Marvin

I wouldn't say regular, but on occasion.

They have to be, right? They have to get someone who will make the most of the skills of the players on the roster at their level of development. They probably have different candidates depending on what the plan is with Eichel, Reinhart, and Ristolainen. IMHO, the fewer of these three who are here, the more likely Granato is here. Addendum: As it is, because they have already interviewed a college coach, I think at least two of them are gone if not all three.

This old TV show just seemed appropriate.

Olisi's, Zetti's, and Wegmans are all NY Style. I prefer Olisi's, but my wife prefers Zetti's.

That pizza just looks right. When I was at MSU, there was a bar where one of the bouncers was from Buffalo. One day, we sat the cooks down and taught them how to make wings properly. Word spread like wildfire among WNY expats, those who went to college in WNY, and the like. The owner told me the extra cleaning time after Buffalo games was more than compensated by the extra money they made on food alone, never mind the extra beer sales -- even among those who never went to Buffalo. Apparently, we are a rowdy passionate bunch.

I might go for that, although I would prefer getting a centre as well. What would we need to add to get, say, Appleton? @Ducky?

I take it he will get a nice white sportcoat with exceedingly long arms.

It could be that he liked how XHCRK did things, but disagreed with what he was doing. I know I've had bosses whose overall methodology I liked, but disliked what they implemented.

Just Pizza and Wings Santora's

This is awesome. I saved it to my computer.

I would have said the infield fly rule myself, but your point is well-taken.

Guilty as charged. And most nerds find me too nerdy for them.

The average distance between two random points in our galaxy is approximately radius * 4/pi = 422,800/pi light years, not counting its thickness. If there are 10,000 uniformly distributed, interstellar civilisations across our galaxy, that puts them about 14 light-years apart. (And we wouldn't be one of them.) The odds of these being aliens are almost zilch. Aliens are not the most plausible theory by a wide, wide margin.

Richard Strauss. SwampD's pun was on the name Strauss referred to the composer Johann Strauss, "The Waltz King". My reply referred to the unrelated composer Richard Strauss, who wrote the Tone Poem Also Sprach Zarathustra.

Also Sprach SwampD Sorry for being such a Richard about it.

For those who insist that I wallow in your weltschmerz, why must I assume that Don Granato must be a terrible head coach? The scant evidence available would imply he is at least so-so. The inexperienced GM/Head Coach combination who started a season 10-16-6 with a quarter-finalist in disarray got the team to game 6 of the semifinals in 1998. IMHO, the improvement in the team's cohesion, execution, and grit verged on the miraculous given how young our defence was and how far down the depth chart we were in goal at the end. Having said that... Can those who enjoyed the end of the season as much as I did, please cool your jets? Don Granato is statistically more likely to be mediocre like Floyd Smith, Marcel Pronovost, or Billy Inglis were than as good as Lindy Ruff was. 9-11-2 to end the season was nice -- but there are caveats. They were often badly outshot for stretches. They sometimes were defencively clueless. Very strong teams could shut them down if they focused on it.

Eh wot? You think they can't find a centre better than Eakin in an Eichel trade, a Reinhart trade, a Ristolainen trade, in free agency, or anything else?

What distresses me is to see that human genius has limitations, and human stupidity has none. -- Alexandre Dumas

I have seen NOTHING aside from the chunder spewed on this board which indicates that the Pegulas are anything other than well-intentioned ****-ups. (IMHO, what they have spent money on downtown is more important than the trivialities of the Sabres, so I view them more favourably than most.) There is no evidence of malice with respect to the Sabres whatsoever which cannot be explained by abject incompetence. I just think that his model for always hiring people who are green and grow into the job -- which is what he did to become a billionaire, so what the **** do I know -- is an idiotic way to run a hockey team. And he will keep doing it until he gets to the McBeane of the hockey side.

Is it possible that GMKA winds up keeping both of them and Sabres sustain a roaring start out of the gate? Or are they now preconditioned to not believe this after all these years.

God, I hope you are right. It terrifies me that these could be Russian, Chinese, North Korean, or even well-heeled non-state actors doing this.

Does everyone here assume that every other GM is as dumb as XGMTM or XGMJB on trades? We can expect better than the ROR return, but we are not getting a potential future 1C-in-waiting in return for Eichel, Reinhart, or Ristolainen.

I don't accept that we can't compete for a playoff spot next year. Ice 4 lines of real players (even 12 genuinely 3rd/4th liners), combine that with solid team defence, and then add average goaltending and you can escape the basement. Create a couple of 2-way lines of veterans who are higher-end middle-6 players to insulate the youth after that and you can threaten the playoffs. Start with Skinner-Eichel-Cozens, Ruotsalainen-Reinhart-Olofsson, Asplund-Mittlestadt-Thompson, Bjork-Girgensons-Okposo, Eakin. On defence, you have Dahlin-Bryson, Borgen-Jokiharu, Samuelsson-Ristolainen, McCabe-Miller. Assume the Sabres protect Skinner (NMC), Eichel, Reinhart, Olofsson, Asplund, Mittlestadt, Okposo (mNTC), Dahlin, Borgen and Jokiharu. Let us assume we lose Thompson or Miller, ad arguendum. The Sabres move out Eichel, Reinhart, and Ristolainen. We need to add a couple of veteran defencmen, at least 2 top 6 forwards (preferably 4), and 2 goaltenders. What if we get two each of #2 centres (probably 1 each in from Eichel and Reinhart), a couple of younger potential top-6 prospects, take on a couple of older stay-at-home defencemen with limited term as "cap dumps", and sign a couple of decent goaltenders. That seems eminently feasible with trades and FA. "No one will sign in Buffalo unless they stink" cuts no ice with me. If you make the right kinds of trades for largely the right kinds of players, there is no reason for some FAs to like what we are doing. They key is to find the "right kinds of player." GMKA should look in the mirror and ask, "is this guy a more talented version of myself, Gaustad, Mair, and others like us?" If that answer is "yes", then he is acceptable as part of the return.

I personally would treat these as foreign actors who have access to technology which we can not hold a candle to.