Taro T

You don't want to know!

Haven't you ever seen those "Bush's Baked Bean" ads? The dog is always ready to talk for a price. My guess is, the dog was the 1st one they were going to off to make sure he didn't warn the rest. Dogs and hamsters, they're sly ones, they are.

Sorry, but that is not enough to tell me that Cole is a "consensus top 3 pick for player of the year". That was a foolish thing to say yesterday and it is a foolish statement to defend today. Also, the people that picked Montreal to beat your Canes could not have possible expected that hack Williams to high stick Koivu in the eye (and not even get a penalty for it, WTF). (Although I guess, in hindsight, we should have expected it.) Montreal was up 1-0 in the 3rd game of that series, heading into the 3rd period (oddly enough, the 1st period that Koivu didn't play). If Williams doesn't hack him, Carolina is sitting at home for the past month. As far as "throwing talent out the window" in the playoffs, that is just plain funny. The Sabres had more talent thrown under the bus than any playoff team at anytime in any sport that I can think of, and were still less than 20 minutes away from defeating the presumably loaded with heart Canes. The Sabres lost their best playmaking centerman (sound similiar to losing your best winger?) and 4 of their top 6 defensemen. That is 2/3's of their defensemen. They had to make up 40 minutes per game at both D spots with a 7th D man that was a significant downgrade to any of the top 6 and 3 AHLers that had played a grand total of THREE NHL games this season. Two of the 3 were rookies. With all that, you honestly believe that the HEALTHY Hurricanes had more HEART than the Sabres? Yes, the HEALTHY Hurricanes. They picked up Recchi and Weight to replace Cole and had the same lineup all 7 games in the series. The Canes barely squeaked by a depleted Sabres squad. Your wishing that they had beaten the Sabres varsity squad doesn't change that fact. Enjoy your team's run, but don't go spouting out inanities and expect to not be challenged.

Cole is a very good hockey player, but there is no way in the world that he is a "top 3 consensus pick for player of the year". He plays on Carolina's top line and hits anything that moves, but he isn't even close to being Carolina's best player, Staal is. The Sabres were missing a forward that was as important to them as Cole was to the Canes - Timmy Connolly. The Sabres powerplay never fully recovered from his loss. The Sabres were also missing 4 of their regular defensemen. The Canes used the same roster for the entire series, Buffalo did not have that luxury. "In case you have forgotten", the Canes 4th goal came at the very end when the Sabres were pressing for the tying goal. For all intents and purposes, it was equivalent to an empty netter and the game WAS a 1 goal game. "Also, need I remind you" that not for Max's "choke job" in game 5, the Sabres win the series in 6. He missed the 5 hole and so it goes. Carolina beat the Sabres this series. Considering the rosters that were put on the ice in the last 3 games, the Canes should have put a whooping on the Sabres. They didn't. The Sabres can take a lot of pride in the way they battled through adversity and were within 20 minutes of playing for Lord Stanley's Chalice. The Canes should be excited about the chance to play for the SC and focused on that but they were still whining about Lindy Ruff after the series was over. That is sad. The respect thing goes 2 ways and your post isn't garnering you much right now.

Grier is also an UFA.

Eh, maybe if Lydman goes down too the Sabres can bring him in. Right now I'd like to see someone with a bit more bulk on him.

Paul Hamilton just confirmed that McKee is out.

Unless that reporter called Lindy from the West Coast, that article is 3 hours old. McKee's agent was on GR about an hour ago and said he was going to try to go to Carolina and made it sound more like he had a flu. I would expect someone more closely related to the Sabres to get the story before TSN would. I don't believe the "he's definitely out" story one bit. Not yet at least.

Can he play D?

This Friday OLN is running "The Tournament" marathons at 6:00 PM and then again at 9:30 PM. You are correct. The show is hilarious. Think of it as a cross between The Mighty Ducks and This Is Spinal Tap but focusing on the parents.

Tom, Thank you for the very moving eulogy for Paul. I haven't even been posting here for a year and never met him, but I truly feel as though I have lost a friend. Seeing the post in OTW linking to this thread hit me like a ton of bricks. I can only imagine how much harder it is for you and Ken and Scott and Debbie and the others here that did know him well. His posts were the best part of checking out the PPP board. I respected his posts and looked forward to them. I hope he is finally at peace and also that he is with his love. Maybe someday I'll get the chance to have wings and a few beers with him. I also hope that where he's at that he has the ability to realize how many people he reached and affected. He will be (and is) sorely missed.

That was pretty bad. But it wasn't nearly as bad as the (non and blown) calls in Game 2. If the Bondra "goal" is reviewed, the Sabres sweep that series.

Yes. They've lost game 7 in the 1st round to Boston and the team Ed roots for and beat Ottawa. They've lost in their only round 2 game 7 at Boston. They were robbed of the opportunity to try for a game 7 in the Finals against Dallas.

Royal Bank of Canada.

They definitely have the talent to do it at home (even with 1/2 of the D in the press box). Will they? I have no friggin' idea, but I know I will be there screaming my fool head off along with 18,689 other maniacs. It's been a great run. I hope to see it last another 2 or so weeks. This team seems to relish the underdog role. Well, they have it now and unless Carolina suffers a major injury will have it if Game 7 is necessary as well. Maybe Lindy has the Canes right where he wants them. (PLEASE let that be the case.)

