Cereal

So Kootenay lost last night (Reinhart with a goal and +2 in a 6-2 loss.... and I think 6G 3A in the seven-game series)... Any word on if he'll be up in Rochester for Friday's game?

That's what I thought initially, too. But I think it's one machine that pops out 4 balls (no repeats). 14*13*12*11/24 = 1001. (24 is the number of different ways you can order the 4 numbers.)

I see how the 14 Choose 4 =1001, where order doesn’t matter, and items cannot repeat (nice link to the staticshowto calculator, by the way). The items cannot repeat because, basically, 4 out of the 14 balls come down the chute. They have some lookup table where any of the possible 1001 resulting combinations correlates to an NHL franchise. I guess that’s pretty clever, but it seems like it’d’ve been a lot easier just to invest in 200 ping-pong balls, and just draw one ball. Not to mention, with 14 Choose 4 we have this discrepancy with the 1001th combination, which I assume would just become a re-do? Another cool option would’ve been to have one drawing with 5 balls, where one of the five correlates to the 30th place team. Then, if the 30th place team isn’t chosen from that first draw, have a separate drawing with 160 balls for the rest of the teams.

You might be right. But OG (along with QB S and LB) is now our biggest hole. I am curious what FA OL options are still out there? It will amost certainly get addressed in the draft, of course. Or, are there any OG's on the trading block? I have no patience to wade through the TBD threads these days... The Bills were aware of the limited options at QB. They did what they could and moved on (also pending a QB move in the draft). With Leino, the Sabres were desperate for a center, and as I recall there were scarce FA options that year. When Leino was signed at high risk (big contract with not a ton of cap room... not to mention his resume consisting of one above-average playoff series), we knew they were REALLY desperate. In contrast, the trade for Cassel and signing of Tyrod were both low risk (not huge contracts with cap, picks for Cassel late round).

Interesting. Current NHL Stats leaders.... tight race with Tavares in the lead with 72P: http://www.nhl.com/stats/leaders?navid=nav-sts-league#

Roy had a chance to sink for the CHL loss in the shootout... missed it though.

Not to call you out personally, but why are some people leaving Moulson off the list of "the new core"? Am I missing something?

Two things. First, as you know I previously lived in Austin, I don't think I would ever move back down to Texas to live in Houston or DFW. The smaller, centralized downtown in Austin just has its charms and things to do. DFW and Houston are nice, I suppose... I had visited both areas half a dozen times each. Perhaps you'd care to debunk that myth a bit int he case of FW. Second... I definitely appreciate what you guys mean by what you see differently when biking versus driving. I've actually taken this a couple steps further.... FOUR modes by which I have explored Austin (and other places): Walking, running, bicycling, and driving. It's so interesting the details you notice with one mode of transportation, but not the other. One thing I love to do is make sure to do one long run around a new city I am visiting. That gets you a truer experience of the city to me, if you only get a short time to take it in. The smells, the pace, the difference in neighborhoods, as you mentioned.

Sabes twiiter: Moulson-Varone/Grigorenko-Ennis Foligno-Larsson-Gionta Deslauriers-Schaller-Hodgson D'Amigo-Ellis-Dalpe

I drove from Austin TX up to Rochester NY last week (Wed-Thu) and the worst highway conditions were between Waco and I-35E!

Anyone have experience transferring NHL Center Ice package from one household to another? I have Time Warner in Austin TX, moving back to Rochester this week, where I will have Time Warner. Sounds easy to transfer, hypothetically, but I thought I'd throw this out there before calling TWC and asking. Thanks.

Love the CPM column, Taro! :) Thanks to you and tank for updating so diligently.

YOU NEVER SAU-SAGE A PLACE

Haha nice try Gus! Oh, this team :)

I am curious, and maybe this has been discussed before... Do you have a program that programmatically pulls the current NHL standings from the website each night? Seems like the whole thing could be automated, and would be pretty fun to set up. You could likewise pull the stats from sportsclubstats. That is only the case because the Sabres are at so close to 100%. It'd be more interesting for those teams with a more distributed row at the sportsclubstats lottery chart; again: http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHLlottery.html I assume they calculate the odds of winning every remaining game on the schedule based on all previous results this season. It explains "Weighted" here (as opposed to viewing their charts using "50/50" link on the left): http://www.sportsclubstats.com/WhatIsThis.html... don't have time to read now haha.

I think that "taking it one step further" as I described above would be achieved by the summation of: ( (all the percentages in the Buffalo row) * (the corresponding lottery percentage) ). i.e., currently, (.94269)*(20.0) + (0.05174)*(13.5) + (0.00525)*(11.5) + ... == slightly higher than 19.6%. This makes sense, since it should be slightly below 20%

You mean like the far right column ("30") here, right? http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NHLlottery.html Or were you thinking of taking it one step further, and computing the total odds of getting McDavid with the probability of winning the CHL also factored into the equation?

That shootout was just dreadful to watch... thank goodness Edmonton pulls off the loss somehow!

Sweet merciful crap, Edmonton.... Boston gets a 3-1 CHL lead on them.... now 3-3 just like that near end of 2nd period.

After a weekend away in 75 and sunny Napa, CA, this is the thread I see at the top of the Aud Club? Yuck. I'm moving from Austin back to Rochester next week. It better warm up by then!

I wonder if the future goalie discussion should be separate from this thread and instead continue here: http://forums.sabrespace.com/topic/22770-who-is-the-goalie-when-this-team-makes-a-run/

I suspect that GMTM will not be going big on a UFA or proven goalie this offseason, based on the fact that the Sabres won't be competitive next season. Might he take a flyer on one of those you listed? Which can be had for a one-year deal? As others have mentioned, it is possible he goes for a big trade for a youngin' like Fucale or Subban. I wonder what kind of prospects there are in the first few rounds of this year's draft? I think there might be a thread on that somewhere.

Yup, so... Stewart is really it. Mitchell, Meszaros and Neuvy all could possibly be had for chump change. http://stats.nhlnumbers.com/teams/BUF?year=2015

Lindback is a UFA this summer. Flip him before the deadline too? If possible.... yuck.