Wraith

Not surprising, seeing as their new coach is the Devils former coach. Good God is that boring hockey!

I can't see how anyone can really fault our defense in the game last night. I thought Miller was absolutely horrendous most of the night and I was thankful the team limited the Toronto's scoring chances, otherwise the score would've been much worse. I've heard a lot of talk that Miller's problem lately is he's playing too deep in the net and not challenging. Once again, I saw the opposite. He comes out and challenges the shot and has absolutely no ability to recover and get back in net. I can't count how many times I've seen Miller slide helplessly out of the crease lately and it's frustrating. Both of the first two goals were of this kind. Kaberle's goal was just embarassing. Miller just slid right out of the crease and fell over. It didn't help that Sekera was getting wrestled to the ground by a Leaf without the puck while trying to protect the far post on that goal, either. I don't know if he's tired, hurt, developed bad habits because of the lack of practice time, or has just lost his ability to orient himself in the crease, but I'm sure the heavy work load isn't helping. That being said, Miller came up big in the shoot out. I thought he was going to be embarassed again when Kaberle made him look silly on the first attempt. Thankfully, Miller stayed under control and played very smoothely after that, and Toronto made no attempt to go upstairs on him.

What is the benefit for Bob Kraft to "blow out the salary cap" or to drastically change the current model of the NFL? He's built a wildly succesful team under the salary cap by following a disciplined system. If the salary cap goes away (entirely or "virtually"), true yahoos like Dan Snyder might actually build competitive teams with their unlimited checkbooks. That might force Kraft to open up his wallet in return. As it stands now, he gets all the benefits (great team, large profits) with none of the downsides (higher salaries, more upfront investment). He'd be an idiot to risk that. He stands to lose the most if the business model changes. Any owner in the league who's had sustained success under the current model would be foolish to try to shift the business model now. Now, whether Jones falls under the header of "owner who's had sustained success" or "true yahoo" is debatable.

If I were Lebron, I'd be upset at Hill for typing this gem: "LeBron's image clearly means a lot to him, maybe even as much as pursuing a championship." What kind of sports "journalist" types that? Good lord. She can't understand why a professional athlete and a super model might be depicted differently on a magazine cover? She can't fathom that maybe the contrast was intentional, given that one is a MODEL and one is an ATHLETE? Again, good lord. James is doing anything on that cover that he or any other professional athlete (black, white, Asian, whatever) hasn't done hundreds of times during a game.

Tampa Bay must've done something seriously bad to Thomas Vanek at some point. This is the second game in a row where Vanek has buried Tampa Bay late to cap off a huge comeback.

Seconded. Double the penalty if you actually attempt to say "'Bres" out loud.

Not true about Connolly: http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=573311

Where did I say Buffalo had won a chamionship? I didn't say the post-season didn't matter. I said start worrying about the post-season on April 11th and enjoy the regular season for what it is: an enjoyable season. If the post-season was the only thing that was important to me I might as well hand in my Sabres stuff and start rooting for the Carolina Hurricanes. I'd fit in better with their fans. Hell, why did I sit through all those Bills games for the last decade? I haven't expected a Super Bowl appearance in over ten years yet I still watched almost every minute of every game in that time span. I did so because as a sports fans who isn't gripped by some irrational panic get enjoyment from more than those 15 minutes of happiness following a championship.

Graduated from UB in '05. I don't know the ratio but there is definitely a very fine selection. May was a great month to go to brunch on the weekends.

In this particular case there is a trophy. And the fact that it doesn't happen too often is what should make it enjoyable and special, not difficult to enjoy. I understand that "In the lead" is not exactly a comfort zone for Buffalonians but for heavens sake some of these people should take the time to enjoy the regular season on it's own merits and leave the post-season for the post-season.

Best post of this entire thread. Looking back I'm surprised the Niagara river wasn't clogged with Sabres fans throwing themselves over the Falls. People have glorified last year's team so much that they gloss over all the downs that came along with the ups. The same ups and downs that have occured to every team in every season in the history of every professional sports team ever! From March 18th to April 1st last year, the Sabres lost EIGHT OF NINE GAMES, including SEVEN IN A ROW and losses of 0 - 5 to Atlanta and 0 - 7 to Toronto, two teams that MISSED THE PLAYOFFS. I do not want to know what would be said if something similar happened this year. It's the same type of glorification of the 1999 Stanley Cup finals team lead by Hasek. The supposed "Hardest Working Team in Hockey" that, if you ask some of the people on this board, never played a game with less than 110% effort all season. Bullsh%t! I understand living and dying with a team over the course of a season but this panic that seems to grip the fans every time the Sabres lose a game is pathetic. It honestly feels like some of these fans have never followed a professional sports team before. That's to be expected from guys like LSI who have clearly jumped on the bandwagon but from others who claim to followed the team for thirty years it's surprising and annoying. To me it's pretty clear that Buffalo sports fans have an extremely difficult time following and rooting for the leader of the pack.

