Darryl Shannon's +/-

I know there has been a lot of in depth analysis when it comes down to the system Bylsma uses. I'll lean on simpler things to make the point. I forget the game, but down 2 goals and on the power play with 3-4 minutes left, he didn't pull the goalie. Down 2 after Eichel scored against the Leafs off the breakaway, he put the goalie back on the ice with a little over a minute to play. And the goalie was on the ice with his arms outstretched looking for the hook when play began. The worst thing that is going to happen is you'll lose by one more goal. My favorite Bylsma moment all year was a nationally televised game where the action was going up and down the ice. It was actually entertaining. Catching up with him, the question was asked about what he thought. "We have to slow the game down....we're giving up too many opportunities". Then add in the puzzling issue w/ Samson and the general crawl to the finish line this year. Put him out of his misery.

It's a fair question, and one that divides many as I've read on this board. What is the most important thing? Is it purely W/L record or title count? Is it civic contribution? I'm of the opinion that I don't miss an owner in this region throwing veiled threats at us to give him taxpayer money. For all of Pegula's sins, not once have I heard that threat. Maybe that's a low bar, but between the last 10 years of Ralph and the rotating door of Sabres ownership, it's nice to have stability and interest in the product itself. I'd argue throwing down a 100+M anchor in an area where no public money was spent in the past 20 years is worth something. And if that means he's distracted from putting the best possible product on the ice, I'm okay with that.

Given the history of the sale of the team to Golisano, the team was for sale the second the keys were in his hands. And the management of arguably the best team we'd seen in Sabres history was squandered with his "everyone should be on a one year deal" mantra when he was dealing with a league that allowed guaranteed contracts. The missed opportunity with the Vanek offer sheet and losing Briere/Drury to FA stunted us by 5 years in my estimation. It's a fun exercise to think about what the team and area around the arena would look like if he was still owner. My opinion is that canalside itself might not have come to be, the new courtyard marriot wouldn't have been refurbished/built, and we'd still see attack ads on the 190 on Paladino's crumbling Creamery building. In my eyes it's not as simple as looking at wins and losses in judging an owner. The on ice product is another issue. Golisano transitioned to cutting scouting staff and instituting video scouting. Maybe that's genius, or maybe it depleted the pipeline in a huge way. And in the event that the team ended up nosediving in the standings, would we be hearing about a "Buffalo Salary Cap" that is 15-20% less than the real one? Count me in as happy with the current regime. I'll take walking into a game with a vibrant neighborhood coming up and an owner who is willing to spend past the bounds of the revenue stream.

Fun question, and one I could probably write about for a long time. Biggest beefs.....Harrington and Graham acting like children on twitter. They are too dim to realize that fighting in the gutter just gets them dirty. It really detracts from any of the great work (I'm speaking more about Graham here) that they do, and hurts the paper overall. Bucky is even more fun. His writing leaves so much to be desired that you almost wonder if he is pandering to a certain demographic on purpose. Continually harping on athletes making too much money and Buffalo fans somehow being better than anyone else in the world at spotting "phonies" leaves you shaking your head. I only read his articles to make fun of them, as usually he ends up either contradicting himself or falling into tired thinking like, "why is Kim Pegula allowed in the room when men are talking?". Sully has the most talent of the bunch in my opinion, narrowly edging out Graham - and is probably a victim of being here for so long and suffering through what we have. He came off way better in his live chats truthfully - showed a decent sense of humor and it was self deprecating. And Bulldog to me is one who has improved dramatically over the years. And while yes, it may be clunky - he may be the most sincere member of the local media.

He would have hated Gretzky. And McDavid this year. Hilarious that he and Bucky draw a salary for the drivel they put out there....

It would have been awesome to watch Milbury's head explode if we gave John Scott one year for 9M. Kind of wish I had a time machine to make it happen....

Agree on Gionta playing up to that (considering he was a free agent), but McCormick at anything above veteran minimum is a scary proposition to me. I understand the point of getting to the floor, but the term of some of these deals is the part that makes me question him. I would have much rather Murray handed out larger one year deals to reach the floor to keep his options open. To be as bad a team as we are at this point and also be up against the cap is a black eye for a GM.

I think McCormick is a perfect example. Great team player, yet got a 3 year 4.5M deal. At the time it happened, I think the overall thought was, "good for him", but somehow we were so far up against the cap this year we couldn't bring in some of the better young players from Rochester to help out. And what leverage could he possibly have had to be overpaid probably 2x his worth? You can argue the same for Deslauriers, who is signed for another year on a one way deal. On the face of it, may not seem like a huge deal, but this is a cutthroat game where little mistakes add up. I guess my overall point is, he seems to give out money that doesn't need to be given. Gionta at that point in his career getting 4M per is dubious. And given the disarray we currently find ourselves in, not sure we can point to his leadership. Add that to bringing on dead weight like Gorges and Bogosian, and here we are. Frustrating.

Not just that, but management of overall assets and the salary cap. He came into a situation where he had huge cap space and draft assets to spend. And that turned into Bogosian, Gorges, Lehner, Gionta, Moulson, and Cody McCormick. Love his interviews but I'm very concerned with the building of the team and sitting by Bylsma for this long.

