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Marvin

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Posts posted by Marvin

  1. Official Ralph Krueger named Sabres Head Coach

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    19 hours ago, dudacek said:

    Why does this smell like one of those cockamamie idears PA comes up with two years before it occurs to anyone else, three years before others start to consider it could be true and four years before it is a commonly accepted truth?

    I think he's onto something.  That exact thought process occurred to me as well.

  3. Casey Mittelstadt: Our 2nd Line Center?

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, 7+6=13 said:

    It's JBot's fault in hindsight, yes.  Paying the bonus would have been foolish and likely wouldn't have boosted is trade value.  It wasn't a money issue - it was the perception of his attitude.  Everyone knows his point totals were well worth his contract.  

    I suspect that your evaluation of the offers we were getting is largely correct.  The only counter might be is that maybe we don't get saddled with SOBotka.  The only theory that makes any sense to me is that he told Terry and Kim that he was going to move O'Reilly at any cost and their response was, "don't waste our money and then move him before we pay that stinking bonus."  Honestly, if that was it, I would have preferred that he take a bunch of futures instead.

  4. Botterill: Thoughts on Last Season

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    13 hours ago, Zamboni said:

    I think he blames himself for not being proactive throughout the season in acquiring much needed help.

    But he also blames Housley for his system, his lack of in game adjustments, and not having the team  more ready when the puck dropped.

    Our biggest need today (roster wise) is the same hole that was created on July 1st 2018. 2nd line center. JB better address it this summer. And if Skinner walks, that’s the next big hole.

    I’m hopeful most of the other issues will get better or resolve itself with a new coach, staff and system.

    Recall that I put a majority of the blame on this past year on Botterill; please take that bias into account in my comments below.

    I really hope you are right, but if we assume your first paragraph and that he recognises the truth of your third, then it looks like he puts all the blame as described in the 2nd paragraph and the magical solution is the 4th.  If I had heard that news conference from one of my bosses or subordinates, I would think that s/he is trapped in an SEP field (cf. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Somebody_Else's_Problem_field) and doesn't want anyone else to see it, let alone get out of it.

  5. SCOTUS: How did we get here, and where are we going?

    in Topics

    Posted

    Historical perspective from someone who has lived through lots of this.

    This has been brewing on the cultural right as far back as Brown vs. Board of Education.  It got a push with the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act.  It got its biggest push with Roe vs. Wade.  It finally broke out into full-blown partisan litmus tests ever since Robert Bork was stopped from serving on the Supreme Court -- many of my fellow conservatives have been trying to obstruct every nominee who might have been more liberal than he.  A majority of partisans I know talk about "getting even" - Bork on the Court and impeaching and removing a Democrat for "being a Democrat."  IMHO, this is a complete misreading of Watergate and of Robert Bork's role thereto.  As a Watergate Junkie, I can give you all sorts of stuff information if you ask.

    For those of you who do not remember Watergate, Robert Bork fired Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox after his two superiors, Eliot Richardson and William Ruckleshaus, resigned to protest the order.  IMHO, that makes him Richard Nixon's hatchet man for the Saturday Night Massacre, who put partisan interests above the country's best interests.

    I can't even explain the extraordinary outrage that was directed at Bork.  His demeanour under stress was most understandable, but did not help him in the least.  I always felt that the visceral negative reaction to him had nothing to do with the press, but was people subconsciously remembering his role in Watergate.  It did not matter to me that both Richardson and Ruckleshaus testified on his behalf at his Supreme Court hearings.  For me, he was automatically disqualified for firing Archibald Cox, no matter what else I thought of him.  After 45 years and a change from Liberal-Libertarian to Libertarian-Conservative, that has not changed.

  8. Women's Professional Hockey: Crossroads

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    2 hours ago, calti said:

    womens team sports(professional).......thats a tough sell. There is tennis......and tennis....and tennis because that is a beautiful sport that is enhanced by the extended volleys and grace of the womens game. College bball can be enjoyable..But as far as actually making money on the professional level that is very limited.

    Based on some poking around: Tennis, Figure Skating, Swimming, Diving, Golf, Basketball, Soccer, Field Hockey, Ice Hockey.

    Interestingly, women's figure skating and women's tennis often have higher ratings than the men's games.  Women's swimming and diving have comparable ratings to men's.  I hate to say it, but I don't think it is an accident that those are the sports listed where women wear what I think are the sexiest uniforms.

  9. 2019 NHL Draft

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    This is one of those times where this board will miss Jame.  Whatever his flaws (and I have a list), he was stupendous at evaluating the prospects before a draft.  I learn a lot from his posts on other boards.

  10. Lindy Ruff Interviewed for the Sabres HC Position

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, SDS said:

    Why don't his peers agree with you?

    His last stint in Dallas was not as successful in the playoffs as it was in the regular season.  I personally think that it was very suspect goaltending, but many in Dallas at the time blamed Lindy's system as being too hard for the goaltenders and defence to follow.  (Sound familiar?)  I also recall that he chafed under their GM.  And, I think that has finished him as a head coach in the NHL.

