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I am thinking both special teams PP/PK via coaching is a logical way to improve (5 on 5 scoring is already a team strength), but Norris can help with that and he’s already here. We moved for him for the dead weight of Dylan. Great trade. It will be difficult to do more with less. I would roll with Norris and improve in other ways (like trading Byram for different defensive help).

I’m happy too, but it doesn’t mean it is sustainable.

So help me god if the Sabres base their late season positive results on “we are close” versus the Reimer lightning in a bottle performance bump. Goaltending improvement (along with one more top six forward and one competent top four D—buy out Muel as under 26 buyout & trade Byram to help the cause) has to happen. We cannot run it back.

I appreciate the minutes analysis by @mjd1001 above. My take isn’t about his minutes in 2024-25 because I think that will evolve with Tage & Norris over time. I watched McLeod in Edmonton. His rise is tough to quantify. I am glad he did more for Buffalo than skate 100mph into the corner with the puck, cuz that’s what it looked like for the Oilers. He always had the upside but never showed it. Maybe he figured it out at age 26 and we can plan on this (20G, great defensively) as a baseline for future years, but I would not sign him for longer than two years because I need to see more before I hand out a 4-6 year deal. I’m hopeful, but cautious on this player. Good trade, but let’s not hand out a long term deal because he wants to “be here.” If he needs a one year deal because he’s a UFA in twelve months, I’m rolling the dice with a RFA bridge verses a long term deal.

I want to support you on this. In his recent run, Reimer has 29 goals against and 5 goals saved above expected good for 12th out of 72 qualifying goaltenders. That’s pretty good. Most recently, UPL has 41 goals against and -10 goals saved above expected good for 71st out of 72 qualifying goaltenders. That’s really bad. The Sabres should not put too much stock into their players “learning how to win” during these late meaningless games when the only thing that’s really changed is that their goalie is playing well.

Goodness, those blue uniforms and Freeze Frame make my Rochesterian heart sing

Division rival Laval will likely have the one seed overall in the AHL playoffs, but the Amerks are trending for the second best record in the league. It’s gonna be a heck of a round two matchup. My goal is to get to a road playoff game in Laval. It would help the Amerks if Montreal makes the playoff and goes on to the second round. Either way, in Levi we trust.

The contracts weren't even that much...2 years 4.5 million for one and 2 years 2.3 million for the other. Cost them a 2nd and a 3rd for compensation for signing both.

Can't be worse than UPL

A little humor courtesy of Chat GPT, not my own. This is Bill Pullmans speech from Independence Day with the subject changed to the topic of Tariffs. Today, we stand not on the brink of annihilation, but on the verge of economic rebirth. For too long, our industries have been under siege, our workers forgotten, our markets flooded. But today—today, we declare our economic independence! We will not go quietly into the shadows of global exploitation! We will not vanish under the weight of unfair trade deals! We will fight for every steelworker, every farmer, every small business that has been pushed aside. Today, we reaffirm what makes this country great—its resilience, its determination, its unwavering spirit. This is not just another day. This is the day we reclaim our sovereignty! This is the day we stand up and say, “No more!” This is our Liberation Day! Not sure what happens but as LGR mentions above, stagflation is most likely. I feel sad I’m making money off this nonsense but in the Supply Chain industry it’s crazy right now. My biggest opportunities are global customers who have leveraged our US based warehouses to fulfill into Canada. But after Don-John chased away a little loophole known as Drawback, we are inundated with customers clamoring for space in our Canadian warehouse and FTZ’s. Drawback was a way to recoup the cost of the duties and taxes if delivered to the US then shipped to another country. It ended in February. So now any goods brought to the US for distribution and then exported still requires the tariffs to be paid. A simple cost benefit shows that incremental costs to ship directly to Canada and higher fees for warehousing in Ontario and avoiding 10, 20, 34 and 48% (Vietnam) tariffs makes way more sense. DJT could arbitrarily end these while these customers are in the middle of implementing changes. Or if you stay on the sidelines too long, there might be no space or much higher costs due to demand and you could be out millions of dollars in taxes that could have been avoided. Ocean, Warehousing and Transportation is boring AF, but lately it’s got some juice. For my US warehouses, losing the Export business coupled with higher prices on products manufactured in Asia means fewer blue collar workers to receive and ship. Recession seems almost unavoidable if they are not lifted.

