Marvin
-
Posts
5,067 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Posts posted by Marvin
-
-
(Deleted original)
I compared the Philly series with Sabres games from the 1997-2001 and 2010-1 playoffs plus random series since The Terrible Lockout. I am going to make a bold, unpopular statement: in any playoffs after 2007, that 2005-6 team would have a hard time getting past the first round unless Miller had stood on his head because of they were small and because of the clutch-and-grab.
Don Cherry, Bob Clarke, et al. hated them and had the pull of CBC and Comcast to rescind enforcement of the rules. (Remember the week where every article on major hockey sites run by their fellow ardipithicenes decried, "the eventual destruction of hockey" by "Buffalo's Pond Hockey Pansies"? Spector's Hockey got so obnoxious that I stopped going in early 2006.) Their inability to fight through "normal skiing", "good, legal holds", "honest, legal interference", and "strong, legal obstruction" would make winning any series difficult. It worked: these guys convinced the NHL that this kind of hockey was inferior entertainment to the Dead Puck Era, which is closer to current hockey than 2005-6 is.
-
I don't think anyone in the league has been fired since the shutdown. This may be a coincidence, may have come from on high, or may just be a gentleman's agreement not to can anybody until the season is cancelled or ends.
-
1
-
-
I watched parts of Game 7 against Carolina a few months ago. A few things of note.
1. Buffalo Sabres fans were about 40% of the attendees. They were so loud that it sounded like the Carolina PA people accidentally blew their goal horn or something when the Sabres scored. They were also louder than Caniacs.
2. After Janik's goal, Doc Emrick said that the fans were chanting "Let's Go Hurricanes." I had forgotten how much this lying pissed me off.
3. Carolina sleepwalked through the first 2 periods, as if they figured the Sabres would just collapse under the weight of the moment without Connolly, Kalinin, Tallinder, Numminen, and McKee. It was like Hecht's goal woke them up because they played with far more urgency in the 3rd period.
4. Memories of Rod Brind'Amour and Peter Laviolette getting bent out of shape by Lindy Ruff's press conferences after McKee's injury was revealed made me smile. He was awesome at this.
5. Had the NHL not gone with the ultra-divisional game distribution and seeding, the Sabres would have played Carolina in round 2 at full strength. Based on what actually happened, I think the Sabres would have won in 6. What happens in round 3 then?
-
3 hours ago, PASabreFan said:
The new colors arrived in 1996. Rigas didn't own the team then. He didn't have operational control until some time in 1998. He didn't officially own the team until 2000. He had infused the franchise with cash by 1996. I'm still looking for evidence that the colors were connected to Adelphia. "Because 'Adelphia' owned the team" isn't factual.
There was unquestionable cross-over marketing afterward and the colour palette matched perfectly. Coincidences like the identical colours and shades never strike me as random -- probably from too many stories from the production staffs of Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Blake's 7. (I went to a lot of conventions from 1976-89, so your questions of my brain functions are well-founded.) Because of this, I and many others around me firmly believed that the Rigases were "consulted" by Doug Moss's GF and the marketing staff about changing the colour scheme (IIRC, John Rigas was on the Board of Directors by then). If there were differences in the colours RGB values, my Netscape 4.7 could not detect them.
Note 1: I am not calling this a conspiracy; I am calling it competence. If I had been the Rigases and if I were unattached to Ye Olde Blue 'n' Gold, I would have said that the colour palette chosen would affect my purchase offer. If my corporate colours had been black, teal green, candy apple red, electric blue, canary yellow, pumpkin orange, and eggplant, I would have based my price in part on how close the team's colour combination and weighted percentage of all the colours matched my company's.
Note 2: I am jaded by, among other things, Sir Michael Grade confirming some of what I thought were the most asinine rumours about how BBC executives worked to destroy Doctor Who after season 22 and by what friends of mine who worked at Adelphia at the time thought. We could all be wrong.
