Taro T

That seems to be close to the best outcome given the circumstances. Hopefully the guard has good councilling resources available. Really doubt he'd signed up intentionally to kill someone this morning.

Prayers to you & your coworkers. Hoping the shooter wasn't proficient. Scary stuff.

Bite, your, tongue, now! 😉

So, up to 5,000 people watching the game won't see the dog howling and everybody watching on TV will see it. Not sure it's that big of a deal.

Oftentimes, though not always, they are the same people. 😉

Regardless of the history, the UTI Comets is a ridiculously bad name. Should they relocate to Clinton,some of us would have even more fun w/ that name; but at least it would be alliterative & ha e a historical basis.

Can't see Miles Wood happy in Buffalo. There was very bad blood between his dad & the Sabres w/ the way his Sabre tenure ended.

One of the stranger things seen was in the 3rd after a clear by the UTI Comets (what a HORRIBLE name) Greer & a UTI Comet D-man crashed into each other. As Greer reached the bench he gave a middle finger salute to the crowd & some guy just missed hitting his head w/ some sort of Rohrbach product. Linesman picked it up off the ice. At the next play stoppage the PA announcer asked the crowd to please refrain from throwing anything else or the Amerks would get a penalty. Been a long time since seeing a beer thrown on the ice. Can't honestly recall seeing a can thrown on the ice. Saw MANY cups of beer thrown, particularly at Bruins, but not a can.

Maybe, maybe not. The majority of his scoring in the playoffs has come when he's out w/ Krebs & IIRC Biro on the other wing rather than Quinn. He's played w/ Quinn a little in the playoffs, but they aren't regularly linemates.

So, are the Amerks rolling 7D w/ Mersch out & Davidsson in or is Alt out & some other forward in too?

There will be those that want to continue to discuss it for years. (Look at how many other topics still get brought up even though their expiration date is seemingly long past.) But, as long as it doesn't crop up in every thread, and it won't, people that don't want to discuss it can just scroll past it.

Speaking as apparently one of those you're calling out, will explain why he's been penciled in as an early season callup rather than an out of the gate Sabre. It comes down to 2 things: 1 - he was very out of place in his brief callup to the Sabres. Quinn looked like he belonged, Peterka not so much. And 2 - his play in the defensive zone has for the most part been adequate at best between poor coverage in zone to leaving the zone early looking for that breakaway that has been a large part of his offense. Both of which will cost the team goals at the next level. Now, that said, his play in the playoffs (which btw are quite recent and haven't yet been factored in 😉 ) is making that expectation that he won't make the Sabres out of the gate less certain. Will wait until the playoffs are done to revise the expectation, but it could change. And, even if it does, if he looks as out of place in TC games as he did this season, it will shift back to an e petition that he's an early season callup. And, it isn't a knock on JJ either to say he still has some things to work on & the wings are crowded this year, especially if a Hinostroza or 2 are brought back/in next year to keep from being entirely young, so there's a possibility he isn't a Sabre on opening night. You mention Vanek, but forget one of his teammates in Ra-cha-cha. Pominville put up 68 points in 78 games in '04-'05 and had to clear waivers the next year and still got sent down before finally becoming a regular later in the fall of '05. Peterka doesn't have to clear waivers.

Yeah, they're getting to a point where they actually have a full roster's worth of NHL talent (though a fair portion isn't at their prime yet) all through the lineup w/ the glaringbexception of GTing. Will allow them to have some mixing and matching depending upon the opponent. Will be better when these guys are in their primes and other teams have to juggle around them, but after being lost in the desert for so long, it's moving in the right direction.

No doubt. But they'll be able to bring in good career AHLers to round the roster out.

Am guessing that Ruotsalainen comes back. Also, they'll have the Russian kid they just signed. Bjork will likely be an AHL All Star next year as he isn't cracking the Sabres lineup & nobody'll claim him on the way down. They'll have Subban in net. They'll be OK again next year.

Good. Maybe a long run here will get them back to having nearly full games on the weekends at least next year. Been a long time since they even did that.

then you're a part of the precipitate? 😕

And they'll have the proverbial truckload of shiny new toys (all of whom will be on cheap contracts) to surround him with. If he is as partial to the area he grew up in as people have claimed, there might be something very enticing for him to come back & be their savior. He can always include some sort of tacit agreement w/ management that if the team doesn't wind up in Tempe or Phoenix to let him work out a trade to elsewhere. Nobody believes Alex Tuch doesn't want to win, but he's happier than the proverbial pig in you know what to be playing for his favorite team. Winning is sweet. Winning & being a big part of it where you want to be is even sweeter.

The only thing that would be truly surprising this off-season is Adams knocking the ST goaltending issue out of the park. (And that wouldn't be shocking, merely surprising, as it is one thing he hasn't done at all to date. And, until it is fixed, will assume it won't be.)

Expecting (hoping?) his floor to be Curtis Brown. With Drury/Kessler as the likely ceiling.

But did the record get worse because Eichel was activated or was it due to the players going on LTIR to allow him to come off LTIR?

Really expect that management wants Cozens in a Drury or even Luce role LT. I.e., able to center the shutdown line but still also have that line able to score. Girgensons & Okposo likely have 2-3 years left & when they're gone guys like Cozens & Asplund will have to step up and ideally w/ Dylan generating even more offense than Kyle does. So, if that "shutdown" line is an actual scoring line as well, don't see any reason why Mittelstadt & Krebs can't each center a "scoring" line. Mittelstadt could center the more traditional 2nd scoring line leaving Krebs with a lot of leeway centering a modern RAV line. And the nice part of having Asplund around is, kind of like Roy found himself on Drury's line a fair amount of time he could find himself as a wing for Cozens or Mitts or centering a 2nd checking line, sliding Krebs up to split C duties w/ Mitts on that 2nd scoring line. And the idea of having all of Thompson, Mittelstadt, Krebs, Cozens, & Asplund to build flexibility up front is why it would be great to land Jiricek. Having 4 guys that can eat 24 minutes on D to go along w/ hopefully Johnson & Jokiharju who should be able to handle 2 lighter minutes as well allows them IMHO to have 3 true scoring lines to go w/ that 2 way line run by Cozens. (Plus Mitts is no longer that golden lab puppy running around in his own end that seems to be indelibly etched in so many people's minds. He's become decent in his own end & expect that will just get better.) My 2 cents.

For the 1st 42 or so years of it, would say The Blues East. (From the colors, to being consistently good though not quite good enough, to having top notch goaltending, to iconic play-by-play men, to threats to franchise stability; they were what St. Louis had been.) For the last 11 years, Celebrate the Tradition, Not. (And had they stayed the course rather than tearing everything down to the studs, maybe they'd finally have 1 championship as well. It's a good model to follow & for long stretches they actually followed it better than the original. Depending on the year, they & the Habs might be joined by the Aisles or Eulers or somebody else, but they were always near the top of the list for winningest franchises in the regular season. Even going so far as to tie for the lead in 2 separate seasons which help to keep the overall franchise winning percentage high.) As to the future & the next 48 years or so, no idea, so will simply keep it at Hopeful.

And w/ DeBoer out & Trotz floating in the unemployment rolls, am glad the Sabres got this year's draft pick.

Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Barnesssssssssssss!