Taro T

IF they only bring in 1 outside D-man AND they go with the recently "traditional" 13F-8D, could see him grabbing that 8D spot ahead of Bryson. (Nobody is claiming Bryson when he gets waived. Clague will get less money and probably clears too, but he's a better D-man IMHO and would have a higher likelihood of getting claimed (small as that likelihood might be).) But if they bring in a 4 and a 6, yeah he drops to Ra-cha-cha or if they decide to go with 14F's likewise.

Agnostic on the 2 services, haven't used either. But Youtube will have the NFL Sunday Ticket this fall. You can get just the Ticket without subscribing, but it's IIRC an extra $100 for ST if you aren't a Youtube subscriber. Also, the $100 early bird ST discount is gone (that ended on June 6 IIRC) but there's still a $50 discount available into September. (Yeah, not sure how that works either, the season starts before the discount is supposed to end.)

Pretty accurate take. Would put Clague into Bryson's boat as well. Expecting they'll keep him in the system too.

Bummer. Have subscribed to their "paper" for a long time. Not terribly surprising. After the NYT bought them, it was inevitable that they'd be expected to "reduce costs." Thought this would've come sooner than it did.

Yeah, that one is a bit of a head scratcher. But IF they are giving Bales a pass on the GTing because of Comrie's injuries and their having believed UPL was not ready to be in the NHL (and to a fairly large degree they proved themselves right on that opinion) then it makes sense to not blame the PK on the coaching. Your goalie is your best PKer (and the Sabres goaltending was not good) and the team used its offensive forwards on the PK way more than other teams do which seem to have been a product of that "development" philosophy they ran with. Combine that with the injuries the team dealt with (and played through to a large extent) on D and the whole thing was a recipe for failure. Personally, had more issue with the PP coaching. The PP was lights out for about 6 weeks and beyond abysmal the rest of the season. There is WAY too much talent for the PP to disappear for months at time. Entries were bad and there was way too little movement. Everybody and their brother knew the team was setting up for Thompson's 1 timer.

Yeah, well, #### Bob Essensa and the horse he rode out on. Biggest flop by far in a Sabres uni. Granted at that stage of his career, he was only brought in as a backup. But, not sure he could've been the backup in Ra-cha-cha at that point.

And it needs to be remembered that for the 1st 25 years this franchise existed it was a destination players wanted to be. Gare cried the day he was traded. Hawerchuck and LaFontaine - 2 of the biggest stars of their day wanted to be in Buffalo. The European players remembered 12-6 over the Soviets. The Scandanavian players loved the Sabres because of that. The Sabres had one of the 3 best franchise winning percentages in the entire NHL for decades. That 3rd team would change from IIRC Filly to the Aisles to the Eulers to ??? but Moe-ray-all and Buffalo were always 1 and 2/3. And when you're consistently near the top, even if you don't get playoff success people want to be there because they know they'll at least be in the mix. That waned under the Criminals and didn't recover as a destination under Golisano and the team became a joke early in the Pegula Era. But this is the last of the Pegulas teams to become relevant. The Bills are a destination team. The Bandits have been in the championship game 3 consecutive seasons and would be viewed as a juggernaut had an entire season and a half not been wiped out in the middle of that run. The 3rd year Kin-ig-hit Hawks made the playoffs. Their daughter is one of the best women tennis players in the world. Everything else they touch sports wise shines. The Sabres seem to be on the verge of joining the others. It can be a destination for players again. And once it is again, there's no reason for it to go back to laughing stock. The owners have enough money to allow competent management to do their thing. Buffalo will never be the place a guy that desparately wants the big city life of NYC or TO will make his 1st choice. And the same goes for guys that really want the sunny FLA or LA weather. But for those that like some/all of the items you mentioned above, they truly can be a destination club.

Fuhr. (Well, Andy got them 1/3 of Fuhr. The 1st rounder and Puppa brought the rest of him.)

