Taro T

Not disputing the bolded, but am curious what evidence you've seen to indicate this being the case? He didn't play at all in the preseason and he also hasn't played at all for the Sabres in the regular season.

Maybe. Any decision on who to start when needs to keep in mind that UPL WANTS to play every game and he plays better when he's getting the bulk of the starts and doesn't have realistic competition for the #1 role. (Still not sure if that last one is merely correlation or has a causation factor to it.) Personally believe getting 2 games above 0.500 IS a big deal and expect the Snarks to be playing hard early to try to not mess up their former C's big night. Depending upon what UPL's injury last week was, would be seriously considering giving him the start but would let both him and Reimer know before hand that whether he keeps going in this one will be decided at each intermission. And, yes, this backup that was brought in, twice, probably doesn't have much buy in from the coaches. He clearly had lost the backup job to the kid in early training camp. Had Levi's play not slipped from what it was earlier this year when he was getting roughly every other game, Reimer either wouldn't have been brought back or he's be the 3rd goalie waiting out his 30 day stint with the big team to help reduce the likelihood he gets claimed a 3rd time off waivers (because until he's been here a full 30 days, the Ducks can claim him and move him to their farm team). Remember, though Ruff has had backups like Roloson and Biron, he's also had Essensa. He's mentioned that he doesn't want to play the #1 on back to back nights. But just due to the workload before and after this one, could see UPL getting the nod. Am expecting it'll be Reimer, but wouldn't have any money on it and again, personally would go the other way (dependent of course upon what the injury was).

Will have to think about it more, but don't believe this will materially increase the quality of junior hockey in the US which was the original premise. Will it increase youth hockey participation? Perhaps, but expect that'd be more of giving an ancillary assist to the large footprint the NHL already put in place in the US (and appears planning to expand further in the next decade (unfortunately IMHO, because 32 teams is also IMHO about perfect)) and the current NCAA program expansion that was propelled by 2 major factors: 1 - the NCAA giving hockey and lax programs exemptions from the "a college will compete at a particular level in ALL sports that they play at a varsity level to be included in the NCAA" rule back in the 90's and 2 - the realignment of the college programs caused by the creation of BIG 10 (or 14, or 18, or wtf they're up to now; whatever it is, it AIN'T 10) hockey which was almost entirely propelled by Pegula's donation to Penn State to take their hockey program from Club level to full on D1. Those 2 were the driving force in bringing smaller schools like RIT and Niagara into Div 1 and also large schools like some of the BIG 10 and others like Arizona that never had Div 1 hockey in the past into Div 1. Will it be a driver of increasing the # of schools participating in NCAA Div 1 Hockey? Probably. But still not convinced it'll have a bigger impact than those other 2 drivers - the effects of which are still being felt and are still leading to additional expansion of NCAA ranks. Still expect this to be more of a boon to the "big boys" than to everyone in general. But you make some good points and maybe it will be a rising tide that lifts all boats. A couple of forces working against any of this significantly improving participation / talent is ice rinks are very expensive to run (especially in non-traditional markets where the weather actively works against making quality skating ice) and because of that and how much equipment players need to participate it will always be a tough sport for kids from lower income homes to participate in any significant way. Had expected the 90's roller hockey fad to be more enduring than it was and removing the need for ice to play hockey would've gone a long way towards eliminating / reducing some of these barriers. Either way; it'll be fascinating watching how this evolves and am almost positive there will be additional effects that we aren't even contemplating yet.

Seriously. It's like it confused the Snarks with the Loafs.

Unfortunately, at least until Johnson or one of the Russians are ready for the big time OR Adams makes a move, their best option for a partner for him is Jokiharju who really isn't a top 4 guy NOR a stay-at-home D-man. (If he were even 1 or the other, it would lighten Power's burden and cover some of his flaws.)

Will be very interesting to see how it plays out. And this prediction could be correct. But personally don't see that happening as this change seems like it will favor the current "haves" at the expense of lower leagues. Currently, the lower tiers (both Canadian and American) can get kids that want to end up going to US college on scholarship but aren't quite there (typically due to age but sometimes due to being a late bloomer) as they've been shut out of the CHL by the NCAA. Now, those kids can play in the CHL without effecting their NCAA eligibility. So, personally expect those lower tiers will see a bit of a talent defection rather than an infusion of talent. Kind of like how with all the consolidation of the big NCAA conferences and the football playoff there is more money than ever in college football but it seems to be going more and more to the dozen / couple of dozen programs at the very top. (The odd Indiana story not withstanding. Would be very surprised if they manage to be in the top 10 again moving forward as the coach won't get to bring a whole lot of transfers along with himself again. Though maybe his eye for HS talent that should be but aren't recruited by the big boys will be sustainable. Will be interesting to watch play out either way.) And apologies if your comment was directed to the US National Team and not the 17-20 yo hockey landscape in general. Expecting that will remain strong as the ADM does seem to be effective at least for the upper echelon players.

