Marvin

Correct. Correct.

Whisky tango foxtrot? "JBottom of the barrel" is NOT, repeat, NOT an excuse for incompetence. The Pegula's management has been so bad that no one wants to take over what should be an appealing team with some fabulous young players. They were the yahoos who allowed Murray to go all-in on the tank. Why a billionaire can be so stupid to think that multiple seasons deliberate failure and undermining the mindset of the youth would be the prelude to success is beyond my ken. They were so clueless that they were OK with JNot not trading either extra 1st last season for at least one 2-3C, then throwing one away for grins in the Montour trade, and then were fine with JBotch undermining the team after the TDL. 1-16-2 from that news conference to the last 2 games of the season is inexcusable. I am still waiting for the first line-up since Lindy Ruff was coach which has 4 clear-cut, NHL-quality centres playing on 4 competent NHL lines. IMHO, if the 12 forwards behind Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart were on the level of Ray-Kruse-Barnaby, Ward-Primeau-Dawe, Varada-Nichol-Tsyplakov, and Rasmussen-Holzinger-Cunneyworth, the Sabres would have made the playoffs the last 2 seasons because at least these guys would all belong in the NHL, albeit barely in some cases. It is not asking a lot of a GM to get guys of this quality in FA. Put another way, "in any business, bad management is its own punishment." The only time I felt worse about this team was during the bankruptcy.

"No one with any credibility." I assume they can get many people.

You made me think of an even worse reason than everyone things why JNot is being kept: they asked around and found out that basically no one with any credibility would come here after COVID-19 along with the organisational dysfunction. We are the JBottom of the barrel.

Maybe, but all of NYS essentially was written off at the start. I don't understand the inclusion of LA: Governor Newsom said no large gatherings until 2021.

I just can't.

Time for that deathless chant: Ooh! Ahh! Sabres on the golf course!

In theory, finding a decent back-up to Ullmark before UPL hits the NHL should be as easy as filling in the bottom 6 with competent NHLers, so...um, er, uh, ick.

Not what I'm hearing. As I heard it, once the extra round is done, then all the teams not in the round of 16 are in the lottery with the normal odds. So Pittsburgh or Toronto could wind up with 1-2.

You are being generous: you are assuming improvement.

Great thread topic. I knew we were in for a really good decade when President Kim Pegula saved @PASabreFan by flying him to Gates after his heart attack from watching her demolish the Skyway with one punch to make room for the new Hall of Justice. It was then that I realised that a our owner had been hiding her super powers during the entire 2028 campaign.

They can't afford to break the network contract -- network make most of their money is from the playoffs and not finishing the season would abrogate all of them. In particular, Rogers would love to renegotiate because they are losing so much money on the deal. The schedule that @thewookie1 gave is the one I heard about too.

10 March 1976. Buffalo 7, Pittsburgh 6. The Sabres used to have listings of greatest comebacks and greatest collapses in 1 game. I remember another game being listed under "trailed by 5 or more goals and won" too.

I was a kid. I didn't find out about this stuff until well into the 1980's when it came up on a broadcast.

Thanks!

I don't think that's happening. The NHL are not calling the extra round "playoffs." By negative inference, I assume that means that the round 1 losers will be part of the lottery.

I was at the 1980 game. The Aud was in full jingoistic fervour. That was fun.

Briere's goal in Game 6 vs. Carolina. There was still room on the believers' bandwagon, as RJ put it. Buffalo 8 - Philadelphia 0. Bias from losing to the Flyers in 1975.

Guys like that do play still in the NHL. I just don't have them at my fingertips any more -- unlike the 1970's, I don't have the line-ups for the entire league memorised. Ah, youth.

I love this game. I think you can watch this with Russian play-by-play out there if you so choose.

IMHO, that would be a reason to trade Ristolainen. Brings a new meaning to, "unsafe at any speed."

Showing my age and bias. IMHO, Ristolainen would benefit from having a partner like Tim Horton, Bill Hajt, or Mike Ramsey: a boring, heady player who learns his tendencies and how to compensate for them. He needed to not be on a tank team his early years and he needed to not be paired with defencemen as out of gas as Meszaros, Benoit, and Strachan or players his age like Zadorov during said years.

Yes.

Even if we leave aside 2C, JBottom's failures are legion: Benoit Pouliot, Nathan Beaulieu, Jacob Josefson, Seth Griffith, Remi Elie, Matt Hunwick, Conor Sheary, Vladimir Sobotka, Michael Frolik, Wayne Simmonds, Tage Thompson in the NHL, Casey Mittlestadt in the NHL. (I gave him a break with Jordan Nolan [Cup Winner], Carter Hutton [glue guy], Jimmy Vesey, Dalton Smith, Brendan Guhle + 1st for Brandon Montour, not moving Zach Bogosian sooner, Patrik Berglund, Colin Miller, Scott Wilson, the Marco Scandella trade, Chad Johnson, Justin Falk, and Taylor Fedun.) For three consecutive years, JNot has failed to have 12 NHL-calibre forwards and 4 full-time NHL-calibre centers on the roster the entire season. Rushing Cozens is eminently predictable. How can we realistically expect a decent bottom 9 without 4 centers and JNot's inability to craft that part of the roster?

It was the trend from the Goon Era through the Dead Puck Era. Until the 1993-4 Devils, defensive positioning was a lost art; the clutch-and-grab and hook-and-hold were the only way that most teams knew how to play defence. It got worse every year until the Great Lockout.