Taro T

One thing to say in favor of it is, and it's only a 1 game sample against a team that did NOT bring it's A game, is the hope was that the team would be at a point sometime this year when they'd have 12 guys playing well enough to make Hinostroza legitimately the 13th man & a healthy scratch. All 12 played better than Vinny last night. It's still his turn to sit vs Pittsburgh, which is good because not 1 guy played his way out of the lineup. And Vinny is a legit NHLer.

You are missing a ####ton of externalities and focusing on only one in an apparent attempt to ignore them all. Which is ignoring the intent of the post you are kind of responding to. And you are completely messing w/ the timeline. There's no keeping Bogosian & Kane off the roster. BUT, rather than dump the Selke candidate, they COULD have dumped those 2 (AND the idiot coach that led them to a last place finish). And if they were both excised only 3 years in rather than just 1, why couldn't their effects have been mitigated? Especially if they had a coach w/ his head out of his bippy (which given the GM, could very well have been an unrealistic expectation) and still had O'Reilly because that team would've been much better than what they had. Not sure why you're imagining having Adams in his role at that time when looking at the merits of the O'Reilly trade? Remember, this team would actually have had TWO elite C's in '18-'19 as Eichel became a better than a PPG player that year which probably wasn't enough to get into the playoffs but they should've been able to at least get into the mix. Heck, the team they actually iced had a 10 game winning streak. And that team was significantly worse than what they could've iced w/ ROR. And if they're in the mix &/or improving over what they were Housley's 1st year, a lot of the toxicity can be mitigated. People that aren't constantly failing aren't nearly as miserable as those that are. Also, it wasn't Adams that dumped O'Reilly. It was his predecessor. It was Adams coach who had the idea to move Thompson to center. NOBODY else saw that, including Tage himself. Without that move, the trade might very well have turned out to be a Selke candidate for two scrubs, a 3rd/4th line winger and a late 2nd round pick FIVE years later. That was setting up to be a disaster. Fortunately, it's shaping up to not be on the ice four years later. But that's a lot of wasted years to get to this point. Adams didn't come into the picture until 2 years after the trade. Not sure why you're making the hypothetical into stuff 5 years before he stepped into the role. He would NEVER have gotten the job then as he was an assistant coach (and pretty sure at the youth level, no longer at the NHL level). Again, by dropping O'Reilly for nothing and a good player 4 years later (because they lucked into Botterill falling on his sword rather than gutting the scouting staff enabling a GM that could identify a good coach to take over) caused a lot more losing than was necessary and it seriously hosed the fan base. The people looking at the trade only as a shift of the timeline are ignoring all of that and the Sabres and their fans bought all of that with the trade.

One thing being neglected in this entire discussion is that by re-retooling Botterill laid the foundation to having 5,000 paying fans in the building last night. Yes, the team now seems to be on the right track, thankfully. But how much of the negative intangibles that have been pervasive around this team could've been avoided having all of Eichel, O'Reilly, Dahlin, Reinhart, & a recovered from his injury Okposo? Expect a lot of it could've been avoided if the Sabres had actually brought in a quality coach rather than dumping a Selke candidate for 2 futures and trash. Of course, that supposes that Botterill could identify a quality coach - not exactly a given. Three, & arguably 4, fully lost years are the other thing the Sabres got in that trade. It shouldn't be discounted when evaluating it. That trade was NOT Niewendyk for Iginla though revisionists might try to cast it as such.

Pretty sure there's tickets available for the Yotes game in a week if you're in town. Might have an even sparser crowd. You should be able to get your old man all around w/ no issues for that one.

Wasn't anywhere close to the 9,600 announced. Probably 5,000. Seems all of the mini pack holders were not interested in this one as at least 1/2 of the "good" 100 level seats were empty & there were at least 7 sections in the 300's that had 30 people or less in them. Darn shame, those fans dressed as empty seats saw the Sabres lay a whooping on the Wings.

Which is why that win vs Chicago was so huge. Know the Pens have been down a bit lately but having to sweep tonight & Wednesday to stay on pace would've been a huge challenge down 3 of the top 5 D.

Guessing Hinostroza ended up the odd man out instead of Krebs to give Peyton his next 2 game watch party against Carolina & Tampa rather than Detroit & Pittsburgh. On the road against those 2, Krebs will be a minus waiting to happen. Wonder who the rotation works to against the Yotes.

There is exactly 1 other healthy D-man remaining in Ra-cha-cha that is signed to an NHL deal. Laaksonnen is NOT seeing an NHL roster barring at minimum 1 more injury. Even then, they might give an NHL deal to Prow or sign somebody off the street.

