Dr. Who

His interview after the game showed he knew it. I live near Athens. We root for the same teams, apparently.

My guess, conjecture implicitly is related to what kind of return would be just in a trade. Personally, I don't feel I can make any kind of rational surmise. Too much is unknown.

According to another site, Friedman was doing a local radio spot in Nashville and said a deal is close for whatever that is worth.

Suzie Cool is a great name for someone writing about hockey.

For those of us who mainly lurk, this is confusing. At least now I know why some posters got smarter in the afterlife . . . j/k, you're all pretty sound of mind. If I changed to the ghost of somebody else, I'm not sure I'd remember who I am. Thanks for this crib sheet. I'm writing it down so I know who is actually speaking.

I just don't believe there is enough talent there to be good. We are winning on effort. It's hard to sustain that level of intensity for 82 games and the teams that are comfortably playoff teams don't amp up until later in the season. I think the effort is reasonably something you can bring most days. I doubt the wins keep coming. All the same, it's nice not to be an embarrassing disaster on the ice. If you're half way through the season and still competitive, maybe you've caught lightning in a bottle. Too bad Granato wasn't the coach from day one last year. Might have saved the locker room.

Hi, Kim.

Assume what is probable: the Sabres are likely to get a top three pick. Add a player who is a true 1C prospect to a decent pool of young prospects, I don't see 5 years out as necessary. I'm thinking 3 years to a team worth watching, and they better be entertaining by year 2. All that said, getting a reasonable return on Eichel obviously greatly increases the chances of success, so I would agree any option that involves settling for less than ROR is pretty much worthless. It would also perpetuate the well-earned reputation that the Sabres' FO is the dupe for the rest of the league.

Heads I win, Tails you lose. Devious is a default for human nature, Incompetent is pretty common, too. Still, we have new scratch off tickets and we're set to get some prime tickets next year. It might not take genius to turn fortunes around. Seems to me there's more talent coming up now than the prior tank teams. I don't think that's simply forgetting the uncertainty that naturally accrues around youth before one determines how they end up. If it is, so be it. There's a plausible path for this team to be competitive in 2 or 3 years. If we can't reasonably hope for that, might as well find something else to do with our time.

I predict two wins and they will be games when I am not watching . . .

Go Saints.

If it was a Russian children's book, it would go like this: Here is a boy in a mine. Look at the boy in the mine. The canary in the mine is dead. The boy in the mine is sad. --- The End

The narrative embraced by the skeptics is that he has no football instincts and gets blown up too often. I think he is playing the role asked of him by McD. Injuries did play into his slow start. He got better as the season progressed. We'll see what happens. I suspect he will have a good year along with the rest of the D. No reason this team cannot win it all this year.

I really don't know. I have an irrational bias against Boston, so I indulge the bratty, entitled storyline when things look bleak. If he's just frustrated with the losing, that's entirely understandable. If that is the case, I'd rather try and talk him into getting healthy and staying, because that is the best path to this team getting better quickly, though it appears the situation has grown so toxic that isn't possible anymore.

Sanders is a better fit for this offense than Brown. Allen's confidence and leadership is still growing. The run game looks like it may have improved, which wouldn't take much. I don't see a step back.

I agreed upthread with the fella that suggested retained salary as the only place one might accomodate Eichel's camp.

Right. Compromise needs to be focused on this result; don't really see how that happens, however.

Hockey Smart

Nicely played.

Not really sure, but one of them better be a potential 1 C. Actually, my own cats don't understand my obsession with hockey as it doesn't obviously connect to food.

Correct, but this is true of humans in general. Personally, I prefer cats.

Lot of chatter on the Sabres Hockeybuzz blog that a deal with LA could happen over the weekend. (Not just speculation, per se. These are folks who claim to know someone with inside knowledge, though take that obviously with a grain of salt.) No specifics, but they say Kings have told GMKA to circle back on any competing offers he favors and they will beat it.

To be honest, I kinda liked the laconic approach. If everyone did that, it would be dull and lack ceremony. As rhetorical contrast, it was acerbic and wry counterpoint. If the team had turned out well, most everyone would find it amusing.

This conflicts with the primary narrative regarding Adams. We'll see. I'd be very happy to land Power and Eklund . . .