Robviously

Schopp has an article up now about how they shouldn't trade him now because his value is so low. I guess you heard right. I'm surprised he flipped on this. Weird.

The girl from the Excedrin commercial?

There's an intertemporal aspect to most deadline trades. If you're a buyer you're trading future assets for assets that will help you right now. The fact that the sellers have the future assets for longer is balanced out by the fact that there's no guarantee the future assets will be worth much.

No, you're thinking of Peggy.

I think I still have PTSD from the last two games of that series.

I tried explaining the stuff in your second paragraph once but he just kept repeating that they "don't matter" and then said "someday you'll get it" (which is something you say when you're losing an argument and want it to end because you're out of ammo). The other point is this: There's no correlation between field goal percentage and winning percentage in the NFL, but you'd never say "field goals don't matter." They don't determine who the winning teams are, but at some point you'll probably really need to make one. We should know.

First of all, that's the perfect response whether you really know or not. LOL He's the morning guy on WGR. Apparently someone found that there's not statistically significant correlation between team face off percentage and team winning percentage, so he goes on and on about how they don't matter. It only takes a few minutes to notice all the issues with this rationale. Also, every time a goal is scored off a face off in a Sabrss game, he goes into CYA mode on Twitter and gets super defensive, sometimes for the entire rest of the game.

So I take it you don't buy into Jeremy White's "face offs don't matter" rants?

I only heard the first hour or so of yesterday's show, but Schopp has been saying for while that he wants the Sabres to play Stafford as much as possible to get his trade value up for the deadline. I'm not sure how he would have suddenly switched to "keep Stafford" yesterday. As for everyone else, they've been saying that everyone should be available for a while too.

His value would only be lower then. The trade deadline is when everyone gets desperate and overpays. I'm not sure we're getting a first for Stafford but its not impossible.

No, they're definitely different things. But they ARE connected in that the Sabres are almost certainly giving up on making the playoffs if they trade four guys (or more) off the roster for picks and prospects (which I'd be fine with). I'd love it if they took advantage of the sellers market this year. The chances of the Sabres actually tanking and getting the first overall pick are about the same as them winning the Cup this year, so it's sort of a silly argument anyway.

You wrote a couple great posts on the matter. That probably turned the tide. Unfortunately, we'll be having the exact same debate again and again and again, possibly forever.

"We have other guys for that."

This is why we need voter ID laws in the Aud Club.

The NFL is only worth talking about in regards to "Is it OK for fans to be happy about their teams losing to get a higher pick in the draft?" When you look at how many NFL stars are picked at the top of the draft (not just first overall), the answer is yes. Embracing a bad season in hopes that your team will be stronger for it later does not make anyone a bad fan.

Why are you wasting your time on this message board when you could easily be making millions of dollars a year as a comedian? Seriously, how much better would Mark Twain's satire have been had he had the wherewithal to come up with something as witty as "retard gas"?

The MLB draft doesn't compare to the NFL or NHL so it's pretty hilarious that you had to reach that far for the "But Exceptions!" point. As for KC, it's tough for them that they bottomed out in a year without a franchise QB but they'll still land a fine player. Insightful as ever.

LOL. Tremendous.

That means Vaenk is overpaid by $2M. By this logic, isn't Stafford the most overpaid player on the team? He gets paid $4M and doesn't play. Also, I'd argue that many talented players need to be "overpaid" in order to keep or get them, and in that case that's just the price for having such a player.

The drafts themselves aren't comparable in terms of how easy it is to project the players and how immediate the impact of each player is, but they're the same as far as fans potentially being fine with their team bottoming out for a high pick. The benefits of a high draft pick are pretty obvious in both leagues.

Thank you for probably the most thorough post on the benefits of a high draft pick that this board will ever see. It's a good summary of what the arguments are, and what they certainly are not. All the arguments against this logic boil down to "But look at the exceptions!" and make me wonder if people are just doing mental gymnastics to avoid having to consider that the Sabres are really going to struggle to ever contend given the path they're on. The part where we have to have this exact same conversation on the board every two weeks is fairly amazing.

Really? The Flames are the first team you think of for a not really contending, not really rebuilding team? I can think of one closer to home.

Many winning teams were originally losing teams with one or two great players. Example: Chicago Blackhawks the year after they drafted Toews. You have to start somewhere.

I can think of Boston with Seguin but they got that pick about a year before the draft. I can't think of many examples of teams trading a top 3 pick on draft day.

I want them to tank and I still pumped my fist when Vanek scored his second goal last night. Reflexes are a bitch.