Didn't realize Prow was AHL-only. Leaves only 1 realistic option for the callup.

Interesting in that that diagram pretty much shows where the mini pack holders are sitting (or in this particular instance, aren't). Arizona next week will point out where the rest of them are. 3 of the other 4 after tonight should have pretty good to very good (all things being relative) attendance. Expecting 10k - 17k actual attendance for all 3.

Actually a couple. The hit at the 1 and then the hit at the right sideline later where the lineman slowed Josh down & 2 others tackled him.

Speaking as someone that was hoping for Adams to find away to land Jiricek and also was hoping to get a D drafted maybe in the 2nd, realize they really could use 1 more D-man & also that other than possibly Johnson there is no immediate help coming from the pipeline. But with that said, they have slots 1-3 locked up for up to the next 8 years at D. And Jokiharju will likely be here a while too, so possibly both of the top pairings are set for a long time & at worst 1-3 & 5 are set. Is there even remotely the same confidence that line 1 is set into the future? Between about 9 guys currently here & another 6 in the pipeline, lines 2 & 3 are/will be set. But other than maybe, maybe, having Savoie become a homerun do they have true 1's in the system? If not, maybe there's a method to Adams' apparent madness in not addressing the D-pipeline other than grabbing their current 3 (and likely future 2 though he'll probably lock down the 2nd pairing) via the draft. He also addressed the 5/4 role & the 7/6 w/ a UFA & an RFA. Would really like to see 2 of those top 4 picks next year go towards D, but won't be remotely surprised to only see 1 of them go to D. They have most of the top of the D depth chart entered in pen; can't say the same for the F depth chart and other than Levi the goaltending depth chart isn't even pencil, it's invisible ink they're using to write. Lyubushkin quality guys are available in the summer & really expect to see that be where the holes on D get filled this off-season. Especially to keep that next piece of the solution to not be on the exact same timetable as so much of the rest of this team, not expecting a trade nor offer sheet for a 25 yo or under guy.

Yup. A team w/ Aaron Rodgers at the helm made a conscious decision to play to not be embarrassed rather than playing to win. Had Allen not selfdestructed on 2 drives (saw somebody else speculate maybe he was looking to avoid shots w/ a huge lead which cost him focus, don't know that was it, but it's plausible) the team playing not to be embarrassed still would've lost 37-17. At no point did it seem GB was in the game. Even only down by 10.

So, do we see Jokiharju back off IR, do they call up Prow as the 8, or is there a trade in the works for a more experienced D-man?

Those 2 and Quinn too each had their best game of the season, but it still wasn't good enough for some. That also was the one line that didn't get changed to try to find offense last night.

Really surprised only 14,547 tickets were sold for last night. Estimated there were over 14,000 actually in the building and would've believed anything up to 16k. Must've only been a couple hundred seats sold that went unused. Which used to be a thing, but not so much last year & this. That actually is a really good sign - that there weren't many sold seats that went unused. That the Sabres came back from behind and dominated large stretches can only help w/ future ticket sales. And, yeah, on Monday there could be a bunch of the 11-12k sold seats going unused, but low attendance on weeknights in October was a real thing pre-2006. Still expect to see significantly more bodies in the building after football is finished.

Notice, the word COULD was NOT adjusted. It was the word IF that was. ;)

FTFY. ;)

Who's been leading the search for helmet sponsors? They don't even have those for the away ones this year. Might want to replace them as well. (No, didn't read the article; out of the free ones.)

Guess it's a shame Botterill isn't still the GM. Canes might've traded in conference for a 3rd rounder. ;) And he loved trading for over paid 3rd liners, so an overpaid 3rd pairing guy would've been right up that alley.

They did pot 1 PP goal, but it was coming off the rush after the Sabres regained the puck after the initial faceoff of the 2nd. It was more a standard 5v5 goal from last year for the Thompson line than a PP. Wouldn't good puck luck see more than 1 goal every 22 shots?

Who knows. If they were, might simply be afraid of having the karmic juju of '06 stomping on their head this year if they were to give a depth D-man to Buffalo.

Guess it's a good thing he got locked up for 7 more years when he did.

You would get most all the games as you won't get TNT games. Also, pretty sure ESPN & ABC games would only be available on a delayed basis. The Vegas games would also only be available on a delayed basis as in-market games are blacked out.

The length of the benching shall be two, and two shall be the number thou shall count to when sitting as the odd skater out. The benching will consist of one however thou shall continue counting to two. Thou shall not count to three and 4 shall be right out.