MattPie

Exactly. Plus, if you're the kind of person that wants to be in charge, you don't turn down the opportunity. If the GM navigates it well, they become a highly-desirable GM down the road for any team with a tough situation. I think the only way someone turns down a GM offer is if the ownership is terrible (I don't think that applies to Pittsburgh).

Even without the Jazz, SLC is significantly smaller than any (?) other NHL market. it's a little bigger than the Buffalo/NF metro area, but add in Rochester that nearly doubles the Sabres market. Plus, unlike eastern cities there isn't another population center a couple hours down the road. Six hours to Vegas, eight to Denver with not much between.

I've had mustard ice cream (as part of a dish with a sage waffle and escargo) and ghost pepper ice cream, so why not ranch? I'm not running out to try it though, I don't really like ranch enough to bother.

So we can (hopefully) keep Karamanos by offering an equivalent position.

For awhile in the early 20th centrury, the US nickel had a buffalo on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_nickel

We joked about that when RosePIe was little; I was around 480 months at the time.

From what I've seen, NHL All-Star John Scott falls into the same category. Undrafted, played through College (Mechanical Engineering) caught on for a bit in the AHL and then NHL, and made a career out of it. Not because of his playing ability. His autobiography is titled "A Guy Like Me: Fighting to Make the Cut". Georges Laraque seems like a similar personality. There are probably more enforcers out there that this describes than you'd think. Now, if we want to talk about "rats", the story may be different.

I saw the latter on a list, but have never heard that one before. Buffalo is living under the illusion that anyone outside WNY who wasn't born there cares about Buffalo, so there is that. 🙂

Ithaca, "Ten Square Miles surrounded by reality"

I bet you'd see even more gymnastics towards the end of the season if you're sitting in 25th place, it'd be pretty enticing to the org lose a few games and possibly be the best team in the hunt for the big prize rather than playing for picks 9-16.

I think Jones and Torts would be on the same page being dinos, not sure about Briere. But we only really know what torts is; no idea how the other two will look compared to their peers.

Smugtown was a light-hearted joke, but it's really a thing. A Rochestarian I knew mentioned it; it's from a book. https://rocwiki.org/Smugtown Related: How many Rochestarians does it take to change a lightbulb? 50. 1 to change it, and 49 to comment on how much brighter it is than the one in Buffalo.

In another thread, city nicknames came up. Ft. Worth is apparently Panther City, Buffalo is the Nickel City, Binghamton is Parlor City, Rochester is Smugtown. Post you favorite city nicknames here! (it's the off-season)

Ameristan, you heard it here first[0]. [0] not really, it's from a book

Anyone planning on hopping on the fast ferry to catch the Marlies game in Toronto? (too soon?)

Except Brads at this point are like 55 years old. (kinda) https://engaging-data.com/baby-name-visualizer/?n=bradley&sex=m&data=n

Passionate/arrogant fans are cute when the team is a loser. Passionate/arrogant fans are obnoxious when their team is good. Bills fans are well on their way to being Chowdaheads II. There, I said it.

I would expect that too, although I think it's probably more players *born* in the 90s. I don't feel like there was nearly the emphasis healthy living in the 90s/2000s as in the 2010s/2020s. But that might just be my perspective as someone who in their 40s started living far more healthy (and it f'n works; I feel way better than I did five years ago). A professional athlete (especially of the era that we're talking about) after retirement should probably make drastic changes to their lifestyle since they (likely) don't have the same built-in activity level (practice, workouts, games). If you're exercising hard for a few hours six days a week, you can get away with some questionable diet choices. As for the dying so young part, the study (as I understand it) is only looking at players that *have* died, so those average ages would be artificially low since many of the players in the age window are still alive. I would expect that if we come back to the same methodology in 20 or 30 years after the most of players have died for any reason, the average would be higher. but I bet you'd still see that same disparity where aggressive physical players die younger than players that aren't. As others above have said, this may be to personality traits or it may be from getting knocked in the head a lot too. My guess is the personality traits aren't as consistent as you'd think, and it's more down to getting knocked in the head. This is part of the reason I take far less joy in the game than I used to, among other external reasons.

Sometime in the 3rd round or preferably later, absolutely. Even if you tag Levi as "the real thing", and maybe UPL blossoms (not unusual for NHL goalies to come into their own 25+), you still need to keep stocking. Hopefully the Sabres have learned their lesson post-Miller.

I was going to say something like, "well, maybe this is not that strange when you look at the rest of the league". But those four account for 12.5% (1/8) of the 32 positions available, all from one 7-game series. Just by the numbers it can't be normal.

"Sacrificing" seems a little strong. They guy didn't get the job he wanted, and may now a year later. I'm not trying to make light of it, but it's not like he was in jail.

Don't think of it that way, think of it as more time for Lake Ontario to flood with Leaf-tears.

I figure it's mostly because most of the Sabres picks were early-1st picks that quickly made the NHL, and anyone with any ability that wasn't really ready still ended up in the NHL anyway. 🙂

Myers showed a lot of flash that season, IIRC. Power is probably better, but not as flashy.

I guess he'd technically be on the Sabres roster between signing his ELC and now.