LTS

1-2 shifts.. it appeared the lines got put back to normal after one of the power plays. I dunno. I think bringing up Porter they are looking for more offense. They are also evaluating another player in the organization that was brought in. Might as well do it now. He's a guy who has NHL experience. I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up with lines like: Vanek-Hodgson-Pominville Foligno-Porter-Ennis (or Ennis-Porter) Stafford-Grigorenko-Ott Kaleta-(Hecht/Gerbe)-Scott

So here's my thought on Rolston. He's a DR hire as well. So, if you are putting the entire DR system on trial for the remainder of the season you might as well bring him up to coach the Sabres. At the same time, not firing Regier leads me to believe that he has bought himself enough time through recent moves. There's most likely player moves in the works and time will tell if he can pull off the moves required to move the Sabres in the right direction. If not, he'll be gone. I'm sure his moves will now have a level of oversight to them. What I urge all fans to remember is that almost every single one of us said that Ruff would never be gone without Regier.. there are possibilities to be had. Clearly the impossible can happen. It's a change with what I suspect is a plan for the remainder of this shortened season.

I think the reason you are looking for is that a team does not have to assign the player to the AHL affiliate. There are teams that float a player on waivers just to see if there's interest. If he clears they sometimes don't send him down to the AHL team or anywhere else for that matter. Sometimes they bring him back, etc. Anything is possible there. It could be a situation where perhaps they know a team is interested and that team would have to make a move to clear a spot for McCormick. Since the Sabres are at the bottom of the standings they are most likely to be first in waiver claims.

Exactly what I try and get at all the time. We make assumptions about things but clearly this wasn't just a single reaction. It had been coming. Sure the comments of others in the organization were leading us down that road over the past few weeks but they are pretty tight lipped. I bet you've never changed your mind before or made a mistake right? Blow it at your ass. Look, the guy stuck with a group because he thought they could get it done. He made prudent evaluations and finally a change is being made. You don't get to the top by being an emotional roller coaster, unless you are a true one of a kind talent. You have to have patience to see what transpires. I'm happy Lindy is gone, it will finally lead us down the road of finding out where the problem with this team lies. I'm not happy for Lindy to be fired except that it probably does relieve a lot of stress he had. I hope the best for the guy and I think it's an absolute joke for any of us to be jumping up and down on him at this point in time. We were right to critique his coaching, he's not the coach anymore. Let's just let the guy do his thing and hope the best for him. I also don't think Regier is going anywhere. I think the roster has improved since the change in ownership. I'm betting there's more change to come.

At one point at a Sabres game in the late 90's I remember yelling during a power play.. Peca had spent far too long with the puck and had done nothing with it.. so I yelled at him to "Shoot the tuna". Normally I don't yell things.. could have been an alcohol thing.. people around me were amused.. it's a point in time reference. If you understand why I yelled that.. bravo.

At least there is something to talk about... I'm curious.. Let's say you wanted to make a trade that involved a player who is currently on IR. Would you need to put him back on your roster in order to make that trade? If so, would you have to clear a roster spot in order to do that? Not asking why anyone WOULD do it... but just eliminating the possibility that the Sabres are trading Leino and he needs to be on the active roster in order to do that and that McCormick is the least likely player to be plucked off waivers in the Sabres opinion? Thanks, I'll hang up and listen. :)

Basic hockey.. this isn't interpreting the post-season call up rule. I said the same thing.. perfect timing to pull them up. Regardless of Pominville's goal this team is awful. Miller faces a ton of shots because no one stops the other team from shooting. Oh well.. back to the game.

When I read the changes I thought two things.. First, someone might be getting showcased? Brennan in for someone to look at? Is Kaleta getting looked at? Brennan and Kaleta for someone? Just saying. If they are showcasing then perhaps they keep Stafford in the lineup rather than scratch him just in case they need to shuffle the lines mid-game. Don't you love when people make hockey comments and don't bother to understand what they are saying first? Christ... I think I saw a comment similar to this one multiple times in the thread debating if he should be kept.. people kept suggesting the Amerks.. ugh... drives me nuts.

No worries. I just tossed my hat in the ring. Here's why I am hesitant. Because the prospects don't come with the potential $5m price tag yet. If his cap hit was $3.5 I might be singing a different tune but at $5m and a decent length you are diving in deep for a guy who might not fit. We're talking a change from a team with more skilled forward help to a team with less skilled forward help. A team from the West to a team in the East. There are a lot of variables that could negatively impact his overall performance once he lands in Buffalo. I think he's good. But locking up $5m now with a lower cap next season and uncertainty if the cap will grow like it did in the past leaves me hesitant to deal out too much for a guy who I wish had 1 more year to justify $5m. Of course if this was last year I would pull the trigger as well. But no way would I give up anyone on the top line. We finally have a line that is producing and we want to blow it up. ROR isn't replacing that. Start at Line 2 and move down the list. This is why D is easy to give up. I wouldn't go for Armia, they'll need his scoring in a few years. I'm hesitant because I feel like the Sabres are finally drafting and developing decent players. I'm willing to wait rather than blow things up. I'd alsmot prefer to do Stafford and Sekera. :)

He wants fans to be pissed. This keeps the Sabres relevant which is what he said he wants. He only worries if the fans go silent. He wants to have a winning team more, but as he's said he's not running hockey operations so I don't discuss him when it comes to the quality of the product on the ice. Fans say a bunch of stupid, stupid things. You only need to listen to WGR for a minute or two to understand that. I just fail to see why anyone would let something like this get in the way of civility to other people or to play a major role in your life. It seems unhealthy. Changes have been made, they've just not been the changes you might have wanted. I don't know why people are so hell bent to indicate that changes have not been made. If you are referring specifically to R&R then I understand where you are coming from, but I don't want to assume.

