Robviously

Obviously that's an awesome roster, but what did you trade Anaheim and Los Angeles to get Getzlaf and Brown. I figure it would cost a ton to get either one.

Based on Getzlaf's last 3 years, he might be "gettable" even though he'll still cost a ton. He's not so good that the Ducks wouldn't listen to offers. He'd also give Vanek a big center to play alongside, something we only saw once in the last few years (with Adam early this season) that looked really good. Dustin Brown playing RW with Vanek and Hodgson would be exciting as well. We saw how good Ennis and Stafford looked with Foligno on their line in a similar role (though Brown has more proven scoring ability).

1. Hodgson is 22 years old. He's not supposed to look like a no.1/2 center on a good team yet. Here's how the 2008 draft class has done so far: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2008e.html There's Stamkos, and then the rest of the guys are all still trying to figure it out. 2. Roy-Pominville-Vanek is still our best line? You're not basing this on how they play together, right? This is based on how you imagine they should play together?

I give Ennis and Foligno the credit because I watched Stafford sleepwalk through most of the season until Ennis became our best forward late in the season, and then Foligno showed up and became maybe our second best forward. Of the three, Ennis was the first to take his game to the next level (Foligno wasn't here yet). It's all just a guess but I'm not comfortable counting on Stafford for anything. If he openly takes a "we have other guys for that" approach to toughness, I wonder if he takes a leadership approach to any aspect of the game.

The bold part is exactly what I'm saying. Ennis and Foligno brought Stafford back to life this year. But we've seen Stafford have his hot streaks before too. I'm not ready to pencil him in as a guy we can count on now any more than I was after last year.

Most of the chemistry on that line seems to come from Ennis and Foligno though.

Were the Sabres "trying to win" when they dealt Gaustad, their only big center and their only center who could win face-offs? How does that fit in to "always trying to win"? The firesale is necessary because the Sabres post-Black Sunday core of Pominville, Vanek, Roy, Stafford, Gaustad, etc. is never going to be good enough to win the Stanley Cup. It's time to clear those guys out and get a fresh start. That doesn't mean we need to trade all of them, but the last two seasons are pretty good proof that the "core" did a lot to reinforce one another's sucky, uninspired play. Our season turned around last year when Roy went out and it turned around (almost) this year after Gaustad was dealt. The Sabres' next chance to contend is by building around the 2008 draft class (Myers, Ennis, Hodgson, Adam) along with other young guys like Foligno, McNabb, Tropp, etc. I'd keep building around that core. And I would have taken that 1st for Roy (despite already having 2 firsts) because he (and that pick) were worth more at the deadline than he will be this summer. His value at the deadline was because teams were trying to load up to win the Cup right now. This summer he only has value as a guy with 1 year left on a good contract. Sell high, buy low. We could use all three picks at the draft, trade them to move up, or trade them for players to help us next year. We'd be in better shape right now if we had a 3rd first round pick instead of Derek Roy.

We'll see. They considered last season's changes "substantial" (Ted Black's term) even though they left the core completely intact aside from (finally) letting Tim Connolly's contract expire (two years too late). Look at the trade deadline: We dealt Gaustad for a draft pick, basically admitting that we aren't trying to win the Cup this year, and that's where the fire sale ended. Supposedly they could have had a 1st for Roy. Instead, they decided to make a half-hearted run for the playoffs that failed. You can't trade veterans for draft picks at the deadlines and try to make the playoffs in the same year. The fact that they even tried makes me worried about how they're going to proceed with whatever rebuilding they plan on doing.

Some of that was because the NHL was actually calling penalties in the first few years after the lockout though. Even Brad Boyes was able to score 40+ goals in a league where they let the offensive players do what they wanted. (I'm sorry that ended, BTW.)

