MattPie

FWIW, that's not the same as making the team. Savoie would be eligible for a 9-game tryout (I think), and Kulich being in the AHL could come up and down without waivers.

I don't think the answer to use a really flawed stat because the other stat has a flaw.

Decided to quickly do the math: with 50 games remaining, Sabres need 64 points to get to 98 points. That's 1.28 pts/game aka 0.640 point%, so something like 6-3-1 every 10. Teams currently sitting 3rd in their divisions are between 0.625 and 0.656, so that's the kind of play required. Not insurmountable given the last few weeks, the 7-2-1 Last 10 helped. WSH and NYR also going 7-2-1 in the last 10 didn't help. If the Sabres manage 14-15 points in the next 10, then it'll be interesting.

Here I thought it was hairstyle choice during that time. Thanks! Watching Skinner skate, you do see glimpses of his figure-skating past in there. In a good way, he makes some unconventional but really fluid moves that most players can't do.

My parents are mad at me that I'm not driving my family into the blizzard so I can get trapped at their house for Christmas. WTF. (Ithaca is predicted to get some wind and a little snow; nothing like the lake effect Buffalo is supposed to see)

Non, ma cherie.

Well, it'd be another entry in the "The Sabres always get the wrong brother" discussion.

Don't worry, the Sabres still have a long way to go before they're even on the bubble.

Put Comrie on a conditioning assignment (can you do that with GT?) to Rochester when he's ready to buy more time. If UPL is still playing well at the end of all that, you still send him down and let Comrie prove himself as was the original plan. Despite the good play, the Sabres still have a long way to go to honestly be in a playoff spot after losing a bunch of games; making decisions based on the playoffs this season is premature.

Could Kane replace VO as 3RW? Maybe. I'm mildly convinced that VO is being dragged down by Mitts. Trade Mitts for a mid-level D, see if VO rebounds. If he doesn't, trade him and *think* about signing Kane as a UFA. I don't think Toews is "good" any more, even a few years ago people were talking about his contract being an albatross.

Some quick looking around shows a mediocre-bad team last year has a 75% PK (so 1 in 4, 25% allow a goal) and the top as 88% (1 in 8, 12.5%). On average, Penalty shots and Shootout attempts are around 33%, so the aggrieved team always should want the penalty shot. Maybe a team up one goal with two minutes left would rather put the other team down a person for the rest of the game, but that's an edge case.

If we're using something like a 0.600 pace as a benchmark, each win only nets 0.8 points above that pace. Each loss is 1.2 points below. You have to win significantly more than lose, so each loss is worse than a win. Yep, math checks out. If you win two straight, you add 4 points, but the other team on average will add 2.4 points in their two games (if they're playing around 0.600 hockey), so you're only gaining 1-2 points. This Last 10 of 7-2-1 has been nice, but they need to do it again over the next 10 games to make up some more ground on the teams that are 4 points ahead.

The question is if the PK is a coach thing. If this trade were made, would Granato put Matthews on the PK. Is Tage particularly adept at it (his reach and size would be helpful), or is his time an artifact of (I believe) Granato's "put firepower on the PK to make the other team hesitate" style? I dunno, I like the name in a bubble, but it feels a bit "Philly is rent-free in our heads" in context.

I nearly drove to Detroit for Kubecon in October to avoid flying (+- 8 hours from here). Luckily there's a direct flight from Ithaca (!!) so it wasn't bad. I spent more time in airports than planned going to Florida in July and didn't want to repeat that.

You know, the generic head avatars and basic one line replies had me thinking they're AI bots. I'm not sure I still do, but I wouldn't be surprised.

I tried, but I'm done with Daryl and his brother Daryl. 😞

Heh, that long predates their Fiat connection.

Lord Stanley never won a hockey championship.

Not really. You could look at setting up separation waivers to void the contract, but somehow I don't think Tage would clear, lol. Yeah, no way KA starts paying Tage more out of the goodness of his heart.

FWIW: https://scores.nbcsports.com/fb/tmleaders.asp?type=Receiving&range=NFL&rank=232 Bills are in a 3-way tie for first with 25 drops, there's a 3-way tie for 16-18 at 16 drops, so the Bills average less than one dropped pass more per game than the middle of the pack. Really need a fancystat drops per attempt or something, since you know the Bills are throwing more than some other teams.

I don't think anyone had Skinner for the second major, right? 🙂

I was thinking more along the lines of early-90s Bills and Dolphins, with the Bills playing the part of the Dolphins. Miami lost 3 of 3 playoff meetings to the Bills during that period. I think the difference with the Bills/Pats is Buffalo was never good during that era. The Bills haven't lost to the Pats in the playoffs since 1963, and only played them one other time, last year.

I clicked on the Bills Facebook post with the final score today, and it completely validated why I read zero football-related media outside this thread. However, my entire spectator sports consumption is this board and watching Sabres and Bills highlights on Youtube, so I'm an outlier.

Yep, and it's hard enough to reply to the OP (other than going back and finding the original blocked post) that you're not tempted to engage. I have one user on block; and they have posted in this thread. They might be the only person I have ever blocked, back in the day I wasn't as even-tempered as I am now. Even FIRE LINDY RUFF NOW.

Good to very good teams. I don't think the Sabres today are capable of being a top-10 team in the league with the 1-2 questionable D pairings and goaltenders not named Anderson. Maybe if Comrie comes back and lights it up, but that's a lot of if. UPL isn't going to cut it at this point in his progress, and Anderson can't play 56 straight games to close out the season.