LTS

I'm not sure what you need clarification on. But I'll try to answer: pi referred to Evan Rodrigues as: Mexinandian burrito eater poor dirt broke All of which, are unnecessary to describe what he thinks of Evan Rodrigues, and also racially/culturally charged statements about what he thinks of Mexicans. This, despite the fact that Rodrigues, if tracing his most immediate heritage, has a father who is from Portugal, NOT Mexico.

Really? Because Evan Rodrigues father is Portuguese, not Mexican. No way there's a justification for that kind of garbage being posted on here.

I hope the door hits you in the ass on the way out. This has no place here. Your point could be made without the reference to anything of his heritage.

We stack up pretty good...

Yeah.... whoops! We should have picked a better GM is probably true in hindsight... but if you consider the soap opera that occurred during that time period it's hard to think that it was possible to end up with anything but some kind of flawed result. Who even hired the GM? Was it really LaFontaine? That period is so mucked up I have a hard time even applying logic to it. ?

The way I look at it.. the Buffalo Sabres engaged in a dramatic rebuild that was hampered by a few events: 2010 - 2011 - A new owner - Pegula 2012 - 2013 - A new coach - Rolston 2013 - 2014 - A new GM & Coach - Murray & Nolan (LaFontaine and much more mess) 2014 - 2015 - Change in lottery system odds - Edmonton wins McDavid from the 3rd spot 2015 - 2016 - A new coach - Bylsma 2015 - 2016 - Change in lottery odds and top 3 picks available - this hasn't hurt Buffalo yet 2016 - 2017 - A new GM & Coach - Botterill and Housley The Sabres had already drafted poorly leading into Pegula taking over. The top picks leading to that point were: 2007 - 31st overall - TJ Brennan 2008 - 12th overall - Tyler Myers 2009 - 213th overall - Zach Kassian 2010 - 23rd overall - Mark Pysyk When Pegula took over, he left Regier and Ruff in place. They had been making the playoffs up to that point. There's a lot to be said for what potential pitfalls were set upon the organization as the new owner took over. Clearly it's not been good as they have not made the playoffs under a full year with Pegula as owner. That said, he's a new owner who has shown his propensity to make mistakes and is also apparently learning from them. The impact of those mistakes on the timeline should not be dismissed. With Regier still making decisions they pick: 2011 - 16th overall - Joel Armia 2012 - 12th overall - Mikhail Grigorenko 2013 - 8th overall - Rasmus Ristolainen The 2013-2014 season can and should be seen as a huge mess. It's little doubt the Sabres were going to finish dead last given the front office insanity. No need to rehash it but it brought the Sabres Nolan over Rolston and ultimately put Murray in a seat. I'm not sure we can fully quantify what the impact of that season was on the Sabres, but i think it's safe to say that it makes their rebuild far different from other teams. All of that aside, the Sabres lost the top pick to Florida, but it did net Reinhart which still appears to be a good thing at this point. The decision to have Murray lead resulted in an attempt to rebuild faster. In so doing, Murray created an atmosphere of little competition (unlike Botterill). However, he was also dealing with limited talent with which to move. The only way to get established players is to trade away futures, and he did. Whether this was his decision or the decision of the owners who didn't accept a longer rebuilding process, we don't know. Either way, it was the decision. It was a path chosen and once that happened there's no going back. The Sabres were further hampered when the odds for the top overall pick were altered leading into the McDavid draft. If the Sabres win that draft are they better today? Yes, I think that's the case and not because McDavid is incredible. I think Murray built a team of Canadian system hockey players that was designed with the hope that you get McDavid. Instead he had to draft Eichel, the prodigy of the USA Hockey system. He brought in Bylsma, although not his first choice, and clearly he did not mesh with the players. Basically, creating a locker room problem. Everything since that has been a change in direction, again, and that's just the way it goes. But I don't think we've seen other teams have the same level of change that the Sabres have had in the front office where you can easily compare them and say that the rebuild failed. It was more than just THE rebuild. As I see it, the Sabres are on attempt #3 to rebuild a winning roster. That's system number 3 in 7 years of not making the playoffs. From an overall standpoint. Pegula has made poor decisions leading to his teams continued or prolonged status as non-contenders. From that overall standpoint I would say the Sabres rebuild has failed. But I don't think it is comparable to other teams, and certainly not a single player in the overall theater presentation of "As the Sabres Turn..." You can play what-ifs, all day long, but what-ifs are not what happened. Going back to page 64 and choosing option B doesn't mean that when you get to page 96 you don't also fall of a cliff and die like you did when you originally chose option A and went to page 87 and were run over by a bus and died. If we all had the capabilities to live our lives in the middle of fragmented timelines we'd have evolved into multi-dimensional beings that had no need for hockey.

I'm never eligible. Sigh.

Well, if you think about it. Extremism drives viewership and engagement. The middle is boring. So, what's going to get covered? People really own think in terms of their own experiences. As such, if they're not exposed to a moderate way of thinking they will only view the world in us vs. them terms. This problem is compounded when people refuse to go out and broaden their own horizons and instead get their information from agenda driven media outlets because what they really care about is sitting down and binge watching something on Netflix for the next 12 hours or talking about some television show for countless hours. I don't see this changing in the future. It's on a rising spiral of who can yell louder and make more extreme positional statements. Yesterday I saw a sign about "An EPIC event". I don't even recall what it was for.. but really.. an EPIC event? Where do you go from there? What's bigger than EPIC? We need to dial it back, as a society. We need to lower the focus on controversy so it reduces people focus on being controversial. It doesn't ever go away. But people pushing those extreme agendas can certainly be pushed back into their corners and be marginalized.

