nfreeman

I've been thinking about this. KO is pretty much out of gas and adds very little value most nights. If he weren't the captain, he'd almost certainly be in the healthy-scratch rotation. But I think it's still a pretty firm rule that you don't healthy-scratch your captain.

Come on boys. Please don't come out in a coma at home again. Just play hard and determined from the drop and good things will happen.

I was referring to Quinn's complete game. I agree that JJP is more powerful and I think he may end up scoring more pts (and probably will end up scoring more goals), but I think Quinn has a higher hockey IQ and, last year, played a better 200-foot game than JJP. To be clear, I really like both of them and think they will both have really good careers. I also think they can complement each other well as linemates, although it will be Quinn who more often figures out, on the fly, how to get more out of his linemates than JJP will.

IMHO: - Quinn was better than JJP last year, although JJP will probably be ahead at the end of this year (recognizing that we can’t know what would’ve happened without Quinn’s injury). In any case both of them have very high upsides. - Quinn has more game than Pommer did and will be better than Pommer was, assuming he stays healthy. - I too am concerned about him coming back too soon and reinjuring the Achilles. - If he stays healthy this season he could be a contributor in the 2nd half, although I wouldn’t expect a game-changer.

They are 5 under DeLuca .500 with 11 games left in December. 8-3 gets them to DeLuca .500 as of New Year's, and means they are very much in the playoff race. 7-4 means they are 2 under, and still alive. Anything worse than that makes it extremely unlikely.

Well, they sure didn't get Boston's A game, but they didn't show up looking like they'd given up on the season either. And they got a great performance from Levi, which will be good for his confidence and theirs. Not dead yet.

I'm sure TP doesn't want to do this -- no one does -- but DG has 2 more seasons on his contract after this season at less than $2MM per year. That is a pittance relative to the huge dollars TP has committed to the players. YMMV, of course, but I don't think the cash will be the issue. OTOH, what may save DG is TP's hunger for stability and to avoid the embarrassment of being wrong on yet another HC. Still, the team looks utterly lost and unable to find its way back, and is regularly getting booed off the ice at home. I just don't think that can continue indefinitely, or that TP will object to KA making a move. We'll see.

Correct -- Roku is a far superior product to Fire TV.

It gives me no pleasure to say it, but I think it happens on 12/31 or 1/1. The wheels are falling off.

IMHO you can’t trade for heart and toughness and determination in the middle of a season and expect a major turnaround. But you can find a coach who emphasizes those qualities and brings them out of the players. I would love for DM to prove that he’s the guy but every week that goes by where the Sabres are simply not competitive in at least half the games makes me more skeptical that he can do so.

Early December, 4 games under DeLuca .500 and we aren't far from a place where the playoffs are impossible. The countdown to DG getting canned is officially on.

Briere scored their 2nd and 3rd goal that night. He was fantastic during those 2 great seasons. Such an unforgivable hockey sin to let him and Drury leave. The moment I was thinking of was at 52:58 of that video. It was Lydman who laid out a Hurricane, followed immediately by Kotalik's goal and the crowd reaching peak euphoria and noise levels. That was the perfect match of a thrilling team with peak RJ, plus a great coach and an adoring, raucous crowd. Taken from us far too soon, but two years of great memories.

