LTS

Curious how you think anyone would take this as anything other than an insult and you positioning yourself as a jerk. It feels, to me, the kind of statement someone makes just so they can be heard. Moreover, I feel you are 100% incorrect in your assessment. Just because I happen to be a fan of a team does not automatically lessen any win prediction. By your logic, if I were not a Sabres fan and I were predicting they win tonight it might be construed as a bold prediction. However, because I am a Sabres fan the prediction is now not bold. All factors that impact the outcome of a game have not changed and yet suddenly the level of BOLDNESS to the prediction has? That's completely irrational. As for the game itself.. so be it.

The Day the Sabres played their first game: October 10th, 1970. The # of Stanley Cups won since Day 1: 0 The # of days between then and today: 16,188. Every day that passes without the Sabres winning only adds to that value. Therefore, the furthest the Sabres have ever been from winning the Cup was the day they played their first game. (assumption: they were not eligible to win a cup until they played an NHL game). They were in the cup Finals, but did not win and thus remained as far from winning the Cup as ever. Anyway.. they suck and in theory have a great future. And if another 16,188 days pass between today and the Cup it would be May 29, 2059.

You are incorrect. The day the Sabres were formed and played their first game is the furthest they've ever been from winning a Stanley Cup.

Thanks everyone for clearing up the college scenario. Good stuff!

Yep. Happened during practice.. shooter on the grassy knoll? Says GM MacT: "You know guys, Buffalo is coming. They're bad. Like, really bad. Our front end talent might be too much for them." <slight pause...> "Hey.. get me Smith's number. Ol' Stevie's always been good at picking off Oilers. Maybe he can help us out."

Can college players go become re-entry draft players? I know in Juniors it's two years after being drafted and still below 20 or something like that. Not sure about college. Would that give pause to not signing a college player sooner?

Even if the Lindros type deal could be pulled off. Edmonton is not the team to do it with. If they couldn't win with the stars that they have why do we think the Sabres could? The Oilers might actually come out on top in that one. No chance I would consider the trade, not with the Oilers.

GMTM: "So, I see you are removing one of your most talented forwards in an effort to reduce the chance you score against my team. I shall counter by removing Zadarov from the lineup. This should provide ample chances for your lesser talents forwards to hit the net." The chess game of pre-game scratches begins.

Isn't that the point? :w00t:

Wow. Insanity abounds in this thread. Panic. Holy crap.. everything sucks. Please... what a non-issue.

I like the look.. the red star and everything. One thing I noticed is that when I multi-quote (perhaps when I quote as well, but I haven't tried that) the board tags no longer appear. It threw me at first thinking that the post wouldn't show up as quoted but it did. Not sure if that's a results of anything or if others see it. Keep it going.

I agree that lower skill level guys will no longer be on the ice. However, that doesn't mean the level of play improves. The All-Star game is probably not the best way of proving that however as no one really tries there. However, your point did trigger a separate thought which is National competitions are a fairly good indication of what the kind of play we would see. My only problem with using that is that we are talking about only 4-5 teams that are true powerhouses in the National arena. The NHL would not be a 6 team league again. I just think that contraction, unless massive would not improve the level of play significantly. And any major contractions would kill the sport.

They are a special kind of special I guess.

See? The new skating coach is paying off!

How many cities have managed to lose a team twice in their history? That's what I want to know.

This is the perfect kind of technology for replays between whistles and for alternate cameras for online broadcasts.

I honestly hope this is your last post on this board.

This concept of talent dilution got me thinking. What is talent dilution and how would you measure it? Let's set a few basic assumptions. 1. Perfect decision making on who makes a team. 2. There are tiers of player talent. Where those tiers break is not up for discussion, just that there are tiers. So, let's say at any given time there are 20 tiers of talent in hockey players. It is not evenly distributed as the lower tiers will absolutely be larger than the upper tiers. Let's say with 30 teams in the league, the teams are comprised of the top 10 tiers of hockey players. Let's say you contract the league such that you remove the bottom 3 tiers of hockey players. Naturally the on-ice skill level improves as the lesser skilled players are removed. However, the difference level between the top and bottom tier is also reduced. Therefore, the top tier talent should, in theory, have their overall effectiveness reduced because they won't succeed as often against higher skilled players. Overall, the teams skill level improves but so does the skill level of their competition. So, you have skilled offense, but is it negated by skilled defense and skilled goaltending? Is there an increase in scoring? Why? The same holds true for expansion. The overall skill level goes down as more players are needed. Overall each team declines in ability as does their competition. The difference between top tier and bottom tier grows and therefore there should be an increase in scoring as the top tier players should have MORE success against the lower tier players. Even if the tiers themselves grow it would take the growth of a Tier out of line with the tier below it to dramatically impact the game. For example, if the top 10 tiers are in and the skill level of the Tier 5 players improves and grows such that it is closer to 4 and further from 6 it would stand to reason that the overall trend of talent as taken an uptick. However, if this is perfectly distributed across the league, would it make a difference? In the end, no matter the number of teams you have, imperfect decision making and the randomness of humanity will still cause disparity between teams. I'm not sure how we judge talent level as completing an amazing pass should be more difficult if the player defending the pass is less likely to be out of position and more likely to intercept any given pass. If a goaltender is more likely to make a save than less likely then it would negate the effectiveness of top level shooters. All in all, shouldn't it remain relatively the same?

So, is that where you think Terry's head is?

I'd wonder if all the January stubs are like that. You'd think they use an automated system to print that feeds from a database so it would have January only entered once and if they misspelled it there it should appear on all January tickets.

So. No one questions why baseball teams have hitting and pitching coaches? I mean, they've been hitting and throwing baseballs forever. How hard is it? Sloppy habits occur and people get off track, no matter what. This will happen through sloppy preparation, injuries, aging, etc. It's kind of amazing we question a skating coach but no one thinks twice about hitting and pitching coaches who clearly should have nothing to do either.

Here's my problem with that thinking at the present time: Benoit - 1G 5A -7 TOI: 18:26 Meszaros- 1G 5A -8 TOI: 17:43 Myers- 1G 7A -10 TOI: 25:17 Zadarov - 2G 6A -11 TOI: 19:29 Weber - 1G 5A -13 TOI: 17:08 Strachan - 0G 5A -13 TOI: 18:45 Ristolainen - 3G 5A -23 TOI: 20:01 Gorges - 0G 6A -26 TOI: 22:29 Everyone gets giddy about Ristolainen but at the moment he's definitely not stopping the opposition as well as we would like him. Sure both Zadarov and Ristolainen project well and I largely agree that the Sabres probably don't need him in the future, but they need him now. I'm not all that jazzed about a guy who has played hardball his entire career and has little to show for it. He's not bailing out the Avalanche this year. They have talent. Why would I expect ROR to do anything for the Sabres who have very little talent? I think TM would be wise to keep Myers, Zadarov, and Ristolainen around for a few more years. Perhaps you get something like a Keith, Seabrook, Hjalmarsson or a Vatanen, Fowler, Lindholm situation.

I agree with this. I think there's a lack of that little bit extra effort he needs to give. I also think that some of it is the game. The Sabres by and large suck at any kind of puck possession . Players are never in a good position and I think that would create havoc for the team. You expect one thing and it doesn't happen. So be it. I do think he'll be good again. call me whatever you would like.

Didn't watch ,although my son did until he had to go to bed. My take? That's karma for a crappy ceremony for Hasek. You do that to one of the best goaltenders to ever play and you get shelled the next game.

Perhaps Moulson needs to play with Hodgson then?