-
3 hours ago, GASabresIUFAN said:
That's not the question. It's does Larsson want to return and how much does it cost to retain him. Are you paying 2.5 mill to Larsson to keep him? For how many years? Larsson will be 28 this summer. Are we going to invest decent money in a 4th line center or do we need to allocate resources elsewhere. Don't forget that just 2 seasons ago nearly everyone on this board wanted Girgensons and Larsson sent packing.
While he and Z had relatively good years, Larsson only gave us 18pts (a career best). Signing him and Z would likely mean will be investing nearly 15% of the cap on our 4th line (when combined w KO). Not sure that is a smart strategy.
For numerous reasons, I can rationalize paying them to have LOG making 3A line money for 1-2 years and as 3B money for 1-2 more after that until we are a real contender (3 years max). There is a lot here to disagree with, so YMMV.
1. Larry and Z were both projected to be solid middle-six centres. Disco Dan Abysmal was THE worst thing to happen to them. In Pittsburgh, Abysmal was notorious for impeding development of young, moderately skilled players in favour of less-talented JAG's; he virtually killed these two. I wonder how much better they and the team would be if they had been handled better.
2. There was a lot to dislike about Housley's coaching, but rehabilitating these two and helping Okposo re-invent himself to create the LOG line was genius. During the worst season since The Bad Big Tank, they were the only line in the league to go plus against Pastrnak-Bergeron-Marchand and Krejci's line the entire season. Even Anyone-O'Reilly-Reinhart were inferior to them against top lines that season. That's not trivial. (I keep track of these things.)
3. Yes, the LOG line ideally is a 4th line. But since their creation, they have been the Sabres' #2 line over long stretches by both ice time and performance. That can be used to allow Cozens, Mittlestadt, Thompson, Asplund, Kahun, and the rest of the youth to be developed properly -- for a change. The line's role can be varied and eventually replaced as the youth improves.
If they are still a checking line that drives the opposing top lines nuts for the next 3 years, that is more than passable to me at $12M -- especially if the coaches can fix the PK.
-
7 hours ago, PASabreFan said:
They didn't own the team.
The Rigases? Really? My 2000 yearbook says they are.
Regardless, in my mind, the red, black, silver, and white are inextricably linked to Adelphia, the bankruptcy, and almost losing the team.
-
32 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:
I've yet to see a shred of evidence that the black and red color scheme had anything to do with Adelphia.
It's my perception based on the evidence I accumulated when I had partial or full seasons from 1996-2004 and Adelphia cable from 1996 until it folded.
They wore the Sabres black uniforms with Adelphia "A's" on them instead of the Demonic Goat and the B-Sabre patch at the games. They had variations for the red and white uniforms as well. All the Adelphia propaganda papers were in Sabres colours -- even stuff that was outside WNY.
Thus, IMHO, the choice of colours was specifically for Adelphia's promotion. ("Brand Synergy" was the jargon of the time.) I was tolerant of it because hey, the Rigases owned the team. However, once Adelphia began to collapse and the Sabres went into bankruptcy, you could not have got rid of the colour combination fast enough for me because it was forever tainted. (Still looked better than the Slug and that hideous yellow turd, erm, third, mind you.)
If this strikes you as being in my head, you might be onto something.
-
The problem with the demonic goats from my POV (aside from the pyramids, the crest, the Adelphia colours, and the lack of connection to the great Sabres teams of my youth) is that I associate them with the Rigases, the Adelphia bankruptcy, and almost losing the team.
2 hours ago, Kruppstahl said: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.
Part of me thinks that people assume the early Sabres were softer than melted butter because they were so skilled, lost to the Flyers, could not get out of the 2nd round for years, could not beat the Islanders, and could not get past Boston for aeons. The following are excuses or reasons, depending on how you view them.
The Sabres often had at least one fundamental flaw that held them back and seemed to hit unbelievably bad luck when they were the most complete. Variously, coaching, goaltending, lack of forward depth, lack of defencive depth, or the GM's inability to move with league-wide officiating trends explain them.
