TheAud

Looking at his stats he's been remarkably consistent in three years with the exception being shooting percentage varying, which it tends to do, from year to year. His game looks good on the eyeball test with me and his fancy stats say he can drive play a little better than the scoring he's put up for the most part. I like a physical player who can avoid lots of penalties, which is true of Zemgus. He seems like a character guy. So far he's a 3rd/4th line, penalty killer guy who can jump to 2nd line in an injury pinch but probably doesn't generate enough shots per 60 minutes to justify staying there. One reason to stick with him a bit longer is that he's only about 1.5 years older than Sam and he's almost 2.5 years younger than Foligno, so it's not crazy to think if he gets a chance at year two under DD he may adapt and grow into more like a really good third line guy (whereas I think Foligno is more like a really solid 4th liner on a championship team) which would increase his value and hence make a 3 year deal at 1.6M per year (for example) look like a steal. Emotionally, I hope we keep him as he's sometimes an exciting player to watch with hi-light reel goals, which is worth something to me as a fan.

I don't think it's gone: http://www.hockeysfuture.com/teams/buffalo_sabres/ They have Bailey as a 7.5C and Fasching as a 7.0C. I know others are more positive on Foligno but after watching the playoffs quite a bit I keep thinking he is more like a 4th liner on a contender. The Penguins 3rd line is Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel!

For me personally...I'd be very sad but ultimately OK with it. Believe me, I was ecstatic when Pegula bought the Bills and provided a path to keeping them in town for the foreseeable future. But there is life outside pro football. Not to say there isn't a sliding scale of some sort...i.e. a huge private investment may warrant some tax payer contribution or tax breaks explicitly directed to the stadium. It does provide some jobs and 'quality of life' benefits (although I find it hard to argue that the Bills or even Sabres have really improved my quality of life the past 5 years! But I digress)...I am just not in support of tax payers funding say $400M or more for a stadium that largely sits vacant.

Come on man, he's only #380 per Forbes. :doh: Seriously though I am OK with funding for ancillary public services like roads, utilities, maybe some parking that can be used for other events, etc. to support a large private investment in the community. Maybe even part of the stadium if it were somehow truly multi-use and could be utilized say 40-50% of the days of the year by various organizations or functions. But for a true NFL palace that gets used maybe 5% of the year, no, the NFL and the owner can pay for that. I saw Paul Simon there in 2008. Nice arena. I like this example but it's not the same thing as an NFL stadium (and I don't think you are saying it is).

I've made major moves with the family several times with kids around this age (I have three daughters). Many people I work with have similar experiences due to the nature of our business. So I can pass along my own experience and observations for you to take or leave as you wish. It's good that everyone is on-board with the move. But even so, it's hard. My rule of thumb is the first six months are challenging. Of course there is excitement and good stuff too but various emotional and logistical challenges usually arise and they are hard to anticipate and at times impossible to do anything about other than weather the storm. After six months or so the new reality and way of life becomes somewhat entrenched and the pains of moving recede and life is better. Some challenges I have seen: -"Didn't know that [person] (could be you) would miss [person, activity, place, etc] so very much." This is a big one. My observation is that there are at least a few of these for each member of the family. For example, I remember one move from a rural environment to a big city where I was rudely surprised by how much I missed sitting out on my deck under the trees and sky, eating dinner or relaxing with the family or by myself. That wasn't happening in a big city and it takes time to find the new mode of getting the same family or individual enjoyment and relaxation. There are myriad other things like missing friends and family, restaurants, favorite spots, etc. It's hard to predict beforehand which ones will feel "lost" and hit a family member emotionally. But unless you just hate where you are now, it's gonna happen. -"New job is not working out/is very stressful" -"Not making friends" -Some thing that locals in the new place take for granted you will find to be a complete pain the butt or annoying. Like traffic or regulations or some social norms. -Some things you don't even realize you appreciate or like about WNY will be absent Anyway, I don't think this sort of challenge is really avoidable, but I also think it's normal and just something to go through as you make a transition in life as a family. My suggestions are to have times set-up before but especially after you move where the family talks specifically about the move and what's going well and what's bothering them. Not every problem can be fixed right away but facing the challenges as a team is much better than suffering alone and (perhaps) assuming that everyone else in the family is just doing great and handling the move better than you are. The biggest specific thing I can say to help these challenges is just have faith that the process of change requires going through those inconveniences and that as time passes it will get better and better. "A short term inconvenience for a long term improvement". Best of luck!

