Taro T

Getting slightly off-topic, the SIGNIFICANT downside (IMHO, YMMV) to having important information "stored" electronically is the ephemerality of it. It is very easy to edit items after the fact without it being readily apparent that the items have in fact been edited.

Q1. The Sabres. Q2. Somebody other than them. Serious answer. Have no idea who this kid'll be pulling for. Will watch some games and will find out by watching who it is. Know it won't be the Loafs or Bruins. Would be very surprised it it's the Canes, Stars, Rags, or Eulers. Don't really have a team left that stands out as one to cheer for, but only the 2 already mentioned to definitely cheer against.

The ONLY problem w/ that line is Girgensons is much better at W and Asplund hasn't shown he can play C at the NHL level yet either. Which is a big part of why my expectation is they go outside for a 4C. They can bounce Okposo &/or Asplund up a line or 2 when necessary due to injuries or matchups & when 1 of the 4 are out w/ injury they still have a serviceable/good 4th line. They can even make one of those 4 not named Okposo the odd man out should everyone be healthy & Peterka has finally earned his spot on the roster. Such a nice & very different position to be in. Having more than 12 guys that can actually play NHL quality hockey up front.

It'll be interesting to see how he does next season. Whether he has more ooopsies in his own end. College kids coming in at the end of the year almost invariably look better in those handful of games at the end of the year than they do the next year when the "it's really the NHL adrenaline" is no longer kicking in. But w/ his pedigree and already having played against NHLers & Pros in the WCs and Olympics, maybe he won't take that small 1/2 step back. Would be nice. Here's to hoping.

The Sabres could realistically enter the draft lottery w/ no better than the 11th best odds of winning it. And if they win their last 2, difficult but doable, they'll end up with no better than the 9th best odds. Bye David Jiricek. We hardly knew ye. 😪 Wonder if the Sabres would take him at 2?

This. Big difference between getting under other guys skins by chirping and outworking them than getting under other guys skins by hacking them and outworking them. Nobody fears a career ending injury from an insult.

Considering Dell still needs to serve a 3 game suspension but dressed, expect that is correct.

Disagree that not trading away vets for late picks is a failure. The ones like Hinostroza and Anderson that might have brought back something higher than a 5th have been key contributors in this late season "surge." If they're gone, so very likely is any momentum they've gained. Adams traded 1 guy. The one that wouldn't have a role in 2 weeks as soon as Michigan's season ended. Don't really take issue w/ not trading the others. Obviously we differ in that opinion. 🍺

Was at it. What he said. Had Cleveland been able to get shots actually on net at a little higher clip, they could've easily put 6 up against UPL. That said, Amerks had 4 partial/full breakaways in the 2nd and came away w/ 1 weak, easily saved, shot on net to show for it. They managed to blow a 2 goal lead against the only team in division that's already been eliminated. Don't know why they have so much trouble w/ the Monsters. That team'll have been the one that cost them a playoff berth.

Yep. Strictly done to make sure somebody healthy was available should Tokarski get injured/sick. Wonder if that counts as one of his 3 suspension serving games or if he still has to sit 3 more should anyone be desperate enough to sign him next year. Thanks for that. Missed warm-ups, so had no idea who was on the bench yesterday. Just knew it wasn't Dell.

Ab-so-friggin'-lute-ly. He'll never be worth the contract he signed. But he's actually useful in enough facets that we can say "close enough" without cringing. Doubted he'd ever get back to a 30+ goal player, but thought it possible. NEVER would've suspected he had the rest of this season's game in him. He's an actual hockey player & not a 1-1/2 trick pony now. And that joy he plays with is infectious. He's a leader on this team. Though there is a room full of leaders, which is a testament to Adams, NEVER thought that Skinner had leadership as a quality just waiting to be expressed. Mia culpa.

