carpandean

So, what's your favorite number never worn by a Sabres player? Surprised to see 88 has never been worn. Saving it for Kane? Others: 66, 69 (he-he), 96

It was mostly tongue-in-cheek. By not punishing these hits hard enough, the players are providing the incentive (through the catastrophic hits) to not turn your back on the play. That is what they are, quite unintentionally, letting the players police themselves on.

For a lot of money, which you can't do anymore. If you had the pick to get the next Crosby (exaggerating a little), what would a team have to offer you to trade him away? Remember that after the top 1-3 in most drafts, you're talking about players who will probably be pretty good. So, no matter how many "first round picks" you're talking about, they aren't worth much if they are out of those top 1-3.

This year's? Is Reinhart really worth all that? Draisaitl is ahead of him is scoring in the WHL and is bigger. Dal Colle is lighting up the OHL. Now, in 2015, it would be worth that and more to get McDavid, but this year (assuming we don't win the lottery, which is certainly possible), I just don't know.

Don't worry, a few more hits like this, a few more guys with long-term concussion issues, a few more guys carted off on stretchers, etc., and they'll remember those dark days of peer pressure. :thumbsup: As long as the NHL is soft on suspensions, players not respecting the position that they are putting themselves in will continue to get destroyed. Personally, that seems to me like a little more incentive than a teammate giving you crap for turning your back to the play. Really, the league is just letting the players police themselves. With this play, it is simple. He charged, which is illegal. He boarded, which is illegal. The hit was particularly devastating (high energy hit 3 feet from the boards), so you suspend him. The league wants hard hits into the boards and hard open-ice hits (as long as neither has principle contact to the head), but the one thing that they don't want is hard hits in that dangerous zone 2-3 feet away from the boards that launches guys head-first into those boards. Perhaps, Schenn was foolish on the play, but I'm pretty sure he's not thinking about how he tricked Wilson into taking a penalty that helped his team.

Panthers seem to be pulling away, but those pesky Islanders keep losing, too. With our early ineptitude be sufficient to hold them off?

Briere had a 32G season (78GP) in 2001-02 as a 24-year old after scoring 11G in 30GP (split time in the AHL) the year before. He didn't exactly come out of nowhere when he came to the Sabres. He only had 17G in 68GP before being traded from Phoenix, which was apparently enough for them to lose faith in him.

The other thing to remember is a lag effect in coaching. The first few games, Nolan had no practice time with the team and limited knowledge of the players to use in making in-game decisions. So, while Rolston may have been coach for 20 games and Nolan for 11, one could argue that Rolston's impact was on 22-23 games to Nolan's 8-9. It's also hard to project a trend with so few games, especially when they were against teams with varying ratings. Their possession ability could be going up as Nolan works with them, but it's nearly impossible to tell. I'd wait until they are 60 games into the season, then compare the first 20 (under Rolston) with the last 20 (under Nolan), throwing out the middle transition period. Not perfect either (Rolston could have shown improvement with fewer and/or improving rookies, too), but more reasonable to me.

And there it is. Now, if the Islanders would just go away ...

Well, they could a fringe team trying to make sure they get in, so in theory you could get a very low chance (0.5 - 1.5% for the best four teams that miss the playoffs) lottery pick.

For the first time since at least the 2004-05 lockout, the Sabres may break the -20 points line, forcing me to change the range on my vertical axis. They cleared +20 points in 2006-07, but never -20.

It's not exactly the same. We were watching a broadcast designed for the NYC market, which was then mirrored here for a select few games. Their market drove their content. In the case above, the market is the same whether or not Rogers is the owner. To the extent that the market demand drives the content, there will still be incentive to cover other teams. In other words, Rogers' stockholders will still want them to make as much money as possible. It's unlikely that neutral reporting (vs. biased) about the Leafs would have a significant impact on the franchise's valuation, while biased reporting could have a substantial impact on viewership outside of Toronto (they'd still watch the games, because there's no alternative, but the other content would not be viewed.) So, yes, there might be some bias, but not exactly like what we saw on MSG.

I'll update these tomorrow after we have played again. What really surprised me is that, as bad as things have been for the Sabres, the Panthers and Islanders are not much ahead of them. It is definitely not a lock that the Sabres will finish last in their division or conference, much less the league.

He slowed way down, but was still moving forward very slowly.

The difference is that the Leafs are trying to be good, while the Sabres are trying to be bad.

What the heck; why not ... Sabres Historical: Atlantic Division: Eastern Conference: Tank Nation: (Playoff chart will return when it actually matters.) Updated: 4/13 (End of Season)

There are, of course, several causes besides home-team favoritism that could explain some of these differences. NFL away teams are probably more likely to make false start/encroachment/offsides penalties due to crowd noise. NHL away teams get second change, so they are more likely to have a bad matchup, which would lead to them taking more penalties.

Their level of losing rate to date is probably not sustainable, so they'll likely finish closer to that 56-point mark. That said, they are already 8 points behind their own worst start (first 2423* games) since the 2004 lockout and 3.5 points further away from the playoff pace line that I use than they were at any point in any season over that period (it took 49 games to get 11.4 points away in 2011-12; they are already over 15 points away.) * Edit: oops, 24th data point, which is actually 23 games in (first point is 0,0.)

I'm glad that there is now a layer between Terry and the GM, and that that layer has a lot more hockey knowledge. It may have been a bad thing for Patty to be GM and perhaps Terry got lucky that he was smart enough to know that, but the fact is that Patty is now the one that will hire the next GM. I am far more confident that he will get it right than I would be if Terry were making the decision. When Terry took over, I wanted him to gather a committee of guys like Pat Lafontaine and empower them to hire his next GM. This is close enough, even if way, way late.

:) = me all day Finally, finally, Pegula has separated himself from the past owners.

This is a recent thing for Darcy. He's been one of the biggest proponents of "give them time to develop in the minors" for most of his tenure.

I don't know. I've listened five more times with my eyes closed and saying Enroth in my head, but I still hear him say Enron every time. Definitely not Enroth; at best Enrott.

4:32 ...

Meh, Risto got his first NHL goal faster.

I wanted them to give him a shot back in 2010, when he went to Vancouver. Would have been a better third-line center than Hecht (2nd/3rd-line winger) or Gaustad (fourth-line center.) He was having a strong season before he got hit in the eye, even receiving consideration for the Selke trophy (5 1st-place votes, according to Wikipedia.)