Moreover, the first half of the Sabres' existence was an era of dynasties, where great teams could stay together for years and the league often bent the rules to help them. From 1973-93, the only Cup winners were Calgary (1), Edmonton (5), Montreal (7), New York Islanders (4), Philadelphia (2), Pittsburgh (2). In the early years, the New York Rangers and Chicago Black Hawks were contenders that the young Sabres displaced by 1975. Boston and Philadelphia were perennial pretenders or better. The only non-dynastic Cups in that run were 1973 (Montreal -- and even this is dubious), 1989 (Calgary), and 1993 (Montreal).
Even so, there was a statistical analysis done for all NHL teams in the expansion era through 1986 that had the Buffalo Sabres as the only non-Cup winners at the top of the statistics that correlated with Cup Winners. ("Alone among the all the Cup Winners are the ever-close, but always-disappointing Sabres in 5th place.") Similar stats were run in 2001 by eras of the NHL and, what do you know, the Sabres are the only non-Cup winner in each era at the top of these lists. And, according to my old Sabres Yearbook in 2001, the list of teams that the Buffalo Sabres had played a statistically significant number of games against and had a losing record was the Edmonton Oilers and the Philadelphia Flyers. At least it was fun, if not ultimately satisfying.
I understand that I look at those Sabres with mistier eyes than I should. I look at the early teams through the prism of the Cold War, especially the Summit Series, the Arab Oil Embargo, the wage and price freeze, Watergate, Southeast Asia, the Super Series, stagflation, the Iran hostages, the invasion of Afghanistan, and our emotional needs to play the Nuclear War / Nuclear Escalation games: politics and sports were inextricably tied back then with the threat of nuclear holocaust greater than anyone's perceptions of the 2016 and 2020 elections could ever be -- which is what made The Miracle on Ice even sweeter.
The Sabres were gutsy enough to invite the CCCP Olympic team to a challenge at the Aud on 1 January 1974. As the Courier-Express put it, "Soviets Said 'Nyet'". That's the original Winter Classic and Challenge Cup rolled into one. They were the first team to beat the Soviets. They also beat CSKA in the Aud with a Soviet ref and as the "visitors" 6-1. (The Flyers declined the same conditions.) And people treat it as an accident because CSKA looked bad, as if the Sabres had nothing to do with it. I don't care what a Dope with a Mike said to me on WGR - I am gamete-laden-biome-transfer-ing proud of those teams for, forgive my Cold War jargon, "killing the Commies" (quoting Punch Imlach). I wanted those wins more than I wanted the Stanley Cup those years. I can not explain how important they were not just for the fans, but for the US and Canada at the time. The Flyers' goon show and the Miracle on Ice eclipsed them nationally, but not for me.
-
This is a hard one. I have so many candidates.
1974-5 had two fatal flaws: goaltending and coaching. In spite of that, if the Sabres had been 1st OA, they draw the Islanders in the Semi-Finals and the Flyers would have got the Habs. Assuming they get to the Finals, they either had home ice against Philly or, more likely, face the Habs, whom the Flyers couldn't handle. You can quote John Greenleaf Whittier's "Maud Muller" here. ("For of all sad words of tongue or pen / The saddest are these: 'What might have been.'")
As several commentators such as Dick Irvin, Tom Mees, and the 1999 staff of The Hockey News called the 1974-86 Sabres things like "the Sabres' analogue of the 1988-99 Bills", I am giving them a long look.
The three teams 1975-8 suffered because of the division we were in with that first round bye, just as the Flyers and Islanders hurt each other. Trading away Peter McNab to the Bruins hurt a LOT. The 1977-8 team had far better goaltending than 1974-5. One wonders if Gerry Desjardins's eye injury is the difference in 1977. Several Islanders players still can't figure out how they beat us in 1976. I can make the case that all 3 of these teams plus the next 2 I mention were better than 1974-5 overall.
The 1979-80 and 1982-3 teams were both very good. The long layoff in 1980 killed us. I still hate Brad Park, but to this day, I wonder more about how quickly that team regressed instead of improved.
After the rebuild post-Bowman we have some interesting entries.
1989-90 cemented my hatred of divisional playoffs. #3 vs. #4 or some such in round 1? Argh! I think they are a step below every other team I mention, but boy, they deserved better.
