Marvin

I just read Ullmark and Cozens to Toronto for future considerations.

Yes. There was not going to be an OHL when that decision was made. I think they looked at the 2 week quarantine and decided the long waits going into the Juniors were not worth it. Was it best? Damned if I know.

Based on what little I have seen, I think he's overmatched at the AHL level for now. But as long as he keeps learning and improving, it should be OK eventually.

As a practical matter, the Sabres did what I think was best in the circumstances. I am not worried; it is not like he has had mental discipline issues throughout his Junior career.

Your taste is music is amazing.

I never have cut my hair or shaved. I just use my Kanga to keep it neat. Gadzooks, what do I look like? Any advice?

I will never forgive DDB for underming if not destroying the natural leadership that Zemgus and Larry had. I had hoped there would be a natural evolution from them to ROR to Eichel and Sam.

If no one has this by the weekend, I will look it up.

At #2, that looks like former Sabre Pat Hughes.

We have been screaming about this for how long?

Gotta see what Melody Martin and the other YouTubers say about this.

I suspect he and his assistants are making potential coaching candidates and GMs take notice. They are way, way better.

I may never get over 1975. On the other hand, 6-1, 7-1, and 8-0 are sweet pieces of revenge.

I just placed 2 sticks on a table so that I can pretend I am tearing down goalposts.

Waiting for the lights to go out so that the game is postponed...

I don't think so -- this one looks like his arm or shoulder. But that is a legitimate concern.

The funny thing is that the people I know in Columbus largely think that Tortorella wants the Sabres job because he thinks we need a coach like him that badly. They assert that we remind them of Columbus when he went there. When I mentioned that the same theory might apply to Boudreau, they tend to laugh and comment how horrible our coach was.

God, I want a win. If nothing else, just relieving the tension would be nice.

Directly, none. I was answering another question. Probably that stuff needs to be excised from the thread and put in its own thread. In my case, however, it is relevant to me what we expect of Karmanos and Rutherford. (My contacts say it is all over but putting ink to paper or conforming to 21 CFR 11.) It's about what the philosophy of the two men will be. I don't want them to completely blow things up. Keep the healthiest parts, move the rest, but keep short-term competitiveness while improving long-term. In my case, it is a deep philosophical opinion about building a team. The tank happens to be where my ideas are most sharply contested in our debates here and in the hockey world in general. I also happen to think we are closer to being a very good team than most here.

Thanks, @nfreeman. That made me feel a lot better. At a few of games during the tank year, other fans DID pour beer on me. One punched me because, "why are you smiling for a win?" People at the games did throw garbage and food at me for cheering goals and wins. Numerous times, guys shoved me because I "obviously wasn't a real Sabres fan." A guy in a turban is an easy target and easy to recognise from anywhere nearby in the arena, I guess. And it beats the hell out of being told I am not a real American during the pandemic, I guess. Let us also face it. I have some baggage that no one else here is likely to have. After 9/11, few people needed the Sabres and Bills to hire an extra guard whose sole job was to protect your life. Not many of you have been accused multiple times of trying to destroy America during the pandemic.

If the point is that the Sabres can not draft or develop talent well, then whether they tank or not is immaterial. They will stink either way. It's just that tanking gives you a shiny object you can fling at me like Jeremy White and Mike Schopp did. Jack Eichel is just as immaterial as everything else, so you asking about who my top player is means less than nothing. I know my hockey history going back to the NHA. I could expound at length on the different ways these different philosophies have worked and failed to work. It is a wonderfully interesting discussion. But if the counter to my answers is beer on my turban, being lampooned for 15 minutes on a radio show, a shiny object in my face, or a condescending comment from a moderator, when none of them are material to the discussion people asserted it was, which is, "tanks are more efficacious in creating a championship team than slow builds," then WHAT THE **** AM I DOING HERE?

That would be like needing to explain Emmy Noether's work before you could refer to a random joke in Pinky and the Brain.

Am I totally unclear, or are you being deliberately obtuse? I use that team as an example because everyone on that team was at least a borderline NHL-er and I could expect that people would have more intimate understanding of the line-up, how they grew, etc.. Better examples are the 1973-4 New York Islanders, the 1985-6 Calgary Flames, Jim Schoenfeld's New Jersey Devils leading towards the 1995 team, the 1993-4 Vancouver Canucks, or the long, slow build of the Detroit Red Wings, but I assumed that people were better acquainted with the Sabres history. If I am mistaken, then I apologise. I just did not want to explain the player movements, why they worked. etc. No luck, just good team building. I am just trying to bring a deeper philosophical idea for non-tanking to everyone. If you don't think this is welcome here, I will leave the board and not lurk as you desire.

I know. Even with The Tank, if we only do a couple fewer things wrong, we probably are a playoff team. There is an old saying: "The race may not always go to the swift, nor the fight to the strong -- but you are an idiot if that's not how you bet." My philosophy is that the odds are better the way I do it. I don't claim that tanking does not work -- ask the Penguins, for instance. I merely claim that I like my odds better if I don't do an all-out tank. And even if you do everything right, you might still be missing one of your top centres and 4 of your top defencemen in Game 7.