Cascade Youth

No doubt, they’re great at what they do, which is branding themselves as a firm and using the media to litigate (starting with well-written but sensationalized pleadings).

Don’t assume those things. Chambers is an elite list but it’s not a badge of ethical behavior. You can get on the Chambers list by getting high-profile results and a few key referrals/references. And Widgor is known for pushing ethical boundaries, again, check out Leon Black’s lawsuit against the firm and it isn’t the first of its kind. I have dealt with the Wigdor firm and let me just say I have serious concerns about their diligence. They draft Complaints for the media not for the court and they’re really good at that but that’s what they’re doing, sometimes at the expense of their own clients’ interest. The moment the Complaint is filed it has its own webpage, think about that. Media hit jobs are their MO.

Leon Black is trying to do it. But those missions are rare and expensive.

That is correct but good luck proving it. Getting a lawsuit dismissed as frivolous (as opposed to unable to state a cause of action) is probably an even higher bar than proving defamation.

I addressed this earlier. The public figure standard is irrelevant because the speech - an allegation contained in a lawsuit pleading - is immune from liability under defamation law.

I know this area of law well. You are conflating a few different things. Statements of opinion (generally) are not actionable under defamation law, only statements of fact. That has nothing to do with the qualified litigation privilege.

Yes. But it's a qualified privilege, not an absolute privilege. You *might* be able to challenge it if you can show that it was superfluous to the lawsuit and was put into the pleading in an effort to shield it from a defamation claim. But that's a tough showing (and won't work here since it's related to the core claims). Sorry but you're just wrong about that. Statements contained in a pleading in a lawsuit are protected speech afforded a qualified privilege which is a defense to a defamation claim. Extremely hard (but not impossible) to pierce that privilege.

He can't, statements in a Complaint are protected speech.

When they injured Rhett Warrener and it killed our playoff hopes.

He was 205th on my list.

Isaak Rosen's mother has entered the chat.

Wonder who Adams was trying to move up for - if it was Michkov, Adams’ board was the same as mine. Benson is an amazing consolation prize.

He makes Rosen immediately expendable, not Savoie. Always use the draft stockpile talent, not to fill needs. Wanted a trade up for Michkov but this is the second best outcome.

At some point in his tenure, Adams HAS to do something bold, no? Is it really just “fly the plane straight” every day, every year?

I had a nightmare the other night that I was still paying Christian Erhoff.

I mean just in the last year alone, Matthew Tkachuk, no?

If you count the players who have made it clear in their walk year that they weren’t going to re-sign and were then traded at the deadline, I think lots.

It may be one of those trades where as soon as it's proposed, the other GM suspects something's up.

Sorry but you don’t pass on a potential franchise-altering star in order to hold onto D depth. That would be really shortsighted. Swing for the fences.

Promo is always ready to unfurl that banner in the offseason.

Lotta conspiracy nuts around here.

If this is going to come down to pull-ups, I’ve got problems.

I never said they don’t have expectations for themselves - I’m sure they want to win. I’m responding to the posters expressing frustration that they won’t just admit it’s “playoffs or bust” next season - the reason is that they haven’t been given that mandate by their bosses and so why would they publicly measure themselves?

Again, I get downvoted for saying this, but it’s clearly to me a symptom of absentee ownership. DG and KA do not appear to be operating under any kind of measurable accountability other than “don’t embarrass your bosses.” Why would they volunteer a metric for themselves when none exists internally? Telling the media it’s playoffs or bust and then missing the playoffs would count as embarrassing their bosses, who haven’t imposed such a standard in the first place. Look - I like this current roster, and I really like Donny and Kevyn personally - but they have maybe the easiest jobs in pro sports right now - zero expectations from within or without and zero pressure to do anything quickly. This is the longest “build” I’ve ever seen. Multiple franchises have peaked and crashed and rebuilt in the time it is taking the Sabres to get wherever it is they’re going. And many of the fans have somehow bought in - there are posters here who tell us with a straight face that it’s perfectly fine to install the defense maybe next year because offense is easier to learn. What planet are we on?

I don’t know about the agent thing but this team seems to have an awful hard time closing these things out and it’s a possible red flag.