tom webster

Yeah, can you imagine a front court of Malone, Shumate and McAdoo along with Randy Smith in the backcourt. Ernie D was done in by injury but they could have found another PG.

Toronto is supposed to be a front runner for Matt Murray.

Thank you for the Bob Kaufman reference. Still miss the Braves and still believe if they had the right ownership they would have been Buffalo’s first “major” sport champion.

So if Servelli reported that the Sabre’s were interested in Pietrangelo we’d all laugh at the rumor and carry on. He reports that the team is “considering” an internal cap and it’s taken as gospel.

Almost every player drafted is some sort of consensus. Most NHL GM’s have no idea who the players are and rely on their scouts. Tim Murray was one of the few GM’s who did any actual scouting.

While I agree with all of this, I want to keep the goal posts in the same place. My whole “argumentative” mood is the result of the original post which implied that Skinner pulled a “Stafford” by having a career year when his contract was. This, in spite of the fact that he had a nearly identical season two years previous as well as scoring over 30 goals two other years.

You can do whatever you want but when you make statements that are inconsistent with the facts, expect to called out. His history is completely inconsistent with the label of “contract year” spurt.

You are stating an opinion. The facts say otherwise. He is a legitimate top winger who has four seasons over 30 goals. You implied that his “contract year” was outside the norm. History shows otherwise.

Of course his “best year” was nearly identical to the year he had two years before and he hit 30 goals two other times but now you want to label him a “contract year” Drew Stanford type.

One of us is mis-reading his list. I took it that the first three names were tier 1.

Thank you for this.

I’ve heard that Danault wants out as well. He would be my first choice but I would not mind either. Hell, I’d take both.

I agree with both of you but isn’t it a better indication of the future health of the organization as well as a better indicator of teams success acquiring talent? If the Sabre’s were better and didn’t pick Dahlin first overall they would presumably have another prospect in their system that wasn’t in nhl yet.

I’m not sure I’m arguing that either. My apologies if I offended anyone but I think some are arguing my point.

That is a complete mis-representation but we will just have to agree to disagree. Show me any business where the owners say just keep spending money and don’t worry about the results and I’ll show you a business no longer in operation. The “let them eat cake” reference implies they won’t pay for results and that’s not true. I’m not doing a good job of explaining it if you think the slide meant we have ours and we don’t care what you have. If you believe it’s their job to keep PSE and HarborCenter run no natter what the losses are then we are in a completely different place.

Wasn’t talking about you personally but a presentation to its management staff is different then public statements and have nothing to do with their marketing staff. For those of you that are unclear about the “lifestyle” quote, it was in reference to PSE and Harborcenter running as if there was an unlimited supply of cash there to cover up bad business decisions. When they started some of these businesses the original staff was pretty much allowed to do whatever they saw fit with no regard for budget. Like any business, that was unsustainable and as business matures certain decisions have to be made and the business has to stand in its own. The “maintain our lifestyle” slide was meant to tell these people, enough is enough. Either these businesses can stand on their own, or they can’t. It’s a natural progression that was poorly presented and a lot of that employee morale, but not all of it, is because now people are expected to justify their existence.

It was definitely a poorly worded slide and Ill advised presentation. Anyone with a modicum of business acumen knows what they were saying but even those that understand continue to go for the cheap laugh or easy shot to further the narrative.

The whole “maintain our lifestyle” and “build my yacht” may go down as the most misunderstood narrative ever.

Actually I don’t consider a point per game lighting it up and Larsson was close to a point per game once in his career so I guess you should have said don’t make up facts to confuse the narrative.

The reality is that if they are any good at marketing, working for an NFL team is not their “dream” job. They might have thought that when they applied but they would have quickly realized there were few perks with the job and it was a no win situation. Every team sells out, merchandise flies off the shelf. Exactly what do you even need marketing people for? The best of them will effect less then 1 percent of the overall revenue the team generates.

That’s just not how hockey works. Some guys aren’t meant to light up a beer league. It’s not their game. Asplund will end up a 8-10 year NHL player if he chooses.

I think I enjoyed this more then reading about a missed opportunity in the 2007 draft.

Everyone keeps saying that but Hallander seems to be considered at least a reasonable prospect. Weird trade for Pittsburgh.

It seems simple, draft the best player but as is being discussed ad nauseum, even the best of them over analyze the situation. One of Darcy Regier’s few admissions of error was acknowledging that he drafted Tyler Ennis over John Carlson because he had already drafted Tyler Myers.

And why would Vanek be someone he asked about Kopitar? Vanek moves to Canada in 1998. When exactly did he see Kopitar play? Did he have a special satellite feed in his dorm? Those were pretty common in the early 2000’s.