Taro T

TIL that that song isn't originally some English version of a Broadway show tune or a random pub singalong that was adopted by the team and also that it's Gerry & the Pacemakers and NOT Gary & the Pacemakers.

Then everybody could have Sabre-quality netminding. 😉

Vinc saved Smith's bacon after he didn't get the ball over the line in 8 seconds. Hopefully they close it out in Denver.

Which, again, is not reassuring. That after watching UPL play the previous season he didn't expect UPL to be pretty much what he was last year in camp really makes it easy to question his GT evaluation skills.

No. Those trophies went to the team that had the best regular season record in the conference.

And those trophies were handed out in many years that there weren't conference finals. The fact that the NHL came up w/ a trophy to hand out doesn't mean a whole lot. They've singlehandedly kept silversmiths & engravers employed for well over a century with their "we can come up w/ a trophy for that" attitude. 😉

Except, the NFL has never considered them semifinals as they started out as league championships prior to the merger and then were conference championships after with all the old AFL teams in the AFC & only enough old NFL squads to balance the conferences swapping over. Wouldn't ever call the ALCS & NLCS a semifinal either. In the NHL, they've often been referred to as semifinals as there were many years where they weren't conference finals. The entirety of the original 6 era; the entirety of the 70's; a couple of years in the 80's; and last season.

Can't see Miroshnichenko falling to 28. If the Sabres want him, expect they'll have to take him at 16. Which is OK if they land a guy they have a lot of faith in at 9 & it kind of sends them off in search of D at 28.

Thompson to center is something not even Tage saw coming, so it is 100% Granato's idea. But, he had had him play center before with the NDT, so it isn't from quite as far out in left field as it might appear at 1st blush.

That isn't reassuring. UPL wasn't anywhere close to securing an NHL job out of camp.

Umm, did you watch the playoffs last year? They didn't have "conferences." They had independent divisions that got sorted in the Semifinals into top point gathering division champion played the one with the fewest & then the other 2 played each other.

Pysyk played well last season & Hagg was more often than not an actual NHL caliber D-man in the 1st 1/2 of the season, too. Not sure that either was at the best production of his career, but both played better than expected.

This round is always the Semifinals. It's only usually the Conference Finals. (And btw, refuse to NHLese it into the Final. We aren't afraid of plurals. 😉 )

He's still a defensive liability, but not a huge one. Seems you're still giving a lot of weight to the Skinner from the 1st 1/2 of the year that did things like the play that cost them OT in that 1st Loafs game. The Skinner that was playing down the stretch w/ Tuch and Thompson was a guy this kid didn't expect to ever see. Really looking forward to seeing what Skinner does this season to see if he can continue to be a defensively meh player and a guy that can actually consistently make good passes to teammates. He was never that player before. Hoping he can keep being that guy. And mildly confident he will.

Don't go selling Plante short. He led the team in scoring once (with a pathetically low total during the dead puck era, but not with the lowest total for a team leader) & scored their only game 7 winner (in OT to boot). He also gave up a chance to go to the Olympics because the Sabres were having a crazy amount of C injuries back in '92. The Sabres could always use more guys w/ the heart of Plante. Really expect that people will be pleasantly surprised w/ Mittelstadt's level of compete & his overall game this season.

Am very much in the Mittelstadt can breakout camp. But, really expect it'll be foolish in the overall scheme if Adams doesn't bring in any vets that don't pencil into the top 12 & ideally there'll be a couple that pencil into the top 9. They will have injuries and if the guys stepping in and backfilling are all AHLers or AAAA players, they'll be putting a lot more stress on the D & GTing than they need to. And if a guy like Peterka forces the vet that should be able to play to the press box, that's a good thing. His forcing a guy like Bjork there doesn't really move the needle. Bjork-level players need to be in Ra-cha-cha and not penciled into the 13th F slot. (Btw, it looks like he's got <260 pro games under his belt. He'll look great in R,W, & B.) Girgensons will miss a lot of time. He just does. If Hinostroza is one of the good UFAs they bring in, wouldn't be surprised to see him miss some time. Other young guys will miss time too; just the way it is. Really want to see them have 14 guys that on day 1 should be in the NHL, (and if they have more than 14, it's a good problem to have) so the inevitable camp injury still leaves them w/ 13 NHLers on opening night plus guys like R2 Rou2 chomping to get back into the mix.