In person: - Bills defeating KC in the 4th AFC Championship game, sitting with my best friend from childhood, with Cornelius knocking Joe Montana out of the game in Montana's last NFL game. - My son's first NHL game, coinciding with the rebirth of the Sabres in the glorious 2005-06 season -- early that season at the old Nassau Coliseum vs the Islanders, with Tim Connolly, also undergoing a rebirth, playing a beautiful brand of hockey and starting his best season as a pro, tying it up on a sweet goal with a couple of minutes left and Big Al Kotalik winning it in the SO. - Later that season: game 3 of the conf. finals, at home, vs Carolina with my brother. The Sabres won to take a 2-1 series lead and it felt like we were coming to the end of the desert (although Tallinder broke his arm in that game, the first or second in a catastrophic series of injuries on the blue line). At one point in the 2nd period, someone (maybe McKee) laid out one of the Hurricanes with a big hit, the Sabres came down right away and Kotalik blasted in a one-timer from the high slot to put the Sabres up 4-1 and the building felt like it was gonna explode. That was the loudest crowd I've ever heard at a hockey game. - Hasek and Sabres squeaking out game 4 vs Ottawa, 2-1, to complete the sweep in the 1st round of the 1999 playoffs. - 1993 NBA Eastern Conference Finals, Knicks vs Bulls, game 2: I was relatively new to NYC and got a group together to share Knicks season tickets. This was peak Michael Jordan vs Pat Riley, Pat Ewing, Charles Oakley and the brutal Knicks. With a couple of minutes left in a very close game, John Starks, a guard who was bagging groceries before Riley rescued his career, went flying down the baseline for a huge dunk and the Knicks hung on for the win. - A bunch of fantastic college basketball games.

What did he say exactly?

Season 5 of Fargo is pretty good so far. The woman from Ted Lasso is surprisingly good.

This team can't be taken seriously.

I generally am a TP defender, but I would guess that the lack of cap space deals is because TP hasn't been interested in burning more cash on the Sabres than he currently is (which I expect is a considerable amount).

Thanks for your follow-up here. I appreciate you (and everyone else here) making sure to keep it friendly. Anyway, I don't think my stance on Mitts has been "unwavering." I think he's developed into a good player -- and there was a real risk a few years ago that he would simply wash out -- and in the abstract I would like to keep him on the Sabres. The problem, of course, is the cost to do so, which unavoidably needs to be evaluated in the context of his actual value as well as the context of the Sabres' cap situation. He's a center who last year had 15 goals and 59 pts. This year he's on pace for about the same # of goals and closer to 75 pts. He just turned 25 and he's an RFA after this year. Locking up a player with that kind of profile will probably require something like 7 years x $7MM per year. When I watch Mitts, I see a good player who adds value in a supporting role, but not a player that I'd want to give that kind of contract, which is the kind of contract I think needs to be reserved for franchise cornerstones. Especially in the last couple of weeks, I still see way too much of "bad Casey" -- i.e. poor puck decisions that result in O-zone turnovers and squandered opportunities. I also think in most cases a forward who only scores 15 goals or so isn't worth that kind of contract. And we shouldn't kid ourselves about the consequences of giving Casey 7 years x $7MM -- doing so probably means you're not able to keep someone like Quinn or JJP or Benson when it's time to lock them up long-term. If Mitts would agree to, say, $5MM x 5 years? Sure -- sign him up. But I don't think that's going to happen. Since Mitts has been eligible to sign an extension for 5 months now and it hasn't happened, I'd guess that he's asking for substantially more than KA is willing to agree to. We'll see. Hopefully I'll be wrong about him and he'll make it clear that he's too good not to lock up at a high price.

I think Benson is a lock and Mitts is pretty iffy due to the likely cost to keep him (which I think is inflated relative to his actual value).

OK, but that doesn't answer the question as to whether you think they made an offer. The key point I and others have made is that it seems pretty certain that the Sabres made him an offer, which he rejected in favor of another team's offer -- most likely because he thinks the Wings are a better team than the Sabres. Do you disagree with that point? Do you think they made him an offer or not?

So do you think the Sabres made a one-year offer?

Well, I phrased mine as a guess, so there was no certainty implied, at least as to a 2-year offer. However, I think based on the reports from credible NHL reporters and KA's own words, it's almost certain that the Sabres made an offer and that Kane chose Detroit because he felt more confident about them making the playoffs than about the Sabres doing so. I don't think it's reasonable to interpret those reports and statements otherwise.

What's the basis for your apparent certainty that it didn't happen?

Sorry but this sounds like classic jilted fan backlash. I’d guess the Sabres offered a 2-year deal and Kane passed because, having watched them play this year and fail to show up for at least 40% of their games (including 65% of their home games), he concluded that the Sabres aren’t a real team and aren’t worthy of his last few years in the NHL.

Dude.