IKnowPhysics

Nope. 1) That's dumb. Losing to get draft picks doesn't guarantee a better hockey club. If you're going to lose to win, you better ###### guarantee the winning part.* 2) It doesn't work. The new CBA rules concerning the draft lottery makes it harder to secure one of the top picks. *Breakdown: a) Columbus has had outstanding draft position for their entire existance, and their club is still crap and free agents don't want to sign there. We obviously draft better than them, but we have historically had a hard enough time convincing players to sign here. b) Even if you draft a top-ranked player, many outside influences may prevent that player from developing into the all star you expect (for instance injury). c) One player doesn't make a team. If you do get get good picks to develop, and if they remain healthy, you still might not win if you don't build the rest of the team well. See: Edmonton 2011-2012, finished 15th in the West. That's a big gamble, that I would expect no professional sports team to risk.

Funny, because I remember him exactly like this: http://sportsillustr...ov_benching_ap/

Yep. When Matt Carle was shipped to TB for two Dmen and San Jose signed Rob Blake, Rivet was the odd man out, ending up as a summertime trade. There's a story about him being laughed off the phone when he called up a Buffalo real estate agent inquiring about the availability of five-million-dollar homes in WNY (he didn't realize what the real estate market was compared to SJ). So he moves out here, then retires out here, plays for Elmira for a season. Kids are probably still in school here. I think Slava Kozlov is the only Russian we've had that's played a season or less for us, and the only one in Regier's era. That trade to Atlanta always did seem a little forced. It's also possible it was Vladimir Tsyplakov, who went to go play Russian Superleague and for the Belarus national team after a season and a half of dealing with a knee injury.

Put. That beer. Down. Beer's for fans only. You think I'm ###### with you? I am not ###### with you. I'm here from downtown. I'm here from Kim and Terry. And I'm here on a mission of mercy. Your name's BuffaloBorn? You call yourself a Buffalo Sabres fan you son of a bitch? The good news is - you're fired. The bad news is - you've got, all of you've got just one week to regain your fandom starting with tonight. Starting with tonight's game. Oh? Have I got your attention now? Good. Cause we're adding a little something to this month's fan contest. As you all know first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired. Get the picture? You laughing now? You got players. Kim and Terry paid good money, get the players to cheer them. You can't cheer the players you're given you can't cheer ######. You ARE ######. Hit the bricks pal, and beat it 'cause you are going OUT. ###### you. That's my name. You know why, mister? You drove a Hyundai to get here. I drove an eighty-thousand dollar Blue and Gold pickup truck. THAT'S my name. And your name is you're wanting. You can't play in the man's game, you can't cheer them - go home and tell your wife your troubles. Because only one thing counts in this life: Get them to cheer on the game which is dotted. You hear me you ###### faggots? A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Cheering. Always be cheering. ALWAYS BE CHEERING. A-I-D-A. Attention, Interest, Decision, Action. Attention - Do I have you attention? Interest - Are you interested? I know you are, because it's ###### or walk. You cheer or you hit the bricks. Decision - Have you made your decision, for Christ? And Action. A-I-D-A. Get out there - you got the prospects coming in. You think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don't walk on the lot lest he wants to cheer. They're sitting out there waiting to give you their fandom. Are you gonna take it? Are you man enough to take it? What's the problem, pal? You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch costs more than you car. I drank 970,000 beers last year. How much'd you drink? You see pal, that's who I am, and you're nothing. Nice guy? I don't give a ######. Good father? ###### you! Go home and play with your kids. You wanna be a fan here - cheer! You think this is abuse? You think this is abuse, you ######? You can't take this, how can you take the abuse you get at a game? You don't like it, leave. _I_ can go out there tonight with the materials you've got and drink myself 15,000 beers. Tonight! In two hours! Can you? Can YOU? Go and do likewise. A-I-D-A. Get mad you son of a ######. get mad. You want to know what it takes to be a fan of the Sabres? It takes BRASS BALLS to be fan of the Sabres. Go and do likewise gents. Fandom's out there. You pick it up, it's yours. You don't, I got no sympathy for you. You wanna go out to those games tonight and cheer, CHEER. It's yours. If not you're gonna be shining my shoes. And you know what you'll be saying - a bunch of losers sittin' around in a bar. 'Oh yeah. I used to be a fan of the Buffalo Sabres. It's a tough racket.' These are the new players. These are the Darcy Regier players. And to you they're gold, and you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you is just throwing them away. They're for fans. I'd wish you good luck but you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it. And to answer you question, pal, why am I here? I came here because Kim and Terry asked me to. They asked me for a favor. I said the real favor, follow my advice and fire your ###### ass because a loser is a loser.