Interesting discussion. Seems to this kid that there's a lot of reading into a single 8 second snippet. A more than fair amount of which seems astute. An interesting thing about this IMHO is that in-game for hockey, as opposed to other sports where players that are out of the game are typically out significantly longer than they are in hockey, while the players have time to see the "what" of a particular situation before they have to get back on the ice, they don't necessarily have time to see the "why." That's for intermission possibly and the plane ride or next morning definitely. Seems Ruff is lashing out about one item he sees as an annoyance in a miserable season, that in a season gone awry the players are preferring their own observations & interpretations than his in the heat of the moment. It also seems, that he &/or his coaches are trying to communicate w/ the players after the play, & again, the players may be focusing on figuring out what happened on their own rather than w/ the help of the coaches. Which would imply Ruff has lost the team, though the record itself implies that. Back when the league was coming out of THE lockout, the Sabres put on a brief coaching clinic w/ Ruff, several of the assistants, & some local college coaches. They not only covered some drills & why they'd run them and explanations of some of the things the Sabres did on the ice, Ruff and the assistant that actually tracked in game data and events talked about what data they collected and how they used it. It was surprisingly extensive what they collected and shared w/ the players. Ruff definitely didn't come across as anti-technology, but that clinic was held over 15 years ago. Not really much to add, just find the discussion interesting. 🍺

Possibly. But the most watched and talked about game was the RJ game. That night couldn't have gone more perfectly. The Eichel game was one w/ more eyeballs than others this year. Krebs & Tuch scoring. Eichel w/ the turnover leading to the game sealing goal. Storybook. The last couple of games official attendance has been over 13k though actual was likely ~9k (MAYBE 10k). So, people that haven't been are watching and, unlike in the past couple of seasons and unlike for the Bills during the drought years when they'd get a national game, the Sabres are entertaining and, for the most part, winning WHILE those fans are watching. The best way to flip the narrative is to have people see it for themselves. The conversations that this kid is having w/ casual fans are actually indicating that there's some enthusiasm for the team that hasn't been there since at least drafting Dahlin & more realistically since the summer heading into Bylsma's 2nd year. That all this is happening while they've long since been eliminated tempers things slightly, and that is why it is so important for them to play well next season out of the gate & beyond October. But, look just at this board, and how many "faces" that we haven't seen in a long time are rejoining the discussion. People are willing & want to come back. The Sabres just have to do their part & people will come back.

It would goose it a bit next season, but not appreciably over what it's already going to go up. Where that would really show up is in single game ticket sales after the Bills season is done AND in STs the following year. The fan base is in "show me" mode at present IMHO. So, that roster improvement will likely bolster TV ratings in the immediate/near term, but won't bolster actual attendance until it proves out to actually keep the team entertaining & boost the numbers in the W column.

The rebuild could definitely get accelerated. And my expectation is that it will to a moderate degree. One minor point. Didn't say the move(s) on D will affect whether Johnson stays in school or not. Said it'll effect whether he signs or not. Expect the reason we haven't heard whether he's going back to school or going pro is because he simply hasn't made up his mind. Expect he sees the merit in the view that he'll grow more playing against men than college aged kids/men but that he'll also have a lot more fun being a BMOC one final time. If the Sabres get a guy who could be a LT fit on their top 4 then it's a no brainer to go back to school & FA next summer. But if that guy is a 1-2 year stop gap, then being a part of what could be a historic D-corp has merit after a 1-2 year stay in the A. W/ what D salaries are for young guys, the couple of extra $100k his NHL portion of a 2 way deal (which he'll likely be in the A anyhow) that he might get by burning a year of ELC right now seems to not be worth having a couple of extra months to get this decision right. IMHO, that's a wise decision in itself.

There are going to be AT LEAST 4,000 more STHers next season, & would almost have money down on there being at least 6,000 more, simply due to the border being open. Several 1000 Canadaian STHers already have had their deposits down and didn't lose their seniority/ seats because the Sabres cut them some slack due to the border being closed. Now, if by "in numbers" you mean getting to 14-16,000, yes, but that's the case regardless for any sports team not based in NYC or TO.

And Kim Pegula loves the town she grew up in. So much so, that when Curt Styres pulled his box lax team out of Ra-cha-cha that she & hubby brought an expansion team back there. It doesn't make sense that she'd want the Sabres out of Buffalo or want to dump the team when there is light at the end of the tunnel (hopefully it's not just another on-coming freight train again) on both the performance and therefore attendance fronts). Bills fans don't hate the Pegulas. Bandits fans don't hate them. Jessie's fans don't hate her parents (presumably 😉 ). Kin-ig-hit Hawk fans don't hate them. It's pretty much just hockey fans that want to be rid of them, but a winning record will mitigate that. MHO. YMMV. It has been a truly horrific run. But there is light. And IF Adams & Granato are the right guys, they've shown in their other sports endeavors that they'll trust the people with the knowledge in the particular sport to do their job. Stinks that we're still waiting for proof they've found the right guys a decade later, but at least the signs are FINALLY promising. Can't do a thing about the past. The future however ...

