MattPie

I think it's pretty close. If my math is right, that 52 points works out to 92.7 points for the season, so right around playoffs. Guarantee is a strong word, if the East beats up the West all season, you might need 96 to make it in the east from the points gained from West teams.

Derek Grant becomes the first player in NHL history to score a hat trick as his first three goals in the league after playing 20 games.

How about this: .500 is an arbitrary mark that means nothing. If you like, we should all be worried about getting to .580 in points, regardless of how many wins and "losses" that adds up to. .500 is the +/- of team records.

I may have noted this before, but any time you mention Halifax the beginning of this song goes through my head. Please don't stop!

I'd like to say I completely missed Darth's post before I entered mine. Sorry!

All right, I don't entirely hate that idea. It would be odd with coaches leaving, players perhaps not showing up (especially if they're not signed for next year), etc. Can we use the name they gave the "last place team bowl" in gym class, the Toliet Bowl. Sorry, that's the "Braun Plumbing presents Toilet Bowl" to you and me.

Star Wars, Episode.. 3. The Sabres were once good, then an abomination (Episode 1), you had hoped the next two were going to be better, but you just ended up disappointed and sad. The hope is the next set will be pretty good (recently watched Force Awakens, not bad).

I'll say that if Kane is kept and plays on the third line, you're looking at Foligno or Carrier cost players on the wing on lines #1 and #2 to supplement ROR-Eichel-Reinhart-Okposo. It doesn't look like there's a realistic way to keep Kane and bring in any big-money players for the wings in the top-6. For that matter, Gionta on the 3rd too seems like a lot of money for a 3rd line. I'm not opposed to the idea of 3 roughly equal lines; having $9.5M in two third line players almost requires that each line has a low-cost player.

Yanks are so lazy, they're not running towards the line of scrimmage before the snap.

Other people's kids are all sick, so I may be able to maintain a reasonable amount of food tonight. Hooray, I guess.

I read somewhere that when Inuit's build igloos, they look for that same kind of snow since it does act like blocks when you cut it up. I was 6 months or so, so I don't remember anything of course. My dad was working at General Mills and walked to my grandmothers house on Babcock St. My mom was at home in Cheektowoga and IIRC my two uncles ended up staying there. They ventured out at some point when they ran out of beer, probably those green cases of Genny Cream Ale. One of my friends in HS remembered seeing cows on the roof of their barn. And there was apparently a 20+ foot vertical wall of snow as Hunter's Creek Road came up to the top of the hill in Wales.

Saturday: I had a "Dirty Burger" at a place in Newark DE named "Home Grown Cafe". Burger, bacon, BBQ onion, sauce, etc. It was the largest burger I've eaten in some time; about halfway through I started thinking, "this is stupid, it's not worth the calories and cost". Maybe I've turned a corner. The next corner is not buying the special at work, which always sounds good but almost never lives up to expectations. A recent exception was some pretty good Beef Wellington with mashed potatoes and corn. So far today: Wegs Pretzel bagel with cream cheese (1/3 less fat version). Up for today is a fried rice, large salad, pizza with friends, and a couple pots of tea. We're having people over, so copious (but not Huckleberry copious, holy cow) amounts of beer, wine, and if someone asks, I'll join them drinking some Aquavit.

This was one of those Mastercard jokes at some point. Something like: - Two tickets on the glass: $450 - Two NHL sweaters: $300 - Two beers: $18 - Acting like little girls in a national magazine: priceless.

I'm not going to convince anyone, but if the Sabres went 20-0-62 and went to playoffs, would you be complaining they only went .24x?

No kidding, it's De-twah.

Come now, "we spent a 1st on him and he's ended up waived!" will live forever. Does Hasek throwing his glove at Bondra count as a wave?

Good to see you back, the place is better with AngryLiger.

Sounds like you're moving in the right direction, bravo! I'm looking forward to some good food tonight, Plated delivery showed up yesterday so I'll be cooking at 5. We do a couple Plated (think Blue Apron but a slightly different meal selection model) meals every other week. Not cheap but you make some stuff that expands horizons. Up this weekend: Quinoa Burrata Bowl and Bok Choy Fried Rice. https://www.plated.com/menus/2017-01-15/recipes/roasted-carrots-and-burrata-with-quinoa-and-blood-orange https://www.plated.com/menus/2017-01-15/recipes/bok-choy-fried-rice-with-kabocha-squash

No, it's because it's pointless to complain now. Do you brood over that time you spent $20 on something at the store and then find you could have ordered the same thing off Amazon for $12? No, you accept, learn from it, and move on. I have some faith that GMTM is moving the team in the right direction, but a couple more questionable trades will disabuse me of that.

For now. :(

Toronto seems to have a tire-fire D and GT situation, but they play up-tempo and there are lots of goals. How different is Buffalo's D from Toronto's?

Agreed. It's a sunk cost so whining about it solves absolutely nothing. The trade is done, the pick is used, it's over. The only productive thing now is to look at who is in the system, and who should be our starter long-term whether that person is in the system or now.

I think in a perfect world ROR is at LW (as he was a fair bit in COL). Kane likes to skate and shoot so much, I'd rather him not be on a line with other playmakers. Ideally, Kane is 3LW with players like Foligno, Girgensons, or Larsssson where they are defensively responsible but have the speed and some skill to force the other team to take the line seriously as a scoring threat. Nylander and maybe Asplund or Carrier join Eichel, Reinhart, ROR, Okposo in the top six. Fourth line is similar to the third, but with the drop-off in scoring that's realistic. Ennis may fit in there somewhere if no one claims the 2LW or 2RW spots.

Randall's epic post does a great job laying out. In short (I think I have it right): Byslma likes long passes and dumping the puck in, which are old school "safe" plays. The long stretch pass from the D in the Sabres zone to the forwards at center ice doesn't connect enough, but when it misses the puck is going away from your net. Same with the dump in where you shoot the puck from center around behind the opposing net. If you make short passes or skate it out, you stand a better chance of having the puck when you get to the opposing zone, but mistakes may result in your opponent attacking faster. 15-25 years ago, many teams were successful in this "keep it away from our net" approach. Get the puck down towards your opponents net and wait for mistakes to attack. It's terrible hockey to watch. Now, either the players have gotten better or the strategy has changed and this doesn't work. The data suggests that successful teams are the ones that keep the puck. In really short: "They can't score if the puck is in their end" is losing out to "we can't score unless the puck is on our stick". Byslma's system emphasizes the former where many good teams with talent (which the Sabres have) are winning with the latter.