thesportsbuff

I wouldn't say "apesh!t." He expressed disappointment in a friend/roommate leaving. Darcy has been on two radio shows within the last hour and told them both that he's spoken with Ryan (and Jason) and everyone is understanding of the situation.

I guess I'm missing something? Maybe I need glasses? I didn't see any of our make-shift centers lighting up the scoreboard or making good plays on a nightly basis. Offense starts with your center. We didn't have one.

I agree that Ennis should remain at center, but I suspect that Luke Adam may get the call to come play on the third line for the rest of the year. It's probably not a good idea to flip flop a talent like Ennis back and forth every few weeks, but maybe he finishes the year on wing and works on his center skills this off-season. I think, for now, I'd rather have all three of Ennis/Hodg/Roy in our Top 6, even if that means one of them has to play wing. Gives us the best chance at making a post-season run, which I still haven't given up on. :beer: :beer:

You could make the argument that lack of center talent did, in fact, play a large role in this disaster of a season. We signed Ville Leino for the sole purpose of playing center, and he couldn't handle it. We were playing musical chairs... Hecht is a center one day, Boyes is a center the next, Leino tried it out for a few games... and then you have Roy, who wasn't producing, possibly still working his way back to 100% after his injury last year. We had no depth at center. Luke Adam was the only bright spot but his play declined dramatically -- whether that's Lindy's doing or just not being ready for the NHL grind is a discussion for a different thread. But all of the sudden Roy has been playing better, and Ennis seems to have found his niche as a center, and what's happening? The team, though still not doing great, is playing much better for the past several weeks. The center position is vitally important, I would say more-so than toughness and grit when you're talking about a pseudo-rebuild situation. Also, like SDS said, your point about leadership is moot. Where was all of Gaustad's toughness and leadership when his boy Miller got plowed over by a freight train? I've read lots of scouting reports on Hodgson that say he does possess leadership, so we'll see. Maybe we DID bring in a leader. Maybe Hodgson is our captain in 3 or 4 years.

I know you're not talking specifically to me, but just to defend my stance a little bit, I haven't "bashed" Kassian one bit. I wrote in my blog and probably on here somewhere that he hasn't lived up to the hype regarding his physical game, that's all. I would not be shocked one bit if Kassian becomes a pretty dominant power forward in the league. But I still think it's a good trade. There doesn't always have to be a winner or loser. Vancouver is getting some toughness and potential future captain in their return, Buffalo is getting a skilled center and potential in their return. Both teams addressed a need. Yes. The great mighty Canucks who were seconds away from winning the cup felt that Kassian and Gragnani were the missing ingredients to their cup team-- you know, "Adding Final Ingredients", item number 52 on the list of steps to build a Stanley Cup contender. The Sabres are on like, step 5 of that list, which is acquiring young #1 and #2 centers to build around. Maybe Hodgson doesn't turn into the #1 center, but he seems a sure to bet to be a great #2 as a worst-case scenario. Clearly those same Canucks who came seconds away from winning the Stanley Cup feel that adding a tough, rugged forward and a young offensive defenseman was the absolute FINAL piece of the puzzle. One of the LAST steps of the process. Not pieces to build around, but pieces to compliment their team. Maybe when Buffalo wins a playoff series or two they can worry about adding toughness and "tweaking" their lineup. Right now I'm more interested in the #1/2 center to build around.

both interesting ways to look at it. I want to lean more towards Darcy leaking it intentionally, just because if that were true, the legend of darcy being a great GM without the prior financial restraints gains more steam, and I want to have confidence in our GM. That said, we'll probably never know whether or not either side is true, but I don't think it's that unreasonable that the Sabres got the price out there so teams knew what to expect, and wouldn't be surprised on deadline day. I envision it that Darcy and Poile were basically playing chicken. Darcy wanted a first rounder, and wouldn't budge-- but if 2:55 rolled around and he had no takers, he probably would have cracked and dealt Goose for a 2nd and 4th or something, just to get something. Poile probably wanted to trade.. who knows, maybe a 2nd and 4th, but when 2:30 rolled around and Darcy hadn't backed off of his offer at all, he went to his pre-formulated "Plan B" and offered the first rounder as long as they got a fourth rounder back. Perhaps they had this last-ditch "Plan B" in place because they knew early that Darcy wanted a first rounder, and knew that most other teams wouldn't do it... so he waited for Darcy to cave. And perhaps Darcy waited for Poile to cave. And in the end, Poile caved first. Good on Darcy.

