Pimlach

I can see Krebs scoring more and being a good middle 6 guy if he plays 3C instead of 4C and if he has some help from his wingers (Greenway, Olofsson, TBD). I like the kid and he will be a good player in the NHL somewhere and at sometime.

If he stays at 8, meaning he never plays, then I am ok with him. When he plays and moves into the 5/6 pair he is below average (worse than mediocre which implies some level of acceptable). Improving from Bryson should not be that hard - Ryan Johnson is the first up.

I want them to add another vet to help with 5/6/7 roles. I want to see Bryson gone - right now he slots 7/8 with Stillman, that is not good enough Kevyn.

Fighting is not the point - speed, strength, balance, hand eye, and confidence are all being exercised.

It’s possible that he comes back tentative in January, but eventually gets more confidence and we see a nice uptick in his game as he plays out the season.

That would be great. He had that many just 2 seasons ago.

All of them will ring true this season. When healthy and rested he will be a solid bottom 6 and provide excellent leadership. In order to stay healthy/rested he may need some form of platooning, not 50-50 but maybe 20% of the games go to Rousek.

He will be back. After a slow start he heats up for the playoff push.

A scrappy Skinner is the best kind.

Clifton was a rugged and physical player for Boston and I sure hope that part of his game translates to the the Sabres, he will not be backed up by the same exact team mentality in Buffalo as he had in Boston. While this current Sabres group seems to push back a bit more than the recent teams they are not the big bad Bruins. Looking at Greenway, he was at times a menacing guy to play against versus Minnesota, but with Buffalo he was pretty docile with 0 PIM in 17 games. Could have been his injury? Both are liked by Granato and both need to make a big contribution this season to help us take that next step.

and Monday Night, and Thursday, and Saturday.

Pizza. Ham loaf? What is that? Do you mean Pressed Ham - yuck.

Cozens will have another very good year and he will continue his maturation into a star power forward in this league.

I like your recent RJ Avatar with the sword, the turtleneck/jacket combo, the combed down bangs haircut, and the mischievous look.

Football was my favorite sport for much of my life and the 1970's Sabres were right there with them. Football is by far the most valuable franchise for a community to have. However, as of the last two seasons I am getting pretty sick of football - the mindless non stop media coverage, the over the top hype, the attitude of many of the players, the bombastic celebrations for making a basic play, the silly rules and the poor quality of the part time officials, the ever lengthening season and the playoff structure. I also think football is fixed. Not gonna delve deep into that, but ?I do. So, right now I actually follow the Sabres closer than the Bills - even with Allen and Co, I like the Sabres core better with Eichel and Reinhart gone and the new core in place. I like them better than the Bills core. I guess I would pick keeping the Bills because I think we could get another hockey team but not another football team. I actually think WNY can continue to support both. I thought that the Pegula's were insurance that Buffalo would keep both teams for a very long time as his kids could possibly run them or hire someone who can. We should not need Kim to keep things going and actually, her track record in business is not very good.

I think the people down the hall know who we are.

I am in between 2 and 3, so I have to pick 2. Until he shows more ruggedness and more ability to stay healthy he won’t be a real shutdown defenseman. However, he is very sound defensively and he fits in great, he has a lot of upside. Just has to get stronger and play meaner.

Mitts is really the key to having a good top 6. JJP - Cozens - Mitts. If he plays like he did the last 2 months of last year, if that’s him, then we should be fine.

Thanks. I have to check myself though as commercial business is different than what I really know, which is contracting with the Government. As for the MWBE mandates, the government asks for proof that X% of the contract dollars go to small businesses, minority owned, women owned, etc. And they need that proof before award. From my experience this mandate has turned out to be mostly a good thing.

I am not sure how that works in the commercial world but in government contracts, when they ask contractors to bid a project that takes several years to perform, you include escalation (inflation) and cost of money, over that period. When things like labor rates go up the Contractor's must manage to that, the labor rate changes from year to year are not an opener for the contract. If the contractors labor rates increase he pays it out of his own reserve or from his fee (profit). He flows similar contracts to his major sub-tier suppliers to protect his estimates. Unless the scope of the contract changes (i.e. new requirements), the price established at contract award is the price. From the BN article, it appears they did not have all the bids in and all the suppliers selected and locked into a contract, so the numbers they started with for the project were incomplete and based on projections that are inaccurate. We could see more significant cost growth apparently. An example of good project management in this century: In St Louis, the current Busch stadium was being built literally right next door to the old one. The last season in the old stadium you could literally see the two stadiums sitting side by side. But they had to hold off on finishing the last sections of the new stadium until the old one was torn down. Why? Because the new structure was to share a small amount of the same ground that the old one was on. So, they had to wait until their last season ended (including playoffs) and then finish the last part in the late fall and winter to meet the opening day schedule. They put finishing touches on inside of those last sections at the start of the first season. The new stadium opened on time and then they spent the next few years taking down the old one and building a beautiful Ballpark Village complex on the site of the old stadium, it is literally across just one street from the new stadium. Talk about good schedule management and project management skills! https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/en/Journal/Issues/2005/10/03/Facilities/Stadiums-Overlap-Builds-Time-Pressure-Into-Schedule Today we are quick to point to inflation, labor issues, supply chain issues, but all those things had be to accounted for in past decades too.

The bold I can agree with as being mostly is true. Which is why the contracts are set up to penalize and/or incentivize the contractors - the cost overruns typically will first come out of the defense contractors fee (profits). Once all the contractor fee is expired, and the governments funding reserve is expired, the contract goes to congress for evaluation - it either gets killed or they find more money by taking funds from another contract or even a future contract - the government has to evaluate their needs and the risk of proceeding or not. Sometimes these defense programs overrun because they are developing a new capability, utilizing advanced technology, and they run into unknown and unforeseen problems, sometimes the requirements are just too hard to achieve in the given schedule. That is a lot different than this situation. The stadium build is extremely complex to manage but they are not doing anything that hasn't been done many times before.

Labor and material should be one of the first things that you verify and secure when entering into a contract like this, one with a critical schedule. Covid is getting to be an overused excuse but ok, no surprise there - just say the magic words "supply chain". The people managing this for Pegula are off to a terrible start, could it be why there was a change at the top?

That may be true and yet another "sign of the times". I am well versed in government contracts - which includes how funding is obtained and budgeted, how proposals are prepared, how proposals are evaluated, what contractors must disclose about their cost estimates, and how risk is evaluated. In fact, I am an expert at it. The commercial world is different is some significant ways. Two big differences are that contractors can ask for any fee they want and the disclosure of cost estimating details are not as stringent. Still, this level of cost overrun this early in the process is concerning.

True, and that has been said about many players that were were "finishers". Give me more two way players.

Really? Then we would never build anything major or complicated to cost - ever. We will never building a new skyscraper, a bridge, a highway, a fighter jet, etc. There are ways to protect the suppliers and the Buyers from price in escalation and risk. There are ways to incentivize a contractor to keep costs down. What labor increases? The Bills are looking at almost 20% cost growth before a shovel hits the dirt and you think that is ok? At this early stage it is much more likely that they forgot key requirements that they have to meet, which is why they are still getting bids in.