Robviously

You mean "since last year." The "Foligno Game" against Toronto last season was about 100x more entertaining than anything we've seen this season. But, predictably, it was part of a late run to nowhere and instantly forgotten. (So was all the excitement about the "FES Line." People were psyched about that too. We should probably stop being fooled by these late runs.)

Did the win yesterday get us closer to winning the Stanley Cup? Is it going to be a cherished memory a year, or even a month, from now? In the big picture, has the Buffalo Sabres organization gotten closer or further away from ever winning the Stanley Cup in these last six months? If we were contending, you'd say we were closer. If were were awful but in line to draft a new franchise player, you'd also say closer. But we're neither of those things. If anything we're a little further away, since we're exactly where we started but all of our best players are either a year older (Vanek, Miller, Ott) or gone (Pominville). All I want is forward progress. Playing horribly but gobbling up garbage points late in the year doesn't do anything for me.

You could look at one tree or you could look at the whole forest.

Don't have to explain anything. You can just read what's already been written.

Highly regarded or not, they failed and that's on Regier. Or the team had more than one problem.

I don't know if anything would be funnier than the Sabres playing the Penguins in the first round.

Drew Stafford sucks and I hate watching him play hockey. Other than that, yeah, I'm pretty jazzed about his game yesterday. Our team sucks because our GM would rather "win" about 2 trades a year than actually make a series of trades to build a team that can contend. It's the difference between designing and building a high quality automobile, and slapping together a total piece of crap that doesn't run but has really cool flames painted on the side. And every time someone points out that the second car doesn't run, the people defending it just say "Oh, so now you're telling me those flames on the side aren't awesome??"

That's exactly what they're doing. And supposedly they're going to combine books 4 and 5 (which basically take place concurrently) and probably have all those events take place over 2 (3?) seasons. That's the speculation anyway. There's no way they can do book 4 the way it's written.

Keep telling yourself this. The Sabres are doing exactly what they do.

I'm sure he was thrilled to find out that the pretty girl next to him knows more about hockey than he does.

The car may only have one wheel, but the manufacturer only traded a seat cover to get that wheel. So the manufacturer is good, right?

1. Playing horrible but still winning might be the most frustrating scenario, especially when the team is a bottom-feeder that should be getting high draft picks to build around. 2. The "Suck suck suck suck suck WINNING!" pattern to the season is happening right on schedule. And, no, it's still not exciting. 3. Where do you think we'll be in the standings on January 1st, 2014? Based on the established pattern, we should be on our third or fourth "suck" and at the bottom of the standings. Fans will be talking about the draft and which player we'll be taking "first overall" and the team will be about a month away from a huge winning streak that will have them drafting in the teens in June 2014.

St. Louis' fifth becomes their fourth if they win two rounds in the playoffs this year.

We also have our draft picks.....guess nothing's working out, huh?

I was expecting poise and brains, and so far so good on both. He's a little bigger than I was expecting, probably because everyone talked about him like he was the same size as Gerbe.

You need to stop posting this and start making a YouTube video of it so that we can all enjoy it.

This is the Sabres every year at the end of the season after they've spent most of the season sucking. Don't kid yourself and imagine that any of this means something.

The third book is probably the best of the five so you guys have a lot to look forward to this season.

This is the best one so far. :worthy:

Amerks win with Matt Hackett in net, 3-2. Hackett made 39 saves on 41 shots. No points for Larsson but he was a +1 and scored in the shootout. Zemgus Girgensons with a goal and an assist, +1. Other guys who scored in the shootout: Troppic Thunder and Colin Jacobs (our 4th round pick in 2011). http://theahl.com/stats/game-summary.php?game_id=1010911

Painfully boring No playoffs or top draft pick Buffalo Hockey

So the two teams that are doing this now just happen to be the two teams rumored to be on the move the most? That's reassuring. There's also a pretty obvious competitive disadvantage when you're doing this. Who wants to play/coach for the NFL team with 7 home games each season versus all the other home teams with 8 home games/year? Eric Wood was exactly right when he went off on this idiotic plan.

Maybin was drafted 11th overall. The Bills usually draft around 10th overall, just like the Sabres lately. But, yes, the Bills do draft horribly. (They do everything horribly. They're the only pro sports team in North America that I can think of that sells their home games to another city each year.)

If Chicago crashes and burns in the playoffs with Crawford and Emery, they're probably the best destination for Miller if we're looking to deal this summer.

Goalie is the one position where you don't need to draft one high to find a good one. Looking at the league leaders in save percentage: Anderson - 3rd round Bobrovsky - Undrafted Lundquist - 7th round Bishop - 3rd round Rask - 1st round Niemi - Undrafted Schneider - 1st round LaBarbera - 3rd round Emery - 4th round Dubnyk - 1st round Not to mention: Ryan Miller - 5th round For the most part, I'd rather use the first two rounds for forwards and defense and start buying goalie in bulk after that. It seems really tough to tell who's going to be a good NHL goalie when you're looking at 18 year olds. One more reason to wish we had extra 3rd and 4th round picks this year.