1992-3 and 2005-6 are the two unluckiest Sabres teams. Key injuries killed them both. If we can ponder the hypothetical of Hasek in 1993, can I get some love for the hypothetical of LaFontaine in 1994? Also, can someone explain to me why 1995 was so much worse than I thought it should have been?
1998-9 needed a bit more offence, but that's hard when you are outspent 2-1. And I guess since the NHL stopped enforcing rules in the DPE, the tainted result makes sense. To add insult to injury, several Dallass players said they were so hurt that the Sabres could have run them over in a game 7.
2000-1 angers me the most. Gilmour's quitting barely registers because the total stupidity of the Mike Peca situation bugs me to this day. If he's in the line-up, this team could get my vote.
2009-10 and 2010-11 both have arguments for them because of key injuries even with the Centre issues. Heck, a healthy Jochen Hecht in round 1 could push those teams a long way.
If I have to pick one, I am going with 2005-6. Game 7 against Carolina was the first time I had cried over them losing since Brad Park. Depending on hypotheticals, I could choose 1993-4 or 2000-1.
-
50 minutes ago, Eleven said:
Get that boy band crap out of here...
The Beatles resembled a boy band in the same way that ABBA resembled Starlight Vocal Band as a band of two couples.
-
1
-
-
14 hours ago, Kruppstahl said:
I agree that the math doesn't favor a retention of Botterill. But this thing is a lot worse than math!
The man is pretty much clueless and easily a bottom 3 to 5 GM in the league (and that's being fair).
If the intent is to always improve and get better, Pegula has to get a new GM.
I agree he may well NOT do that.
IMHO, "Fair" is far too generous.
-
Does anyone believe this?
I personally don't. Can you imagine if the league plays only 74 games and somehow the Sabres sneak into 12th place (3 games out, 2 in hand on Montreal; need to beat out New Jersey)?
-
Any timeline for potential clinical trials for the above?
-
7 hours ago, inkman said:
Back to the ol "the media made this team play bad" schtick. My problem with TC was that he couldn't stay healthy. I'm not sure how much blame to lay at his feet but there was much discussion about TC and his parents relationship with Larry Quinn. From what I've heard and read, Tim didn't do himself any favors with his off ice behavior. So much so, it probably had a large effect on his career and his reputation among the media. I don't need these guys to be choir boys, I'd actually prefer a few ingrates. When your first instinct when you aren't playing is to get inebriated, you probably need to reevaluate your priorities.
TL; DR: Overall: No. The media had a part in exacerbating every negative point about TC (and the Rochester core, for that matter) in Buffalo. They did not create something that was not there. (You know this is trouble when I need a TL;DR for all the TL;DRs that follow.)
I had season tix from 1999-2004 and partial seasons from 2005-2013. Fans routinely parroted negative stories from The Snooze and BBSes; eventually, I could tell the source without reading them anymore.
Early on, Connolly's injuries bothered me a lot less than his horrendous play and party-going nature. His drinking was an open secret downtown until his first bad concussion; I had always gathered that he cleaned up his act afterwards. Having said that, he was often his own worst enemy off the ice (particularly from 2001-3) and on the ice (especially 2007-11). After the Co-Captains left, the Rochester core got more blame and a lesser percentage fell on Connolly.
Even so, his injuries would have bothered me a lot less had the team added another 2-3C and viewed him as a great supplementary rather than as a core piece. That would have mitigated the negative influence of his injuries while making his positive influence much more, well, positive.
TL;DR 1: Some of Connolly's problems were his fault, just as the Sabres failures after the Co-Captains before the tank belong with "The Failed Rochester Core." But external factors don't help -- particularly dumb choices from management. "Dumb Choices By Management" will be an ongoing theme.
I can't imagine anyone liked how Mike Peca was treated, let alone that he had to be traded. Hence, TC and TP already had to do the impossible: they both had to be better than Peca, hit harder than Peca, fight more than Peca, and the Sabres had to win more than they had when Peca was on it - and had to make up for Dominik Hasek forcing his way out because of how Peca had been treated. Every failure of the Sabres with Connolly and Pyatt matched every success of the Islanders with Peca, and the Snooze played it for all it was worth with the print version of "click bait". And I'm not even counting that lingering feeling that, had Peca been on the team in 2000-1, the Sabres might have won the Cup and Hasek would not have left. (I personally agree with this.)