It's relevant to the "is GMTM an effective asset manager" discussion. It is irrelevant to Lehner's performance vs. Ullmark or Johnson going forward because it's in the past. It's a sunk cost. It doesn't matter if the was traded for a 7th rounder or for Wayne Gretzky he's just a guy on the team at this point.

This may seem obvious but isn't the 1st rounder we gave up for Lehner (and Legwand) irrelevant in a "Lehner vs. Ullmark vs. Johnson vs. etc" argument? It's highly relevant in a GMTM assessment discussion but...seems to come up in the former as much as the latter. Anyway there's a lot to like about both Lehner and Ullmark. Lehner has a larger body of work (no one has mentioned his stellar 2010-11 run to the AHL Championship) but has the injury history whereas Ullmark would seem to have more upside but needs time to prove it out. I don't get too wrapped up in small bodies of work for goalies, as in less than 1 season. If we are talking 20-30 games in the NHL or AHL as a data point it's useful but only in the context of the rest of their career as save % can vary quite a bit. I am looking forward to seeing if the alleged changes in goalie equipment size next year will increase scoring, and more to the point will it increase scoring less with large goaltenders like our Swede's who will still need large size equipment.

It was $4M over "multi-years" and not clear to me whether it was a guaranteed deal or not as he's not a coach per se. Anyway, not good when you take the trouble to hire someone and less than a year later it doesn't work out. I like to think I am good at hiring people but it's happened to me. Sometimes you just can't tell from the interviews that it's going to go south. Not sure if it speaks to larger trends in the Sabres organization.

Yes you can when the comment is meant to say something positive about the deceased and clearly stated as "My $0.02". If someone wants to slam Reagan, or Republicans, or Nancy Reagan they can do it anywhere but in a forum mentioning her passing. I mean, they can do it there too, it's just classless.

And won the cold war and restored some sense of hope in America. But yeah, they bought new china for the White House. I think there is a Presidential politics forum. It seems appropriate in this topic to honor the recently deceased, or simply not weigh in.

Classy lady. Exemplified the ideals of a much different generation than today. My $0.02 Reagan is the greatest President since FDR. Nancy Reagan was a part of that greatness. RIP

Guilty as charged

When you've got stuff like Sergei Plotnikov going from Arizona to Pittsburgh for Matthias Plachta AND a conditional 7th round pick in 2017 it really makes me wonder: what are the conditions? We're really rolling in the deep here.

So Kasdorf stopped 29 of 32 in helping RPI pull-out a tie at Cornell. He's got good size, very poised in net. Seems like ice water in his veins even when things got physical or went against him. First goal was a soft shot less than 30 seconds into the game from the blue line through all sorts of people and may have deflected more than once. He had no chance on the 2nd and the third went to a video review to see if he had been interfered with. In any event there was a ton of traffic in front of him and a hard shot from the point trickled in. None of these goals nor the obnoxious (but great college hockey) crowd at Lynah Rink seemed to bother him. He doesn't move as smoothly as say, Lehner or Johnson but he's not an NHL goalie yet. Nice glove hand and uses his pads well. Doesn't go down too quickly. The RPI coach Seth Appert came to the restaurant where some RPI alumni had gathered before the game and spoke to the group. He started out with glowing praise for Kasdorf calling him one of the 10 best goalies in the NCAA and particularly praising his maturity and leadership. Kasdorf is married with a child due in May. Appert says that although he's a Senior he has a 5th year of eligibility and it's 50/50 whether he signs with the Sabres or comes back for a grad school year of college hockey. Anyway, he's a good guy to have in the system and maybe we'll see him in Rochester next year. I don't think he'd be out of place at all. PS - RPI tied it with less than a minute left and the goalie pulled. A solid effort for an out manned squad with 5 of their top 12 forwards out with injury. PPS - college hockey is so great.

I'm going to see RPI at Cornell tomorrow night and hoping to see Kasdorf play in net for The Engineers. 2.16 GAA with 0.935 save percentage. RPI in the 10-20th range nationally this year. I'll try to report back on how he looks, assuming he's in net as the back-up (a Freshman named Cam Hackett) is having a good year too.

Commodity markets cycle like this all the time over a period of many years. Pegula was just fortunate the Bills sale came up before the latest crash. If he 'knew' it was going to happen he could have effectively shorted the market and be worth $30B instead of $3B.

Pure speculation.

