Marvin

As long as the player you took is not too far removed from "normal" around that pick, I can't really criticise it. Even of not, if the pick made sense at the time, I am not too hard on it. No one is clairvoyant enough to get every pick perfect. XGMJB did fine with that pick.

In ye olde days, the team had a designated defenceman as a third and fourth stringer. I remember Pat Hannigan mentioning that Larry Hillman had been replaced by Tim Horton as the Sabres' emergency goaltender on channel 7 once. Maybe that's true now? So Rob Ray or Marty Biron?

Beat me to it.

Correct. And now, not even Houser.

I am up for a seance for the ghost of George Vezina.

Buffalo Sabres #7 goalie, come on down! You're the next contestant on "Spinal Tap Drummer!"

Damn. You beat me to it.

Deserved.

That's where I went last night. Only fails, obviously, when the Amerks are on.

I hate it when goalies do this. Among other reasons, they are not fair game outside the crease like they used to be. He should get a few games. Is the hearing on the phone (about 4 games max) or in-person (more severe)?

Pick a teams whose fans you like, because you can be genuinely happy for their success. I also root for cities which I felt were "wronged" somehow by the league such as the victims of tilted officiating or the league driving stars from it to bigger markets.

Current radio over the web: WCMF Rochester.

What I do is wait for the game to start, go to the game page on nhl.com, click on the "listen" button, and then pick WGR. You might do better getting the Rochester feed most times.

It's how I deal -- how do we get better? It keeps me from getting depressed and channels my irritation at parts of the game into something constructive.

What do we need to do to improve next year? I want to be more physical in the trenches so that we don't lose clearly winnable games next year, whence this game is at home next year.

Give us some time. We can get there. Just wait until we're healthy. Don't give up hope! (Add your cliche here.)

Someday, I am going to compute the p value for various things like how well man games due to injury correlate to points percentage just to end arguments like these.

I met him at a concert at Maple West after he signed in Buffalo. Nice guy.

At least they shoot like they took lessons from Alexei Zhitnik.

One without injuries. After that, I won't be all that particular.

So what we're saying is that GM's never learn.

I don't recall who mooted the idea here, but I agreed that, on the whole, lesser average talent means more overall injuries. IMHO, moreover, the more a players is playing a style he finds unnatural, artificial, or otherwise has a negative opinion of, the more likely he is to be hurt too. I think the former is correct, albeit anecdotally. (Overcompensating physically for inferior talent.) The latter is just my own idea. (Overly complicated mental processes resulting in physical mistakes.) Both create psychological negativity which results in players reacting sub-optimally to any given situation, which in turn makes them more likely to be injured. The Sabres have lacked overall talent for a decade. Some players really hated some of the coaches. IMHO, that confluence compounds and reinforces each problem.

Oh, bloody hell. Addendum: I believe that is 12 players, or 25% of the total allocated contracts, on the injured list. That is nuts.

This is probably the healthiest attitude.

Anyone else liking Tuch as much as I do?