That Aud Smell

when i waded into #billsmafia twitter, i was picking up on a school of thought that yeldon's signing is an indication that mccoy could be traded or cut. i sorta doubt the latter would occur, as that would guarantee that he signs with the patriots and proceeds to destroy us. but trading him out of the division (and maybe away from this year's opponents) for a conditional 4th? that i could see.

^ Interesting. Yeldon can be a useful player. A nice 3rd down option for sure. Coughlin’s remarks aren’t encouraging. OTOH, Coughlin has a bit of old man yelling at cloud going on.

Looks like Lauren Hall’s out at PSE. https://buffalonews.com/2019/04/22/ch-2-hires-lauren-hall-to-work-on-morning-afternoon-programs/ “She was replaced as the in-game host last season but remained with PSE until recently working on its web and TV feature material.”

Ah, okay. Well, we got a fantastic 2-way forward in return. ... About that.

JT Compher getting interviewed pre-game. Looks like a big piece of COL’s success. I’m too lazy to research how and why we traded him.

Tenor Joe Byron or GTFO. John Putnam as an acceptable substitute.

But in fairness, nor did you fault the Wings for hiring a former player (whereas you did fault the Sabres for doing so). I'm resigned to Terry having poor decision making skills and/or having no ability to effectively communicate the basis for a decision. This is a fair point. Yzerman came home.

How's that sort of thing worked out for the Bruins? The Avalanche? Not for nothing: JBOT is not in the same stratum as any of those former players. The fact that he's a former Sabre is really just happenstance, IMO. It's far, far more significant that he spent time with the Penguins.

I think it was McKenzie who I saw Tweet to the effect that Holland was the person who made this happen, that he's happy to take a step back and act more as a consultant, but that he could potentially listen to GM position offers from organizations like Seattle and one other (was it Vancouver?!).

It was pretty good! Same. I thought it was just me. That's an odd choice. Just overlay some Barry White or whatever. Eesh. This is a thing isn't it? The football-centered Thanksgiving Day. My mother only recently began permitting football to be on as sort of background fodder (the event's at my house now, anyways), but it's never a focus of the day's ongoings. Your poor Ma.

Okay - he was still an NHL ambassador as of 2017. https://www.nhl.com/news/my-hockey-life-pat-lafontaine/c-290865690

I remember hearing that as well - that he basically returned whence he came. But one Googling came up fairly empty.

Right. I was imprecise. I more meant: I haven’t seen or heard from him at all. Pegula hired him as president of hockey operations. Has he not surfaced somewhere else in the league in some prominent position? Why not? That’s more on the hiring angle, I guess. The demise of the club as a competitive enterprise seems to make his departure more and more ominous. That actually is not really tied to his post-termination silence (which was likely purchased). It’s more just a sense — maybe he objected strenuously to anti-competitive choices, maybe he was right to do so. And/or, given that he’s not been doing much since then, maybe he’s a guy who struggles with anger arising from some sort of post-concussion syndrome.

The more time passes without hearing “boo” from Lafontaine, the more his hiring *and* firing seem strange.

Is this anything more than message board speculation? It’s fine, if not. I can’t recall having heard this theory.

Well, you'd have to ask @PASabreFan why he found the number remarkable. For my part, I thought it was remarkable for being so low -- I'd thought the number would be closer to 50%

Good for/on Jack.

This confused/confuses me. Indubitably. He called it remarkable. For my part, I didn't take that as declaring a win. (I also disagreed with his view of the matter.)

That's as clear a "huh?!/WTF" gif as I've seen in a while. Well put. Someone posted a link to a national guy (Ferraro?) talking about how the locker room clean-out remarks were why JBOT felt his hand was forced with ROR. I never saw it that way. I thought the take was misplaced. I've really come to rue the apparent need to trade such a high quality top-6 NHL forward.

Appreciated. Pish posh, I say, to those who simply claim "narrative" (or crusade) on this front. I remain skeptical, as always. To a fault probably. But I'm listening and reading carefully (or trying to), and watching warily as well.

IIRC, the Pegulas sold gas and oil rights in PA and OH (mostly) in order to buy the Bills. I think they still have a lotta NY land rights. Thanks. Link?

He did?

Also: Maintaining a healthy distrust of the super wealthy is a well advised approach to dealing with the world. I seem to recall @PASabreFan theorizing about Terry’s potential ulterior motives for wooing upstate/western NY. Political aims? Freeing up the frackelage? It’s all still in play, imo.