GDT: Bruins (booooo) visit keybank center. 6pm FO. MSG-B, NESN.

[JohnC]

4 hours ago, Doohickie said:

Yeah, I noticed that too.  I decided I was too lazy to retake the picture showing friendly @Doohickie.

 

 

Just make sure you get that money to me, capisce?

I grew up on the West Side when it was 98% Italian, first and second generation. One of the guys I grew up with was a terrific athlete but also a hoodlum. He was supposed to testify in a criminal case that he was involved in. The Big Boys wanted to make sure that he knew how to testify properly. So they called him for a meet to go over his testimony. They had a car pick him up and put him in the front passenger seat. They drove to a location in the neighborhood. The person sitting behind him ended up garroting him and killing him. His brother who was also a bad dude had a number of criminal talents. One of them, besides his main thievery talents, was as an arsonist. The Big Boys got tired of his lone wolf escapes acting without their approval. So on one of his arsonist jobs the person he was with ended up throwing gasoline on him and lighting him up. He didn't die but was severely burned and disfigured. 

My point in recounting these boyhood stories is I encourage you to be careful when giving me that menacing scowl that you exhibited in the picture that you posted. Just remember, I still have friends (Sicilian businessmen) that I can call on when the appropriate amount of respect is not given. Do you capiche?  😀 

[Doohickie]

12 minutes ago, JohnC said:

I grew up on the West Side when it was 98% Italian, first and second generation. One of the guys I grew up with was a terrific athlete but also a hoodlum. He was supposed to testify in a criminal case that he was involved in. The Big Boys wanted to make sure that he knew how to testify properly. So they called him for a meet to go over his testimony. They had a car pick him up and put him in the front passenger seat. They drove to a location in the neighborhood. The person sitting behind him ended up garroting him and killing him. His brother who was also a bad dude had a number of criminal talents. One of them, besides his main thievery talents, was as an arsonist. The Big Boys got tired of his lone wolf escapes acting without their approval. So on one of his arsonist jobs the person he was with ended up throwing gasoline on him and lighting him up. He didn't die but was severely burned and disfigured. 

My point in recounting these boyhood stories is I encourage you to be careful when giving me that menacing scowl that you exhibited in the picture that you posted. Just remember, I still have friends (Sicilian businessmen) that I can call on when the appropriate amount of respect is not given. Do you capiche?  😀 

My first boss was a "legitimate businessman" who happened to to own an Italian restaurant.

We might have common... um.... associates.

[mjd1001]

2 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

Well, I can’t deny that those three players were very bad this year. But, I would still say that Adams and Ruff is what happened, not UPL, Cozens, and Quinn. Pick a team that is in the playoffs year after year. Then ask if their GM and head coach would let 2-3 players tank their season?  It might be as simple as you say, but then it is an even larger indictment of Adams and Ruff. The fix was easy and those two guys couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything about it. 

Also, since Ottawa acquired Cozens they are playing at a 113 point pace. 

So you are telling me that since the trade, the Sabres have increased their pace of play by a greater margin than the Senators.

[Thorner]

You’ll know this team has finally made it when comments about their play and record aren’t preceded by “since” 

[JohnC]

8 hours ago, Doohickie said:

My first boss was a "legitimate businessman" who happened to to own an Italian restaurant.

We might have common... um.... associates.

Vino, vino, vino. Make sure you order the red.😀

[Archie Lee]

10 hours ago, mjd1001 said:

So you are telling me that since the trade, the Sabres have increased their pace of play by a greater margin than the Senators.

No, I'm saying that Adams and Ruff are so bad at their jobs that to go through the exercise of identifying underperforming players as the reason our season has tanked, without recognizing that those players were put in positions to fail by two men who are demonstrably bad at their jobs, only serves to let Adams and Ruff off the hook for the terrible work they have done.  Adams is about to join some pretty dubious company as there have only been six NHL GM's over the past 60 years who went 0 for 5 in making the playoffs over their first 5 seasons on the job.  Ruff, the winning, veteran, no-nonsense, accountability and structure, coach who was going to finally infuse this organization with the missing elements, has two seasons in his last 10 as head coach where he has a better than Deluca .500 record (on the somewhat positive side, in the two winning seasons his teams had over 50 wins, so there is perhaps a 20% chance we hit big next year).

To give some context to this, let's look a little deeper at the goaltending situation.  UPL had one strong, if somewhat modestly successful, NHL season prior to this year. The plan for this season was to go to camp with UPL, Levi, and Reimer. At some point, based on no clear rationale, they opted to waive Reimer and go with UPL and Levi. Then, once Levi faltered the plan became to lean almost exclusively on UPL. Prior to March 20th, when Reimer's current streak of play began, UPL had started 50 games and Levi/Reimer a combined 15.  Levi/Reimer were 4 and 11 in those 15 games.  UPL, at March 19th, was on pace to start 63 games.  This is despite UPL having, on balance, a very bad season to that point. Here is how many goalies are on pace to start more games this year than 63: one.  That goalie is Vasilevskiy.  Hellebucyk is on pace for 62.  Consider that for a moment. With UPL having only one season of somewhat modest success under his belt, the plan that Adams and Ruff hatched was to go with UPL and Levi and then if Levi failed to run UPL into the ground regardless of how well or how poorly he performed.

So, to summarize, no it is not the case that UPL, Cozens, and Quinn are what happened to this team. Adams and Ruff are what happened.  And, odds are, it will happen again.

Edited Tuesday at 02:05 PM by Archie Lee