Taro T

Of course, the last few times an ex-Sabre won the SC, at least 1 wore a letter here at some point: O'Reilly, Bogosian, Eichel, Okposo. Thus, it has to be Ruff. 😉 (Would guess Girgensons as a distant 2nd on the likelihood. 🙂 )

Collected as a kid, but when Topps stopped making cards for 2 years and did stickers instead, stopped collecting. Got back into it briefly when Upper Deck and Pro Set and Score and Bowman all joined the ranks but there were just too durn many to bother with it. Someday might start back up. Hope you have fun rekindling your youth.

Thompson is a Danny Briere sort of a C. He gets that title and he pretty much plays the role in the neutral and offensive zones but he gets help from a W when he's in his own end. Tuch ends up the low F inside the defensive zone often, much as Hecht did so when lined up next to Danny and the oft villified Ville Leino did so for Danny in Filly.

Wonder if their keeping the raised "mane" (that's what it would be called on a lion, not sure what it's called on a buffalo) that they've had since the 50th anniversary season. The closeup of the seamstress working on the sweater shows one, but the photo of the full sweater on the mannequin doesn't seem to have it. Hopefully they keep it. That feature really makes the logo 'pop.'

While that is the preferred reason for it that does make buying Skinner out make sense, there is one other reason it makes sense. Lindy Ruff might see keeping him on the team when he's trying to teach a young team how to play in its own end when he has about 12 years of examples of how Skinner is incapable of doing that for any but the briefest of stretches and Skinner is respected and liked by the young guys on the team might be counterproductive and actually detrimental to installing that lesson/ defensive system. And if it's going to cause the rest of the team to continue to be bad in their own end, he might see letting a guy that will score 20-35 goals on a 3rd line that is well liked go as a net positive even though it does cost the team 20-35 goals and a teammate that is liked in the room and is the favorite player of many fans (not this particular fan, but many nonetheless).

Yes. The team hasn't won because it has had subpar goaltending for the most part during his tenure and the team is too d*mn young. Also, and more importantly, Adams timeline has been geared towards '27 (MAYBE '26) since he convinced ownership to punt Eichel and THAT core. Am not happy that is the target date, but it sure seems to be the target for true contention and extended contention. And NO, wadr, do not agree that his timeline is always next year. He literally has said the true goal is to be a legit contender for the SC (and he's said it isn't to WIN the SC because there's too much luck involved even when you are the #1 contender to actually make that happen) and he's never set a date on that (the '27 mentioned above is from reading tea leaves). So, he has not said "next year" on that goal yet. He also literally said last year that playoffs were the expectation last year. That didn't happen and the coach was canned because of that. (But even with that, the goal wasn't playoffs, the goal is LT being a consistent SC contender. The expectation was playoffs, but that wasn't the goal. A minor, but important, distinction IMHO.) Do not know if he will turn out to be correct. Have in fact literally stated that often. But THAT doesn't change what his timeline certainly seems to be. (Btw, '27 isn't next year. It's the year after next year. 😉 )

How was he going to keep Reinhart? In a Covid-less world, he might very well have offered him a LT deal coming out of Covid, rather than the 1 year deal that walked him to 1 year shy of UFA status (Ullmark too); but we live in a world that got thrown for a major loop due to Covid. The owners, while still billionaires, expected they were going to have cashflow issues (as most of their wealth was tied up in assets (which btw at the time were hemorrhaging value) which were not particularly liquid and were not handing out any multiyear deals to players. (Maybe there were some on the Bills side, but don't recall any ottomh there either.) Reinhart was 1 year from UFA, he was NOT going to reup with the Sabres (at that point both he and Eichel (who was on a LT deal) both were wanting to get out). Getting Levi and a 1st was salvaging something in a year that he expected the team to be bad and ALSO worked towards that '26 or '27 Dahlinesque timeline target of being truly competitive. Reinhart will be 2 years older by then, his timeline was not (and is not) the same as the one Adams sure seems to be working towards. As for Mittelstadt, Adams is on record as having been trying to land another top 4 D-man (and particularly a partner for Dahlin) for at least 2 seasons. Byram fits the Dahlin timeline almost to a T. Mittelstadt, while still being in his prime 2 years from now works with that timeline, Adams already has Thompson (who is beyond the timeline) and Cozens (who's right in it) with Savoie, Kulich, and Östlund available to be in that '27 window and filling the 2nd C slot by then (as Tage slides either to W or 3C by then). As you are well aware a D-man's timeline is further out than a F's timeline. No data. Certainly hope not. But wouldn't blame him if he does in that case. And, expect that if Dahlin asks out, Adams is officially cooked and the experiment ends.