If O'Reilly's name was Staal and we know as much as we did about him as we do now I think I would still feel the same way. That's the biggest problem. I think if ROR has one more season under his belt he's either signed or traded already (assuming it was a decent season). The problem is the unknown and that makes assessing trade value difficult. The Avs are content to let him sit out of the league for now but at some point they will need to address it. At some point the stalemate will break.. I wouldn't be surprised if the Avs convince some other team to offer ROR a sheet that the Avs find more acceptable just to see if he signs it... he Avs would match and the game is over. At this point, I'm in favor of getting him. If it involves trading Sekera I'm fine with that but the prospect list is something I would be skeptical about..

Sure, but why attack each other at such a ridiculous level. I get that the more nothing changes the less people have to talk about so they begin reaching even further and further to find justifications for their predicament. The further the reach the more insane someone might sound I suppose. Different philosophies I suppose.. I prefer to take the wins and let them increase my happiness and forget the losses.. they are what they are. Indeed.

I like where it's going right now. The Sabres need his face-off ability among other things. We have offensive D men. I don't like the idea of trading McCabe. He wore the C for the WJHC USA team.. I'm not a fan of letting someone go who clearly has some leadership and respect with his teammates. I'd rather wait on him. Just a feeling of course.

I've thought about it.. just never decided to do it.. although I brew in 12-15 gallon batches so taking about 2.5 gallons for a smaller cask wouldn't be too bad.

Okay.. I stopped it after 2 seconds.. I know i feel about it.. that's awful.

What I love is how we've allowed ourselves to move away from the team into pointless attacks on each other. That and a conversation about 99 Stanley Cup...

I'm going to throw out a different idea. If we keep playing all these upbeat songs and the Sabres come out lifeless... then why not play a lifeless song and see if they get fired up. In fact, perhaps we should stream elevator muzak to the Sabres bench until they score a goal. Then we can up to the local soft rock station until they score another. If they do that they get smooth jazz, until the third goal is scored. They can continue working up to some really upbeat music by the time they get to goal 6... Who would be more motivated to score than a team forced to listen to Yanni and Kenny G?

A win is a win... who gives damn who is in goal. Success is gained by taking advantage of opportunities.

Drop the puck... see if there is any life in the Sabres at all.

So change for the sake of change? I mean, I'm not sold on the guy necessarily being the player everyone seems to think he is. I'm not saying he's not. I think he's looking for more money than he's worth. This is how I feel... players do this, it happens. We saw it with Stafford so far but it happens across the board. If you keep reading the stuff that Adrian Dater is writing in the Denver Post I begin to wonder about this guy. It appears he's good, but also possibly a head case. Great. If this rumor about him being upset he was not named captain of the team have merit then I'm really concerned. I dunno.. I'm not saying not to trade for him. It really all boils down to what you have to give up. But $5m per season is a lot to put into a player with so many question marks..

If Foligno's games from last year were his first games this year we would be talking about the slump he was in. Given that no one on the team has done much this season I can't say he's to blame. I've seen him play harder than most Sabres and I feel more confident that he's playing HIS game. There's no way I would get rid of Foligno. He may be a Ruff player, but the problem is not Ruff players it's that I think everyone is struggling to do whatever it is that Ruff wants them to do. So he's not going to make a change by himself. I don't think Ruff ruins players so much as he confuses the hell out of them. Unless someone can identify the remaining locker room problems I have to look at the coach as the reason this team shows no spark so often. So, shuffling players in and out of a lineup would be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic no?

The problem is that you can't get the beer that would work in a hand pump situation. What you are talking about is cask conditioned ale and those are far and few between. You can't take a keg of beer and make it cask conditioned. The carbonation in the beer is through natural secondary stage fermentation. The released CO2 is absorbed into the beer because it cannot escape the container (unlike your typical primary stage fermentation which allows gas to escape. Regardless of the brewery the normal beers are all sitting in tanks that are 32-38 degrees and have CO2 being infused into the beer during the trip into the brite tank. This creates a fast carbonation sequence and is also why the beer has to remain at a certain temperature (until serving) and under pressure (CO2 delivery systems). You could theoretically create cask condition beers with homebrew but nothing from a commercial brewery that was not siphoned into the casks PRIOR to filtration and carbonation would work properly nor taste the same. Scarlet Sunrise was a great beer, but it's not going to be a popular style to most. Smoked beers in and of themselves turn a lot of people off and in many cases I think it's well deserved. It's tough to make a quality smoke beer and so people usually end up drinking a crappy one and being turned off to the style.

I love throwing the comparisons around where we see fit. What we know... this team sucks. Why does this team suck? Well that's where it breaks down. How much of the team sucking is the coach, how much are the players? I'm not saying O'Reilly isn't a good piece in a team but if Ruff is the problem how do we expect O'Reilly to solve that? If Ruff is not the problem then who says we aren't trading away some kind of talent that hasn't been horrible misused by the coach? This is my problem at the moment. I need a different coach before I can go any further on the players...

True.. although honestly this year.. many times when Vanek has the puck I am waiting to see what he does. It all just seems to be going to right for him. In the past I've definitely been on the anti-Vanek train, but right now he's playing the best I've ever seen him play.

In my defense.. the link for the pic didn't work when i first saw the post.. that is pretty good stuff.