The sample sizes for most players in the 2008 draft (i.e. players the same age as Ennis) are pretty small: http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2008e.html It's remarkable how many games/points we've already gotten out of our first three picks in that draft (Myers, Ennis, Adam) and now we have Hodgson from that draft as well. That was a really good draft for the Sabres and will only get better if Ennis the Center is for real and if Adam turns things around.

Same here. If Ennis was part of a package that got me to the very top of the draft, I'd definitely consider it. But I wouldn't trade him for any 1st round pick and 3rd round pick. Also, I do agree (intuitively) that being smaller probably makes it tougher for a guy to stay healthy in the NHL. But it's not everything. If not for that cheap shot last year, Pominville would have never missed any time and he's just an average-sized guy. Style of play really matters when you think about who gets hurt and who doesn't. And some guys are just more durable than others.

Awesome article. And I thought I heard Ted Black say that Hodgson doesn't drink too. I agree with Roberts -- being a pro athlete is a lifestyle decision. I want guys who are so committed to winning and being their best that it touches every part of their life.

Are you thinking of Nathan Paetsch? Dan Paille scored 19 goals for us in 07-08. I don't know what happened to him after that but at one point he looked like he had a really bright future in Buffalo. If Tropp is a better, edgier version of Paille who doesn't turn out to be a head case, he'll be an awesome player to have.

Think about when the team has been good the last three years: 2009-2010: Tyler Myers shows up out of nowhere, wins the NHL Rookie of the Year, and leads the team to the division championship. Ryan Miller has his best season. 2010-2011: The Sabres have the worst record in hockey at Christmas, Derek Roy goes down, and Vanek starts playing like a superstar. The team makes a furious run to the postseason behind Vanek, Ennis, Gerbe, and Enroth. 2011-2012: The Sabres are dead in the water at the trade deadline and unload Gaustad. Suddenly the team gets hot again behind Ennis, Foligno, Stafford. Miller is playing some of the best hockey of his career and Pominville is having his best season (not statistically but definitely in terms of stats and leadership). So of the Black Sunday leftovers, the only ones who ever carried the team anywhere good are Miller, Pominville, and Vanek. Connolly, Gaustad, and Roy were never a big factor when our team has been good; younger guys have had way more to do with it than them.

I would still like to move Roy. I'm more convinced than ever that the After-Black-Sunday core needs to be dismantled. We took off last year when Roy went away and we took off this year when Gaustad went away. Stafford got better when we moved him away from Roy. Correlation is not causation, but I've seen enough that I'm ready to find out what this team can do with a new leadership structure. Keep Poms and Vanek as your captain and alternate, then ask the younger guys to step up. The team is at its best when that happens anyway.

The whole basis of good storytelling relies on putting relatable people in difficult situations. So 1. the characters are relatable because you see some of yourself in them and 2. you're interested because you wonder how the situation would play out if it were you. Based on how popular all the zombie books, movies, TV shows, and video games have been recently, I'm thinking a lot of people (for whatever reason) like to daydream about living in an apocalyptic zombie scenario. You even have stuff like this: http://runforyourlives.com/ People see horror movies because they want to be scared and they see romance movies because they want to experience (usually absurd) love stories. People like to pretend. And it's not just zombies -- people have Mad Men parties where they dress up like upscale New Yorkers from the 1960's. And based on the part where you said this was a "fantastic series" I'm guessing you've also daydreamed about life in the Walking Dead universe.

I like zombie stuff so I'll probably watch it the way I watched this season -- a couple minutes here and there to see if there's any action happening. The character/dialogue scenes are consistently awful, but zombie action is always, at worst, fun. Like I said, I just wish the writers could make their non-zombie characters halfway decent. Especially since that's supposedly who the title of the show is referring to.

Read it and loved it. He dissected all the really practical problems you'd face if this ever really did happen. The most chilling part was towards the end when they (spoiler) find all the people who successfully barricaded themselves in from the zombies but just ran out of food and starved to death. That had way more of an impact than any really "out there" ideas they could have gone into. Or the bit about no one knowing what happened to North Korea. My favorite zombie anything is still the first 10 minutes of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead. You basically see the opening hours of the end of the world and just how frantic and insane it would be. It's still as jarring as anything I've ever seen in a horror or action movie.