    I can defend his playoff outings for a long, long time, but there is no point -- as you noted, no one agrees with me.

  11. Lindy Ruff Interviewed for the Sabres HC Position

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    I would have been very happy with Lindy coming back.  IMHO, he is one of the best combinations of strategist and tactician in the NHL.  If I am going into a playoff series with Lindy as the coach, I always think that I have a chance because he is so good at finding flaws in the opposition's back end and for driving the other team nuts.  I also love the way he is able to get under the opposition's skin and keep the press off of his players' backs.

  12. Official Ralph Krueger named Sabres Head Coach

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    I want to put up a small defence of Ted Nolan.

    Yes, he was not an X's and O's guy.  (Nor an "Ex's and Oh's" guy.)  But given what the team did during the pre-season warm-ups and games of the tank year, he did have a recognisable system, if loose.  IMHO, it was a clear adaptation to the ice of the "ginga" football style (originally from Brasil, Argentina, and Chile in the 1950's) which has evolved into our possession game (and killed the European long-ball football style for International play):

    Defencive zone coverage was largely 1-on-1 with clearly defined spacing and zone hand-offs of responsibility from one player to the next.  The hand-offs were defined in triangles (D-C-D, D-W-C, W-C-W) relative to the other team's structure.

    Break-outs and offencive zone movement were also defined by the same triangles.  The definitely worked on passing in moderately sized triangles to advance the puck out of the zone from the boards.

    Several of the Eastern-European countries used this structure, probably because it was so much like possession football.  In fact, it was obvious that the European players got it almost instinctively while North American players clearly had to ponder their options.

    • Like (+1) 1

  19. The Official Sabrespace Optimist Thread

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    I posted in a couple of other threads why a good FA might sign here for reasonable money as well as why a good coach may come here.  But let me go on a few that I think are the most important.

    I liked a bunch of your posts, but a couple I will emphasise are the recent drafts look WAY better than I expected, especially the later picks, and that a lot of the youngsters a looking like potentially solid NHLers.

    Believe it or not, I actually liked the play of the team overall before the trade deadline better than I liked it during Bylsma's reign.

    Unlike JBot, I think that the winning streak and the good play for a while afterwards was not a mirage.  I firmly believe if he had replaced Thompson, Sobotka, Elie with Girgensons-Larsson-Okposo level players, then this team -- with all its other flaws up and down the line-up -- would have made the playoffs.

    They are my team, come Hell or high water.  I had season tix during the bankruptcy.  Nothing felt worse than wondering if I was never going to see them again.  As bad as it feels now, at least we aren't there.

  20. Women's Professional Hockey: Crossroads

    in The Aud Club

    Posted

    Don't any of the colleges in NYC or northern NJ have ice rinks?  They would be the kind of size you would want for a league and be a heckuvalot cheaper.

    If I am looking at this from the NHL's point of view, I would think that strong US markets and the Canadian markets would be the best place to start.  Other places where this could work would be in areas with a large concentration of women's collegiate hockey programs.  In particular, the collegiate idea helps with placing teams in Western Canada.  (Even then, the travel could be horrible.)

    • Like (+1) 1

  22. NEXT COACH should be? mega thread ...

    in The Aud Club

    Posted · Edited by E4 ... Ke2
    Some extra clarity.

    51 minutes ago, SDS said:

    Evidence?

    <joke>You mean a Sabres fan can be something other than a nattering nabob of negativity right now?</joke>

    I've heard some things of varying quality from sources around the PHWA and from my friends' contacts around the NHL.  On the other hand, let me speak to the positives:

    • There are still only 31 jobs like it.
    • Pegulas are well liked for treating people well.
    • General feeling that the young core mostly needs confidence to keep themselves from getting down.
    • Overall feeling that even mere NHL quality in the line-up would have this team in the playoffs with decent coaching.
      • At least two people in NHL management have said off-the-record that they disagree with Botterill and think that the overall play from before the Sabres fell too far from the playoffs was for real.  Small line-up changes could have had this team in the playoffs even with Housley as coach.
    • Fan base is loyal almost to a fault; this is particularly true on the road.
      • Direct quote: "The Sabres 'travel well'."
    • Lots of people around the league have a soft spot for the Sabres.  This apparently goes back to the Knoxes.

  24. Democratic Presidential hopefuls and your thoughts

    in Topics

    Posted

    Self-described "Never Trump" Conservative here.

    IMHO, if the Democrats want to win, I am in their target demographic.  Socially liberal enough and willing to tolerate some government programs as long as national security is taken care of and someone takes the deficit more seriously than my party's allegedly "fiscal conservatives" do.  You need to think of what Kristin Gillibrand was before she became part of the Democratic leadership.  From my point of view, one of Hickenlooper, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Booker, Castro, or even Harris would be acceptable.

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