The negative energy was there at the first preseason game and increased non-stop at Peca's Islanders kept burying the Sabres in the rear-view mirror. Bucky and Sully wrote extensive polemics on how bad Connolly was when he was one of the Sabres' better players in 2001-2. They gleefully savaged him in 2002-3, where he might have been the worst player on the team during the bankruptcy. Missing the 2003-4 season might have been the best thing for him. The fans and the Snooze treated them like it was their fault for the Sabres' problems.
TL; DR 2: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2001-4 Sabres on Connolly and, to a lesser extent, Pyatt -- whether they were deserved or not. Their own shortcomings and characteristics as players and rumoured off-ice behaviour make the situation worse.
During the co-captains era, I did not get full seasons because I thought Connolly belonged nowhere near an NHL roster. Early that season, I commented that I felt I should apologise to him because he was way better. After the harangues I got from fans because he was "clearly a passenger for Drury and Briere" and various other things to denigrate his play and after being directly made fun of by a Snooze reporter on WGR a few games later, I almost gave up my 1/2 seasons for free. Any credit he got was begrudging, and always downplayed because he wasn't really responsible for it for whatever reason. (PHam, I am looking at you too.)
After the Co-captains left, Connolly and Roy now drew the ire of the fans that were more about Quinn and the rest of management. Quinn made this worse by his relationship with Connolly's family and how he seemed to value Connolly over both co-captains combined. The success of the Rangers and Flyers over the Sabres they left behind stuck in our craws even worse. And the Snooze writers let us know it: they would gratuitously bring up the co-captains when there was nothing else negative that they could write. Much of Sabres fandom had the same issues -- two sites closed down in this time; the reasons given by their hosts included Tim Connolly's presence over Drury and Briere.
To add insult to injury, fans knew that his concussion history severely limited his long-term prospects. We knew that counting on him to be a consistent 2C was crazy because he seemed to be reckless with his own safety and seemed to try too hard to prove himself over the negativity that wafted through the crowd whenever he went on the ice. (I couldn't miss it; I can't imagine he did.) When he played, his play was typically of a high standard -- he defended like a top defencive centre while consistently scoring at a high pace. It wasn't his fault that the higher-ups in the organisation were too stupid to rely on him in spite of his injury history -- and then they compounded the offence by elevating Gaustad to 3C and not drafting a C between Luke Adam and Mikhail Grigorenko.
And, on top of it, fans and the media started to vent about the "Rochester Core", who really started to take it on the chin as a group. This was extraordinarily unfair to Vanek and Miller, very unfair to Pominville, and merely unfair to Roy, because these players often carried the team on their backs even through terrible injuries (especially Vanek in 2010 against Boston) and willed them towards playoff spots (Vanek, Pominville, and Miller in 2011) or through gross negligence by the GM (all 5, particularly Miller, for 2007-9 and 2011-2).
TL; DR 3: Fans took out their frustrations with the 2007-12 Sabres on Connolly, Roy, Vanek, Pominville, and Miller. Connolly's injury history belay management's inertia to get another quality middle-6 C. Their collective problems started with management screw-ups, but the Buffalo media pushed an unfair amount of blame onto them.
Surprise: IMHO, the Buffalo sports media never - and I mean never - artificially created negativity within the fan base; said negativity was already there and often for good reason. However, they exacerbated it seemingly at every turn and had picked out Tim Connolly as their primary scapegoat. When he was gone, it was "the failed Rochester Core." Both of these are gross over-simplifications; e.g., who failed to deal with the lack of centres for that core?
-
2
-
1
-
-
Connolly, and to a lesser extent Pyatt, got hatred because they were the return of the Peca trade. The treatment of them by the local press - particularly Bucky and Sully for Connolly - was unconscionable.
