BUFFALO – You have to hand it to the Flyers, without whose steady stream of comedic material Slap Shots wouldn’t be half the institution it is today.

The latest in a long line of front-office buffoonery from the franchise that is fast approaching the halfway mark to 54 years comes courtesy of the otherwise distinguished executive VP Ron Ryan.

According to trusted operatives visiting Philadelphia for last Saturday’s match against the Islanders, all was quiet in Ed Snider’s franchise’s world until highlights from the previous night’s NHL games were shown on the video board – including Eric Lindros’ goal in Carolina.

Seeing Blueshirt No. 88 raise his arms in triumph was apparently too much for Flyer management to bear, for Ryan immediately left the suite he shares with, among others, Bob Clarke, raced red-faced the entire length of the press box, and then berated the unfortunate individuals apparently responsible for the video selections.

Oh, well.

It probably would have been safer to show highlights of Pavel Brendl riding the bike.

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Seems to be some confusion within the Chicago front office – hard to believe, isn’t it? – about whether the offer presented as “final” a week ago Friday to Tony Amonte was actually that.

For even though Amonte immediately rejected the nonsensical offer of a four-year, $21.6 million extension to his current contract that included no bump to the $3.4M he’s earning this season (but did include a $1.2M bonus for scoring 40 goals in each of the next four seasons), and even though the GM said at the time the offer was final, Slap Shots has learned that others in the Blackhawk hierarchy want another sit-down with their franchise winger, who is eligible for July 1, 2002 unrestricted free agency.

In the meantime, we’ve been told that the Kings are extremely interested in acquiring Amonte, and indeed have suggested they’d be willing to send Zigmund Palffy to Chicago in order to get him. Palffy – whose name is out there in other precincts, as well – has three years left on his deal, $6M this year, $7.25M next year, and $7M in 2003-04.

Bruins, sources confirm, are shopping Billy Guerin, whom the team has no intention of trying to persuade to yield 2002 Group III status. We’re told that the Blues and Flyers have their ears perked.

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It’s pretty easy to buy out or disparage a veteran signed by someone else. It is, however, a different matter in dealing with one’s own apparent error in judgment. Which is another way of saying that we’ll watch closely as Glen Sather evaluates the relative merits of Sylvain Lefebvre, signed by Neil Smith and now in Hartford, and Igor Ulanov, who seems to have lost some of his giddy-up upon being signed this summer by Slats.

The Devils and Bobby Holik: Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.

Say, you don’t think that doing the chicken walk on the ice during a timeout qualifies as unsportsmanlike conduct, do you? Neither, apparently, do Don VanMassenhoven or Marc Joannette, the two referees who countenanced Theo Fleury’s act at the Coliseum on Thursday.

But we sure do. Eric Cairns did not deserve that.

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Scott Gomez, so good so quickly – maybe too quickly – is more than available for the right price, even with Holik having one skate out the door.

Slap Shots has learned that the Devils were very aggressive in trying to move the third-year pivot to Atlanta over the summer as the centerpiece of a package to be exchanged for either the first overall pick in the Entry Draft or winger Dany Heatley, the second overall pick in the 2000 lottery.

And what, by the way, were the Thrashers thinking, refusing to give up a high draft choice for Chris Osgood, whom they wanted and needed badly, instead hoping against hope that the Islanders would pass on the goaltender in the Waiver Draft?

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Finally, quick quiz: What do Sandy McCarthy and Sandy Koufax have in common? Each has each thrown an inordinate number of no-hitters.