Weave

Honest question, as I have not been bothered in the least to pay attention, who did we forgo to get ROR, Kane, et al? And your assertion doesn't counter my main point, that the players GMTM went after were simply not the correct ones. It woiuldn't have been Kane, Bogo, Baptiste coming back.

Woof. I guess if you are gonna support losing on purpose you may as well make it an ethos. My contention remains the concept was best for getting Jack and Sam into the proper environment. GMTM chose the players to surround them poorly. The risks of hiring inexperienced people to manage the transition. I will argue until I reach total apathy that this would have worked if we had the veterans surrounding Jack and Sam that Sidney and Gino had around them their first few years. But we destroyed any possiblity of that happening by going all in on the tank.

Interesting take against this idea from some NHL GM's. I would have thought there would be near universal support for it at the NHL level because they have developmental control earlier.

I don't see how lesser players improve the ability to develop the two biggest assets the organization has had since Turgeon and Mogilny. Frankly, I see it as putting Sam and Jack at even greater risk.

We have already seen the level of UFA willing to sign here. And we know how bare the cupboards were for minor deals. I don't see a better path forward with those limitations.

You are preaching to the choir. My take was that GMTM attempted to bring in talent more quickly that would have kept players at the level they needed to be. Whether he chose the correct players is another matter entirely. The reason we were so talent poor as to put players into positions that they weren't ready for is that the act of setting up for the tank depleted the organization to the point that there was no way to ice a team that would put players in positions to succeed. Keeping those picks or moving them for ready for the NHL talent wouldn't have mattered. The gap was too wide to overcome. Then we would have had 3-4 seasons where Jack, Sam, Zemgus, Risto, etc. all would have been even more heavily burdened by the weight of carrying a team with even less talent than they had already. (Imagine that!)

Am I reading you as advocating 2-4 more seasons of Mezaros, Benoit, old Moulson level rosters on the big club?

Maybe it is chicken and egg, but the prospects that are doing well were put into situations where they could succeed, not losing situations. Keeping those picks and feeding even more kids to the wolves to save draft picks wasn't going to help anyone's development. After his rookie season, I wonder what could have come of Girgensons, for example, if he wasn't fed to the wolves.

I remain surprised that Girgs gets no love going forward. He's had a really good season, seems to fit what RaKru wants to do, and has filled his role well.

Yup. Sam clearly responded to the criticism. And that is good. I think he needed to hear the criticism.

No posts on the Arizona Coyotes testing prospects against the rules?

You owuld think by now everyone would be on board with this. I don't get at all people who think this team can progress by losing.

Long article. Took a long way to get to the ultimate point at the end. Well stated though IMO. https://gfile.thedispatch.com/p/the-cult-of-unity-is-a-poison

I'll add to this, even blue chip prospects occassionally don't pan out for whatever reason. You can't bank on them until they've proven they can handle the responsibilty. We made this mistake with Mitts. And Grig, and Girgs before him. Get a known quantity 2C on the roster. If it turns out we have more than one 2C capable then we have 1. depth and 2. a good, versatile player that can be moved to 2nd line wing. We've seen time and again how valauble center depth is. We can't have too many centers. Get one for 2C from the outside and if Cozens and whoever is ready we have the makings of what we had with Drury, Briere, Roy, Connolly, Hecht. And that turned out pretty well, really.

Anyone give a shout to North Buffalo seeing a win here? Glad we could send him to a good game.

It's been there since he entered the league. I've commented on it in past seasons. This season he seems to recognize when it happens and seems to actively push it aside. But it does show up from time to time. At this point it is my only criticism of him. I'm hopeful that as he matures it goes away completely. He has been improved about it so far this season.

Yeah, that was a weird comment given Sam's point totals to date.

Good result but I hate that drop pass play

Player jamming away at a puck in his pads. Not harms way. I liken it to a power forward giving a Jeff Skinner space to do his thing.

My recollection was the sale was well underway and he was calling the shots at that point.

Gotta say it. I miss this. Came to is goalies aid. Sent a message. Juiced up the troops. And entertained the hell out of the fans.

Wat? That so called terrible franchise had one of the best all time records in the NHL. The goat heads were a cash grab by a new owner who happened to be a white collar criminal that would eventually drive the Sabres to being operated by the league. Those unis should be vilified for that reason alone.

Dammit.

LOL

This one happened about 45 minutes ago. My heart rate is still up and I'm still pissed. It's snowing pretty good today, on top of a good layer of ice overnight. My employer closed the office early today so folks could drive home in the day light. I'm on a farirly heavily used east-to-west running state route in a rural county. 2 lanes, 55 mph speed limit. Traffic is light given the weather. Plows have not cleared this stretch yet but it was obviously salted some time during the day. There are two stripes of bare road showing from everyone's tire tracks. Outside of those two wide stripes of bare road is 4-6" of heavy, slushy snow. I'm doing 60mph. Probably too fast for the conditions. Butt there is noone in front of me as far as I can see. A big work pick up truck comes up from behind and swings out to pass. With 4-6" of slush between the lanes this is pretty stupid. And of course, halfway through his pass a car coming the other way crests a small hill in front of us. He cuts the pass short, and re-enters our lane maybe 10' in front of me. In the process he threw up a solid wall of slush onto my windshield, completely blinding me. I have no idea if he needed to brake or not because all I can see is brown slush. I reach for the wipers and jam on the brakes pretty hard. 60mph and can't see a thing is a really ***** scary combination. My Jeep starts to fishtail and I hear the rumble strips under my tires, so either I'm onto the shoulder, or crossed the center of the road. I don't know which. I still can't see. By now I am mother ***** this guy at the top of my lungs. He must have re-entered the lane slowly because that wall of slush was 3-4 seconds long. He tiptoed back into the lane, spraying my windsheild with a wall of brown the whole time. I got the car slowed and the windshield clear and I was straddling the center stripe with an oncoming car 300' or so and closing. I get the Jeep back into my lane and I am still yelling obscenities at the top of my lungs. I haven't been so angry in years. Maybe decades. For a brief period of time I sped up to chase this idiot down. I din't have a plan for when I got there, but really wanted the confrontation at that point. A mile down the road and reason started taking over and I slowed down. Another mile down the road and I passed a Trooper going the other way and I yelled at him, "where the ***** were you 2 minutes ago"? Half a glass of Weller down and I'm still wound up. What was so God damned important that you risked my life to get there more quickly?