Marvin

I start with adjusted +/-. I look at who the defence partners are to see if, say, Dallas Smith has a Bobby Orr or Brad Park as his partner. Then I look beyond that, but some of the stuff I look at is qualitative rather than quantitative.

Defence: Goudas or Clifton Goal: Andersen, Hill, or Varlamov Centre: Haula or Compher If possible, I would like a line-up where Girgensons and Okposo were the 13th and 14th forwards. I am assuming Savoie is in the NHL.

Not if it ends fast enough.

True. Botched icing, regardless of reason, have tilted a lot of games, such as a visiting small market American team playing on the road on Hockey Night in Canada.

It used to be that the officials only called icing when it was obvious. Sometimes, your team could not have flagged the puck down with a 10 meter stick and you would not have caught the puck with jet engines on your skates, and the linesmen still would not call icing. IMHO, if a player does not get to top speed to play the puck, icing should be waved off. Don't forget that Florida are positionally very sound at the blue line and snuff out a lot of rushes.

Funny. I had read that the Rockets were the primary reason that Houston did not try a team.

I wasn't a regular on the board when Bylsma was hired. I had read on Penguins boards how he stunted young players' development and was inhibiting Crosby's and Malkin's play. So I was suspicious of his system's style for the job and his temperament with the young non-stars. But he had won a Jack Adams award, so I was willing to give him a chance. He fell to my lowest expectations. Housley looked like the hot hire and he brought a much better system. But I heard he had problems in the locker room.

One problem besides the coaches was that the GMs failed to ice a complete NHL roster from 2013-2020. First was the terrible Tank, where Ted Nolan had a roster where maybe half the forwards and half the defencemen belonged in the NHL. The roster for Bylsma had some decent players, but the bottom third of the forwards and at least half the defence were at best suspect. Housley famously had 2 lines and an over-supply of RHD with Dahlin and Ristolainen learning on the job. Krueger had the best line-ups on paper, but he was the worst coach the Sabres have ever had, including Rolston. Contrast the Tank teams to 2 seasons ago. 2 seasons ago, we had iced a team entirely with NHLers, albeit with a slew of 4th liners, 3rd pair defencemen, and roster filler when healthy. That team built a foundation where the young players would not get continually overwhelmed and could grow. Meanwhile, the Tank team traded away players who played too well. The Tank team set the table for The Dismal Dozen by creating an acceptance of losing and the beginnings of the toxic atmosphere. The coaching wasn't great, but the GMs failed at their jobs by icing teams where 1/3 - 1/2 of the roster got caved in shift after shift.

Who were the exceptions?

Moo! (I'm an MSU alum.) We should draft a G in the late rounds virtually every year.

Should I expect that they are targeting game 3 in an ideal situation.

Has there been any explanation for him not signing?

Although Housley was not good as a coach, I blame Botterill more for the team falling out of the playoffs that precipitously. The team started falling shortly after Berglund quit. Housley diagnosed the problem accurately: he said in several post-game interviews that the team needed a centre to step up. (Why he continued to give Sobotka hours of ice time is still a mystery, so it's not like Housley was without a lot of fault.) We had 3 1st round draft picks; we could have moved one for a competent middle-6 centre. Moreover, the team only truly collapsed when Botterill said the team's season-long solid play was a mirage in his first interview after the TDL, where he wasted a 1st. Until the last 2 games of that season, the team won once. I could see the coaching staff and the players sag after that press conference.

I am curious to see how much of an adjustment he needs to make to the AHL.

It's weird seeing all the arguments against signing in Buffalo being used here. I assume everyone rooting against the Coyotes have their Jack Eichel uniforms at the ready for each game. Sorry, I can't dance on the Coyote's future grave like this. I don't like a city's fans losing their team. But starting with deciding to build the arena in Glendale, the Coyotes have made one mistake after another, so it now feels inevitable.

Some historical perspective: Because of "home rules", where teams got first dibs on players who grew up in their media market, Detroit, Toronto, and Montreal won every single Cup except in 1961 (Chicago) in the O6 era. The league was so unbalanced that Boston, Chicago, and New York all came close to folding at various times from 1950-65. Also, remember that well-made teams could win lots of Cups in a short period of time. We had legitimate dynasties for aeons, so if your team was very good but not quite up to snuff, you were not winning a Cup. (As we are all too well aware of.) Then, starting with the labour troubles in the early 1990's through the great lockout, the most common determiner of getting to the playoffs was market size. In all honesty, the Sabres' best chances to win a Cup by circumstance and team composition were 1980, 1993, 2001 because of Hasek, and 2006. (In 1975, they had the worst goaltending of the 8 teams in the Quarter-Finals by a wide margin.)

I think people are underestimating how the failure of Atlanta and the continued performance of Columbus figured into the expansion rules. The owners probably had to assure expansion groups a quick route to respectability. The teams could protect their top half of their line-ups, but that meant that a lot of very good depth players got a chance to up their games and that the teams could produced balanced line-ups without real weaknesses. Tanking teams have weaknesses galore, so of course the Sabres intrinsically would have taken longer to make the playoffs even if the GMs had been good and the coaching better. As for how fast they were good: in 1973, Buffalo made the playoffs in the top 1/2 of the league in our 3rd season; in 1974, the Atlanta Flames did so in their second season; in 1975, the New York Islanders made the top half in their 3rd season; in 1976, Vancouver made the playoffs in their 4th season. The Kraken being this good this fast could have happened even under older expansion draft rules. Las Vegas benefitted from some really dumb decisions by established teams. Again, the GM here is really important, preferably with good coaching.

Welcome to the board!

The team is such a punch line that I think that the NHL should roll with it and rename them the Wile E. Coyotes.

Welcome to the board!

Point of interest: exactly 1 team has lost a playoff series after winning a game going at least 4 OT: the 1994 Buffalo Sabres.

According to a friend of my wife's who is a head of the local Mormon Stake, no.

Heck, what about beer advertisements? How about Tim Horton's or Starbuck's?

The writing was on the wall with the Braves with the McAdoo trade. I am looking for something similar with Arizona.

Maybe clear out your cookies?