4-2 win over Springfield. Levi tried to score an ENG but his shot was almost intercepted. Östlund got the ENG later.

I'm not sure this is allowed, but I commend the effort. There is talent on the team, and just fixating on the doom spiral isn't any better than KA hoping against hope that the young core will magically mature into a well-constructed roster. I'm not spending hours contemplating what I have no control over, but my rough sense is they thought they were going to drive play with puck moving defense, with Dahlin, Power, and Byram being the strength of the team. This now appears a risible hope, and if there was another GM in place, I'd expect at least one of Power or Byram to be part of a package to bring in a strong, defense first top 4 D. Do that, and bring in a steady, competent goalie, and you might at least plausibly entertain a better future.

What I'm seeing is not matching up with the analytics that many here are citing. As an example, I do see an uptick in Quinn's recent play since the benching due to being late for a team meeting. Some posters here are suggesting otherwise, most notably @mjd1001. And it should be noted that in the recent games many of them/victories were against good teams and teams vying for playoff spots. While I'm not going to over interpret the recent preponderance of wins, I will draw some cautious encouragement from this end of season play.

Washington is losing their minds in this one. They have turned into the goon squad but Carolina is just giving it right back.

Ovie scored tonight against Carolina. Three goals away from passing Wayne G. https://www.nhl.com/news/alex-ovechkin-scores-goal-892-now-3-from-breaking-nhl-record

@Thorner, I give this thumbs downs, not because of you, but because of the message from Go Bills. The Sabres are playing better and they are getting great goaltending - hence the 5-1. I’m not saying they are a good team either, they are a work in progress, but they deserved to win the games they won. This XGF, HDCF, FF% analytic stuff is fine buts it’s not everything. One game out of the 5 wins was because Reimer stood on his head. Other than that they outplayed their opponents. These guys that count xGF and xGA metrics, are they standardized NHL beancounters?

I don't see this team having any issue drafting players. They have drafted numerous good players no matter where they have been in the draft.

Player development is fine and important, but not when the majority of players on the team are always in the development stage year after year. Every year for the last 14 years the average age of our players has been about 25.5 years of age on 8 of those years and about 26.5 years of age on the other 6 years. When a team is the youngest team for a year or two and then develops into an older, wiser, better team, that is great, but when our team is almost always the youngest team year after year for 14 years in a row it's no wonder why we never get better. Add to that our chronic goal tending problems and it's easy to see why we are the habitual poster child for bottom dwellers in the NHL

There’s plenty of teams (approx 50%) with young players that spend to the cap. There’s really no lasting costs to negotiating a contract with one of these player. It’s not a tangible expense outside of possibly being a waste of an effort. You put in an offer sheet for 2 players, you’re bound to get one. In this case, they hit the jackpot and got both. As Armstrong put it, even if his mother was GM of Edmonton, he still would’ve done it. Why? Because he’s not afraid to make his team better. https://www.spotrac.com/nhl/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_maximum_space2

At scale, tossing away quality player development because we don't have anybody better us a huge part of why we're in this mess (the last 5 years).

This off season is certainly a strange one for them. I can see a scenario where they get right back in it quickly but like with most teams a lot of things would have to go right. Number one Swayman has to get his mojo back. If he doesn't they will be in the McKenna lottery. Sadly this is quite possible.

Well yes, this has been the same for every year. He has a wealth of picks and prospects and could make deals but he hasn't. he also wants to "win" trades and that is unnecessary if you are actually trying to win now. As long as you get what you want/need it is okay to overpay sometimes. Especially when you have that wealth. He's not in a "don't want to trade away the future" scenario, there's actually too many prospects and unless things change we will just end up giving people away cheap like Jokiharju for a 4th or losing them on waivers. There's only so many roster spots.

And I actually think the Sabres have done a pretty good job in the draft the last couple of years. Especially in the 1st. I didn’t like the Power/Rosen draft. But after that they’ve drafted well.