Gee, what a shock, a THN guy thinks that it would be a "great trade for both sides" for the Loafs to dump overpaid and overrated Willie Nylander on the Preds for Saros. (Oh, and the Loafs would send them Robertson too.) Anybody taking Nylander is doing the Loafs a favor and they should be getting something else good and not giving up much to take the dink. Losing Saros for Nylander is anything but a good trade for the Preds.

And the one that wasn't looked up but actually guessed: Larry Mickey. (Don't recall Schmautz on the Sabres at all.)

Cliff Schmautz

The Liger has been enamored of the Kings RHD prospects for quite some time. Not sure if that's still the case now that IIRC 1 of them got traded in that 3 way Provorov deal.

Trying to confirm a guy was pretty sure had played with the Bisons but turned out to be wrong, accidentally found out 1 of the correct answers. Won't give his name, but will give the clues that he was a Bison from '61-'64 and went to the Phlyers after an early '70's stint with the Sabres.

Potvin might fit as well. (Speaking of the Dog, brought up memories of the Cat.) But not sure that he ever played for any good teams.

Still not sure what the #'s in the bars represent. Am guessing it is games played, but not positive of that. And the top guys only having NHLe's of ~25 points seems low. (And if it's goals instead of points in what he's looking at, it seems high.)

No he isn't. Because Hasek not only thrived on bad teams but very good teams as well. Herron was very good in doomed efforts for the Scouts and Pens. He pretty much single handedly got Montreal knocked out of the playoffs by Minnesota in '80.

That may be, but the overall piece had way too little alliteration to be Irv's lead story.

Wow. What a bad call. Get why the ref thought it was a trip, but no, that was not a trip. Of course, if the Swamp Cats find a way to kill the penalty off and actually win this game, it could carry them right to 3 more wins in those last 4 games. They'll definitely feel they beat the Kin-ig-hits AND the refs tonight. And if they give up the next goal, they're toast. Can't realistically see them winning 4 in a row.

The numbers don't seem to actually be NHLe, not quite sure what they are representing, but yeah, cool that 2 of the top 3 are Sabres. Still would rather have had the guy at 4 on that list had there been some way for him to slide a smidge. Jiricek is going to be a good one.

Really sad that he passed. Tom Jolls seemed to be one of the good guys. And saw a lot of his weather broadcasts. But never really watched him much as Commander Tom. We were usually either playing after school or watching reruns on Channel 29. But watched Rocketship 7 with Dave Thomas in the morning often before school.

Nowhere near enough alliteration to be an Irv lede.

Been saying that most of this off-season. As soon as they're out of the "likely NHLer" picks should be looking to grab the top Russian goalie prospect available. Especially now that there are a bunch of Russians in the pipeline, grabbing a Russian goalie prospect would seem to be a solid option.

Yeah, could be totally off on the evaluation of Levi, but he just really seems like he's going to be the real deal. Hellebucyk could give the team Vezina quality goaltending for the next 3-4 years. Starting 2 years from now, Levi could be doing that for the following decade. There's also the issue of if the Sabres were to trade Levi for Hellebucyk, they are once again putting all their goaltending eggs in one single basket. That has been a very poor plan for this team ever since Miller moved to St. Louis.

FOUR male players is the max allowable to be inducted in any given year based upon the current induction criterion. There are at minimum 736 players in the NHL in a single season now that there are 32 teams. That sure does seem like they're getting awfully close to 0.5% of the players playing in the NHL getting into the HHOF. Considering only how many players play in international leagues at the highest levels; yeah, they're getting towards the "hall of top 1% of players ever to put on skates." 😉

To a degree, yes. Still there are some goalies that are really good fits for bad teams - they can steal a game or 5 but they don't necessarily elevate their play when they're playing for a good team. Whether that be because they need to be "into" the action to get into their groove or they can't handle the pressure of not consistently seeing shots and then facing high danger shots because there had to be a breakdown for them to see any shots. Denis Herron being the poster boy from the past for that. Not coming up with a modern day equivalent ottomh, though there has to be some that fit that same bill.