I realize you follow it. I welcome your point of view. My response was only meant to point out that I don't see many sports teams doing anything that monumental so I give the Sabres an average grade relative to their peers, that's all.

@Randall Flagg this is the best post I think you've ever made. It's certainly one of the best posts I recall reading overall on this board. It really doesn't even matter how much or little I agree with it. The amount of care, thought, reasoning, and effort that went into making it are commendable. I'm not going to try and break parts of it down. But perhaps you are seeing Jason Botterill attempt to build the Sabres using the same Penguins logic you pointed out and hopefully have a few more tools to use. I don't see Eichel at the level of Crosby, or Reinhart at the level of Malkin. I see them different. But the Penguins also never had a D like what Dahlin is supposed to become. I am giving a usage pass to the past season. First, there is only so much you can do with the roster. Second, I'm convinced the point of some of it was to give themselves a shot at the #1 pick. This season is where I think we need to pay far more attention to those things. It'll be interesting. Again, incredible post... absolutely incredible (and yes, I read the whole thing).

You have such a way with words and timing. That's perfect.

How many sports teams... anywhere do this? That's a lot of different ways to be going if they were all able to do it. I don't go on pinterest... soooo I guess I am good? I don't even think in negative space. I took a photo once and the commentary on it was.. great use of negative space. I said thanks and moved on. I know what it is... I just never think about it.

My analysis stopped with my initial post. It's all I can surmise. ?

Yep... pointless drivel. The dude is scum.. probably not any worse than 95% of the politicians he interacts with either. But he got caught. Who the hell knows, perhaps the Democrats arranged for the drug trial to fail so there'd be a stock sell off reaction that would allow him to be arrested for insider trading so it could open up the race in this district. It sounds crazy... but in the world of politics I almost think any level of insanity is possible. He's still the hoser who put himself in this situation and is a complete tool releasing a statement like that.

The style of text around the sword is very commonly used these days. The B as the hilt isn't the worst thing in the world. Also, I don't think the marketing is targeted at us... we're too old for it.

That's incredible....

I actually do speed intervals. So I will run for about 2 minutes then walk for 1 minute and alternate. I started out at 90 seconds running and 1 minute resting. I will vary it around. Harder to do when on the road, but on the treadmills it's easy. It actually has 4 speed settings for the intervals, so I have my warm-up/cool-down walk speed, my interval walk speed, my run speed and then a sprint speed. I can't (and don't want to) run for an extended period of time. I hate running. But I can handle this..

The one thing that was immediately noticeable and has nothing to do with preseason... the speed with which he throws the football. It's moving. Haven't seen that in awhile.

In theory it's an appreciating asset. Additionally the Buffalo/Rochester housing markets are insulated. They don't fluctuate as greatly as other markets. However, the housing industry has been on an pretty steady increase over the past 9 years or so. The predictions are for it to drop again soon, potentially fairly dramatically. Rising interest rates are a big part of that as the higher the rate the less house you can afford and as such the value of a house goes down (or it goes unsold). Of course the thing about houses is that they require constant maintenance. So, while your asset may appreciate, the cost to maintain it to that level of appreciation should be considered. You'll understand that the first time you pay for a new roof. Ugh. I understand where you are coming from though. Did you blow any of that dust over here? ummm.. sorry. Leasing is such a devil deal. I'd never do it. I had to deal with a lease once (my in-laws gift to my wife as a college present was a leased car). Situation dictated she had to blow through the miles. So I had to buy the car at the end... basically paying waaaaay too much for a really crappy car.

If you are willing to work off insider information you will find the money. Even small amounts can add up pretty fast depending on which way you play it. I could probably make a good amount on my own companies stock if I was willing to care about it. I know which way things are going before they get reported to the Street. I'm just not willing to do it. But our stock is like $3/share so it wouldn't take a massive investment to get a return. Do it a few quarters by re-investing your earnings from the insider information and you'll have a decent amount to play with (or save) or whatever. Still... no thanks. I'm not into securities fraud and putting the financial safety of my family at risk. The girlfriend's family in the Collins case raided their 401k to invest. It was a sure bet... until they had to get out in a hurry, all of them. Now imagine what would have happened had the clinical trial been a success. No one would even know about the insider information at this point. They would be very well off and could sell the shares more slowly to reap the rewards.

Holy crap.. that had to be one hell of a collision! When it hurts to breathe... life really sucks. Hope it heals up sooner.

You are a CapEx guy. Some people are OpEx. I've basically budgeted a car payment into my financial planning. It's there, every month, just like a mortgage. Which, by the way, will eat at you even more than a car will. I was able to at least get 0% auto loans. You'll never get that with a house. The trade-off you are taking on is the trying to plan for when the unexpected repair will happen.

Ahhh yes... thanks for that. Found another quote about it. Dear god.. these are stupid people. Innate is not an especially large company. As a result, per the SEC: "The sales by Cameron Collins, his girlfriend, and her parents, including Stephen Zarsky, made up more than 53% of the stock's trading volume [on June 23] and exceeded Innate's 15-day average trading volume by more than 1,454%."

They're so good... New Era doesn't list them on their site.

Hah.. just read some more about this. So, just before the failed clinical trial was announced Collins kids and his sons girlfriends family sod 53% of the total shares in Innate. Like that would not attract attention... Jesus.. people are so dumb.