BillsFan4

So I wonder what this means exactly. Will they play in an empty arena? On the road? It’s getting late in the season to be able to make up the games if they’re just totally cancelled. edit -

Good read if you have an athletic subscription.

Really nice to have Ullmark back.

This site is great for the draft lottery. It tells you the odds for each team/draft position. http://www.tankathon.com/nhl The odds are: last place team 18.5%, 2nd last 13.5%, then 11.5%, 9.5%, 8.5%, 7.5% (Sabres current odds), 6.5, 6, 5, 3.5, 3, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1.

Isn’t what he used to be? Conklin only 25 (he just finished his rookie contract. Same age as A.Cooper) and had probably his best season yet in 2019. Also, from what he said to Tim Graham about Buffalo, I don’t think Amari Cooper is interested in signing here. He said he hates the cold weather and would rather take less money to play somewhere warm than take more money to play in Buffalo.

New Jersey also sold off their best player (Taylor Hall) and another one of their best forwards this season (Blake Coleman). But as I said, they just don’t have the tanking experience Buffalo does. They’re rookies at it. The Sabres on the other hand are like the New England Patriots of tanking. They are grizzled veterans. They know what it takes to close out a tank down the stretch... ?

https://www.nhl.com/standings/2019/league New Jersey just passed the Sabres in he standings. Buffalo is now 6th last. Anaheim is 2 points behind. San Jose is 3 points behind and have won 3 of 4. Ottawa 4 points behind and picking up points regularly. LA is 6 points behind and have won 5 straight. And Buffalo has a tough schedule coming up. 3 games against WSH. 2 more against PHI. 2 against CAR. 1 against Boston. Plus, these teams behind buffalo in the standings just don’t have the tanking experience buffalo does. They’re all rookies compared to the Sabres. Nobody finishes off a tank job like the Sabres do... ? A bottom 2-3 finish seems like a realistic possibility. I still can’t bring myself to root for losses. I want them to win. But the top of this draft does look pretty good. Ugh. So depressing to be looking toward the draft once again. Every season I think they are done tanking, and ever6 season I am wrong.

If the Bills draft Higgins, I would think any character concerns on him were probably overblown.

Yep. Bottom 5 seems very possible. NJ is currently tied with Buffalo. Ducks are only 2 points behind (with 1 more game played), and the sharks are 4 points behind, but they recently won 3 straight games. I don’t see Ottawa (60pts) or LA (58pts) catching buffalo so they’re probably safe from a bottom 3 finish. No way anyone catches Detroit for last. They only have 37 points. They are worse than the 2013 Sabres tank team. Crazy!

Details - https://eyesonisles.com/2020/03/04/islanders-johnny-boychuk-injury-update-90-stitches/ Sounds like he was pretry lucky, all things considered. He could have lost an eye.

Probably nothing more than him trying to get away from all the negativity on social media w/r/t the Sabres.

It’s crazy how they just seem to continually crumble when there’s even the slightest expectations. It seems to happen year after year after year. I don’t think they’ve finished better than 8th last since before 2012. It’s like the more things change, the more they stay the same. They have to be the least ‘clutch’ team in the NHL. There are some deep rooted problems with this team for sure.

He swore at the owner (and from the stories out there about Melnyk it was probably well deserved...).

Good!

Full story -

https://nhl.nbcsports.com/2020/03/03/nhl-gms-propose-slight-change-to-offside-rule-that-might-help-goal-reviews/

I’m listening now. Thanks for sharing Yolo! Edit - it’s really good so far, but someone needs to take that damn tea kettle off the burner! lol (I think it’s an issue with Beane’s mic)

Just FYI, when it comes time to renew you can send yourself a gift subscription that will save you 15-20% on the price of a 1 year subscription. It’s not as good a deal as what new subscribers can get, but it’s still better than paying full price.

I have a discount for 40% off a 1 year athletic subscription. If anyone wants it let me know.

He goes into a lot more detail in the article.

Yep. As I mentioned, he’s played pretty well for 2 different teams now since leaving buffalo and both chose to move on from him after 1 season (or less, in chicago’s case). There has to be a reason. I know he was reportedly an issue in the buffalo locker room. Not sure if getting sober helped. You would think it had to help some, but there’s obviously some reason besides his on-ice play that these teams keep moving on from him. We know he really wanted to stay with the NYI. He wanted a contract with term but the Isles never even offered him anything. Not even another 1 year deal (which Lehner would have accepted. we know this because Lehner told the media). He also said he wanted to stay in Chicago and they obviously chose to move on too. Lehner is one thing I don’t blame Botterill for. That was Tim Murray’s mess, and he really has no excuse because he was with Lehner for 4-5 years in Ottawa.

Carolina going into full-on rebuild mode. I figured this was coming as soon as Rhule was hired.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/03/02/tom-brady-bill-belichick-patriots-nfl-comb?utm_campaign=themmqb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com Makes sense. He goes into a lot more detail in the article. It’s an interesting read.

If you look at a list of Tim Murray’s trades, ROR was really his only good trade (at least IMO). Lehner had mental health + substance abuse issues his entire Buffalo career (Murray was with him in Ottawa too, remember). He didn’t clean up until he left Buffalo. That 2015 draft was deep. They could’ve had a very good young player with that pick. Even if they had drafted the goalie Murray was supposedly interested in (Samsonov) they’d have been better off. Lehner has played pretty well for 2 different teams now (since buffalo) and both chose to move on from him after a season (or less). Murray did a lot of damage and burned through a lot of assets. Our prospect pool is still trying to fully recover from all the depth + draft picks traded away (and the poor drafting by multiple different regimes obviously played a big role). It really sucks that Botterill had to undo Murray’s only good move (ROR) and set the franchise even farther back.