At least give him some hair extensions and a clean shave for the first couple of episodes just so that there is some continuity. Also, the first actor pulled off cocky better than the new guy.

Best comment:

For the first time this season, I'll truly be rooting for them to win. There's nothing to lose now. ;)

Florida made a valiant run for last place, but the Sabres just weren't sucky enough early on and the Sabres matched them suck-for-suck down the stretch.

I think they're throwing "top two" signs.

They could, in theory, finish as low as 2nd in the lottery draft order, too. Most likely, though, they will be 4 or 5. It would take a pretty big move to get down to 3 or up to 6. They do play Florida tonight, so that could be a double win for the Sabres, if the Panthers were to win.

So, he played the puck with a broken stick? Dirty bastard! (Edit: it occurred to me that he didn't actually need to play the puck; simply continuing to play with a broken stick is a penalty.)

The separation that Boston and Buffalo are producing is just unreal. I may have to extend my range again in both directions!

6th-worst would only give the top team a 1.6% bump. Even 5th-best or 4th-best would just be a 2.2% or 3.0% bump.

Note: NJ is currently around the 10th/11th spot, so they would have a 2.1% or 1.5% chance of winning. In my case (1), which re-distributes their probability, that would give the top pick a 25.54% or 25.38% chance of winning. In my case (2), which basically gives the top team their probability, that would give the top pick a 27.10% or 26.50% chance of winning. Not a huge bump either way, but it's something.

Good question. Assuming that they miss the playoffs, I could see one of two things happening: 1) The remaining thirteen non-playoff teams would have their probabilities adjusted by (original probabilit)/(1-(NJ probability)), which alternatively could be done by simply re-picking if NJ were to win. 2) If NJ is picked, then nobody moves and the first overall pick stays with the 30th-place team. Either one would likely (barring a huge run in the last 9 games) help the Sabres, though obviously the latter would be significantly better if we were to finish last. I'm guessing it would be (1).

Even in some weird, hypothetical world where they could trade down and then still opt for this year, logic would dictate that they Sabres would get all parts of that trade, not just the lower first-round pick. There would be no benefit the Islanders, so it would only be about screwing the Sabres. Fortunately, as you (SwampD) and others have pointed out, they cannot give us anything other than their original (based on their final position and the results of the draft lottery) first-round pick from this year or next year.

But, assuming Snow goes too, this would be bad news for us (assuming they pick this year and give us next year's first.)

2013-14 Buffalo Sabres: leading the league in losing goaltenders who are named one of the three stars off the game.

This will show if TM is truly different than DR. For years, it was: Instead, he was always #1 (or 2A with Connolly as 2B.)

Not that it would help much, but to be fair, I would make three changes: 1) Exclude picks used to take goalies, since they aren't expected to score any goals. Enroth has done enough to be on-par with a 10g scorer. 2) Exclude the most recent draft(s), because not making it to the NHL or not scoring 10g is not a big deal for someone drafted last year. 3) Include those that have 10g seasons elsewhere. For example, Kassian was traded straight-up for Hodgson. Both have had 10g seasons (Kassian in Vancouver and Hodgson in both), but that pick doesn't qualify for your criteria. Again, doesn't improve things much. There has been a lot of suck over those years. I aslo agree with TW that it's hard to judge without some context. How have other teams done? Actually, I might exclude top-10 (or so) picks, since some teams have had lots of picks there, while others have not.

I'm some combination of these. I DVR most games. When I do play them, they're usually on in the background, but I do fast-forward through intermissions and commercials. I haven't actively watched a whole game since partway through last season.

Just to summarize: Everyone knows that we ... 1) can't build exclusively through the draft. 2) will have to give up young assets in trade for veterans and established talent (at some point.) 3) will need to sign some free agents to augment the young talent. 4) will draft high this year (possibly twice.) 5) have some decent talent (especially on D) in the pipeline. The only real disagreement seems to be what to do next year, starting with this offseason. There seem to be two option: 1) start making some of these non-draft moves now, putting up a better, but likely not truly competitive team next year, or 2) do little to help the team in the short-run, suffer through another bad season, draft high in a deep draft with a couple of elite-level prospects, and then start making those other moves the following off-season. The question is whether there is enough real benefit (including having a better product on the ice for ticket-holders) to trying to make trades/FA signings this summer versus next summer to offset the likely decrease in draft position, including a not-so-insignificant shot at one of those two elite prospects, next summer. Personally, since I (a) don't feel that delaying those trades/signings will significantly impact this team beyond next year, and (b) don't believe that we will be close to competing for the Cup next year regardless of the moves that TM makes, I'd opt for the wait a year and potentially add a lot to the prospect talent pool over the next year. In June/July of 2015, TM can start working those trades and signing those FAs.