Marvin

Based on the information available at the time, I am very comfortable with what the Sabres did. I am not clairvoyant enough to guess the long-term ramifications of the surgery. The Sabres need to hope that Tuch, Krebs and the picks make the team better overall. In partial defence of the fans contracting Mighty Mouse Syndrome ("here I come to save the day!") over Eichel and, to a lesser extent, Reinhart, O'Reilly, and Kane, I think we should note that the XGMTM acted like he suffered from it. The owner OK-ed it. The fans largely followed their lead.

I like the idea of Compher. Nothing against Eller, but I would like someone who clearly belongs in the top 6 where KO is and roll out Girgensons-Compher-Okposo as my 4th line. Hinostroza and Asplund can be my next 2 forwards. On Defence, I would break up Dahlin-Jokiharu without even blinking. I don't know if you can get either Cole or Rutta, but they look like smart targets.

As I look at the potential line-ups for next year (assuming only graduation from Rochester, which is a bad assumption), the holes on RHD and goaltender just scream at me. I also worry about forward depth after the first 12 or so forwards. And the top 9 go as a 2A,, 2C, and 3B lines. So GMKA has some work to do.

Quinn, Power, Krebs, and maybe Paterka should be in Buffalo next year. We need some useful vets to supplant the Eakins, Bjorks, and Haggs in the line-up. We need real goaltending next year. We need a more balanced mix of players in the line-up. The time to start rising in the standings starts this off-season.

That is a very good question.

Welcome back to the board. I hope you are right.

Younger fans will not understand this, but a great organist can contribute greatly to the atmosphere at a game. Norm Wullen could whip the fans at The Aud into a frenzy. He had a finger on the pulses of the team and the crowd and would choose music to rally the fans when the Sabres needed a goal.

So we actually have a chance at icing 4 NHL quality lines again this season? Heaven forfend!

Excuse me. I need to find some foil.

If we get healthy, does that mean Krebs goes back to Rochester?

Background: back in the 1980's, the Cleveland Chess association had teams of Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Georgians, Moldovans, and Armenians. The players went out of their way to let you know that they were NOT Russian in any way, shape, or form. The community centres flew their non-Soviet, non-Russian national flags. They are very proud of their national heritage. As a Sikh who sees that the Indian constitution does not recognise my religion and therefore denies part of my identity (particularly when the BJP are in power), I go just as far out of my way to say their names, cities, etc. the way they want. YMMV.

I like "Party in the CIA" better. JMO.

Maybe not: partial seasons between the same people but with different people handling different accounts.

Kyiv is Ukranian while Kiev is Russian. Similar things go for Beijing (Peking), Mumbai (Bombay), and Kolkata (Calcutta).

I would have Subban in Cincinnati. In his limited action with the Sabres, I could see why he was so highly regarded when he was drafted. He seems to need a bit of work on his confidence and a bit on his positioning. Both appear to be correctible because they were better than a couple of years ago. I still would have preferred Ullmark this year. I don't know about anyone else, but the team seemed to play with more calm, confidence, and verve when he was in there. I am not just comparing him to Hutton, Anderson, et al. Even back when he broke in, the team appeared just flat out better with him in net.

We are Sabres fans after the past decade. A glass half full looks 3/4 empty to us.

To quote Steve Martin and Bill Murray, "what the hell is that?"

Why should this game be any different from the last decade?

Eye hope yore idea caches on. Aye think it wood bee eh grate help too me.

I had forgotten that. Thanks for the reminder. I think those were recoverable. Indeed, the team was still competitive and just needed to handle things a bit better and they could have developed into a real threat. But I can make your argument too.

That is an interesting analysis and food for thought. Thank you for that perspective.

This brings up a interesting point -- what was the beginning of the end? I think the original distal cause is The Tank. But the most important proximate cause was the trade of Ryan O'Reilly. It's not even the return; it was that it signified the first rebuild of the rebuild -- and was entirely unnecessary. I still can't believe that XGMJB was trying to trade O'Reilly before the TDL. How dumb is that? Once that happened, we were in for more suffering.

The person in question was Jim Balsillie. He offered $250M for the Sabres only.

I am not allowed by my religion to take the hallucinogenics which you are taking. Not enough people care, taxes are too high, the business climate is too bad, the politics are too liberal, the city is too small, the residents are too poor on average, and the team has been too bad for too long. Unless the Pegulas sell to someone with ties to the city, the Sabres are gone.

IMHO, any sale of the Sabres or the Bills to someone without an attachment to the area is a reason to expect them to move -- and anyone who honestly thinks otherwise is flat out delusional and needs to check into whatever version of Arkham in your locality until you can deal with reality. Period. There is no good fiscal reason to keep either team in this small town in a high tax state. Any businessperson without an attachment to Buffalo should move the team to states of the future out of states living in the past. The ONLY reason the Sabres might stay is that the Buffalo diaspora has that much of an effect on the ratings and the NHL commits to Buffalo like it has committed to Phoenix. Houston and Austin are far more attractive as markets than Buffalo.