WARNING: Very controversial opinion forthcoming.
I applaud the Pegulas for their treatment of the local press after they bought the team. IMHO, these SOB's deliberately undermined the team for a decade after that trade and set the stage for the current toxicity because they did not want Connolly to be a part of it. They brought up the co-captains unnecessarily to stoke the anti-Connolly hatred. And it worked irredeemably well -- this board proved it in no-trumps for years. And I do mean irredeemably.
I evaluate Connolly differently from others. He was mediocre to terrible until he re-invented himself as a checker who could score. Thank Lindy Ruff for that. He could replace Briere or Drury for extended periods in *their* roles. That is a truly rare ability. I personally believe that if he is not injured, then we beat Carolina anyway even though we were down 4 defencemen in game 7.
He and Chris Gratton (!) are the perfect 3C's for any line-up, depending on how you want to structure your team. When they went on the ice to protect a lead (along with combos like Drury-Grier-Pyatt), I used to just relax back in my seat because the lines Lindy made with them LOG-line quality forecheckers - the game was in the bag.
-
You can listen to Tim Ryan and Ted Lindsay on The NHL on NBC for Game 1 of the 1975 Stanley Cup Semi-Finals in its stead. It is on YouTube.
Dig the iron-on nameplates.
-
5 hours ago, Weave said:
I didn’t think the Pope had that kind of influence anymore
He $#!+$ in the woods, doesn't he? ?
7 hours ago, matter2003 said:Great excuse to have long marathon sex sessions...
As a software engineer, I sadly can't get excited about being told to stay home either because they would just tell me to login through the VPN and work remotely...
Already there.
-
There is precedent for cancelling the playoffs even after they have begun: during the 1918 Stanley Cup Finals was stopped after Montreal Canadiens defenceman "Bad" Joe Hall died from the flu. The series was tied 2-2-1.
-
In defence of the CDC and WHO:
They do the best they can with the information they have. They are working with data from several recalcitrant countries and are making the best of it. They have some of the best virologists, epidemiologists, etc. on the planet. Their training is to not exaggerate. Their analyses deserve our due respect; the confounding data and the limitations of their data mean they also deserve the due skepticism. We should err on the side of the side of safety and discretion when we have gobs of misinformation and conflicting reports.
This is potentially life-or-death. Please treat it as such.
-
2
-
-
Note: as a rule, I take Communist China's numbers with a huge dollop of salt. Given their history with epidemics, natural disasters, etc., my rule of thumb is the number of people infected is ten times what the rest of the world is told. At best, they show up a day late and a dollar short with information until either enough time has passed, something more important happens, or people get so concerned about their own countries -- then the truth is quietly released.
-
1
-
-
33 minutes ago, Weave said:
The biggest problem I see with America today is that we stopped trusting our scientific community and decided that we know better.
It isn't just that, unfortunately.
One of the American economy's greatest strengths is people taking risks to make their dream company go. That means that risking extended exposure is part of doing business because the purchases that can make or break your company don't care about flu, coronavirus, or kids with chicken pox.
I know of one run by a friend of mine which has this exact problem. They made a decision to ignore the experts and keep going to work to produce their product. This will keep them from going broke and get the cash to pay for health insurance and the next few payrolls.
-
I like Linus and agree that he is in the 19-24 range of starters, but has been improving. I like the ideas of another clear 1B or former starter to push him and replace Hutton. Indeed, I bet Hutton would be better in short NHL stints if he were successful in the AHL next season.
If we get the Markstrom-like growth, let's just celebrate our good luck.
-
3 minutes ago, Pimlach said:
No. Stop settling. We need a real 2C. Kahun is a nice player but not the 2C to replace ROR.
We get a real 2C and if Kahun grows into that role, we breathe a sigh of relief that JBottom is gone.
-
1 minute ago, DarthEbriate said:
Can he play 2C (and win defensive faceoffs) while Cozens learns the ropes?
I wouldn't plan on it, but maybe he can.
GDT: Devils vs Sabres 4/27/94 8 pm
in The Aud Club
Posted
Mark it 8, Dude.