jad1

The response equivalent to an old man yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.

In other words, standard message-board fodder.

The seemingly cosmic ways the Sabres were screwed in this unbelievably bad deal is mind-boggling. Discussing it as part of the current events makes sense at this time. If people are still obsessing on it after the draft and FA (where hopefully Botterill will acquire a couple of legit 2nd liners), then we can play the move-along card.

You are most likely correct. And this is the most disappointing thing about Botterill and the current franchise.

Depends on the situation of those 29 other teams. How many teams had the need and the cap space to sign O'Reilly? How many teams were waiting (perhaps foolishly) until the Sabres paid O'Reilly's bonus? Did the Sabres shoot themselves in the foot by trying to make the trade before the bonus was due? In the end, it still falls on Botterill. He was the one who decided that O'Reilly couldn't make the Sabres a winner. That he wasn't worth the cap space. The Blues had different opinion, and now they have a Selke finalist, a Conn Smythe winner, and a Stanley Cup. Meanwhile the Sabres are still trying to figure out who their 2nd line center will be this season. Anyway, the most insulting thing coming out of this is Armstrong claiming that Tage Thompson is a good player.

I'd push it further back to Peca and Hasek.

On the flip side, you got to hand it to Tim Murray for trading a bunch of nobodies for a future Conn Smythe winner.....

The Sabres franchise needs to stop bleeding talent.

I know, O'Reilly won the Conn Smythe like 20 minutes ago, and I'm STILL carrying on about it in an aptly titled thread.

Right. The proper attitude is that the Sabres have not been, nor will be (over the next 5 years) in any position to take advantage of a player of O'Reilly's caliber.

JBott, is that you??

Yep, all they need is a Ryan O'Reilly-type player. So close.

Whatever floats your boat. I guess I wouldn't characterize fans who have followed this team the last 8 years as "whining" or "petulant," but I guess that's also an opinion to be shared on a message board.

Sounds like the way a horrible GM with an MBA would describe it.

Yeah, Blues SCF history is proof of the NHL's 50+ year love affair with weird playoff formats. Hope they win the series.

Let's not forget that Kane was also playing in the conference finals, and that trade sucked too. If Botterill doesn't sign Skinner, he will have let almost 100 goals walk off the roster for practically nothing. But he was able to snag that EPL guy to coach this mess, so great GM I guess.

Dragons have killed plenty of Targaryens, so the reason Drogon let Jon live is uncertain. Further, Jon being a Targaryen had no impact on the show's plot at all. Some claim it helped drive Dany to madness, but the last show explained Dany's actions as tactics, not madness. She burned Kings Landing to show future foes that using innocents as shields will not prevent her from using her Dragon. Tywin Lannister would probably agree with this strategy. And it can be further argued that listening to Tyrion's advice to avoid immediately attacking King's Landing in season 7 cost her 2 dragons. At this point, she realizes that delay caused by mercy has cost her power. Dany had also found her purpose as a liberator back in season 3. So it makes sense that she would want to continue her crusade after winning the Iron Throne. She's not mad, she's just determined and ruthless, like several other characters in the show. Jon being a Targaryen doesn't change this. In fact she willingly accepts Jon's killing embrace. Which comes back to the purpose of Jon being a Targaryen. There is none. It's like it was just thrown in there for (show) fan service. By the way, Gendry had the best claim to the throne at the end of the show. Robert, Joffrey, and Tommen were all Baretheons. Even Cersi gets her claim from being married to Robert, and not from her being a Lannister. When Dany legitimized Gendry as Robert's heir, he also gained a claim to the throne. That the writers didn't even recognize this at the council scene shows how the quality the writing has declined as Dan and Dave have looked to move on from the show.

So when Kreuger walks out on the NHL again to join AFC Bournemouth in their on-going quest to skirt relegation and UPL is called up, Lindy makes his return!

Seems like Krueger is a great guy based on statements from those who know him, but even with that, his NHL resume is thin on results. He hasn't coached in the NHL since 2013. He lead the Oilers to a losing record in the lockout season. He last coached a hockey team in 2016, three years ago during the World Cup exhibition. His hockey coaching resume lacks any sustained success, and after being delivered a bad break in Edmonton (admitted by even those who fired him), he walked away from the league, taking a position with Southampton in the EPL, who finished 16th out of 20 teams this season, avoiding regulation by 5 points. Considering that Botterill is probably facing the ax if the team spends any significant time this season at the bottom of the standings, you kind of have to scratch your head at this choice. He could have hired a 'retread' like Trotz, DeBoer, or Gallant. He could have hired a guy who worked his way up through the system like Cassidy. He could have hired a tough former player like Brind'amour. Hiring a coach from one of these types would give you a better idea of how things will play out. With Krueger, who knows what's going to happen. Is he going to be too much of a buddy to the players, unable to make hard roster decisions? Is he going to continue the endless roster re-shuffle, using analytics? Will he introduce a foundation and structure for the team's play, especially in their own end? Will he encounter difficult times, and walk away from the league again? This could be one of Botterill's last big decisions in his GM career. He decided to choose the guy with the highest risk, and maybe not the greatest reward.

Yeah, this happened in the idiotic scene where Dany legitimizes Gendry as a true son of Robert Baratheon, which technically makes him king of Westeros. So Dany, who wants Jon to lie about being a Targaryean to ensure her claim isn't encroached upon, basically adds another legitimate claimant to the throne. She could have given Storm's End to Gendry without legitimizing him, like Geoffrey gave Harrenhal to Janos Slynt, but the writers decided to go full stupid here. Oh, and they left a coffee cup on the set. Then they double down and have Gendry propose to Arya. This entire series is built on the idea of arranged marriages. It's the DNA of the show, and every major character has been impacted by it. In keeping with that DNA, if Gendry wanted to propose to Arya, he should have arranged it with Sansa. She would have probably said yes, as allying the North to the Stormlands through the marriage of a younger sister is a politically smart thing to do. It's literally the same alliance that started the show. But something like that would take writers who still wanted to write a GOT show. These guys seem to be auditioning to show-run Gotham.

While show has a definite Stark bias, the books don't, and they aren't mostly about the Starks and Targaryens. The show feels like it's a hero-journey story with a Lord-of-the-Rings type ending. The true king defeats evil to save the realm. Jon seams like he's the main hero so far, which is why they've started to shade Dany. That's also why the show has now evolved into a who-will-live and who-will-die analysis. The writers pushed this the last eposode with a bunch of fan-service before the battle. The books feel like they're going to have a similar ending to the original planet of the apes ("You maniacs! You blew it all up!"), where the characters believe they are being heroic, but drive humanity to it's destruction. Anyway, somebody should tell those Northern rubes that if you're fighting an enemy who can raise the dead, you shouldn't hide everyone in the crypts.

I don't think they're telling the same story. Both stories are good, but I doubt they'll be the same.

Definitely!

Agree that the books and show are different. The writers have played fast and loose with the lore in the books, sometimes to their benefit and sometimes to their detriment. The Dance of the Dragons is mentioned in the show multiple times, so it exists in the world of the show, but hey are picking and choosing the details here to make John more special for some reason. And for the record, the short story "The Princess and the Queen" is a part of the ASOIF canon and details the Dance of the Dragons (The Targaryen civil war, where the majority of Targaryen dragons were wiped out). In that story, Nettles, Ulf the White, and Hugh the Hammer are non-Targaryens who ride dragons. So the books have established that non-Targaryens can ride dragons.