I think losing Kassian is going to sting a little bit more in the morning when the excitement of deadline day wears off. Don't get me wrong, I still think it's a great trade for the Sabres (both teams, really), but I've been using my excitement about Hodgson to shelter myself from regrets of trading Kassian -- just two months ago I was ready to order his jersey. I had never seen a force like him holding the puck along the wall and in the corners, and was very hopeful for his development. It's definitely going to hit me that this guy is not going to be a part of our organization anymore. That said, the center position was our biggest need and Darcy addressed it. It cost us a good player, but we're getting a good player back. A good old fashioned hockey deal that makes sense. And the two first round picks... the sky is the limit with them. As I mentioned in my blog post, the Sabres have all sorts of options to consider come draft day. If New Jersey doesn't think they can re-sign Parise, would they consider trading his rights for a first round pick at the draft? Or a first + second? Buffalo has that option. Or, perhaps a team like Edmonton, who will have a Top 5 pick but is probably more interested in depth/experienced players to help supplement Hall, Eberle, and Nuge -- maybe Roy + the late first rounder is enough to move up into #5 and draft a new center. Or two first rounders, Roy and Leo for Rick Nash? Maybe the Nash idea is a stretch, but the point remains, these two picks are incredibly valuable trading pieces in future deals. Regier doesn't have to use both of them himself.

I don't see why he wouldn't.

Interesting tidbit.

I don't think it had anything to do with the coach not liking him... it may, however, have had something to do with a guy named Sedin and a guy named Kesler being above him on the depth chart. I never heard it mentioned anywhere that the coach didn't like him.

Here are my thoughts on the deadline day deals-- Regier and Sabres are Deadline Winners: http://www.thesportsbuff.com/?p=1206

Very little of Hodgson's value comes from his play in Vancouver. He is a borderline elite center prospect.

The best part about this deal is that Hodgson helps us both this season and beyond. I know playoffs aren't likely, but after Darcy worked deadline day wouldn't it be great if Hodgson scores 10 goals down the stretch and we sneak in. Who would be mad?

This is a GREAT trade. Hodgson is a borderline ELITE center prospect (yes I'm using prospect again because he's not done developing).

