Robviously

Flames win. Stars were missing their best shootout guy: Rich Peverly.

It was a fun game to watch. I noticed Fasching a lot. He's not afraid to charge the net or stand in front. I didn't see Compher out there as much. I did like that he was involved in some scrubs after the whistle.

3-2 Minnesota win in OT. Fasching with a big play in OT to set up the winning goal. Minnesota clinches the Big Ten Regular Season Title.

Bump. The game just started. Fashing is #24 for Minnesota. Compher is #17 for Michigan. 0-0 six minutes in.

Step 1: Trade first round pick. Step 2: Tank. "Am I doing this right?" - Garth Snow

Of course I am. We have TWO goalies playing like they're supernatural.

Here's something terrifying to think about: Has the Sabres goaltending actually improved since we traded Miller? It definitely hasn't gotten worse.

It's funny how we traded Miller, Ott, and Moulson and the team looks exactly the same.

No, it's just saying that winning (for any reason) after you're eliminated from the playoffs only hurts you in the draft. There shouldn't be a penalty for winning. If anything, a team still trying and winning after they've been eliminated should be rewarded. A 25% chance at the first overall pick and a 75% chance of the no.2 overall pick. That's supposed to dissuade teams from losing on purpose? I'd like to have a league where the team that does everything it can to make the playoffs and comes up just short has the same chance of drafting first as the team that didn't even try to be good. And no one is losing on purpose.

Drew Stafford is now the longest-tenured Buffalo Sabre. There's so much evil in the world.

Of course it does. If the Sabres win their last game of the season (against the Islanders), their "reward" could be a worse draft pick in June. That's disgusting. Winning should never hurt your future. The Flyers won their last game of the season last year. Had they lost that game in regulation, they would have drafted 3 spots higher come June. They would have drafted 8th instead of 11th. Tell me again how this isn't a punishment for winning.

If you can draft 1st overall last year and make the playoffs this year, I think that's actually an argument that that franchise (the Avalanche) actually didn't *need* to draft first overall to turn it around. Unless you're saying Nathan McKinnon is the main reason they're suddenly good now. Same with Montreal drafting 3rd in 2012 and making the playoffs last year. Same with Columbus drafting 2nd in 2012, just missing last year, and making it this year. I'm sure it helps even out the league, but unless you're talking about a Crosby or Ovechkin, it doesn't magically make a joke franchise legit. Sometimes it just lands high picks with joke franchises. And incentivizes those joke franchises to stay terrible. What about the other points? How this rewards failure. How it makes fans cheer against their own teams. How this actually punishes middle of the road teams trying to take the next step. Teams like the Sabres literally hurt their future by trying to take late runs at the playoffs. Is that a good system to you?

Well, this is a wildly flimsy point. 1. The sports themselves are wildly different. The size of the roster, the number of players on the field/court/ice at a time, the relative importance of stars vs depth, relative importance of specific positions, etc. 2. Each league's playoff system is completely different. A majority of teams make the playoffs in the NHL. 3. The players being drafted are completely different. MLB is 18 year olds and college juniors/seniors. NFL is college players. NHL is 18 year olds. The NBA is guys with at least one year of college. So how close each athlete is to their prime at the day they're drafted is different.

I'd be fine making the entire first round random. We shouldn't incentivize failure in any way. And if we want to give struggling frachises a leg up, that can happen in the later rounds. Both of you mentioned parity. Is it really working "EXTREMELY well"? The same franchises are either competent or incompetent year-in and year-out. Some teams bottom out one year and don't need to do it again for 10 seasons; then there's Edmonton or NYI. Wouldn't the league be better if every team only wanted to win every single game and there were no mixed incentives. We're facing an off-season where we are openly talking about the Sabres only spending enough money to get to the cap floor (and to do so by signing over the hill veterans) because we WANT TO LOSE next season. Is that what sports should be about? That's sad. Would it be fair if a team won the Stanley Cup in June and then also landed the first overall pick through a randomly generated first round? Nope. But it's not really fair now either. The "reward" for only being good enough to make the playoffs but not contend is to draft in the no man's land of no.11 to 20. I don't want to punish those teams any more than I want to reward the incompetent teams. The Habs drafted 3rd overall (Galchenyuk) in 2012 and made the playoffs last year. But it wasn't *because* of Galchenyuk. Same with Columbus. They took Ryan Murray 2nd that year and they're a good team now -- only Ryan Murray isn't the reason for that (yet). These are teams that turned it around without relying on those very top picks. I've spent years on this board saying that bottoming out helps. It does. But it's NOT the only way to win and it shouldn't be the a strategy for getting better. Unfortunately, losing on purpose actually IS a good strategy in this league. I'd rather it wasn't and teams had to act like Montreal and Columbus have.

There should be NO benefit to bottoming out. The first 14 picks of the draft should be completely random among the 14 non-playoff teams. Even if you win zero games all year long, your chance of drafting first overall would still be just 7.1% (1 in 14) -- the same as your chances of drafting 14th overall. Also, this is show business. If they want to make the draft a bigger event and, especially, a TV event, do the lottery for picks 1 through 14 about 90 minutes before the first team is on the clock. (Figure this would leave one hour between all the picks being settled and the beginning of the draft.) How glued to the TV would you be if the show was "The 14th pick goes to _____, the 13th pick goes to ______, the 12th pick....., etc."? It's stupid that the current system basically rewards incompetence (even if that system should benefit us this year).

Godspeed.

Reporter from Edmonton. Take this with a grain of salt, obviously: Jim Matheson ‏@NHLbyMatty 2h Sam Reinhart (183 lbs) is heckuva C talent but Oilers want D-man Aaron Ekblad or big German-born C Leon Draisaitl in June draft.#oilers.

Medal of Honor recipient. Also said "Every Indian outbreak that I have ever known has resulted from broken promises and broken treaties by the government." If we're looking for historical villians, this isn't the guy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill

Assembling a team where Drew Stafford is your best player sounds like some sort of satanic ritual. It's just creepy and evil.

I think it's the same point. The Isles getting a new GM at any point before we can use that pick hurts our chances of getting maximum value for it.

If they fire Snow, then defer the pick to 2015, there's a chance the new GM could inject some basic competence into that organization and make sure the 2015 1st round pick we get from them is only a mid first rounder.

Haven't read the entire thread, but has anyone made a Timbits joke about the Regier-era Sabres yet? I'll hang up and listen.

It's always weird to me when people from Buffalo criticize the south. The two regions are on opposite trajectories, and not in a good way for our little city. The Predators haven't been playing great and played last night. Tonight should be a Sabres win.

It's tough to think of our system as no.1 when we don't have any blue chips up front. How would other systems be ranked if the 18 and 19 year olds they already have in the NHL were included? The Sabres have a ton to like; they just need some kingpins to put on the first line.

Nice round of applause from the crowd when they announced that Peverly is conscious and on his way to the hospital.