MattPie

I'm not going to call it a straight up tank, but: The 2003–04 season was an ordeal with Lemieux missing all but 24 regular season games with a hip injury, and attendance dipping to an average of 11,877 (the lowest average out of any NHL team), with just one sellout.[13] As the season progressed, the Penguins signed new head coach (and former Penguins player and commentator) Eddie Olczyk, traded Martin Straka to the Los Angeles Kings and opted not to include the highly rated Fleury in the lineup for the bulk of the 2003–04 season. This culminated in the worst record in the NHL, as they won just 23 games. As in the 1980s, the Penguins' struggles were fortuitously concurrent with a string of NHL Entry Draft classes that would yield multiple world-class talents. The pens lost the 2004 lottery to Washington and got Malkin, and due to the lockout went into the lottery with the same odds and won Crosby. The also picked #1 overall in 2003 (Fluery).

Does that include the last-second hail-mary to tie the game? :ph34r:

If you haven't, check out the Buffalo Outdoors Meetup. They do a bunch of hiking and climbing stuff.

There's a rock gym at the bottom of the hill I live on. I went there with MrsPie many moons ago, and while I enjoyed it a lot, my hands hurt for weeks afterwards. I need to work up to that kind of thing since the only value I bring to work is expressing technical ideas via my fingers. https://www.philarockgym.com/coatesville/

I seen what you did there.

I thought that was what I was reading, but I certainly wasn't going to bring it up (mostly because you're wrong).

I can't believe you'd air our personal DMs in public like this. I was just trying to be nice! Complaint: instead of getting work done last night, I spent a bunch of time trying to get a couple stripped set-screws loosened so I could finish putting my new desk together. Came like that from the factory, no less. (final solution: tap a T10 Torx bit into the rounded hex-shaped hole and back it out) I think tapping on the circle/star goes to first unread post; the title starts from the beginning.

Very true; I'm no mechanical engineer, but I do know that the force to propel a body through a fluid (air, in the case) goes up exponentially with velocity. I've read that for a Bugatti Veyron only requires around 300 HP to go 200 MPH. It requires 1000 HP to hit 250. There's an "even more" version that makes roughly 1200 HP, but that only buys another 15 MPH of top speed. Based on your numbers, it looks like it's a 20% increase in power between 55 and 75. That's a bunch!

Are we getting into mythical Sabres Exceptionalism? It's be great if the Sabres are better than the average, but say that and actually doing it is the hard part. If it were easy, every team would be above average. ;) It'd be interesting to see what individual team spreads are. I have a suspicion that if 8 is the average, there are few if any teams outside the range of 6-10. I'm not sure arguing that getting one extra player out of the draft is make or break for a franchise.

Corey Crawford to the red and black courtesy phone, please.

Nah, how is she going to have a sweet wedge of cheese hood ornament?

LOL. So what did you get, Chz? Scania? Freightliner? Volvo?

2nd all time... so you're saying it's possible? :)

The NFL playoffs have had the same structure, with an increasing number of teams, for quite awhile, haven't they?

Hopefully he isn't like me and was at the bar at 12:01 AM the night I turned 21.

I thought about writing something like, "Torontoans would be so self-absorbed to refer to the team as that", but I wanted to be nice. :)

I've had some decent Italian in Philly itself, but out here in the burbs it's really hit and miss. There are tons of places, but they mostly do that pizza that's mostly thin and bland. The any that uses red sauce is marinara, and similarly bland. It's a shame too, as a pizza chzsteak (red sauce and mozzarella in addition to the meat) would be a ton better with good sauce. Some of the I think are really Latinos; I'm not saying that's an issue other than dishes will be weirdly wrong; my wife ordered penne with vodka sauce and it had shredded cold cut ham in it. WTS.

I'm quoting myself over here since it fits in this thread in addition to a forgettable GDT.

This still supposes that there's some move out there that A: will make the Sabres better long term B: JBot/etc. knows about C: and somehow isn't being made because the fans aren't mad enough. Yes, moves may get made if the fans get angry enough, but are they really good moves all the time or just "hey, we're doing something" to mollify the fans.

:) Well, Kane is on pace for roughly 45-37-82 for the season, pretty well!

Sometimes an outside observer can see things people that are close to the situation cannot. Kane could also be there to beef up his numbers for trade purposes.

I can't help but read that as "The Football Club", like TPC in 1984.

I'm wondering if the reasoning may not be entirely performance related. Is it possible Kane is bolted (with lock nuts and safety wire) to Eichel's hip for protection?

I'm saying much will depend on the next 10 games. I'd put it as unlikely given what has happened so far, but there's still hope that the team will build up a head of steam as the players get more comfortable with the system and each other. If the next 10 are .500 or worse (currently, .364), I abandon (almost) all hope.

The mind sees what it wants to see. The Sabres need to play ~.600 (points%) for the rest of the season to get to 94 points. That's a 99 point pace, 6 points out of every 5 games. Least year, a 99-point season is 6th place in the East. It's not hopeless, but if this goes on for too much longer it's going to be tough sledding. If they play .500 for the next 10, they'll need 1.25 points per game for the rest of the season, a 102-point pace, or 4-5th in the East last year. Unless the system really starts to click, I have a tough time seeing this team run at a 102-point pace for 5 months. And that's just to get to 94 points; 94 points missed last year, 8th was 95. Math is an unforgiving mistress. I was always a believer that you could come back from early season woes (Lindy's teams conditioned me), but I'm mostly turned around on that now.