Eleven

Yep. I understand. Either the Sabres run Montreal into the walls a hundred times, win 5-2, and learn to believe in themselves tonight, or it's done. And starting Hutton is about the dumbest thing ever. I don't care if he posts a shutout tonight. In foresight, it's just stupid. Note that in both of those cases, the team turned to the AHLer to save the season.

I don't see this. Tonight is the season. This is absolutely the fork in the road. One of two things will happen: Either the Sabres have enough self-respect to come flying out of the gate, beat the Habs to a pulp, and win by several goals, or we see the same crap that we saw on Tuesday. If it's the former, the playoffs are a hope. If it's the latter, this season is over.

Your wish is my command.

26 to 50 because Krueger will learn to start pulling him at some point. If the question asked for a GAA (which is based upon minutes), I'd go with a higher percentage. This is going to be awful.

What about shellfish? So you're not allowed to watch the Sabres, either?

Of course he is. Have you seen his trades?

.

Buffalo News is reporting that Hutton will be the starter going forward. This is stupid.

Filly also got the best player in the deal. Forsberg > Lindros all day long. Again, if the value is there, fine, but I don't have confidence that Botterill can evaluate well. If--as you mention earlier--another GM is doing the trading on Buffalo's behalf, I'd be more confident.

This is interesting. A lot of emotion on one side (with a good argument here and there); a lot of good arguments on the other (with some emotion here and there). It all depends on the return. It always does. I'm with the posters who don't trust Botterill to bring back the right return.

Especially in Bowling Green. Imagine surviving the Bowling Green Massacre.

This freaking team.

Not according to these... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Jones_(footballer) -- shows 0 academy games https://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=111601 -- only one academy preseason game https://www.espn.com/soccer/player/matches/_/id/190257/team/16728 -- 0 academy games (click the dropdown for U21) https://fbref.com/en/players/4fb9c88f/Curtis-Jones -- 0 academy games First, let's not sidetrack this any further. There's a soccer thread in the Clubs section and I'm happy to discuss there. For the purpose of discussion that actually is relevant to this thread, it remains that there is no traditional NA-style farm system in soccer, as far as I'm concerned. Second, it's time for you to show where you're getting your info from. Again, in the soccer thread, please.

Because... Yep

His name is John. His nickname is Jack. It's already done.

Anyway. The main topic. Relegation. It's interesting--wouldn't a Buffalonian love to see the Bisons in the majors? But NA sports aren't set up that way.

Here's my favorite team. I'm not seeing it: https://fbref.com/en/squads/1c781004/Norwich-City Here's Liverpool. Not seeing it here, either: https://fbref.com/en/squads/822bd0ba/Liverpool There is an 18 year old who played, but nothing on his player page indicates that he is an academy player. His wiki page indicates that he is with the senior team. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Jones_(footballer) And here's Palace, which I randomly picked from mid-table. Not there: https://fbref.com/en/squads/47c64c55/Crystal-Palace I don't know what else I'm supposed to look at. I'm certainly not going through every roster in English soccer.

They believe they want him to do that?

I don't think this is correct. They might loan out younger players. Call ups are infrequent in my experience, but I really only follow one league (England).

Not really. They're not calling up 16 year olds to play for the big club and then sending them down to the academy team for more training. I'm sure it's happened, but it probably happens once or twice a decade.

Those are the academy teams I referenced. They don't have farm systems as we understand that term in North America.

They sign the players as children to what they call "academy" teams and no, there is no farm system.

It would require a complete overhaul. Those European soccer leagues don't have drafts, for example.

Eichel works for the team. Do you want Kerry and Tim to fire Eichel? Seriously, though, the game day experience needs to change, big time.

It won't be easy, but they will.