I don't know if I hate to watch movies, but I haven't really sat down and watched one in years either -- and that includes turning down several opportunities to do so. Haha, I definitely am not going to pay $12 to go see a movie at a theatre, but we all know places where we can download any movie we want for free... but I don't bother. Movies just really don't interest me that much. As for my hobbies... Guitar -- It pains me to think about it but I used to be really on/off with learning guitar. I took a guitar class in 7th grade and bought my first guitar, learned the basics and played in a school concert. Then I practiced a little bit on my own, but would get frustrated after so long and set it down for months at a time. Then I'd pick it back up for a few weeks, but I would spend those few weeks re-learning old stuff rather than really learning anything new. Long story short, if I had just stuck with it I would probably be a lot better than I am now! That would be roughly 10 years of playing! Instead, I've now been playing consistently for about 4 years... still get frustrated from time to time, but ultimately I've stuck with it and written a few songs... hoping to someday record them and be able to spice them up on the computer and have them sound halfway decent. Video Games -- Well I grew up in the video game age, so it should be no surprise. I've loved games forever... used to play Super Nintendo over at my buddies house, would play Sonic the Hedgehog on Sega Gensis, had the Sega Channel (awesome, anyone remember this?), enjoyed Mario Party and Golden Eye 007 on the N64, played one of my favorite games of all time, Metal Gear Solid, on the PlayStation 1. Played Halo on the Xbox before moving on to bigger and better things with the PlayStation 2 -- online gaming. SOCOM: US Navy SEALs was one of the first online console games and was a blast to play. It was much better than Call of Duty and Battlefield and all these shooters they have these days that let you respawn every time you die. When I graduated highschool and got a job, I upgraded to the super expensive next-gen console PlayStation 3. Eventually I added the 360 to my resume as well so I could play with some of my other friends who had the system. Some other favorite titles from over the years: Mech Assault (Xbox), Final Fantasy 7 (PS1), Uncharted 2 (PS3), Halo 3 (360), Grand Theft Auto Series, and any NHL title since the creation of time. Nowadays, with the price of games at about $65, I only buy one or two games a year, and the NHL series is always one of them. The other is usually Madden, but if there's a new shooter or something that I find interesting I'll buy it instead. Was never a fan of PC gaming, though I did have to see what the hype behind World of Warcraft was, so I tried it for a month a few years ago. Parties - I guess it counts as a hobby? I turn 22 next month, so I'm enjoying my last few years of being able to do something stupid and expect being young and drunk to be a valid excuse. I'm not a big time drinker anymore by any means, but I feel like a professional nearing the end of his career -- my group of friends got into drinking waaay too young (like, 13 and 14 for a couple of us.. lol #olderbrothers), and we used to party it up like crazy. We still have our little shindigs complete with beer pong and flip cup, but nowadays things aren't so crazy... the parties aren't as big, there's not as many chicks, and we're all a lot more mature.. so nothing "crazy" ever really happens. The 16-year-old-me would drink the 22-year-old-me under the table. Websites, web-design, graphics, etc -- Most of you probably know a little bit of my history with making websites. I made (and obviously blogged for) the website, thesportsbuff.com to explore my tie-in hobby of writing and journalism. Before that, I had created the website BuffaloPuck.com. Both sites and all graphics were built up from scratch by me (with the exception of the WordPress system used on TSB). That includes several wall papers, avatars, forum signatures, etc. I work from home part-time as a graphic designer for a website, though most graphics I do are fairly simple and not worth showing off on here. As far as web-design goes, I was well-versed in HTML and pretty decent at PHP from a young age.. I got into it when I was in 7th grade playing SOCOM. I wanted to make websites for my "clan" on there, and thus the learning began. Soon I was pretty efficient at web design (including using photoshop to create the "templates") and was popping out new websites and PHP scripts every few days. I wouldn't say I was good enough at PHP to program as a career, but I could code the things I wanted to do. I never took a class for PHP, but did major in Graphic Design in college. However, outside of my part time job and the occasional new graphic for TheSportsBuff, I haven't done much webdesign in quite a while. Wow, I feel like i just wrote an autobiography. Well thanks for reading if you took the time to. :beer:

had echoes by pink floyd in my head for literally 2 days

<p> Not really the case at all. I've said it before and I&#39;ll say it again, NONE of Stevie&#39;s celebrations are worse than 15 different Green Bay Packers doing the Lambeau Leap every week. And furthermore, IIRC, last year when Stevie did the same thing with his Why So Serious shirt, he wasn't even penalized (just fined i think?). It's not like Stevie went out there and did some stupid obnoxious celebration like the Plaxico one. He probably shouldn't even have been penalized.

:doh: :doh: :doh: :doh: :doh:

Or maybe SJ will be pissed and realize this team is garbage with OR without him, and another star player will walk out of Buffalo.

Happy holidays everyone :)

Try posting with Safari a few times and see if you get the same problem. I've used FF before, I just prefer safari.

I haven't tried it in firefox yet. Just downloaded & got it installed so I guess I'll make some posts with it and test it out. This post is being made in "Full Editor" mode so let's see what happens... Edit: Looks to be ok. On to the next one.

I don't know what to try. I can't really use a different computer as all I have available is the MacBook I use, and it's hard to troubleshoot w/ different browsers because, even in Safari, it doesn't happen every time.. just most of the time. I could go make ten posts in a row on firefox or something, but maybe the 11th one will mess up. I can't be the only one on here using Safari... but apparently am the only one getting this problem lol

Don't take this the wrong way, as I'm fully aware that SDS has nothing to do with what is happening to me and I mean him or SabreSpace no disrespect but I CANT ###### STAND TYPING A 1000 WORD NOVEL FOR A POST ONLY TO HAVE IT SHOW UP COMPLETELY ###### UNREADABLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO EDIT BACK TO NORMAL IN A TIMELY MANNER :censored: :censored: :censored: :wallbash: :wallbash: :wallbash: whew... i feel better now. :angel:

lmao i think you're taking it a lil too seriously man