Taro T

Understatement of the year.

That didn't seem to do the trick. 😞

Why are people suggesting giving up 2 (meh) assets for LaFreniere? Shouldn't 1 meh asset be enough to get 1 meh asset?

No Peterka, Krebs, nor Okposo, Girgensons, or Jost? Interesting.

@Zamboni, how did you miss this one? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4ghL3yWD-I (Sorry, youtube won't let this one embed. But the link should work.)

That, and the expectation that the Sabres seem to be viewed as a playoff caliber team around the NHL (whether they actually ARE a playoff team remains to be determined) they should be seeing starters 80%+ of the time on the road and 50%+ when at home. Both of which are increases from last year. Of course, as they'll be on a 100 point pace and not just a 90 point pace they should be getting more opportunities for EN goals. Could also see more scoring as more guys get closer to their peaks and most the entire team is experienced in Granato's system. Not expecting those to outweigh the decreases in scoring the other 2 should result but it isn't entirely out of the question.

Yes, mismanaged teams find themselves in situations where they end up trading away (either out of necessity or just because) high end talent like a Ryan O'Reilly or a Jack Eichel while they are still in their prime. But, that is a rather rare occurance. (Slight hyperbole on the part of the post you replied too, but a reasonably true assertion.)

Pretty sure they were only used for the State side version of NHLN. There were a couple others in the same vein, but those were IMHO the 2 best of the bunch.

How are you defining "safely?" Don't believe they were ever in a spot where they could lose a single game and not worry about being back on the wrong side of the the line. If they never had a cushion, just how "safe" was their spot? Btw, as @LGR4GM keeps pointing out, it was 2-8-2, not 1-9-2. (The horrible Anderson backed loss to Filly came in January, not March 4. That day they beat the Bolts.)

And simply couldn't find a great old ESPN game promo commercial. Back around '93, ESPN was going to air a Sabres Pens game. The normal promo had Jagr standing on the rink, hears a faint roar, puts his ear to the ice, stands back up looks into the camera and deadpans "buffalo." But 1 time, they had Mogilny in the same spot but instead of a roar there's a faint clicking noise. Mogilny goes through the same exercise, but when he turns to the camera he deadpans "penguins." ESPN back in the day had GREAT hockey commercials.

For Chz:

And a random Lorentz and Peca commercial:

Haven't found the "check please" one yet. Did find the one where he goes with her to the party the next day, but that one's kinda lame.

Hated the Whalers. (Pat Verbeek's a pencil necked geek!) Still dislike the way their fans got the vapors in '06 and then how Ol' Camelface was whining about Lindy Ruff when his team had just captured the Stanley Cup. Welcome to the proper side. #### those guys.

They didn't lose to Filly on 3/4. They lost to them in January. They beat the Bolts on 3/4. It still was an ugly stretch, but no need to make it look uglier than it actually was.

And the Adelphia ones with "we need tuna" and "must see, must see." Labatt's bear ones were great too. "did not see that coming." "the worst part about living in Canada is sleeping on the cold rocks; I've got a waterbed; check please!" and his karioke stint. And finally, "but Steve, it's Saturday, we were biting this morning, we were biting this morning." Might try to find them this evening.

Liger's version is the one including the games as actually played, not originally scheduled. The Sabres were supposed to play Filly on March 4. They actually played TB that night. Actually, it was 4 in a row on 2 separate occasions. Not 5. Just sayin' ... 😉

To your top paragraph, don't believe we will see eye to eye on that because as @Marvin stated, giving the coaches the contract extensions is leaguewide SOP. But it's not a biggie that we don't agree. To your last paragraph, the Sabres after that horrid 2-8-2 stretch were still only 7 points behind the 8th place team with a game in hand (which they ended up winning so they were effectively 5 points out of the playoffs); hardly a team that had been eliminated with 11 or 12 games (depending upon whether you look at the record with 12 games left or 11 so they and Florida had the same # of games remaining) still remaining. And it wasn't a 9 or 10 game losing streak, it was a 2-8-2 stretch with 2 separate stretches where they only took 1 of 8 points. It's still bad, but don't really see a need to exaggerate how bad it was. And that streak very much coincided with Tuch missing time, Dahlin reaggravating the injury he was playing through, Thompson getting injured, and IIRC Samuelsson also was reinjured in that stretch. That's some serious quality hockey out of action and they still closed out the season almost well enough to get back into the playoffs. (They did get back into the picture. Being 1 point behind 8th is by definition in the picture; it's just outside where they needed to be.) The day before the rough stretch began, they were 1 point out of the playoffs behind the Aisles by 3 (with 5 games in hand) and the Pens by 1 (with 1 game in hand) and ahead of the rest of the middle 4 teams in their own division by 2-4 points and with 1-3 games in hand. But they were still technically out of the playoffs on that date. Lyon went crazy good for the Swamp Cats when Bobrovsky missed a couple games due to illness and they made up 4 points while having played 3 more games. They also caught the Aisles who were even 3 points further ahead of them than the Sabres were. Stinks, but it was Lyon coming out of nowhere to send Florida on a tear that killed the Sabres down the stretch more so than the injury riddled Sabres faltering again to a degree. (Both hurt, but the Cats went on a crazy good run to go from nearly out of the picture into grabbing the last spot.)

To the bolded, to an extent that's correct, but you can play big (Nolan's '95-'96 team played very big, not too much of a stretch to say that was the toughest Sabres team ever assembled) and still not play well (3rd worst in their conference; 7th worst overall). That '96-'97 was smaller but still played hard and was more skilled than the previous year's version and actually won its division. IMHO it doesn't matter how big you play if you have no skill. The trick is to find guys that can do both - play big and skilled and fill in the pieces around them with primarily skilled guys that don't play with fear. You can be small and tenatious and as long as you don't play with fear you can be part of the answer for putting teams like the Bruins back on their heels.

Can't say the kid didn't learn ANYTHING from Rasmus the Elder. 😉

Expecting he's a 3rd pairing guy based on talent alone. But if this LHD can find some chemistry with either LHD Dahlin or LHD Power; well that's what pairing he'll be for the Sabres. Kind of like how Warrener and Lydman successfully got pulled up a level because of chemistry with their partners or how ClearsItNotOut got pulled up 2 levels because he could speak his partner's native tongue and his goalie got bored if he didn't get to see enough action. (Pretty sure he washed the goalie's car after practice and ran other errands too, but either way the greatest goalie of all time liked having him on the ice for reasons only beknownst to him so ClearsItNotOut got to play quite a bit.)

They might, but do you honestly see Crosby retiring in any sweater other than the one he wears today? The Pens are not trading him away. MAYBE for MacKinnon and probably for McDavid. But they aren't looking to dis a legend. IMHO, the Bruins would see Bergeron the same way should he be willing to come back on another incentive laden deal. It's not the same as Chara FINALLY walking in his 40's after having been on other teams early in his career.

Well, and this is obviously just posturing and setting expectations, but Yzerman himself is on record as saying the Sabres are further ahead in their rebuild than his Wings are.