No hockey coverage to speak of and the little bit they have tends to come from Barry Mullet. If I cared about the NBA, I'd watch the NBA channel. The rest of the football guys don't love the Bills the way Berman used to.

I believe that On The Fly is actually produced by the NHL network in Canada, but you are right. That show is what NHL2Night should have been. OLN runs hockey ads pretty much all day long, and their evening programming is entirely hockey oriented ever since the playoffs started. While they could definitely improve their camera work and some of their announcer choices have been questionable, overall, they have done a good job. This is their 1st season broadcasting the NHL and they only had about 2 months to get their act together as they didn't get a chance at the contract until after ESPN declined its option. Even when ESPN SHOWED hockey, they rarely if ever led Sportscenter with a hockey story unless it was a McSorley or Bertuzzi type thing. They probably led a show with the Tocchet scandal this year, but you get the idea. They rarely if ever cross promoted hockey. My only problems with the games switching to OLN is OLN isn't in enough households and too many non-hockey fans don't even know it exists. When hockey was on ESPN, I'm sure a few casual fans watched simply because they always watch ESPN, but I doubt there were many that did. Bottom line, hockey on OLN is 1000% better than it was on ESPN.

Actually, it would have made him the 2nd highest paid player, but would have had him paid comparably with 5 others on the team. About 60% of the season was done at the time he was traded, so the Sabres would only have been picking up the excess salary for 40% of the sesaon. The Sabres revenues for the season were well ahead of projections by that time, so the Sabres knew that they could afford him at that time as well. Considering he is an UFA at the end of the season and Darcy did not negotiate the contract he has, I doubt highly that his salary would have caused friction in the dressing room. There is no way he would have been sitting in the press box had Buffalo picked him up. He is better defensively than Campbell and still can play the powerplay and he also is much better than Kalinin was playing at the time. He quite likely would have been paired with McKee, so the Sabres would have had 2 very solid top pairs, and Teppo w/ Campbell / Kalinin would also be considered to be a top 2 pairing but probably would have gotten slightly less 5 on 5 time to help keep Teppo strong for the playoffs and to limit the potential for problems in the Sabres end due to the "#6" guy. It would have given the Sabres a SOLID 7th D man (either Kalinin or Campbell) and then IF you lose 2 D-men (as the Sabres have now done) you are putting Rory in at that point as the 6th D-man, not the 5th. Chicago picked up a mid level prospect for Spacek and they already have Khabibulin, so it is doubtful that the Sabres would have given up Marty to get Spacek at that time. As I posted, I didn't have a problem with the Sabres not trading Marty for Spacek, my problem was with not trading a mid level prospect for Spacek.

Spacek was the one player that got traded (in January, not at the deadline) that I wanted to see in a Sabres uniform. He is an UFA but is not making a TON of money ($2.25 MM) and was picked up for a prospect. I'm certain that Darcy thought Chicago would hold out longer in swinging a deal for him as IMO they didn't get very much for him. Rumors were that Buffalo could have gotten him (or Staios) from Edmonton for Marty. Darcy didn't want to make that trade. I'm not overly critical about him not pulling the trigger w/ Edmonton but was definitely bummed out when I saw how little Chicago got for him. If the Sabres can get past Carolina tomorrow night, it likely will be moot, as the Sabres should have Teppo back before the end of the Series and I like Buffalo's odds of winning 1 out of 3 vs Carolina. The Sabres should be able to win tomorrow if they skate the way they did last night, even if the Sabres are missing 3 D.

Sorry to hear about your aunt. Next time you are in the Ra-cha-cha region you can hear the game on 950. They cut away from the game IMMEDIATELY afterwards and proceed into the Left Wing's version of Michael Savage (Randi Rhodes (SP?)), but you can at least pick up the broadcast better when/if GR fades.

Mair didn't play because Ruff wanted to put the Roy-Drury-Grier line back together and in order to do that he needed someone to center Kotalik and Max. Mair is a right wing, Novotny a center. Thus Novotny got the call. Also, Pyatt has been playing well in the playoffs and has not earned a benching. Realistically, those are the only 2 guys that skated that Mair would have been put in for. I'd rather hold Mair out a little longer and let him have some more healing time for that concussion he had, so that he's available IF the Sabres REALLY need him to go in; rather than rush him back and have him go woozy on a hit that normally wouldn't cause any problems.

But didn't somebody post that the game was in Tennessee??? Oh, nevermind.

Braden to Bus Driver: Hey, Walt. What are you doing? Bus Driver: Making it look MEAN!!!

Yeah, you've gotta love the internet. 4 idiots or 20 (or whatever, I truly doubt there were more than a handful or someone more mainstream would have picked up this story) cause problems, and there were probably that many (or more - remember there were 4 times as many Canes fans at the 1st game, it just sounded like there were more Sabres fans) idiot Canes fans there as well cause problems, but because 2 people start threads about them, there are soon MANY threads regarding this "problem". Heck it was on "CBS Sportsline" so it must have been a massive problem , yeah, in a respond to the article thread underneath. Good heavens, it sounds like the arena was a bloodbath. Don't get me wrong, I'm not excusing the idiots. Just it sounds to me like this "problem" is being wildly blown out of proportion.