At least some of the Canadian clubs had nobody in the stands for a month or so., plus there's Arizona. Would've believed Sabres were in any of slots 28-32 attendance-wise.

My opinion, based on what has been said by Adams and what has been reported to have been said by him, is that he's going to look to bring in an established goalie, or 2, of which Anderson could very well be 1 of those (whether it's 1 or 2 brought in) on a ST (3 years max, likely 2 years); a veteran RHD, a bottom 6 F, and a middle 6 F. Also expect he'll make an offer to Hinostroza & Pysyk to re-sign. Which is very much in line w/ what the board concensus seems to be. My expectation is he makes at least 2 trades to obtain those pieces & those trades bring back a degree of "dead cap" so to speak in including 1 year's worth of either bad contract that could very well end up in Ra-cha-cha or LTIR contract for an effectively retired player that is still cashing a paycheck. Whomever he brings in will have some sort of tie to either Buffalo or the Sabres staff &/or players (more likely, players) as he'll be quite sure the guy both wants to be here & has the mind set of the players he wants to be here. And since he likely won't know that directly himself w/out brushing up against rules against tampering until a trade is consummated, there'll be some sort of other tie in. Who gets brought in at D IMHO will go a long way towards determining whether Johnson eventually signs here or not. (Really going out on a limb there. Not.) Expecting that Adams expects to miss the playoffs this year, but that they'll be close (similar to Vancouver's ultimate end this season) & if Krebs & Cozens take the next step ahead of schedule & the right goalie is here that the playoffs won't be out of the question. Pretty sure he also sees this team as being tight against the cap in 3-5 years, so there won't be any big money LT contracts coming in. And that all leaves this kid both frustrated that next year won't be as successful as it easily could be but also hopeful in believing they'll be close to a Florida level team 3-4 years from now and a Dallas level team in 2 years. My expectation is that Adams has a reasonably good handle on how to improve the skaters next year but not convinced in the least that he'll successfully navigate the waters & land the right bridge goalie. Hope that latter's too pessimistic, but until it isn't, it is. Also expect him to sign a whole bunch of NHL 13-14 F's & 7-8 D on 1 year deals to have Ra-cha-cha actually stocked while waiting for guys like Rosen & the Russians to be ready to stock it. Could also see Subban back as Ra-cha-cha's goalie depending upon his recovery timeline. Because prospect-wise, other than Quinn who'll start the year in Buffalo & Peterka who'll be a November callup, don't see any sure fire NHLers down on the farm.

Amerks are still in 5th by 0.3% but need the Marlies to miss at least 1 more point because if they both win out the Marlies W% will be 58.3% but the Amerks best now would be 57.9%. Come on Bellville &/or Laval. Marlies play each 2 more times.

And when he's 25 maybe he'll be a 2nd pairing guy. He isn't now, and shouldn't be relied on to be one now either.

Agree 100% on goaltending. But, pretty sure Adams plan isn't exactly what either of us (or @GASabresIUFAN for that matter, who has brought it up a lot) would necessary say is THE right move. He speaks openly of seeing the future as very bright but the question becomes how to bridge to that future.. Couple that with his also being on record as saying the kids still have much more growth to go through to get to the/a brighter future & that belief is simply reinforced.

Could possibly see 1 additional upgrade that would be more significant, but really have no idea who it would be for. Guess would be for another Tuch style player to basically be able to roll 3 lines worth of a truly heavy forechecker once Cozens completely fills out. (Would then leave Okposo in that role on the 4th line for now w/ Asplund taking on the role for the 4th line in the future (and going against lesser competition, it could very well work).)

Over the last decade, when this kid has been optimistic, it's always been genuine. If it's there again this fall, there's a possibility it won't be misguided.

Partypooper. 😛