Kristian

There goes McDavid....

Still pretty damn decent no.'s for a 3rd liner center, I'd take that any day.

Boy, let's hope so.

Man, I half-way forgot Zadorov was in the organisation. This day just turned a whole lot better. *Big smile. Big smile. Biiiiig smiiile..... BIIIIIIIIIIIIG SMIIIIIIIIIIIILE!!!!!*

Bob Essensa, Jocelyn Thibault, Ty Conklin, Patrick LaLime - All backups who stunk it up, ROYALLY, in their tenures here. All backups to Ryan Miller. The backup goalie problem was a big issue ever since Marty Biron left. The general concensus seemingly being, that the backups themselves weren't entirely at fault, but Lindy Ruff's managing of them had something to do with it, but who knows?

Just to nitpick, this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEylfgdwEnQ ... happened in the no-touch years. Hitting was legal as always, clutching, grabbing and stick infractions, were not. The game was never pussified, it just wasn't slowed down either. Just my 2 cents.

I never understood why they reverted back, part from several big market teams crying about not being succesful immediately out of the gate. The NHL's plan was to appeal casual viewers, you cannot seriously tell me the casual viewer finds the game more watchable today? ....Do they? Yeah, they also had Briere playing for the better part of a month with a sports hernia, before diagnosing him correctly.

Fair enough, but things get so boring when we do :P

And yet, most of us will agree the 'Canes lucked into the cup. I'll tell you right now, I'm firmly in that camp. And just to clarify, I never said I was disappointed. But to me "succesful" constitutes some kind of plan being executed, and I just didn't see that plan anywhere in the Sabres organisation. At the first possible chance, they let key players go, and expected to keep on keeping on. McKee, Dumont, Grier, Drury, Briere. Not saying there weren't circumstances that made retaining these players impossible, but choosing scoring (Kotalik), over hard work, playmaking and a little less scoring (Dumont), on a team loaded on offense? That never sat well with me, I'll admit. As an example, if the Sabres tank another season, land either McDavid or a second overall, then move forward to 7th-12th place the next season, I'd call that succesful, at least short term.

Fair enough, didn't mean to put words in your mouth. And I agree, *any* team year, would've been in trouble against the Sabres - They were a damn good team, when not dressing an AHL defense. That said, the ´06 Sabres had difficulty holding a lead against both the Sens and especially the Canes, which is mainly what I remember from the 06 playoffs.

No, I just find it funny when I'm being told I should be praising a team that never won anything, let alone made the finals. Funny thing is, that Sabres team wasn't all that fast. Sure, they had some great skaters like Afinogenov, Briere, Roy, Drury, and others, but guys like Kalinin, McKee, Vanek, Teppo, Grier, Pyatt and Dumont were never all that fast. The Sabres for some reason that year just gelled, which is why I believe it was luck - I simply don't believe anyone could've had the foresight to get all those pieces into place, before even knowing how the game would be called, I'm sorry. Call me a pessimst, call me whatever, I just don't believe anyone is hockey genious enough to build that team on purpose.

Philly was an outrageous team back then, there's no deyning that. But the fact that Gilbert's team were in the finals means they were closer by definition.. No denying the Canes luck that year, but the fact remains that barring a colossal meltdown in game 1, and the Canes hurting Roloson, the Oilers take game 1. They were up 4-1 when Rollie was hurt. They weren't the pushovers everyone like to make them out to be, hence I am not in the "Sabres would've walked all over them" camp.

Has nothing to do with me being satisfied. The Sabres won nothing. The Kings did. Twice. The difference is astounding. Apparently not. The fact that I couldn't stand Darcy is no secret. He's gone, I no longer care, regardless what you may think. The 05-07 team benefitted immensely by the rules. You're claming Darcy, as the only GM in the league had a crystal ball to see those rules coming, when nobody else did. I don't believe that, hence I don't give him credit for it.

Certainly. He made some very good trades in his tenure here.

Mentionning a team capable of winning the Stanley Cup twice in three years in the same sentence as a team that made the ECF twice in a row? Really? I don't need to trash Darcy. The man is gone. I don't care. I just don't see the love for the post-lockout team. The rules were in their favor. The deeper the playoffs went on in 06, the more that team struggled, as the refs swallowed their whistles. Same thing in 07. It's not exactly rocket science. They were wildly entertaining, but the ´75 and ´99 teams came a damn sight closer to winning anything than the 06-07 teams. Fact.

After playing Alamo hockey against the Sens in 06, and being clobbered by them next season, I really don't see what's to be all excited about? Would that be the same Kings who have two cups now?

What was so succesful about that team? They didn't win anything. Didn't even make the finals. The '07 team even struggled to put away a most average Rangers team, and were 7 seconds away from playing an elimination game against them, at Madison Square Garden. Sure, they were fun as heck to watch compared to what've seen pretty much ever since, but I don't for one second buy that we would've just walked over the Oilers in the final, had we not lost our entire D to injury.

"Why did you always suck for the Sabres, yet play lights out for everyone else?"

That was my point - At the point of his hiring, a good X's and O's coach was exactly what the team needed. Unfortunately, at the time of his firing, the team had needed a great motivational coach for a looooong time. Every coach has his moments. Every good coach, at least.

Ruff is a pretty good X's and O's coach, and we all know that turned out in the end. I'd rather have the kids learn how to bust their butts, and learn the X's an O's afterwards, than have them learn all about systems and position, and then just float around out there. My point being, we've had a good X's and O's take over from Nolan before, and they turned out pretty well, until the value of hard work somehow got lost in the process. That said, I don't think the Latvian national team looked as though they weren't playing a system, it might just not have been the most advanced system. And again, we all know what advanced systems can do to certain players....

Can Grigo take faceoffs? I have to admit, that was probably the last part of his game I paid attention to while he was here.

Miley Cirus twerk "scandal", or Miley Cyrus in general.

Peca wanted Jere Lehtinen money, which was about 3.5 mill a year. Not off the charts in any way, as Lehtinen was a Selke winner also. Or am I remembering this wrong? One of the parties certainly brought the Jere Lehtinen contract into the picture, but it's been so long now, my memory escapes me. And to be honest, who knows what the 06-07 teams were full of? I don't think the two post-lockout seasons are a solid foundation for an assesment of how good that team was - The game was being called vastly different from the norm, which benefitted the Sabres immensely. Why did it benefit the Sabres immensely? Perhaps because we had our fair share of small, skill players who no longer could be man-handled off the puck, or interfered with? Who knows, really? The further we progressed into the post-lockout era, and the more the officials reverted back to calling the game pre-lockut style, the more the Sabres struggled. Yes, they lost the captains, but does anyone here really think the team would've made another Presidents Trophy push even with both Drury and Briere in the lineup in '08, as much as the game changed again? All I know is, Drury and Briere didn't get us to any playoff appearences, pre-lockout, and after Dumont, McKee and Grier left in '06, the team IMHO certainly didn't become any *less* one-dimensional. But I guess it's all subject to opinion. Personally, I look at the two ECF years as an anomoly, due to the way the game was called then. Fun as heck sure, but also very much out of the ordinary, NHL-wise.

No thanks, this team shouldn't be worrying about trading for 2nd liners, before drafting/signing/trading for some bonafide 1st liners.

Mike Peca for Tim Connolly and Taylor Pyatt, On paper, there are much worse trades than this one, but for me it marked the day Darcy told us all : "We no longer believe in grit and hard work, but are going to be a smallish finesse team, full of one-dimensional underachievers".