Because we (here on this board) use English as our primary language and don't all feel the reflexive need to bow to everything Francophile and remove the 's' off words that typically have them associated with them. It's still Labatt's to some of us, gosh durn it. (Or, for Fearless Leader, it's still offsides to some of us.) 😉

OR he does understand that, but saw the team's timeline on Dahlin's timeline and he always had '26 or '27 as the target. And with Ullmark walking and Levi entering the system '27 ended up getting highlighted in red. Hopefully we don't find that out for certain by them missing the playoffs again and him still retaining his job. He knows players need X # of games in the NHL to become vets (he's actually spoken to that on more than one occassion) and he's also mentioned that he believes he's acclimating (not his word, but it's appropriate) the kids to the NHL at a younger age than most so he's putting that game plateau on a higher importance level than physical age when it comes to having players develop. He MIGHT be right. We'll find out if he is if guys like Peterka look like typical guys in their mid-20's entering their 3rd year rather than the typical guys that are only 22. It's a fairly untested hypothesis because there are almost no owners of NHL teams willing to let a GM prove a theory about developing youthful professional hockey players rather than pushing to win at all (reasonable) costs. Am nearly certain he did expect the team last year to be good enough to make the playoffs. Which was, in hindsight especially considering he knew Quinn would be out for ~3 months, a very poor expectation. These same players now, for the most part, have another 70-80 games under their belts and a coach that has been successful in the league AND he APPEARS to be ready to augment the kids with some additional talent. We are being held hostage to a science experiment. One which few, if any, GMs will attempt to replicate because it almost definitely needs 4-5 years to show results and in a professional sports league that's usually a lifetime for most players. Thing is IF he's right, then the Sabres truly are in a window of contention that will be open at least 5 years and maybe an entire decade. Unfortunately, because ownership has bought into the experiment, we've been forced to either buy in as well or abandon our favorite team. REALLY hoping Adams is right because this drought will push the Bills drought to start the century if he's wrong. (And the only minor consolation is there is a lot for a new GM to work with if he's wrong. But that minor consolation doesn't make the drought end in year 14 nor 15 in all likelihood.)

Yes, that is when the window closes. The question was when does the window open. Personally, would be very surprised if it doesn't happen sometime tomorrow as a courtesy to Skinner. Adams says he speaks often with all the GMs in the league. He already knows if anybody running a team Jeff might be willing to get traded to has any interest in him. Skinner went above and beyond in helping to market the team (even if his efforts on the ice rarely were the keys to victory), in additional to "Between 2 Staals" he also was part of the very 1st (Zoom only) Blue and Gold Insights (along with Mittelstadt). He's tried to do right by the Sabres and Adams preaches doing right by people, so expect it'll be official tomorrow morning if a trade isn't there.

Personally didn't like the trade, but simply for the reason that Adams traded a 25 yo C for a 22 yo D-man. Byram's ceiling is higher than Mittelstadt's, but he's also about 4 years from reaching his prime whereas Mitts was already entering his. Am tired of everything pointing to '27 as being THE YEAR when the Sabres aren't just relevant they're actually very good. (That last part with the "actually very" is a bit of wishful thinking BUT it might be legit.)

