Marvin

Same here. Built-in shelves and vanity too.

I started doing @Randall Flagg data analysis back in 1992 when I was a grad student in Applied Mathematics I always had a passion for finding the *right* statistics to check and basically ignore most of them; if they don't correlate to winning, then I don't care. I used to test models of stats tracked in the 1990's against team performance for fun. Then again, I do Putnam, ARML, and IMO problems for fun too, so YMMV.

If they were to beat Toronto, it would be cooler.

Or have his buddies give you an offer that you can not refuse.

Yes. This was the big discussion about Hasek back in the day: NO ONE wanted to give him the Hart "because goalies already have the Vezina." I think they finally went with the 1st definition you give.

The question specified "Russian/Soviet" players. Given my age, you can guess that my opinion of the Soviet players is coloured by the 1972 Summit Series, the Canada Cups, and the team tours through the 1980's. Kharlamov was so good that Harry Sinden and Bobby Clarke felt it necessary to break his ankle. Yakushev was great through the 1970's. Balderis was the next in that parade. Tretiak was just incredible. Fetisov was great in the NHL for how long?

Thanks @Neo for reminding me about Kharlamov -- he has to be on this list. (It was the "K" for Krutov on the KLM line.) Thanks @Taro T for reminding me that Fedorov was the first player in ages who played all 5 skating positions at such a high level. He belongs too. Just thinking that Ovie could pass Gretzky with a lockout, another abbreviated season, in a lower-scoring era. Wow.

Yakushev, Tretiak, Balderis, Fetisov, or Kasatonov. How am I doing? Really, Tretiak is my choice.

Is there an emoji for laughing derisively?

If the cap goes down a lot and/or they expect games without fans, then I think that they should consider shortening next season to minimise the pain on the players, GMs and owners, with prorating of the salaries and other adjustments. Not that I would expect Donald Fehr to be reasonable.

It wasn't Roseanne Roseannadanna; it was Emily Litella. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Litella Never mind.

Cap overages Michael Frolik Wayne Simmonds No #2 centre No #3 centre Too many LWs Too many RDs Exactly why should there not have been multiple disconnects between Botterill and Krueger?

Here's one I saw in what we would now call a "hockey analytics" book, _The Klein and Reif Hockey Compendium_. First, we define adjusted plus-minus to be a player's plus-minus minus the team-average plus-minus. Crude, yes, but the numbers did generally find top 2-way players. (Obviously Dave "Cementhead" Semenko does well on a line with Gretzky and Kurri, so you should take the numbers with a grain of salt.) Name all the defencemen from The Great Expansion to 2001 who had an adjusted plus-minus higher than Bill Hajt. Answer: Bobby Orr and Larry Robinson. That's it. Other former Sabres defencemen at the top of that list are Jim Schoenfeld, Lee Fogolin, and Mike Ramsey. They obviously benefitted from having good partners, being on good teams (as we all have become too aware of, bad players tend to drag down good players more than good players elevate bad players), but still, these guys are up there with Dennis Potvin, Mark Howe, Ray Bourque, and Nik Lidstrom.

You rationalize keeping them and getting Sobotka back to try and win 12 consecutive games.

You might not die, but a mild case that was like having the flu and bronchitis that decreased my lung efficiency by 15-20% is still rougher than a "normal flu".

Where was that move two years ago when we fell out of a playoff spot? Too little, too late.

Hmm. I would consider it.

"There's still room on the believers' bandwagon..." I remember hoping that a D or 2 might return for game 7.

When our loss of defencive depth really started to hurt us.

When you put it this way, it hit me just how much of a bath they are taking currently.

Maybe Botterill needs the handcuffs thrown on him to become a good GM. (Looking for a positive...)

"Sunlight is a great disinfectant." May that turn out to be true. They are clearly in way over their heads, particularly with the Sabres. The problem seems to start with being too much fans while not being knowledgeable of sports business. The Pegulas seem to have fallen into a personal version of false generalisation: just because they were good at one type of business does not mean they are good at another. They are also finding that some of the habits they have in business have not transferred well to the Sabres: Terry is reputed to favour up-and-comers with new ideas and points of view over retreads. In this vein, Tim Murray, Jason Botterill, and Brandon Beane are exactly the kinds of hires he made in business. How many would have preferred a reputable retread for GM and Coach over what we have suffered through since the last lockout? Now they need to retrench the business -- with the additional burden of having also compounded the offence by getting over-exuberant with its expansion. This is very bad for the short term, but if they have learnt from their mistakes (no one becomes a billionaire without this), then they should get the ship righted -- eventually. One change with the Sabres must be to get some experienced, reputable, high-character hockey people in company org chart.

@Curt is correct about how ratings work. However, you are correct that there are more general hockey viewers in WNY than virtually every other US hockey market. Moreover, expatriate Buffalonians also drive ratings up nationally when the Sabres are on.

When Fuhr went down in the Bruins series in 1993, I thought the Sabres were done for. When I was discussing it with other hockey fans in the math department before the Sabres-Habs series started, one of the grad students who emigrated from Eastern Europe laughed at us. We asked him what he was laughing about. His response was, "only NHL fans think Hasek is not good." Needless to say, we were stunned. One of the guys pointed out that no one trusted him because his style was so unorthodox. His response was that we had forgotten 1972 (the Summit Series). I remember apologising to him the next season when Hasek took over.

We did many times, but we often were out of step with the times. We had Spinner, Duds, and mountains of skill during the goon era -- but we also would have needed to beat the Habs. We had a tighter checking team when more teams were running fire wagons. We had a small team in the dead puck era. We have lacked quality depth -- particularly at centre and in goal -- in an era where the top teams go 5 lines and 4 pairs deep.