Not for nothing, but I'd argue free agents getting a big payday don't really care about their chances of winning. The way it's structured, they have one chance to cash in and one chance only. Agree on this year being a total disappointment, and there are a lot of people to blame. Bylsma for playing a boring, passive style when the team is frontloaded with their talent. Murray for building a team with 4 dogs on the d corps. And injuries. Very curious to see how tomorrow plays out. This was basically the worst possible scenario coming out of the break, and we may see a shakeup for the sake of a shakeup.

It's a battle between him and Deslauriers for who has no business cashing an NHL paycheck. To think we have another year of him cashing 4M+ to get the puck, hesitate, hesitate some more, then play the puck off the boards to either ice it or give it away. In truth, trading for him speaks to poor judgement from Murray, but playing him on the top pair for a large part of this season speaks even more to Bylsma being, well, Bylsma.

Disagree totally. Bucky showed his true colors as a hack here. And tried to backpedal after saying, "I didn't mean to be crass..." - as a professional of the written medium, he could have asked that same question a million different ways without coming off insulting. This was a sad day for the Bills, and just as sad for the Buffalo news. They dragged each other down.

So given some of the depth we've seen coming up from Rochester, how on earth did 44 start the year on the ice?

Maybe the whole point was to make sure they had a window to talk to him. If you are building a program you believe in, and you are fully committed to it as an owner and team - then why not.

For all the talk about Vesey being entitled and going against the system, I think the point being missed is that he's taking a large amount of risk on himself. By completing school and holding out to the very end, he gave up a year of earning power and pushed back his next contract. I don't blame him for one second to try and hand pick the best situation, with the best ice time and linemates to make his RFA contract as rich as it can be. The good thing for us is that we very well might be the best possible spot for him today to maximize that next deal. And sort of like Drouin and his issues with the Lightning, I like when players do this as it means they believe in themselves.

For the running shoes and price issue, go once to a good store, get fitted and make sure you like the shoes. From there, shop on amazon and save 35-50 bucks a pop for the higher end versions as you can buy a year or two behind online.

Everything I've seen from national writers says that it's not a good thing. From just a TV point of view, it's brutal to see 5 minutes wasted while refs hold a gameboy to determine if a goal stands or not. Even funnier was that there was a review from Toronto that was then challenged again by Hitch. Imagine if they overturned it after they said it was okay? I don't know all the rules for this, but it sounds like Toronto can ask for a review, but then a coach can as well. Why would that be possible? It's clumsy, it slows things down.

I'd like it to be like the measurement of the curve of a stick. If you are wrong, you get a 2 minute penalty. It would stop the nonsense of challenging when you want a longer timeout, and probably would have made ChIcago think really hard about challenging tonight.

I view his path as very similar to Bryce Harper. Game the system as quickly as you can to make money as you only have a few years to do so. Taking that path means you are all in betting on yourself. If you fall to pieces, you're not getting a free college ride to play the game if you go the pro route.

Selfishly a down year coming into his RFA contract isn't a bad thing for the team going forward.

Good points, I guess in all of the rush to tank, I never really thought about who actually made the overall decision. For most GM's, if you pitch that method you probably have a pink slip in 1-3 years so it would go against their interest for self preservation. So yeah, odds are this was probably the mission driven by Pegula. Makes me wonder about Toronto with all the spending they've done in their front office, in 2-3 years will we see something totally different there if they are stagnant? The economics of a tank also interest me - Buffalo is probably the worst place to do it in considering the building has been mostly full, but if you pull this stunt in Miami or Carolina odds are you would take a real hit at the box office. If your salary is 20-30M under the cap though, maybe that is good business? For years the Bills did this with "cash to cap" but I think the NFL is a different animal with revenue sharing.

Sorry, I'm having a tough time understanding this. Signing Ehrhoff is meddling, yet deciding to tank, or not sign someone due to their personal makeup or not trading a player wouldn't be? Personally, the organizational decision to go through with the tank is proof enough to me that Pegula isn't meddling. It hurts you at the box office (yes, we sold out almost every seat but had to expand season ticket base to do so) and puts the onus on the scouting staff and GM to turn assets into success. And agree or disagree with the method of tanking, at least it shows an organizational plan. Beats the heck out of breaking even with Golisano.

Remember that Mike Milbury was once a GM and that a stranger pulled off the street probably could have done that job better. As an owner who cares about more than making a profit on a team, don't you bear responsibility to oversee your product?

I'd hope it was training camp.....haha. A midseason switch to fighting resulting in PIM's that high would be nuts. Given his numbers in junior you'd have to assume that to be the case. Think back to that era, if you belonged in the NHL you should be able to roll out of bed and be at least a PPG in junior. He wasn't even that.

He racked up 446 PIMS in his first year with Rochester - so I don't think this was the case of a reluctant switch from hockey player to goon. Given the era and the lack of concern for head trauma, I think this was sadly the same concept as going from a scorer to a lock down defensive forward. Outside of that, I do appreciate the effort and work he's put in to his second career. The improvement he's shown from year 1 is massive.