R_Dudley

Let the redux begin. Clean the dirt off that trip and show us what you got and are going to really be Sabre's. Mud Wash. LFG!

Yeah a bit disappointed they didn't show better in the first two games, but possibly it was too much of a distraction with the hype and sightseeing for a young team. I really want to see a solid start here at home for the next two games, wash the stink of that road trip away and start building back their confidence. Let's go Buffalo make home ice an advantage this year out of the gate.

1) Sabres point total? 93 2) Will the Sabres make the playoffs? Yes, by a shinpad 3) Sabres leading goal scorer? TNT 4) Sabres leader in total points? TNT 5) Sabres MVP? TNT 6) Sabres ROY? JJP 7) Best off-season acquisition Lafferty 8.) Worst off-season acquisition? Zucker 9) Biggest surprise? (positive or negative) Fandamonium returns 10) Breakout player? Benson 11) Will any Sabres players or coaches finish as finalists (win?) for any major awards such as the Norris or Selke? Dahlin 12) Unsong Hero? JJP 13) Who will be the first Sabre traded away this season? Reimer 14) Will KA make any in-season acquisitions before the deadline? Yes 15) Will the Sabres be buyers or sellers at the deadline? A little of both 16) Other Bold prediction? {Such as KA gets fired mid-season ;)} Levi is getting the majority of starts by season end 17) Any other thoughts? Win the first round of playoffs.

LGR4GM's question earlier is a good one, "Also, the hand wringing over having home and away alternates is bizarre, why do any of you care about something so trivial. " My only answer is the consistency in all situations of who the team and the other teams and officials recognize and allow to question or talk to them on a regular basis. Now thinking about it if all of them are speaking from the same script in agreement on the team things it shouldn't be worse and maybe better.

Oh captain, my captain. I stand by the decision, and I am reasonably sure a majority of the team does as well. Now the alternate model, not so much.

I saw this Friday and voted Benson w/o chiming in here like I am now. Glad to see he is producing this preseason already and confirming my thoughts and choice. Love the nfreeman projection of a combination of Marchand and Bergeron type of player. Not sure how much I like this global series starting them traveling on the road overseas, I hope everyone key to a solid start stays healthy.

I checked the box confidently for TT, and UPL and optimistically for Quinn and Powers. Need someone other than Rasmus to step up for the D so a check for Powers with assuming the two are split up by Lindy to provide more balance across the top two pairings and PP units. And this post is my labor of love for the Sabre's celebrating Labor Day with all my common fan workers today.

I love the nerd discussion here. With large language models(LLM) that AI uses along with the right data it is provided it can derive sentiment but not emotions or feelings. It's what they call training AI and is what is needed to have it hypothesize or generate the results for the models, approaches, or strategies you are using it for. A team would just need a good data scientist or two and several other staff(2-3) feeding the data points they would use to train the models they are working on. I could see a team owner potentially going down this path and putting together a team of 4-6 staff to see what it can do. The challenge would be in establishing the baselines for getting the same data points being used across as many teams and player types as you could get assuming there is an agreed upon definition and collection for the data being used across teams. Remarkably interesting technology discussion though and my first in the last 25 days since my retirement on 7/31 from my IT career of 43 years.

Well, the facts and stats LGR4GM and some others share here are sobering and support my concern that we are a fringe playoff team as currently constituted. It really impresses me that we will really need Lindy's plan and execution, health of key players/positions, solid goaltending, and a few player surprises above their current means to make this a playoff team. Good thing I'm not a betting man because I don't think I would take this one right now, but that is why I watch and never say never.

I voted for Kulich assuming a forward injury creates space for his next NHL stint. Johnson is my second choice based on our defense's consistent injury pattern over the last 3 -4 years. This of course is based on my limited knowledge and attention to all these prospects skills and motivation. I will be paying attention early and often this season to see if this team is going to be able to break the playoff curse. Health and who else steps up beyond modest expectations will play a big part in that including the right injury call ups. Just a couple of weeks away from training camp and the fun begins... Oh and a shout out to nfreeman on a wonderful job on the prospect summaries, potentials, and a thread to discuss.

Sorry, years of futility leaves me feeling one more forward and a solid defensive defenseman addition to feel this is a playoff team. The current roster will need a near perfect core healthy players and solid 2 goaltenders' season to feel they have a legit chance of playoffs.

I also middled it. Hard to trust how you feel about it after what we have seen for the last 13 years but something had to be done to break the unlucky 13 year curse.

24g 33a, I am basing that on Lindy not playing a run and gun style but more of a man-on-man style like we saw in later round of playoffs. PP will be important and OT points will go up.

Playing 2nd line PP2 - 20g 24a 44p: if substantial PP1 25g 29a 54p 3rd line minutes PP2 - 16g 19a - 35p I agree with what Inkman said if he is above 55p and the team stays healthy, we should have a playoff team.

Grit, physical, closers, plays well in tight spaces sounds like the theme. Are we now drafting for what we couldn't/didn't trade for? Should have been doing a little of this previous draft years and you would have that with the previous drafts coming of age instead of the holy grail quest Kevin is on.

I have learned a lot about evaluating picks just reading all these threads, stats and discussions of the metrics used. Thx for being a knowledge share.

I voted No before the skinner waiver counts as a major move. That should be 2 minutes for missing information.

Congrats on the move up. A fifty percent increase sounds too good to be true, nice to hear good news. Terrible economy still for my industry and I had to do a RIF last week for one of my team. Worst part of being in a leadership role. Keep on Inkin.

I voted bridge not because the potential isn't there but because he has already given out several high dollar long-term contracts. The cap isn't raising that fast for hockey and they will have some other players they will also need to be making these decisions on the next few years. Also noted is the stated need for some veteran help in the forward ranks and and/or a veteran goalie letting Levi mature in AHL. Buffalo seems to pay a premium for that kind of help because it's not the hockey heaven we were promised.

I don't think anyone watching him play last 4 months would disagree with this, just would have been nice to see it a bit earlier in his play to ensure its his new normal.

Looking at those numbers I would say 3.5 to 4 million a year. Closer to 4 on a 3 year and closer to 3.5 annual on a 4-year contract for longer term.

The over and under for the in-game thread tonight is 7.5 pages. Since they are officially out of the hunt, I'd take the under. Although I'm curious if they even have it in them to show up and be a spoiler since that's all they have left really since we have seen they don't play for pride.

I'm in agreement with thewookie on this. I see him consistently playing the 200 ft game and the puck hound the believer pointed out. I could see him falling somewhere in combinations of Martin StLouis, Brian Gionta, and wouldn't mind just a dash more of Brad Marchand.

This is so Buffalo. Not surprised Buffalo leads the world in celebrating it. Pittsburgh has a small polish community, and they had no idea what Dyngus day is.

I admit I like hockey, and it feels like the worst because this is my favorite team. I picked at least bottom 5 because I don't know enough about other teams make up and models, but I do know over half of them play better hockey than this Sabres team which supposedly has talent equivalent to some of the top half teams. I am starting to wonder like the Bills what curse was enacted on this team.