Taro T

Personally, (barring a trade for a 2W) expect he's coming into camp as the presumptive 13th F; but can see him in a bit of a rotation with Greenway and Aubel-Kube (and maybe 1 or 2 others) depending upon how Ruff wants to work the matchups. Also see him as being the injury slot in for any of the bottom 6 positions ahaed of Rousek (who'd appear to be his backup in that 13th F role). And, depending upon just how much Ruff wants to have Briere & Drury style lines as his most deployed (with 1 or 3 guys that can be defensively responsible going against the other team's top lines while still having a scoring punch) and letting a young primarily scoring line w/ not quite as much defensive responsibility take advantage of mismatches against the other team's lower lines could see Krebs on a wing on any of the 4 lines (because he actually had some chemistry with Tuch when he 1st arrived in Buffalo & expect Tuch will be Ruff's new Dumont and the RW on the top scoring line). Would guess that comes down to how defensively responsible he appears in Ruff's eyes. (Not saying him moving to top line is expected; it isn't, and do expect he's nominally the 13th F. And in a jumbled lineup would expect when he dresses he's still somewhere on lines 2-4 as a W, most likely 3 or 4. But don't consider it'd be a head scratcher should it happen.)

Would be so on brand if it was a former Sabres turn with the chalice. (Yeah, you win, but you don't get the spoils of victory; just because.)

To the bolded, not necessarily. Or, more precisely, whether he'd faltered would depend upon the baseline. If the baseline is the UPL we saw in January and February, it would almost necessarily be due to him faltering, because that UPL was getting into Vasilevskiy territory and would necessitate having Levi playing like Saros. But, if the baseline is where UPL was at the very end of the season, could see Levi playing better than that but UPL remaining at that level. (And that would almost definitely still be better than the sum total of what the Sabres got from the position last year.) And if UPL stays at the level he ended at, don't see how it could be called "faltering." (Semantics, but IMHO words & their meanings matter.) And if they got oh, say, 76 games of at least the end of the year UPL out of both of them with a handful of stinkers thrown in; that likely would be good enough. (Especially if they add the 2W that Adams seems to be looking for.) To the rest of your post, agree. It doesn't matter which goalie plays at a legit starter's level as long as at least one of them gets there. (And if it's Reimer doing it, fine. Who does it doesn't matter (ST, it matters greatly for the LT); but that the Sabres get it absolutely matters.) And if they don't get that level of goaltending, Mr. Adams might be looking to the employment section of the newspaper next spring. (PLEASE don't let that be the case. REALLY don't want to have to see another attempt at a rebuild.) @dudacek has said it before, and it's accurate. Don't know if Adams will get it (playoffs) done this year; but the thought of the team not doing it is seriously depressing because it means these guys aren't as good as management believed/believes they are. And that augers more "suffering." We've had too dang much of it already the past dozen years +.

Because they'd gotten their prospect goalie for THAT year in the Reinhart trade. Would also have rather had them choose a goalie with that pick they used on Rosen and expected at the time that they would use it on 1 of the 2 1st round talents still available, but pretty sure they probably feared they'd scare Portillo away if they brought in two prospects in the same off-season. (Not commenting on whether it was a good decision or not; merely taking a stab at the "why" of it.)

Bob Newhart passed away today. IMHO he was the funniest human alive. What a sad day. Unfortunately the Button Down Mind won't be striking again. RIP Dr. Hartley & Dick Laudon.

Good questions. Been a long time since looking at the bankruptcy documents from the criminals' era. The answers to your Q's would be in there. (Golisano assumed the lease and then it transferred to Pegula with the sale.) Not intentionally putting you off, but with it having been so long since looking at that stuff would be afraid of posting "fake news" at this point. @Brawndo could likely answer your Q. If you haven't gotten a good answer by Sunday evening, I might try to track them down.

And he DID actually stick with UPL. Yes, UPL was bumped down to 3rd on the depth chart, but he was not bumped down to Ra-cha-cha where he could've been lost for a $500 claiming fee.

When 1 or 2 guys play a perimeter game, it's heart. When all but 1 or 2 play a perimeter game, it's coaching/strategy. It was the worst of the Patrick Roy Avs "we're a puck possesstion" team right before he got canned there. They held the puck but never scored because they never shot & never worked towards high danger shots. Granato added a focus on cutting down on goals against "WITHOUT changing the system" (his words). That gets accomplished by not forcing the puck into the slot where it's going to get turned over a lot (it's also going to result in less high danger scoring chances, which is not a good thing). Let's see how these guys fare under Ruff before declaring most all of them heartless. Maybe?

True dat. But it was cheaper than adding additional escalators. Heck of job there, Quinny, heck of a job. And, because of the congestion at the escalators (which is even worse when you have to come from the penalty box side of the rink after being used to coming from the other side) we've always taken the stairs back down to leave the building.