If Weber is at the top of his game he's a decent bottom pairing option. He's had a few good games recently. So long as we don't get crazy and think he's more than a 6/7 guy at best I'm alright with him. I took the poll to mean 'worst defenseman.' So I still voted for Weber as I haven't seen enough of Carlo to develop an overly negative opinion yet and he can move the puck some. If the poll is 'worst defenseman at playing defense' I'd change it to Franson as he is slow as molasses and even good positioning and strength on the puck can't overcome it. However his offensive contributions have me rate him higher than Weber as an overall defenseman. Weber contributes in preventing goals but is a total liability in terms of trying to move the puck up ice and then actually score goals.

When I see or hear this I end up replaying it like 10 times in a row.

Maybe this is for a different discussion, but just found this on TSN: SCORING LEADERS, PENDING UFA FORWARDS PLAYER TEAM POS GP G A PTS Loui Eriksson Boston LW 44 15 22 37 Steven Stamkos Tampa Bay C 45 20 15 35 Mikkel Boedker Arizona RW 45 12 21 33 Kyle Okposo N.Y. Islanders RW 43 11 22 33 Jaromir Jagr Florida RW 43 15 17 32 Lee Stempniak New Jersey RW 46 10 21 31 Frans Nielsen N.Y. Islanders C 45 14 14 28 Milan Lucic Los Angeles LW 44 11 17 28 Teddy Purcell Edmonton RW 47 10 18 28 Eric Staal Carolina C 47 9 19 28 Kris Versteeg Carolina RW 46 8 20 28 Andrew Ladd Winnipeg LW 46 10 17 27 David Backes St. Louis C 49 12 14 26 Shane Doan Arizona RW 36 16 8 24 P.A. Parenteau Toronto RW 43 11 11 22 Jiri Hudler Calgary RW 36 5 17 22 Radim Vrbata Vancouver RW 44 11 10 21 I'd love to see one of the Islander players or Boedker on the 2nd line (I'm assuming no Stamkos). Sorry for the bad formatting.

Foligno on the 3rd line is a weak point. He can move up there occasionally due to injury but on a contender type team he's a 4th liner. Love his attitude and size but he has no hands and is a marginal skater. I agree with other posters need to bring in a 2nd line winger in Free Agency, bump McGinn/Fasching to 3rd line (I expect Fasching needs some time in Rochester anyway) bump Foligno to 4th line. Can they still bury contracts in the AHL? I agree they probably don't want Moulson's cap hit absorbing cap when they need to resign Sam and Jack but can he be an expensive 1st line LW for the Amerks? This is what happened to Wade Redden I believe. Having a deep pockets owner would enable this. (Not that I have written off Moulson coming back somehow but he seems just ....gone).

It's funny, I was thinking about this during the broadcast. His voice quality is pretty much back to where it was pre-surgery but he's much slower and occasionally gets players wrong in ways that I didn't see him do in year's past. Which is normal at his age. I was envisioning the radio only version and it must bear only a passing resemblance to what is actually happening as RJ just can't keep up. That said, I like him and hope he can stick around awhile longer so long as he's enjoying it. Rob Ray on the other hand is close to useless. Nice guy...terrible analyst.

Actually I think signing McGinn right now would be a Darcy like thing to do. They guy is playing the best hockey (statistically) of his life at age 27. That's rolling with O'Reilly and someone else of high skill. His career statistics would indicate he's REALLY a strong 3rd line sort of guy. Signing him to a 3-5 year deal at free agent type money is exactly what not to do when you are in 29th place. I say trade him at peak value. Sell high, don't buy high.

It's not blame...maybe that's the best use of Girgensons. They do have other, more productive guys to get more offensive zone starts like Moulson, Gionta, Ennis...oh wait a minute. To me, Byslma is like the little boy sticking his fingers in the holes in the *(large retaining wall holding back water) but there are so many holes he doesn't know how to plug them all. Hence R O'R is playing like 46 minutes a game. *Sabrespace filters don't like the name for this that is a homonym for someone's sexual preference

On a great team Zemgus is a very solid 3rd liner. On a good team he's a decent 2nd liner. On this team Byslma has no idea what to do with him. To call him a bust is laughable...yesterday was his 22nd birthday for crying out loud. He put up 30 points in 61 games on a horrible team last year so to say he's a likely 40-45 point guy (over 82 games) with strong two way play (why Byslma is using him as a shutdown forward, he is 5th in defensive zone starts among forwards) is completely accurate at this point. Note he's also shooting at 4.7% which if adjusted to his career numbers of 8.8% would work out to 3 more goals so far this year, which is a major scoring outburst for this team.