Robviously

:doh: Er, yeah, I was referring to Kassian last year and potentially Foligno this year. So a hypothetical two year trend. And even that is too much given that we've dedicated just one draft (2009, where we got both these guys) to finding big, rugged players in Regier's 15+ years as the GM.

The old footage of Ryan Miller at Michigan State is bizarre. He's actually smiling and appears to be having a good time playing hockey. I also liked the announcers repeating the story about Vanek re-discovering his love of hockey by spending time in Austria during the lockout. Speaks volumes that his time with the Sabres drained it out of him. (But, by all means, stay the course, Terry Pegula. It doesn't sound like we have a dysfunctional organization at all in that story.)

I had a dream that a giant spider was eating my neighbor's dog. At least that's not.... [looks out window] ....oh my God............

OK, the second minute could be going a lot better too. :ph34r:

OK, the first minute could have gone better. :sick:

Mmm hmm, and yet the Sabres never seem to have any of these guys around. Weird that an "infinitely" available asset always eludes our team.

The latest from a Denver Post and SI.com writer:

This is where we disagree. Foligno is most definitely on my protected list. We have exactly one guy on the roster who can bring his combination of size, strength, and toughness. In the entire organization, we have only one other guy who could potentially bring that same combination (Girgensons) and he's a couple years off. First of all, I can't remember at time in my life when the Sabres have EVER had enough guys like that. Second, if we're ever going to win a Stanley Cup, we're going to need a bunch of guys like that. The Sabres can't trade their best power forward every year. If anything, we should be drafting more guys like that and building around them. One of the hallmarks of the Regier era is that we've never put a priority on size/strength/toughness. We picked Artem Kruikov over Brooks Orpik in 2000. We took Enroth over Lucic in 2007. We stuck with Afinogenov and Kotalik over Dumont in summer 2006. We *sorta* got interested in size/strength/toughness in the 2009 draft with Kassian, McNabb, and Foligno, but we've already traded Kassian and all I ever hear about is if we could trade McNabb or Foligno for something else too. Enough already. Can we try something we've never tried and actually build around big, tough players? (This is rhetorical. I already know that Regier will trade these players away for three magic beans as soon as he has the opportunity.)

I think this is a natural result of most fans believing that (1) the current management team of Regier/Ruff is never going to win a Stanley Cup and (2) our owner and team president are completely committed to that management team. Try imagining a more frustrating situation for a sports fan.

Spectacular news because it goes with the timeline they set up a couple weeks back. Sounds like they took their time bringing him back and made sure everything was right before they put him back out there. Old tweets from a couple weeks back:

http://www.graffitiwithpunctuation.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/tljncfom.jpeg

Cool. Good for him.

I just tried to imagine Darcy making all the phone calls to get two GMs on the same page for a big trade and I passed out.

Seriously. We would have been down by about 5 goals heading into the 3rd without Miller saving our ass.

You can't? I can. When have they ever drafted for size, strength, and toughness? They tried it one year (2009) and then gave up again.

Hodgson gets the goal but that was an awesome play by Myers.

Yeah, it's noticeable. This is why we have John Scott. Time to send him out.

I just hope to God that he doesn't get hurt or change once he gets his first big contract. He's too good to be true right now.

Holy crap! That looked like 2009 Tyler Myers! Where's he been?

They still look better than they did against the Islanders and we accidentally won that game.

A huge boon, but one that's going to cost us. We might be "buying" when his value is at an all time high (both in terms of what we have to trade and how much we have to pay him). A prospect is a bigger gamble (maybe a much bigger one) but should cost us a lot less. Plus I think it's a big deal that Colorado isn't a great trade partner for us. The guys they'd want are the guys we need the most (e.g. Armia, Girgensons, Grigorenko, etc.). A contender like Nashville makes a lot more sense since our goals for this season are different.

Lets take a step back. All the arguments about why Ryan O'Reilly would be an awesome pick-up for the Sabres are valid. TBPhd laid out a vision of Hodgson, Grigorenko, and O'Reilly as our top 3 centers long term (predicated on Oreo reaching his potential) and that sounds pretty great. The Sabres DO need a two-way, shutdown center who can bring some offense along the way. That doesn't have to be O'Reilly though. What about this guy from Nashville? Austin Watson. http://www.hockeysfu.../austin_watson/ He sounds like the same type of player and won't require a huge contract immediately. Plus he's a former first round pick from 2010 so he fits into the Sabres' new, younger core. Most importantly, Nashville is a more natural trade partner. They're trying to win the Stanley Cup this year. We aren't (unless management is completely delusional). So guys like Stafford, Ennis, and Sekera would have way more value to them than they would to Colorado (who is basically in the same position they are). Nashville would probably want our veterans (even Leopold and Regehr could come into the discussion). Colorado probably wants the players we absolutely shouldn't be looking to deal right now (e.g. Armia). We know what this team needs, but that doesn't mean O'Reilly has to be the one to provide it. If we're going to get into a bidding war for the guy, this trade could end up being ridiculous. We can find another way.

It's fun to imagine how much we could have gotten for Stafford two summers ago. Oh well.

No, it turns out I was wrong about that. We didn't face a disproportionate amount of back-ups, we just got a disproportionate amount of our wins against back-ups -- which is actually far worse. The important point is that we did get fat against back-ups in the second half of last season. Thanks again for doing the legwork to prove it.

It's not meaningless. It means we weren't even as good as our (bad) record last year. I liked the "Prove me wrong, bro!" post you had but deleted as fast as you could a few minutes ago. Thanks for backing me up on the "got fat against back-up goalies" point though.