Doohickie

Yeah, that's been covered.

Mesh Woll!

K. Olischefski???? Never heard of him.

That trick only worked once for me; not anymore.

Yeah but the time zone changes and was what they were always complaining about. They were the only NHL Western Conference team in the Eastern Time Zone and it was terrible. When I lived there it was brought up several times a season.

I grew up in Buffalo without a favorite baseball team. I don't understand why people who've lived their whole lives in Buffalo and hate NYC in general (and in other leagues) would gravitate toward the Yankees but either the Yankees or more recently the Jays (due to the Bisons being their AAA team) seem to be the default in Buffalo. Anyway, I never really was a baseball fan until we moved to Los Angeles and Vin Scully pulled me in. I liked the 1980s Dodgers and got into the NL West rivalries but when we moved to Texas that faded. The Texas Rangers are my team now. I'm a hot and cold fan though- I follow them when they're doing well but the last several seasons they just haven't been good. With a big turn over recently they seem to be much better, much more interesting. Having Buffalo's Jonah Heim catching for the Rangers is a nice plus. They have a bunch of established vets and some younger guys and overall this edition is growing on me. They've got a 3 game lead on Houston for the division lead and have already won a series in Houston this season. Their offense is top rate most nights (more 10+ run games than anyone else in baseball). Their starting rotation is very good too, even with Jake deGrom injured (long reliever Dane Dunning has been outstanding in the rotation in deGrom's place with the Rangers winning all 3 of his starts). Their Achilles heel right now is the bullpen; they've lost too many leads in the late innings. If not for that they could be at the top of the AL.

The Red Wings are in the Eastern Time Zone and hated being part of the Western Conference.

Not The Onion???

That was worse than being Rick Rolled.

It was during the pandemic. Why do we need a Kevyn and a Jason?

The Troll is strong with this one.

Eh. Karmanos gets an offer, Sabres exceed it a bit and make him GM, with Kevyn as President of Hockey Ops. That's basically how I got my last promotion: interviewed outside of the organization and shortly after I got promoted in place.

I think Kevyn was ready to move on from Eichel immediately, but humored Pegula and Krueger and made an honest effort to bring in pieces that would quickly make the team successful. Like you said, on paper it looked good and I remember the optimism on this forum when the acquisitions were made. The chemistry in the room even before Hall and Staal and the others got here was already toxic at that point I suspect, and when Eichel's injuries took him out of the lineup and hampered him when he was there doomed the short term retooling. Kevyn's failure to give Reino a long term deal was the first sign that he wanted a full-blown rebuild. It was delayed by a year while they tried a quick turn but then I think TPegs gave Kevyn his blessing to go forward with his original plan. It delayed things by not only the first year he was here, but also into the second year because the Eichel trade took so long to play out, and even after that, it was months until Tuch could play. He was acquiring pieces but couldn't really put them together on the ice right away.

I'm aware of that. I think there's the public persona and the personal view. In general he has a bigger-than life personality and I think his "fun" is little more than that in his mind, while in Buffalo most people still view him as the villain. When I first asked him about the The Goal he kind of winced and said, "You know, I still catch ***** for that. I'll be lining up for a faceoff and the other player will say, 'That wasn't a goal, Hull.' But what am I supposed to do? I can't take it back." I met him deplaning at DFW Airport and talked to him at baggage claim. I asked if he would sign his boarding card for my nephew who played youth hockey at the time. So he signed it: "To Matthew, Good luck in hockey! -Brett Hull" The look on his face when I told him it give it to my nephew when I went to visit family up in Buffalo that summer was priceless. 😛

I share a lot of your thoughts about the forwards, both possible exits and their eventual replacements. I am confident, though, that Tuch, Cozens, Tage, Dahlin and Power will provide a strong leadership base, and that Skinner and Greenway will further bolster the culture being built. Krebs, Quinn and JJ will hit their stride, and I think they will all play an increased role, giving rookies a little bit of room with protected minutes. I know Levi will have his struggles but I expect he will be an upgrade over Anderson, both in terms of performance and number games he can play. A veteran goalie to pair him with would be nice but I could see... optimistically... where sticking with either UPL or Comrie could work. I have higher hopes for UPL than Comrie. But either way, I think the team will be improved on goalie, I think they will acquire another second pair D man, and the forwards will be more talented, albeit greener. I think the will be next year's Devils, with a strong season but not a deep playoff run. I think if they can get their with more rookies and fewer Girgs/Okposos, they will be much, much better off in subsequent playoff runs. I really think the rookies that make the team in the fall will be studs for this team.

I personally feel that whether or not Reino would remain with the Sabres had no bearing on Eichel's departure. Possible, but my point was that perhaps his "bad attitude" including his looking to the rafters all the time could have been influenced by his injury.

I actually met and talked to Brett Hull about a year after that. He was kind of sheepish describing the goal, says he wished it was a highlight worthy goal. But the officials called it good and he couldn't take it back.

As a long time expat, I find the opposite to also be true: Things I don't like about other cities are frequently not the cities themselves, but just changes over time and when I get back to Buffalo I find Buffalo has moved on as well. Nothing stays the same forever.

Olofsson (move by trade to improve defense) Okposo (retirement after achieving 1000 games played and 600 points) Injury.... someone will get hurt during the season requiring a call up, perhaps multiple players I expect that the opening night roster will have at most one rookie, with several in Rochester ready to make the jump. If they're not pulling their weight, players like Jost, Olofsson, Girgs and Okie will find themselves pushed out by younger competition. This is what we've been waiting a long time for.

My feeling is the Sabres, Kevyn specifically, leveraged the neck injury to move Eichel out. Even if Eichel was "right" (whatever that means in what might have been a very complex situation) I can still see why Adams wanted to move on from a core that to date had not brought any success. He felt more comfortable leveraging key pieces of that core in their prime to bring in the kinds of players he wanted. He attempted to flip the frustrated Tankfruit for good vibes, and spread the talent more deeply through the lineup. I'd say he was successful. What was?

At this point I've got nothing against the Stars. I have a problem with the league and its officiating, but the Stars were trying to win a Cup, same as the Sabres. The bad taste has more to do with officiating that with the other team. That said, of the teams remaining I think my preference would be Panthers, Stars/Hurricanes, Seattle, VGK.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out Eichel's neck injury was hampering his play for quite a while before he was traded. Looking at his injury history the first two I see that were Upper Body were in January, then again December, 2019. He just missed a few days with each. I wonder if it was bothering him prior to that but he tried to work through it. I'm no Eichel fan but if he's been dealing with neck pain back that far (or even further back) I could see where the constant pain would lead to him taking shortcuts or not putting full effort, trying to save himself for big impact plays. If he was playing injured before he missed time and felt that he wasn't getting good care from the medical staff (whether or not he was, if he was in pain it would color his judgment), he might have been feuding with the team's management for some time. I could see a situation where "there ain't no good guys, there ain't no bad guys" but if Kevyn was aware of what was going on I could see where he wanted to move that problem out of the room. It could also explain why he was always looking up to the rafters at the end of a play.... if it relieved the neck pain....

I saw the complaints about the late start but that doesn't even begin to describe the bitch slap the NHL got from ESPN on this one... as they were telling viewers the game could be seen fullscreen on ESPN2, the first goal was scored. Brutal. And... pretzels???