Thorny

I don’t begrudge him at all. Don’t hate the player, hate the game

and the “hope” that tomorrow’s sun promises never seems to properly arrive. It’s always seemingly just out of reach. But we know it exists, we can SEE the potential! It’s just out of reach! But maybe one day. bane’s prison, essentially

Was a fascinating read specifically because of the author A portrait of a soul before Joining Up

Agree totally. We have to try. Terry stays - fine. He needs to keep throwing darts at the GM dartboard at the very least, if he won’t contemplate changing and hiring an experienced candidate

Ya thinks like that are so damn stupid and ruin it

The fear of change. The fear of having expectations because you might fail. We can’t change the owner. The owner won’t change. It just can’t happen. Firing the GM is pointless, it won’t happen. Quickest pathway to achieving your dreams is to just torpedo your belief in the dreams themselves Aim lower and expect less. Be happy, and keep your head down

In trying to find the quote (I’ve come close: “He was very hard on himself,” said Buffalo general manager Darcy Regier. “He put a lot of pressure on himself, and that's what we were concerned about when he got that deal.”) I did find a nice article by our own Brian Duff (while working for Hockey news) talking about how the deal set Thomas up for failure: https://thehockeynews.com/news/brian-duffs-blog-thomas-vanek-set-up-for-failure Probably wasn’t cackling as he wrote that one.

Yes we can

Interestingly, Friedman talking about how the trend is to pay players when they are young: but it turns out many aren’t ready for it at such a young age and it affects their play hmm

Need way more than that, if we care about math if we win 4 in a row, that means we aren’t winning 5 in a row, so our record after those 5 games probably moves from about 11-17-4 to 15-18-4. meaning even mounting a 4 game winning streak right now would leave us needing about 60 more points in the remaining in 45 games. Which is a 109 point pace

Friedman says to watch Buffalo and Detroit re: a move Hilariously, they are talking on the show about how there are more trades this year than normal

I was taking it literally lol, at puck drop or something. I think I’d have no choice BUT to admire it. It’s not going to help them, as individuals: the people most likely to have a positive reaction are on this board and, well, look at the results of the poll but they’d literally be putting a cause above themselves, which is admirable, logic of it or not. They’d indisputably be doing something I’ve said they haven’t done: claim the drought. They’d be acknowledging they are parts in a system that can’t function because of the manufacturers Would put a HELL of a spotlight on management and ownership. SO many people would say they were ungrateful twerps who should shut up and play, obviously. That they are the problem but I’m not going to be a hypocrite and sit here and say I haven’t been saying the exact same thing as the players would be: it’s not about them. I’d have no choice but to admire their gumption of the type rarely seen in pro sports, in fact this would be unprecedented: which is fitting for such an anomalific franchise

I feel pretty bad for Ruff tbh i dont want him to quit, I hope he doesn’t. I hope when we turn it around he’s around

A very thought provoking question Had to think on it for a good while. Not sure I even have the acumen to properly articulate why, but I settled on…yes

I sometimes feel on an island as winnipeg dwelling Sabres fan. I don’t even have the bills to mitigate things

Well I didn’t calculate the varying caps, it’s a well documented discussion point that only 2 teams spending bottom 10 have made the playoffs the last decade. I just took that decade and x 16 teams each year. there’s a knowing error there - there’d actually be more than 160 cause that year, what, 24 teams made it? So 2 of the last 168

How they’ll react? You said it yourself in bold Seasons beatings

Certainly by no strength of my posting, but nonetheless you seem to be starting to see what I’m trying to communicate with Adams. Adams simply deserves to be fired. It’s not a commentary on whether he is the biggest issue, or whether it will make a difference it’s a commentary on the fact it would be the just result.

It’s not our job to figure it out. It’s our job to accurately reflect the product that’s the most honest course of action

I guess the distinction for me where “nonsense” is concerned is that: my ability to cope with it is inversely tied to how much the particular hockey opinion is infused and backed by a professional salary maybe it’s absurd, but I have a higher tolerance for Joe message board being seemingly off base than I do the guy being paid more money than I’ll probably make in my lifetime

Finally someone gets it

I’m the guy posting facts (2 of last 160 playoff teams spent as we have) you must be the other guy

Says watching the games he has zero idea what they are doing structurally

Says Adams is accumulating too many of the same player

lol they said on sportsnet Pegula picked Montreal specifically because he thought they had a decent chance to win and he wanted it to look like he initiated a turning point Lmaooo Versteeg on saying that the “no reinforcements coming” talk usually ends with a bunch of players getting traded That it’s a last ditch effort