Robviously

I agree with this, but if we're drafting 3rd/4th, choosing one of Marner/Strome/Hanifin as the last major piece of the puzzle is going to be agonizing. You want the best forwards but Hanifin seems much closer to being a "lock" than Marner/Strome. I hope it doesn't come to that. We'd also need to hit a home run with one of our other picks this year. I don't think adding Hanifin/Marner/Strome to what we currently have in the pipeline is enough.

Finally saw the episode from this past Monday (the Mike episode) and, at least for this one episode, this show equaled Breaking Bad. And I honestly can't think of too many episodes of any show better than this one. The scenes in Philly where Mike gets his revenge, followed by the long scene where he tells his daughter in law were jaw-dropping. They can give Jonathan Banks his Emmy now to save time. Like I mentioned previously, I really hated the idea of a Breaking Bad prequel when the rumors first started but this is a legitimately spectacular show.

Not sure how the Kane trade shakes out but, yeah, our organization looks a lot different (in a good way) with Barbashev as the pick there.

Everyone is about to get pissed off at me, but reading this post made me go back and look at our 2014 draft picks. And after the Reinhart pick, in a draft where we had three 2nd rounders and two 3rd rounders, it looks like a complete disaster. Lemieux: Had a great season but was already a head case who wanted out of Buffalo Cornel: Took a step back this season Karabacek: Also pretty awful this year. Jonas Johansson: Possibly a bright spot in this group because he didn't suck this year, but only because he was injured the whole time. Brycen Martin: Not awful. Flat to last year in production. Willman: 3 points for Brown this year. In 30 games. Brown: ??? Olofsson: Started well but got hurt. He's 5'7". Not sure if this is a result of poor decisions by Devine and Murray, or just a really lousy draft year, but we can't miss on an entire draft where we had extra (high) picks. [Or maybe now we understand why Murray wanted to move all three 2nd rounders to get back into the first round.] I'm really hoping we find some value after our first pick this year. And basically counting on our 2nd-round-or-later guys from 2013 to make it.

To the credit of this board, Saad's name used to come up a lot 2-3 years ago (before he'd become an NHL regular) when we were talking trade ideas with the Blackhawks. Obviously that ship has sailed but at least we were on the right track (and too bad we couldn't pull that off).

Don't forget -- the teams from 2007 to the start of the Tank era also miraculously showed signs of life late in the season. Then immediately went back to being terrible at the start of next season. That said, are we finally seeing Larsson hit his potential? He was really good tonight and he's improved right along this season when given the chance. I'd be happy to give him a full NHL year next season to see if we're finally getting the guy we thought we were trading for.

If the Sabres marketing team was competent, this whole process would take about 10 minutes. Just take the current white jersey, make the white parts yellow, the yellow trim white, and all the horizontal lines blue. Done. You can add the yellow B with a sword through it on the shoulders as well, but that should just be added to ALL of our uniforms.

On the plus side, only 16 games left. On the minus side, an entire 1/5th of a season left.

Murray *can't* match it because we don't have the guys to trade that Arizona does. Or Edmonton does if they decide to unload anyone too. And I also said "I'm hoping I'm wrong." So I don't "know" what will happen. These are opinions.

Which is why I wrote other things in my post about why things can/will change in the last 25% of the season. The things you deleted when you quoted me.

It's tough for sports (or anything) to make you happy if it can't also make you unhappy.

This isn't some weird performance art. I do think we're going to blow this. Trying to finish dead last with good goaltending was always a fool's errand, and Arizona/Edmonton play in the West. Edmonton is more dysfunctional and Arizona is executing a fire sale beyond anything we're going to do in the next 24 hours. I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Finishing last is all the return we need this season. If we keep Neuvirth, pretty much a 0% chance we finish last. And even trading him may not be enough anymore.

Sure looks like he's outflanked the Sabres right now. We'll see if GMTM is as smart as we all hope he is.

Yep.

I wouldn't mind that. But he does need to be traded in the next 24 hours.

Screw you! Admit your wrong!!!1! [sic]

Thank goodness. As far as I can tell, he's a player that would never factor in to a contending team but is just good enough that he could screw up the tank.

Yes. "Lowest" is literally the worst way to define the pick we want to give them. Up until that trade, every time I've heard "low" first round pick, it has meant "early." We want to give them a "late" pick. Hopefully it just says "Buffalo's choice of 1st rounders after the draft lottery."

"Florida just doesn't like hockey, but we're pretty sure Las Vegas is a no brainer!" - The NHL, and no intelligent person ever. FML.

Any chance you could buy a Neuvirth jersey today?

So we're definitely blowing the tank now, right? Everyone's on the same page? Terrific. There's nothing on earth like being a Buffalo fan.

I sometimes wonder if the 2002 Anaheim Angels hadn't won the World Series, if my horrible sports teams wouldn't have driven me to suicide by now. Between growing up a Buffalo sports fan (with the California/Anaheim/LA Angels mixed in) and being raised by religious fanatics who forbade the viewing of any organized sports, I'm thinking the latter would have made me a more well-adjusted adult.

Something something advanced statistics though......

Wow, so we're really gonna screw this up, huh?