Welp, seeing as how he just got an extension, I'm guessing that won't happen either. What else ya got? And just to throw some salt on the wounds of Ruff haters: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sports/hockey/montreal-canadiens/Hickey+Sabres+Regier+seen/7928029/story.html

Mission has been in the inline game for many years and was responsible for a lot of innovation seen in most modern inlines; they're fine. I seem to remember K2 making a recreational inline skate back in the day but not a hockey skate. Edit: And your link confirms that. If you want to play hockey, get a hockey skate. If you want to skate along the beach in a white leotard like you're in a tampon commercial, get a recreational skate.

Just saw Brownie on the Sharks broadcast. Looks like he's doing well.

This. I used to play a lot of roller, but I cut that down when I picked up ice about 9 years ago. I have a pair of Bauer ice skates that rock (2009 X60s), and if I ever decided on a new pair of inlines, I'd get the same boot or a cheaper version of the same boot. The new Bauer inlines have similar features that I enjoyed on my old mission skates too (Bauer bought Mission). Just taking a quick look, I'd probably take a long look at the XR2s, XR3s and maybe XR4s. Much of my content with Bauer is all based on the skates fitting both my foot and the way I skate extremely well, but the durability of my skates has been great too. YMMV. Bauers may not fit you the best- and a great fit is the most important thing. If you're just getting started at it again, maybe examine the next-to-cheapest in the line of skates that fit you best. If you're not playing more than twice a week or so, you're probably not pounding the hell out of them, so as previously deduced, it's not worth the money.

I was forced to listen to the marble-mouthed homers on NESN, and from about 2:00 into period 1, they gave Vanek the spotlight, noting that he had recorded 49 points in 45 games against Boston going into this game. Once he scored his first goal tonight, they couldn't shut up about him, even joking after his second goal that "if Vanek played the Brunis every night, he'd challenge Gretzky's records." They must've said his name 300 times tonight. And you know it burned the Bruins fans' collective ######. Lots of good things in this game. -The first line is unstoppable. -Vanek's admitting that he's playing the best hockey of his career (finally some confidence!). -Leo, Myers, and Sulzer played a little better tonight, but still have a lot of work to do. -Ehrhoff is finally showing what he's capable of when healthy, and he's starting to convince me he is the Buffalo Sabres franchise defenseman. -John Scott collected 7 penalty minutes, 10 punches thrown, 0 punches received, and gelatinized Shawn Thornton's skull. -Miller put together a solid body of work, made whole by an outstanding 3rd period. -Sabres blocked 24 shots tonight.

I thought they were used merely the supporting evidence of the problems pertaining to Ruff and Regier, respectively.

Anyone want to blame Ruff, Regier, or Pegula for this? It's happening in every other thread right now. I want you guys to be perfect.

Grigorenko doesn't have a great ring to it. GRIGORENKO DAY! GIRGORENKO DAY! GRIGORENKO DAY! TIS THE SEASON FA-GRIG-GRIG GRIG-GRIG GRIG GRIG O-RENKOOOO!

Puck Daddy speculating that the NHL might have showed its cards for expansion when they announced realignment: http://yhoo.it/VnKlpE (for reference, the realignment post: http://yhoo.it/WydYIi)

And for all of dumping on Leo, I'd like to voice praise for Steve Ott. Every time he's on the ice, he's far and away the hardest working player. He's always backchecking hard- harder than dozens Sabres forwards in the past years. I literally watch a play develop, see the opposition on a rush or a defensive zone turnover creating an odd man situation in the high defensive zone or a lost battle along the half wall in the defensive zone, and I think to myself "aw ######, here we go" and then BANG Ott hustles in there, does the dirty job, and makes the play out of the zone. He doesn't quit. Steve Ott: Come for the physical play, stay for a the sound defensive ones.

Agreed. It's Miller's choice not to post-up on that save, but it's a choice that's somewhat defendable- there's another Toronto player rushing who was not well defended because Myers gets off balance, so Miller may have to expect the cross-ice pass (although I know the goalie always has to play the shot). Leo has to make the play.

Leopold is playing horribly. The only two upsides to his game right now are his decent skating and his good first pass. The rest is atrocious right now- he's getting in bad positions, he's playing with zero physicality, he's not clearing out screens, he's not winning battles, and when he loses battles, he's not adjusting well to the play that develops away from the puck. The stats byproduct might be telling too: He's a team-worst -3. Edit:And reading back through some of the posts, it looks like Leo's be blamed for the last goal. I'm basing most my opinion off of previous games and in no small part to the first Toronto goal last night. Leo loses the battle in the corner and decides to chase, picking up nobody, and leaving the rebound to be picked up from his side of the ice. On the last goal, Leo gets beat cleanly around the outside by his own lack of hustle and makes a last stand by trying to hook. Hooking is the lazy man's play. Any ounce of physicality from Leo could've stopped Frattin at the boards. In fact, any other defensive play selection short of a penalty shot, which would not very likely have been called anyways, could've put the game to shootout. If he didn't want to make the physical play, he could've chosen to take the inside straight route and laid out for the shot/pass block. I don't like to pick apart individual goals like this, but these are typical in my opinion of how Leo's been playing. I hope he can re-right his ship.