Well, Ryan Miller's GAA is ~2.7 this year. So roughly half of the time he gives up less than 2.7 goals a game and the other half of the time he gives up more than 2.7 the time. Since the Sabres have played 69 games this season, I will venture a guess that they've allowed less than 3 goals about 30 times. EDIT: Looking at the schedule, the Sabres have held their opponents to two goals or less in 28 games. By my count.

Early March is the most crucial point in the season?

Yup, I agree. The Pens had three separate opportunities to make it 5 - 3 with an empty netter. The Sabres should say thank you to Penguins for nailing the post, the side of the net, and Chris Drury's stick on the empty net opportunities and then playing really sloppy defense with three Sabres in front of their net and three more behind their net, take the point, and get out of dodge.

I hope so. This has the potential to be a very positive move for the Bills but only if they adequately replace McGahee. Fortunately, McGahee has been very average the last season or two so replacing that production through free agency and the draft does not appear to be too difficult.

I think it is likely that this means the Bills have already agreed in principle to a deal with another running back or two. Time will tell.

Also picked up Miko Lethonen, a DMan, from Nashville for a 4th Rounder. Good depth there.

Surprised nobody has mentioned it yet. One of the most bizarre yet strangely satisfying endings to a basketball game I've ever seen. Buffalo is down 2 points on their last possession. There are 1.6 seconds between the shot clock and the game clock. Parnell Smith takes a fade away jumper as the shot clock expires and comes up short, getting nothing but air. The time keeper is a little slow on the trigger and the game clock sounds a moment later. The Bowling Green coach hustles his team off the court into the locker room (to the point of spastically flailing his arms around to get their attention, and skipping the normal post-game handshake). Reggie Witherspoon freaks out, gets the referees to review the tape, and they add the missing time back on the clock. Bowling Green refuses to return to the court in a timely manner and a technical foul for delay of game is called. Yassin Idbihi goes to the line and sinks both free throws to send the game to overtime. The UB crowd was insane. Bowling Green returns to the floor for overtime where they promptly get demolished and UB wins by 8. After the game, Bowling Green's coach goes nuts, dropping the f-bomb several times in a rant about the officials. He later claims that a referee told him the game was over, and that he hustled his players off the court because of the weather. The entire thing is assinine because any coach should know that there was a time differential between the shot clock and game clock and that the clock stops when the violation is called and does not resume until the ball is inbounded again. The "tape review" wasn't even necessary as the game can NEVER END on a shot clock violation! Full story is here: http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20070214/1007863.asp Pretty entertaining!

Uh, you've pretty much detailed the blueprint for how to beat the Colts in 2006. It's the exact same recipe that kept a clearly inferior (at the time) Buffalo Bills team within 1 point of the eventual Super Bowl Champions. Bend but don't break, no long plays, force short, incremental gains, take the WRs out of the game, and force Manning to string together long drives. Every additional play in a drive increases the odds for a drive-killing mistake or turnover. In this case, it didn't work, because the Colts made very few drive-killing mistakes and the Bears tackled very poorly. I can't say I blame the coordinator though, as the theory was sound.

Nah, you got it all wrong. The conservatives want us to believe that the liberals want us to believe that the conservatives want us to believe that the liberals want us to believe that if you're a patriot you can be compared to a Nazi. Either that or the poster meant to imply he's not ones of those fanatic, "overly-patriotic" folks who get excessively worked up over perceived slights to any symbol of America, and who can be compared to Nazi's (in terms of zealotry, mostly, rather than murderous tendencies, although there have been a few...)

Well, you're right, it can't hurt. However, if you want to pay extra attention to a subsystem of your automobile to extend it's life, I wouldn't choose the engine, as it's pretty much already the strongest link in the chain already.

So, according to this rumor, Buffalo would have to build a new stadium and sell it out for 5 consecutive years in order to receive an expansion franchise. . . . So if they only sell out 49/50 games during that time period, would the NFL force the new franchise to move or would they travel back in time, stop the expansion from ever happening, and thus retroactively remove any memory of the team from our collective minds? If Ashton Kutcher has taught us anything, it's that messing around with history like that can be dangerous.

Very cool, thanks.

I am a 24 year old beginner - early intermediate level skier who has skied Bristol Mountain maybe 4 times in the last two years (first time out this year was Saturday). I'm at the point in my ski career where I'm pretty comfortable on the intermediate difficulty (blue squares?) and can handle some black diamonds with fresh legs and patience. My fiance is my teacher and she's an experienced skier who owns her own equipment. I'm at the point now where, due to the frequency with which we've been skiing, I've been thinking about buying the equipment instead of renting. For my skill level, what would I expect to pay for skis, boots, bindings, poles, etc.? Any suggestions on when and where to buy in the Rochester area? I have yet to find an informative resource on the internet that I really like, so if you could point me in the right direction....

You really do have a knack for selective statistics. Brady's overall rating downfield (10+ yards) was an 81 in 2004. Not all that great, but certainly not as bad as you try to portray. But hell, I was trying to argue your side, until you started this crap.