Kruppstahl

I've seen the whole thing, mostly watched on a single night/early morning. Easily one of the best produced, most riveting documentaries I have seen. It's just an extremely interesting story and it is exceptionally well developed/presented to the viewer. Like all non-fiction, its greatest asset is that it's all TRUE! Makes it that much better. The same story presented as a work of fiction would actually take on a comedic tone and wouldn't be nearly as interesting. It reminds me a bit of "King of Kong" in certain ways, which is another great documentary worth your time if you haven't seen it yet.

That deal took Quebec to a new level and set the stage for them to win the Cup in Denver. The thing is, they also had Sakic, Owen Nolan, and Mats Sundin, all on the rise! We'll never know what exact role the trade played in the full picture. However, if we could get a whole bunch of really high quality assets and it takes us to a level where we can win a Cup, who wouldn't do it? Another question: is Dahlin still on track to become the next Bobby Orr? Will he attain his full potential, in Buffalo? If those answers are "NO" the Lindros type trade makes more sense.

Couldn't agree more with your points. I have no idea who would not prefer the older style of game, if exposed to that then and this crap we have now. It didn't happen every night in the old days, but as a general rule, games were fueled with a competitive antagonism that is almost completely gone from the game in the regular season now. Current games have the intensity of pre-season affairs. Yawn fests. There is a new "code" to the game. You don't bother me too much and I won't bother you too much and together we can enjoy nice, long, healthy careers and millions of dollars in income for not having to bust our humps too much. I still say this is why teams now attack other teams for huge, clean, open-ice hits. In the old days that was just "hockey" now it's a violation of the code. It's like what are you trying to do? Cause an injury? Shorten someone's income generating career? Knock that stuff off! My favorite memories of Buffalo crowds going insane and RJ's finest calls almost exclusively stem from crazy brawls on the ice and that sort of thing. It was those moments when RJ was at his finest IMO. He absolutely LOVES tough, physical play! Not to get off-point, but I often wonder why RJ bothers to continue working during this phase of Sabres hockey. There is no way in the world he finds this garbage entertaining. So why does he do it? Ego. He loves to be the man in the spotlight and I think he enjoys calling a game more than anything in this world. If it was not for that, he would have retired several seasons ago.

Tell me more. Boston fans in the building? If I am not mistaken, the series we are discussing also involved a pair of incidents (one in each building) with members of the crowd throwing beer/stuff onto the opposing coach/player's bench. Remember all that? I remember the announcers talking about how predictable it was when the 2nd crowd to do it finally enacted some revenge, retaliating for the first incident! I want to say it happened first in the Boston Garden, and the second incident was in the Aud, but that's fuzzy. Now that I think about it, this 1988 series with Boston has to be one of the better series in Sabres history for sheer entertainment/excitement/narrative tension.

Thanks for that. That game is from April 9, 1988. I also just found this on Youtube, from April 6, 1989! It doesn't help that we played Boston in the first round of the playoffs, and lost to them (LOL) in both the 1988 and 1989 playoffs. It was the same "era" with many of the same player names. I think the end of game incident I am remembering is from the 1987-88 season though, so the game would have been played in the spring of 1988. I assumed the entire 1/2 hour of game time would be on Youtube. I bet it is there if I dig around deep enough. EDIT: I think you have the game, Eleven. That was the 18/19/20 combo of Halkidis, Maguire, Hartmann, with Clark Gillies to boot. Boston had Shoebottom and an aging Willi f-ing Plett ! I forgot about that. LOL. Guys like Crowder would go, Neely would go, Jay Miller was one of the greatest heavyweights in league history, etc. Just awesome!

The (short lived) Bruce Shoebottom era is one of the greatest in Bruins/Sabres history. I believe it was the 1988 or possibly 1989 playoffs. We were playing Boston in Buffalo. The last 30 or 40 seconds of the game took close to a half hour to play because every time the puck was dropped to get the game over with, a new batch of fights and total mayhem broke out. Mike Robitaille doing color was in his glory, commenting on how neither team would "give an inch" and how he had never seen two teams "more bullheaded." More sheer excitement and entertainment in that half hour than the last 10 Sabres seasons combined, at least for me.

Looking back, it's not hard to figure out where things went wrong. At the heart of the entire thing is a fundamental organizational inability to properly assess talent, and then keep or acquire those with it, and move on from those without. The funny thing is this sin was not committed by 1 or 2 key people, but by many players within the organization over a sustained period of time and across multiple regime changes. The worst part is that it continues now under Botterill.

There is an entire thread to be found on other Sabres sites discussing Pegula's business holdings, his downturn in fortune at the moment, and the fact that arguments can be made in support of the idea that he is pinching pennies right now. Apparently exhibit A in all of this is the state of the arena, which is said to be a poorly maintained dump. I haven't been in it for several years now. Exhibit B is his failure to buy out certain contracts when that would have seemed the right thing to do, in both organizations. And so on.

