LTS

Guess I'm full of ****. Good to know. So done with people just shitting on others around here.

He actually doesn't. He could easily split his tweet into multiple tweets.

I'm always in should my son's hockey schedule allow it. So I won't commit to buying one of the seats up front, but I will buy a ticket somehow when the time comes.

It doesn't? That's sketchy. It's completely unreasonable to expect that a GM can undo the mistakes of a prior GM in a single season and potentially even two given the time to develop talent and the limitations on what moves are possible in any given year. If Botterill were replaced at this point and the next GM had success in the following year it would be most likely that Botterill was the one who created the potential for success and the next GM lucked into the spot. The question then would be if the new GM could sustain success. Even then, Botterill's skill set might be best suited for teams that need to build and develop a talent pool whereas another GM might be more adept at managing older rosters. So, putting either of those GMs in the wrong spot would most likely lead to failure. Neither is successful in all facets of the game and neither are abject failures either. The Sabres tried a tactic, it didn't work or they were not determined to see it through. How much the clock starts over depends greatly on how much overlap there is between philosophies of the GMs and the fit of the existing resources to the new GM's vision. No fan has to accept it or like it, but that doesn't change the reality.

You'll notice that they relegated the use of Navy to the slug and the use of royal to the Buffalo and crossed swords. Those who choose to ignore history... it's part of it, it happened. You can't deny it.

This is the slow season. Once arbitration results begin coming out teams have to make the next round of moves as they shore it up for pre-season. So, I don't expect much until around the first week of August.

Of course they did. However, with Twitter it travels the globe in seconds and because it is forced into a package with limited characters everyone reads it quicker and responds quicker. Plus...software engines can analyze the responses and provide real time metrics on the opinions of the market.

The best thing about Twitter is that this tweet could have been floated as a favor to Botterill to see if it would generate a discussion. It could also be floated by Detroit to see if Buffalo takes the bait. It could also be floated by.... Game theory baby!

The rabbits would have been good I bet.

I'd dump the client in less than a heartbeat if I were on a position to do so. I wouldn't need nor want business from anyone like that. I know you can't, but if I were in charge of the company, I wouldn't let my employees be subjected to kind of BS.

Well, I don't agree with the comparison straight away. The NFL and NHL are very different beasts. The Sabres are bad and have been bad however. But for the most part it just sounds so pedantic compared to the rest of the content you usually post. Almost like you are trying to find a way to "that guy" when you're usually not "that guy" and don't ever portray that you have "that guy" in you.

You know, I like to read what you have to say, right until you persist with the damn Cleveland Browns moniker and I just tune you out. Oh well, that's on me I suppose. I understand what you are saying and your desire to evaluate a certain way. The logic is confusing in what way? The discussion at hand was evaluating against winning NOW versus development for winning LATER. They are fundamentally different. A player may be used in a situation or a team may be built in a certain way that does not support winning NOW but, in the eyes of those creating the product, supports winning LATER. As such, saying a player sucks is relevant to their ability to win NOW (which is what I believe RF is saying above) but saying he sucks can be abrasive when you factor in that he's being put in a position to suck because that's better for the team's chances to win LATER. Sometimes a player is kept in a position because they are not important and are merely serving as a placeholder for a younger player who COULD help the team win NOW, but by keeping them in another role, it helps the team win more LATER. The problem with any view, then, is that we don't know what they are trying to do. But Botterill has stated he's about building a team for sustained success, which would support making moves with longer term goals (albeit hoping for shorter term success).

Actually, I don't. It sounds like you are saying that you understand there are reasons. other than winning, that decisions might be made but then choose to ignore them because you only want to analyze it against winning. What's the point of your analysis if it doesn't speak to what the Sabres are trying to do and rather speaks to something they are not trying to do?

This is probably why you run into problems. You are only accepting that the goal was to win that night and win in the season. The Sabres were never a team that was designed to win that given night or win last season. In fact, many teams do not enter a season with that as the ultimate goal. If managing a hockey team were a one and done scenario then it would be about winning. However, managing a hockey team is about multiple seasons and the development of players over time. Some seasons are not about winning but about improving and developing. As such, using winning tonight and this season as your measuring stick you are likely to find decisions and actions of which you will not approve. You can argue what the goal should be. But if the goal was to develop Thompson then the ruling on how he was developed needs to be held until it's clear it was wrong. You must have missed the tweet someone copied a few pages back. Stan Bowman is not good.

This is all you need to know as a Chicago fan to want your GM out of office. Love this trade, of course. The big fireworks come during RFA arbitration and when teams have to figure out how they are going to sign the rest of their roster. I think Buffalo is setup nicely to make a move.

This happens a lot on here from many people.

Sometimes players want a chance at success and it's not about how much money they could get. It is possible that someone offered him something or talked about it and he said he was not interested. It works out really well for the Sharks though.

Yes, there is a thread for this. A thread where information has been shared. It boils down to there isn't a lot of evidence anywhere to support any claims and people can choose what they want to believe. No side can be wrong, no side can be right. The fact that information has not come out does not mean there is no information, it only means that there might be no information.

A single thread would be tough because you would have to scroll through to find what you are looking for. A dedicated club/forum that had separate topics for each analytics stat and chart used along with an explanation would be great because you could just search it up. It would also contain any commentary to that particular analytic to that thread. If you mixed the analytics together any commentary might be lost or become hard to follow. You could do that in this forum, but it would intermix with the regular hockey talk and could be hard to follow. Also, it would eventually fall off the main few pages and have to be searched all the time. But, any way it gets cut.. it would be a great resource.

Pre- 1994?

That's exactly how I interpreted your response. It is a lot of words and unfortunately in the absence of a lot of words, people just assume *****. Not saying you, but in general, that's what happens. So you can be verbose and people ignore you or you can be succinct and people dismiss you. It's a wonderful world we live in.

Heaven forbid a discussion forum contains long civilized discussion. Although I don't think we are getting on anyone's nerves. I'm pretty sure the mods would prefer the level of discussion that was happening over the discussion of what is or is not a troll.

Aho didn't want to compromise. He would take $9.5M over 5 years. However, no one was offering that because in order for Aho to get it the team would give up four 1sts. So, Aho's value in the RFA market was not worth $9.5M for 5 years. He wasn't going to get it by holding out with Carolina and he wasn't getting it from any team in the NHL. Since he couldn't get what he wanted, he did the next best thing, force Carolina to give him a contract on terms he's willing to accept. There was negotiation prior to July 1. At least so far in each side made an offer. Once July 1 hit, Waddell is effectively handcuffed. He's not letting someone else negotiate for him, the negotiation no longer involves him. Aho negotiated with 30 other NHL teams. He negotiated with Bergevin to get a deal he liked and Waddell is forced to accept or take the compensation. Waddell cannot be said to let something happen if he has no ability to stop it from happening. Well, of course, he could stop it from happening, if he agrees to the players terms. In which case there is still no negotiation that occurs. There is just accepting the players terms and its done.

Yes, here we are. The world devolving to "speak your mind, as long as it agrees with mine". Sigh.

I never considered it as a hockey term. I only considered it as a term associated with women and used because they were a women's hockey team. I disliked the name from the moment it was put out there.