Robviously

What about them? You don't NEED a super high draft pick to win the Cup but you need a lot of talent and high draft picks help you get it.

How has Pittsburgh won their Cups? Lemieux, Jagr, Crosby, Malkin. How did they get those guys? Are the Lightning better off because they have Stamkos? How about Lecavelier? (They won a Cup with him.) Are the Caps better off for having Ovechkin? Hey, I noticed the Blackhawks won a Cup a couple years back. I wonder if Patrick Kane helped (scored the series-winning goal). But you're really going to sit there and say that bottoming out doesn't help teams win? Really? The Oilers' current crop is getting old enough to turn things around (Hall and Nugent-Hopkins were both nearly point per game players last year), and John Tavares is already a star for the Islanders. Yeah, they're in horrible shape for being in a position to draft those guys. :doh:

You're basically referring to the regular player turnover that every team goes through as "rebuilding." Every team lets older players go to make room for new, younger players (because every team drafts a bunch of new, young players every year). Rebuilding is smashing up what you have to build something that will be much better later. The Sabres have never done that. Rebuilding means making intertemporal trades -- we trade quality now to get quality later (and opposing teams are trading the future for the present). And it means making a bunch of those trades all at once so that you bottom out. We certainly didn't do that. Since Black Sunday, we made two "rebuilding" trades (in 6 years!). We traded Brian Campbell for Steve Bernier and a 1st round pick (later Ennis) and we traded Gaustad for a 1st round pick last year. But we also traded Steve Bernier for Craig Rivet (basically) and we decided NOT to trade Connolly at the deadline (he had value once) and gave him a two year extension instead. We traded Roy for Ott, and we held onto Leopold and Regehr when we could have used this season to audition younger defensemen. Player turnover is not rebuilding, and we're not going to rebuild under Darcy Regier. Why should he? He's getting unnecessary contract extensions by not bottoming out and keeping the team limping along. Which means he absolutely should be held accountable for that disaster. Quinn and Golisano are the main culprits, but Regier's fingerprints are on it.

I think both guys could be point/game players, or at least 70 points/82 games. Not sure how much more than that they could be, but these hot starts aren't dramatically better than what I think their potential is (at least in terms of points per game).

You could ask the same questions about Hodgson. And we probabaly will be. Hodgson and Kassian are going to be compared to one another for the rest of their careers as a result of this trade. Hoepfully it's a "race to the top" type of competition.

For a second there, I misread the word "maturation" at the end of your post and was really confused about what you were trying to say.

Good call, bro. That one time it happened in all of hockey history is proof that the Sabres have an excellent strategy for winning the Stanley Cup.

If this were true, they'd have traded Leopold or Regehr before this season began, or last Summer, or even at last year's deadline. And we would have traded Roy for someone younger. "Half rebuilding" is not rebuilding. Darcy knows he'll look bad if the team bottoms out and drafts in the top 5 again, so he's not going to let that happen. And to his credit, that's worked out really well for him. He got another contract extension a few weeks ago for no apparent reason (his current deal wasn't even winding down). A successful rebuild isn't going to happen while we're desperately trying to sneak into the playoffs. Regier is absolutely the wrong person to be in charge now and he honestly should have been removed right after Pegula took over.

We're still suffering from Black Sunday because we never addressed it with a full rebuild. It's been nothing but band-aids ever since. We create new problems by addressing the current ones. All of Regier's half-measures have resulted in a team that is never contending and never rebuilding. Are we trying to get younger? Are we trying to win now? Are we trying to just win enough that you can't justify firing anyone? I've said it before, you can't rebuild with the same GM you've had since 1997 because that would require him to admit that he failed and that it's time to start over. So we never have a plan. We're just hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with a little bit of roster turnover every year.

So what? This isn't going to continue. Rest assured, there's a pointless hot streak that will get us to 9th in the Conference by the end of the season. Two seasons ago, we had the worst record in hockey at Christmas. Had that continued, we'd have Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, or Gabriel Landeskog, or Jonathan Huberdeau on the roster right now. Instead we made a heroic run to 8th place and almost won a playoff series. Two years later, that's still probably the best case scenario for our team. Should be great.

They probably could have had Hodgson (or someone similar) for Stafford in Summer 2011 (right after Stafford's 31 goals in 62 games season). But, as usual, Darcy chose not to "sell high" on a player. He's pretty terrible at figuring out who to give up on and when. Another reason to keep an eye on Kassian in Vancouver.

Something about a sorority girl with a heart defect.

Keep the paperwork.

They're playing a condensed schedule with a suspect back-up goalie and with a coach who overplays his no.1 goalie in normal situations. I'm guessing Miller is going to be tired all season and play worse than he normally would. The condensed schedule could also make it tougher for slumping players to turn things around. (My guess is that having four days off in a regular season could be like hitting the reset button.) So maybe that makes it tougher for Stafford, Ennis, etc. to get it together. Maybe a bad start is harder to overcome (and not just because you have less games to work with.) They also have an 18 year old as their no.3 center, which is not a recipe for success in any season. So, yeah, maybe this year they finally have the massive collapse they've been narrowly avoiding for years.

I'm tired of the pointless late season runs for 8th place. Miraculously sneaking into the playoffs as the no.8 seed is NOT success. Sabres draft picks in the Top 5: Perrault - No.1 overall, 1970 Martin - No.5 overall, 1971 Schoenfeld - No.5 overall, 1972 Barrasso - No.5 overall, 1983 Anderson - No.5 overall, 1986 Turgeon - No.1 overall, 1987 Vanek - No.5 overall, 2003 It's OK to bottom out and end up with some top talent as a result. Heroically dashing to 9th place to get a draft pick in the teens isn't helping anyone. When part of the Sabres' decision to keep Grigorenko with the team came down to the fact that they didn't have anyone else, that should have tipped everyone off that we aren't winning anything this year.

How's the Hecht signing working out? 9 games, 1 assist, -3. BTW, I love that no one seems to care if or when Leino comes back. Just whether or not we'll still be able to buy him out. Another winner, Darcy!

He looked elite when he first showed up.

Is he going to learn how to do that here or is he going to develop confidence problems like seemingly every other talented player we have? It's still an open question if Buffalo is the right place for him this season.

I understand the reflexive pushback. As of this year (I think), Lindy Ruff has been the Sabres' Head Coach for most of my life. The idea of a new GM and coach is actually a little scary since it's been so long since we've had to worry about who's calling the shots. There are probably a lot of fans younger than me who can't even remember the pre-Regier/Ruff days and it has to be even weirder for them to think about. Change is scary even when it's necessary. I want a new GM and coach and I'm worried about how that's going to go down.

At some point you're going to have to make a case FOR Lindy Ruff instead of just acting like the notion of changing coaches is pure madness. Right now the best reason I can think of to stay on course is that we might land a top-5 draft pick this year and THEN we can hit the reset button with new management and coaches.

Super impressive win by the Ravens after losing Ngata and Pierce. Flacco is awesome.

I'm not in the room, but it sure seems like Lindy Ruff could use a change as badly as the team could.

Rest assured, if he does, we'll be dumb enough to take him.

Does anyone even remember this? Dude, you can just come back. It's a message board. No one cares.

This power outage crap couldn't have happened in any of the Bills' last three Super Bowls?