Where was Terry Sawchuk? Ryan Miller is nowhere near the top 40 all time. Here is the reason why I put Hasek as #1, at least among goalies I have actually seen play. He performed at an incredibly high level where it seemed like he was on a lucky hot streak that had to end soon...and it never did! He just stayed that way for what? Maybe an 8 season chunk of time or something like that? He was on a "oh that's just ridiculous" level and didn't leave it for a period of years. I don't ever recall seeing another goalie operate at that high a level for that long. I think you can make an argument that the way the league is currently offensively structured on most nights is directly related to the Dominator's dominance of the league. When he was on top, opposing teams started saying and thinking that the only way you could score on him was to get lucky with a bounce or deflection, because he was too good to beat straight up. That gave rise to what we see now--with systems funneling the puck back to the points, traffic to the front of the net, and point shots hoping for deflections. That whole thing seems to have taken off and really become common place during Dom's era, and it was because teams knew on certain nights they weren't going to beat him any other way. In this sense, you can at least argue Dom stamped his name on the structure of the game.

These unusual ideas sound fantastic to me as a fan, and I'd love to see a lottery tournament. But it's not going to happen. The Euro Cup and Olympics are pushed back to next year and those are late summer events. F1 racing has eliminated everything off the calendar until at least June and those races aren't going to happen either. I see the KHL just killed the remainder of their playoff season. I guess the NHL can move along in limbo for a while yet, but they're going to have to terminate the season at some point too. I'd be shocked if we see any more games this year, even in empty arenas. It's just the wrong look right now and it is highly unlikely to happen.

What if he's not looking at all, because he has faith and confidence in Botterill? Lots of posters here keep telling us that is the plan. Then what?! Hi Dave. No offense, but you are probably one of my top 5 most hated Sabres of all time. ?

Kruppstahl: "Hey Bunomatic, what's up? I see you're growing a mustache!" Bunomatic: "Ah not much. Yeah, my wife says I look like a greasy pervert, but I figure what the hell." ?

Your take is a positive spin on things. I'll go with this since we don't know what's happening anyway! Let's assume Pegula is planning to fire Botterill when the "time is right." When is that time? Is he waiting for some league decision and announcement that the season is over? I wonder.

As I wrote several weeks ago, this unusual delay/premature end to the season only serves to help Botterill. We would all have been much better served by the regular season finishing as normal, the Sabres doing very little winning, if any winning at all, and home crowds booing and chanting Botterill must go toward the very end. May have forced Terry's hand.

Did everyone see this article? Has some interesting ideas about how to finish the season or avoid losing games. It strikes me as pure fantasy. https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/opinion/whats-next-for-the-nhl

If you are that new to the whole thing, my advice is to get out now, while you still can. ?

No way in the world this plateaus or declines in 6 weeks. Things will be increasing in July.

And completely lacking competitive spirit. It's a great combo.

Anyone here typically sit in Section 211? https://wgr550.radio.com/articles/news/person-who-attended-sabres-game-tests-positive-for-covid-19

I would guess the Chargers are where he'll end up. This opens up the AFC East a bit, but I expect NE to remain a very strong team. I will be curious to see who their starting QB is though for Game 1, if there is a Game 1 this year.

I'm a huge fan of Salma Hayek as well. And I couldn't mention her without also mentioning Penelope Cruz. I'm a big fan of her work as well.

Hang in there. I think you have a great shot at getting a refund on the game tickets. I can't imagine the regular season taking place with fans allowed in the buildings. This whole thing is just going to keep getting worse all the time for months to come.

I think you are the only other Sabres fan to ever say something so positive about the "other" uniforms. They seem to be universally disliked. I personally loved those things and find the classic white/gold/blue color scheme to be rather cheesy. We looked tough as hell in those all blacks, and this team is, by far, the best team ever iced by the Buffalo Sabres franchise.

I hadn't seen this before my above post. This is exactly the sort of system I was contemplating! Get all the teams involved and give the good teams benefits not enjoyed by bad teams. And a single game elimination between Buffalo and Montreal would be fantastic! That's a proper opponent for the Sabres and it would feel like the old days. Anything can happen in a single hockey game too. And if Jack truly does have some type of nagging injury, maybe it would be healed by the time that game would be played. And Ullmark is back now, which gives us a fighting shot.

I am pretty sure the regular season is done. I don't see a playoffs taking place unless all games are played in empty arenas. All ticket revenue would be lost and that actually means something to the NHL, so I don't know if they would want to do that or not. The current atmosphere which saw the season be postponed is only going to be much worse in say, another month. So I will be curious to see how things play out. I would love to see a Mickey Mouse playoff structure implemented that involves EVERY team in the league! At least Buffalo would then play a meaningful hockey game! Might not be more than 1 depending on the system created, but what the hell! A single game elimination death match would be a hell of a lot of fun to watch.