Yes, Levi went into camp last season as the presumptive starter, but it wasn't entirely a case of Adams and Granato handing him the job. Go back and look at how he, Comrie, and UPL played at the end of the previous season. Yes, UPL had been playing pretty well in January of that year, but he wasn't consistently doing so by the end of that season. Comrie was what he was. And Levi looked good down the stretch. In training camp last year, UPL did NOT look good at all, Comrie was Comrie, and until the Penguins game debacle (which in hindsight was a huge red flag) Levi was playing well there. So, yes, Levi was given the opportunity to take the #1 slot, but neither Comrie nor UPL did anything at all to take it from him. And, actually, Levi ended up taking the job from himself in October. Neither Comrie nor UPL took hold of the job themselves until around the flip of the calendar when UPL really grabbed the reins.

The question wasn't who is your FAVORITE team, as posited in the OP it was who is your SECOND favorite team. (And, it really is most likely a reflection of which team do you dislike the least.) But how many people buy merchandise for their SECOND favorite team? Merchandise sales would be a reflection of who fans' #1 team is, wouldn't it be? (YOU might have Bruin and Sabre gear, but personally doubt many others here have a whole bunch of merch for teams other than the Sabres. And expect that trend would be similar across the league and across sports.)

It was the EXACT same building as the Staples Center in LA except instead of having only 1 level of box seats between the 200's and 300's there were 3 levels of box seats there. Which is likely a big part of why the roof is so high above the seats. The building could've held more boxes, but there would be no way to sell that many. Oh, another difference, the seats in the Staples Center were purple instead of blue. Amazing how much cheaper the engineering is when you're taking an existing design for a building that seats more and is in a less geologically stable environment and using it over. 😉 PS - the original name of the building was the "Crossroads Arena" until the naming rights were sold at which point it became the MMArena. 😉 The location of the team store was slightly different too.

Why trade him? Because if a team is going to provide Sabres somebody like a Zegras, they are very likely going to want him coming back in return as part of the package. Personally, DON'T WANT HIM TRADED. But, if Adams makes a trade for a 2W am expecting he's going to be a big portion of the price to make that happen.

Pretty sure you're on the right track with that. Hey, TO's playing X, who are you rooting for? Team X unless it's the B's or the Phlyers and then am rooting for both teams forfeiting due to teamwide intestinal distress (food poisoning) and neither having enough guys that aren't on the toilet to play the game. There's several other teams that would garner that same response.

Provided he isn't the prospect going the other way should a trade for a 2W be consumated.

300 level concourses are insanely tiny, so the events staff place trash cans and recycling bins at the end of the stanchions under the stands to restirct them even further. Genius. They have been asked to not place them there and on occassion have moved them. But then the ushers complain that people "can't find them and leave their trash everywhere." Bullspit. There is a can or recycle bin literally at every stanchion. It isn't hard to "find" one. And if that really were the reason, they could be placed so that they stick out past the stanchion by 4"-6" so people could "see" them, but it would still free up at least 24" of prime walking space. This stupid can placement makes it very difficult to get around in the 300's at the 1st intermission as the vast majority of the 300's empty into the concourse during that intermission. Heck of a job, Quinny; heck of a job. (Though he's the idiot that was fine with the stupidly narrow concourses (which are wider than what was there behind the blues in the Aud, which isn't saying much. The hallway in our tiny house is probably larger than they were over near the bathroom by the Aud Club entrance.) at least he isn't the idiot telling them to keep restricting pedestrian flow even further. But still, a chance for a pot shot at that tool, when provided should and must be taken.)

People hate on St. Louis? Really? Why? People like Dallas? Really? Why?

That could be part of why the acoustics are being revamped. A (IMHO) bigger part of it is that people sitting in certain spots in the rink literally need to bring ear plugs to keep from leaving the building with ringing ears and in other parts can't hear the announcements at all clearly. It is amazing how much variability there is in the volume and quality of the sound throughout. Don't care about the new scoreboard, but am looking very hopefully to having the acoustics at least upgraded if not outright fixed.

Having had a basement VERY prone to flooding prior to some major work we had done in the yard, can tell you we've had MANY a summer with as much, if not more, downpour rainfall.

Haven't personally run Square for payments (though do have an account for that and also a Paypal card reader; just haven't actually used either as got set up with both just before Covid hit and, well, things changed since then), but a NFP I'm associated with uses it annually for a major event. It seems to be pretty easy to set up and then very easy to use if you have a laptop or tablet available. And they've been using it to sell books, among other things, btw. Would recommend you set it up and then run a small "test" tranaction to verify you can make it run flawlessly.

+ & = are your friends, Numbers-Guy. 😉

Apparently they simply won't be able to get significantly ahead of anyone, needing 7 games all 4 rounds. Wonder if he's got them winning that very last game?

35 G, 37 A Glued to Cozens hip at 5v5. Bumper on PP1.

It doesn't matter how many other teams would've given up a 2 for him. None that were lower in the standings would (we know that because the Caps accepted the Sabres offer) & we know the Caps would rather have him on their roster than a 3td round pick because Adams had to give up a 2. The 2 teams that mattered for this transaction both agreed he was worth a 2. Were they right? We'll know by May.

Based on the investment, it sure does seem like Ruff plans on "rolling 4 lines" with everybody dressed having a role and everybody being expected to fill that role. And could definitely see which 12 F's dress, and maybe even which 6 D dress, changing on a nearly nightly basis depending upon who they're playing that night.