Pretty sure you're being optimistic there. 😉

Forgot about that. (The way Ruff had talked about taking him out of the Habs game, made it sound like it was an illness and forgot they'd said it was a minor injury that held him out of the next 2. So, still had that thought of it being an illness in the back of the brain.)

Expecting @mjd1001 is onto something with the possibility of UPL getting the start tonight. He had a relatively light work load, has only played twice in the past week, and will have 3 days of rest before the Sabres next game. Also, would expect Aube-Kubel to be the player coming out of the lineup should Thompson be ready to go; but hopefully we shall see.

More similarities: the starter missed time in November due to injury and they had a 3 headed goalie monster with management wanting to put at least one of those goalies being waived with the intension of spending time in Ra-cha-cha and also one of them finding himself on a west coast team. Almost nobody expected that team to make the playoffs. In no small part because it had been years since the offensively challenged team had seen the playoffs and they simply walked away from their best pure goal scorer who was viewed as an impediment to playing winning hockey.

Except there is a logic to having a reluctance to trade with your rivals; especially if the trade involves a "star" player. Your fans will come after you with pitchforks every single time that star player does something good against your team. And even if the fans get to a point where they might forget about it, the local media drums the fury back up every time it happens and the pitchforks and torches are back out. If the fans come after you often enough and hard enough, your job security tumbles. It's the psychology of the game. And it's in the same vein of why a guy like Danny Paille essentially got ran out of town here in Buffalo but was a contributor on a SC winning Bruins squad. He was a 1st rounder here, and had expectations of being a top 6 F because of that. And he couldn't live up to those expectations because he wasn't anywhere close to a 1st or even a 2nd liner. But he was a very effective 4th liner.

And when the Sabres win tonight, the Sharks will only be 0.667 in their last 9. #### Dumbo D'oh and his big night. Go, go, Buffalo.

Not really the right place for this, but got tired of scrolling back through topics to find a Quinn specific one. Until he tried to set the Ducks up with a breakaway in the last minute or so of the game that they were unable to take advantage of; thought Quinn had his best game of the season last night. If he is finally starting to understand how he fits into Ruff's system we should see his play actually being useful like last night rather than like his 1st nearly 20 games. Though he didn't score, he was driving to the slot with the puck creating HD chances, he made some nice passes, and he wasn't randomly turning the puck over (well, at least not until his last shift in regulation; baby steps) nor noticably seeming lost in his own end. Will be paying attention to his play tonight vs the Snarks to see if it was just a 1 game fluke or if he really is finally getting it.

They didn't pick the Sabres game because of the Sabrepede incident. IF they chose the Sabres for a historical reason it is because Thornton played his 1st ever game as a Shark in Buffalo.

How many of those other teams had to play a "home" game in the backyard of their opponent much less 2 of them?

Gotham didn't have a Duck. Just a Penguin. Sheesh.

The Sabres have "hosted" 2 Winter Classics and one Heritage Classic. The 1st was in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park. The 2nd was in the Buffalo suburb of the Bronx. The 3rd was in the Buffalo suburb of Hamilton, ON. Maybe the Sabres can host one in Las Vegas so Eichel can play in front of the "hometown" fans once again. Money grubbin' ######.

Of course they can. They can even have another home game. Which local suburb would you like this one to be played in? Boston? Filly? Maybe they could go to the other side of the county and play that home game in Seattle or Vancouver.

You're related to Elizabeth Warren? 😉

The "best culture" comes from having really good hockey players during their peak years. Good coaching helps; but that's really at the heart of it.

Since when does @Brawndo need to be confirmed? If HIS sources say it happened, $'s to donuts, it happened.

Yes, Allen saw that the Chefs were actually in zone on that play; but it doesn't appear that he changed the play out of one that was (per Orlovsky) designed to beat man and not zone which is why all the Bills receivers were covered.

One of the 2 equity groups does have that group within it's 10% stake. (The article had it somewhere between a 1% and 3.something % stake; don't recall as the list of smaller investor groups was fairly large for only a 10% stake.) The article said that at the end of the day, Pegula will keep a 79.9% stake in the Bills. There are 2 separate roughly 10% equity groups that are up for league approval, one of which is actually a whole bunch of groups each getting a much smaller stake in the Bills to add up to their ~10% stake.

Expect the bigger issue of the leg room is people that have arthritis or other leg joint ailments tend to have issues with the seating and those of us fortunate enough to not have them yet don't have issues with them. Gentleman that sits near me really dislikes sitting in our row even though he's relatively short as the leg room is noticably less than it is for rows behind us. Have never had major issues with it personally, though when sitting next to someone who likes to "spread out" it can be a little awkward as their leg keeps brushing up against the people sitting next to them. As others have said, a new arena could likely overcome this issue but at the cost of the seats being even further from the ice surface unless each upper section is directly above the one below it (like the 300's pretty much are directly over the suites at the MMArena).

All you had to do was ask, Snoogums.