Not sure you have to rescale the x-axis if you don't want to (I actually like the x axis the way it is), maybe just rescale the y values of this season OR the other seasons so that they have similar meaning. For example: multiply this season's points per game by 82/48, so that a +10 point pace this season really is equivalent to a +17ish point pace historically. Maybe you've already done that by scaling to a 54 point pace or incorporated it into the points per game math- my eyes can't tell yet.

A little interesting. Sulzer and Regehr are the lowest on the team in ice time. They have 15.5m and 17m respectively; everyone else is 19m+. This could be a shake up, to rotate in some fresh blood. Could speculate and say that maybe we're planning on rotating 8 guys through the lineup throughout the season to keep guys fresh. But if this was the case, maybe I'd rotate them in and out as on-ice pairs. If I'm benching guys, Regehr wouldn't be one of my first choices.

In the first plot you may or may not want to normalize the points of seasons past to a 48 game season by dividing the previous seasons differential to the 93 point pace by the ratio 48/82. Might give it more meaning. I think we're shooting for at least 55 points this season instead of 93, but who the hell really knows with the compressed schedule. Also, thanks for doing this. Always worth a look.

Now is the time on Shprockets ven ve play hokey.

The system isn't supposed to be predictable and is subject to both situational conditions and player improvisation or read and react to opponent movement. That said, trends I've observed these first few games: - A relatively straightforward breakout, focusing on puck movement up the boards with some puck support from the center. The defender carries the puck only with minimal forecheck pressure. The far winger almost always takes off to receive a cross-ice pass. -A combination of carry ins and dump ins into the offensive zone, mostly determined by the amount of defensive pressure at the opponent blue line. (IE, they trap,we dump). On dump ins, the dump in is almost always to the same side of the ice, to ring the puck around the boards. The far side wing always rushes on the dump in, attempting to catch the puck along the boards in the far corner. Carry ins usually rely on close puck support from one or two other rushers, making quick passes to beat defenders at the line. On a carry in, puck posession is usually established with some sort of pass-back to the point after the first rusher takes the one or more defenders with him, relieving the point man from defensive pressure. We use a similar method of entering the zone on the power play. -The power play this season looks to be a little different than last season. We use a modified umbrella formation with one forward at the net and one forward often in the high slot, forming a shape like a plus. Puck movement is similar to a umbrella, except the high forward can often provide more puck support, offering potential 2- and 3-on-1s against the defending PKers at the point. This seems to have helped our puck posession time with the man advantage. Upon a turnover, that guy seems to crash hard to force the PKers to turn over or have trouble clearing. -The PK hasn't changed much, playing a large box formation with an active puck attack. The forwards seem like they've been told not to cross/switch positions, which, while it prevents us from chasing the puck too much, seems to allow a little bit of hesitation in some situations when attacking the point when PKing. -The forecheck and neutral zone pressure seem to vary considerably depending on the game situation. We don't seem to rely on the trap that often, relying instead on a more active 1-2-2 attack-the-puck and jam them at center ice type of approach. This often forces the opponents to dump, but relies on defenders not getting beat because the situations are often 1 on 1, not 1 on 2 or 3 like a trap. That said, successful turnovers can turn into a quick-counter type of transition game. -Sustained offensive pressure seems to be a result of quality puck possession that is a result of a lot puck work on the outside and along the boards. We seem to use the boards a lot for puck movement, often starting with a point man ring the puck around the boards, with players that are well defended "optioning" out of catching the puck as it goes by. The puck is usually caught by the next guy along the boards, who is often a forward left undefended behind the net. We've generated a lot of chances using this technique, but many of the goals scored this way have been outside shots that pinball around a little (see: Cody Hodgson).

With the old CBA your odds of selecting first overall were about 48% if you were in last place. Now I'm reading that it's very close to the NBA draft lottery weighting system, where the last place team only has about a 25% chance of selecting first. 80% chance that a bottom-five team now selects first, as opposed to 100% previously.

"Is it good to see RJ back?" "It's great to see RJ back. That should bring us the W!"

Feeds coming back on in LA. 638-1 now on.

Also out on DTV here too. Center ice logo and muzak on MSG, FS-Car, 773(-1), and 774(-1).