So you've never imagined how it would all play out for you if there ever was a zombie situation? Isn't there an industry built around people doing that? Books, video games, movies, TV shows.......yeah, I can see how that would be completely ludicrous given the billions of dollars people are making from that. <_<

Obviously a show about zombies is going to take some liberties with realism but they can tell some interesting stories without getting too silly. The single most intense part of the show on Sunday (and maybe the entire series) was Andrea stumbling through the woods, possibly surrounded, and with no discernible escape route. The other best part of the show was in the first episode when Rick was hiding in the house with the father and son and they heard a car alarm go off, attracting other zombies until the house was completely surrounded. The show, and any zombie movie, is at its best when it sticks to scenarios you could easily imagine yourself in in a zombie apocalypse. You don't need to fill the show with gimmicks. On the other hand, given how much trouble the writers have writing for non-zombie characters, I'm not surprised they're going in this direction.

Here's how you know this isn't a great show: I watched Season 1, skipped ALL of season 2, and then came back in for the S2 finale and it didn't feel like I'd missed anything. Basically it took me a couple minutes to figure out what had happened in the previous 12 episodes. I enjoyed all the zombie killing in the first half of the episode, but I'm still not sure what the plan was. They see a few thousand zombies bearing down on their farm and decide to drive around in circles shooting at them? Even discounting that these characters can miraculously score perfect headshots from moving vehicles on un-even terrain, I don't see how that was supposed to work. (It didn't.) I like the way Rick kills Shane in self-defense but somehow picks the single worst way to explain that to the rest of the group: "I KILLED HIM! I WANTED TO DO IT!!!! HE KEPT PUSHING ME!!!!!! SO I KILLED HIM!!!!!!1! ......oh, and by the way he pulled a gun on me and said his plan was to kill me and then steal my family......but.....anyways....... I KILLED HIM!!!" Introducing a new character who has a samurai sword and slave zombies is a little rough too. They couldn't figure out a way to tell an interesting story in a post-apocalyptic world full of zombies without resorting to cartoonish gimmick characters?

Hodgson is 1 year older but just played his 80th NHL game. They're both rookies. I'm also not really sure if Foligno's game translates to the shootout.

Well, we know the Sabres were "close" to trading Roy last summer. And Chz said the Sabres were shopping him again at the deadline this year but balked on moving him when they were only offered a 1st rounder. So the Sabres seem to recognize that Roy is a guy who should be off the team. But they can't bring themselves to get it done. I guess my point is that if the Sabres were ready to unload one veteran (Gaustad), they should have made sure to get a few more guys moved. Especially this year when it was definitely a seller's market. As for this thread's trade, it's not present-for-future, but future-for-future. So not the type of trade I was talking about, although Regier deserves credit for thinking outside the box. Very rare for two teams to swap their top prospects. It made sense for both teams and it would probably make sense for more trades of this type to take place, but teams don't think that way.

Although this again makes me wonder why the Sabres traded only Gaustad at the deadline. You can't attempt to both make a playoff push and unload veterans for draft picks at the deadline. If you're going to unload veterans, go ahead and trade more than one. I hate that the Sabres try to have it both ways. But this is the problem with letting Regier handle the Sabres' rebuilding. We get a little rebuilding but he wants to keep his job so he's not going to let the team bottom out and start fresh.

I'm honestly not sure what the problem is. In 2006-2007, the Sabres were no.1 in the league in goals/game. Then Black Sunday hit and we lost Drury and Briere. So in 2007-2008 we dropped all the way down to.......fourth. Since then we've hovered around 10th in the league in G/game. So in general the team has been pretty good at scoring the last few years. This year is just a debacle. For most of the season, all of our scoring came from two guys (Pominville and Vanek). Our team just didn't click this year.