48 hours after the Finals ended.

That's what Leo Roth said. Kelley himself said no punches were thrown but he was put in a headlock and had his shirt ripped (pocket IIRC) in the encounter. NOT a good look regardless and Hasek is lucky he didn't face discipline from the league for the encounter, but Leo never was one to let details get in the way of a good story.

Kind of like how when a significant portion of a crowd is chanting "Fi-re Don-ny." 😉

Pretty sure you knew this and meant to post it that way, but the actual $ savings will be ~$7MM. Skinner will receive 2/3's of what remains on his deal but over 6 years rather than 3. So, if he's stilll owed ~$21MM he'll end up with ~$14MM gross.

To your 1st point, those kids can still get shirts, they just don't get hats anymore. 😉 To your 2nd point, expecting there'll be a lot of clearance stuff available in the Sabres store when TC opens up. Might be a good time to let the little Shrader visit grandma.

Lindy Ruff. 😉

Seriously, for all the true transgressions Fanatics has had and will have, you slag them for this? EVERY apparel manufacturer making hat for a championship series makes the hat in one of 3 colors - gray, white, or black and glues the team specific patch onto the hat. So that rather than having to destroy 1/2 of the hats they've made (or essentially give them away for pennies in a 3rd World country) they just reheat the hats with the losing team's logos on them and puts the winners on instead. Would expect that Nike was the originator of the practice, but maybe it was Reebok or Adidas.

Then not sure why Eichel's name comes up. He was a 2nd overall pick (as was Reinhart). Sabres only have 4 1st overalls in their history: Perreault, Turgeon, Dahlin, & Power.

Well, sure. The way his bashing poor Luke Adam over the head absolutely ruined his career and left him a quivering drooling hunk of flesh left a mark on Ruff's soul.

Umm, wasn't the timeout with ~1:30 left taken by the Eulers? Didn't understand taking the TO then because the refs had just let them waste about 1 minute getting their guys back out there. Get that he wanted to draw a play up, but at that point the FO was at the BL & they WEREN'T (at least they didn't) taking Skinner off the ice AND they'd just had a pseudo-mini TO. That absolutely didn't cost them the game, but just found it a strange circumstance to take the TO there. Would've been much better off taking it at the next whistle; which turned out to be with ~35 seconds left - plenty of time for McDavid to work the puck to Draisalt so he could fan on yet another shot. 😉

Maybe, but at least those classy Euler fans got to watch their hero accept the Conn Smythe Trophy. 🤔

Murray was REALLY good at identifying guys that were physically talented. But he was REALLY REALLY bad at understanding how people interact with each other and how those interactions could let players like Rodrigues become more than they appear to be and cause players like Kane &/or Bogosian end up bad influences on young players that you're really relying on. If Murray had an Adams who does seem to understand the human side of the game and how to relate to people as an advisor he could trust, the whole thing could've worked.

To this day, believe that people would've been ok with the trades of that weekend had Lehner been brought in for the 3rd 1st round pick and the 2nd one been part of the package to get O'Reilly. Murray knew he didn't need to use the pick that went out for Lehner to get O'Reilly; had he needed it for that doubt he would've ended up with Lehner. But that Murray team was simply cursed. Lehner screws up his ankle bumping the post in the 2nd period of the home opener against Ottawa of all teams, ruining his 1st 3 or so months of his Sabre tenure and O'Reilly drives his truck into a Timmy Ho's putting him in the owner's dog house. Yes, Murray had no idea how personal interactions or life in general could effect how his horses performed on the ice, but those were 2 of his 3 key pickups that year. And both had 'seriously, that actually happened' events hanging over them and then the next year right before opening night Girgensons gives Eichel a high ankle sprain in the last practice prior to the season opening.

But 26.5 year old average age teams probably on occassion do win Stanley Cups. '27 could be a very good year for the Sabres. (Provided everybody hasn't been axed before then resetting the timeline once again.)