Really expect that ownership has told Adams he can spend what he wants but it has to fit in with the plan they were sold last year. Which means there isn't much likelihood they'll be breaking the bank this year as any big $ deals need to either be short term (1-2 years) or they need to luck into the perfect storm of an O'Reilly level player being on the market & him wanting to be a part of what the Sabres are building. Agree that any cap dumps that are brought in should be penciled in for LTIR or Ra-cha-cha. If they're truly a cap dump, then they are only coming in to convert cap space which is an expiring asset into something that has value beyond this season. Still disappointed that Adams couldn't convert more of last year's cap space into something that still has value. Though prefer that he still has ridiculous amounts of flexibility to pay whichever guys currently here show they deserve it to having burned some of his cap space for '23 and beyond. The easy pieces of the rebuild are done - tearing down & maintaining flexibility moving forward. Now the tough part of the job starts. Using that flexibility wisely to assemble a team that can truly compete for years to come. Adams now needs to do what Murray said he'd do but was never quite able to do: figure out what guys really will project out to be and trade those that aren't going to come close to reaching the lofty ceilings that were possible when they were brought into the organization. Which is way easier said than done, but if the analytics & development departments are as good as they've been billed to be, it's something he should be able to do more often than not. We'll know management has reached that stage where they're comfortable in their evaluations of what their guys really are when some of them get shown the door. Right now, everything's potential; but it needs to become tangible.

When he was on waivers a year ago wanted the Sabres to put a claim in on him. But was glad soon after that they didn't because he was horrible in Joisey. Find it hard to be believe there wasn't a better plan C option out there when Adams did sign him. Would've been much better off if they had a goalie to make Tokarski the 3rd best option rather than the 2nd best.

Gallant is definitely a players coach and one of the best. His problem is always that he ends up being a pain in the arse to his bosses. Hopefully, one of these times that he wears out his welcome it coincides w/ the Sabres being ready to move on from who they have. Not wishing Granato to fail, but well over 90% of coaches end up getting fired rather than going out on their own terms. Actually hope Granato is that rare cat. But if Granato doesn't end up in that extremely exclusive club, would not mind at all to have Gallant following him.

Thought that he left for the KHL because Botterill was jerking him around on the new contract & that by the time Adams was brought in he'd already agreed to the KHL deal. Is that misremembering?

Will try to remember that in the future.

He also got bailed out big time in that Belleville OT game as one of the D-men made a tremendous block on a shot that was headed for a wide open net. Dell typically was an asset in the 3rd & 4th periods. He was a massive liability in the 1st period of most games giving up a goal on one of the 1st 3 shots almost every game even though the Amerks would have the better of the play early in almost every game. Swap Primeau and Dell & the Amerks are still playing. No idea on whether they'd've fared better w/ UPL backstopping him. His weaknesses are significantly different than Dell's and they might very well have generated insurmountable leads or he might have killed them w/ the late goal.

Only 12 skaters need to be at/ below that. A 13th can have nearly an entire additional year of experience at 320 or fewer pro games. And only regular season games count against that total. Playoffs don't & presumably international play doesn't count against them either.

Of the players mentioned above, only Mersch & Pilut count as AHL veterans. There's 8 guys that will fit under the development umbrella (Biro, Weissbach, Pekar, Murray, R2 Rou2, Laaksonnen, Kisakov, & Rosen; plus Quinn & Peterka that won't be Amerks for long if at all. Fitzgerald also qualifies as a development guy. None of that includes any of the other young guys that will likely sign this summer or have already signed. Really don't see a cause for worry that they won't be able to ice 18 skaters every night.

12 skaters need 260 or fewer regular season professional games prior to the start of the current season and a 13th needs 320 or fewer regular season professional games in leagues that are considered AHL comparable or higher. And teams can have more than 5 veteran skaters, they just can't dress more than that in any particular game. It's not really a huge hurdle to overcome.