ska-T Palmtown

I don't like McDavid because he was the cause of the tank - so he can be the next Dan Marino for all I care ... I find all this angst over "former Sabres" winning to be a bit odd. Very few folks on any roster are home grown ... Barkov and Lundell are the only forwards drafted by FLA. Bob wasn't. Ekblad is the only FLA drafted D worth mentioning ...

I have mentioned this site before - it is not perfect, but it attempts to address the discussion between @Thorny and @Taro T: Right now, McDavid is 10th for forwards. Based on having a decent length career, he picks up another 50 points, throw in 21 more for awards, 10 or more for playoffs ... puts him at 436, right where he probably should end up - behind Gretzky and Lemieux and ahead of everyone else. (note that MANY top end forwards are penalized heavily for playing in bygone eras in the TIME column) I don't recall exactly if the numbers are balanced across positions, but Orr has 525, Bourque at 497, Roy 425, and Hasek 423. So, Looks like McDavid settles into 5th place unless he decides he wants to flirt with 200 points in a season on a regular basis. www.adjustedhockey.com - I hate doing math, but I love and appreciate when others can do it to provide some context to an otherwise existential debate. 🙂 The website gives a very detailed explanation of each column and their rationale behind it. As with anything subjective, you may not agree with all of their logic. Bonus emotion: It makes me very angry that Pitt has had 3 of the top 4 forwards of ALL TIME, with Malkin casually sliding in at 16 - like, eff them. Hard.

Florida cup dramatically helps Barkov's HoF chances ... and future resale value of his rookie cards! 🤣🤣

Fair point - but $8M for 2g and 17a is sort of an overpay no matter what?

https://adjustedhockey.com/top-200-forwards/ This hockey site is amazing. The amount of stat-nerd, excel-based nerdery here makes me weak in the knees. Adjusted across eras, Alex is the 52nd best forward of all time, ahead of numerous folks already in the HOF. Justice. For. Mogilny.

I remember it because I am salty that Alex is not in there. I know, I know - Alex has no one to blame but himself ... but watching that magical 76 goal season as a wee lad - no one will EVER convince me Alex is not one of the most talented and HOF deserving players ever. Objectivity and facts have no place here with me 🙂 I mean, shiznit, he deserves consideration just for being the start of the Russian floodgates opening!

"No one will come to Buffalo until we win." Granted the signing was a disaster - but at year 8 or 9 of Le Drought, the Sabres landed THE *best free agent available ... Mr. MVP Taylor Hall. Mario Williams on the Bills was brought up and erroneously dismissed - when he signed with the Bills, the franchise was only vaguely aware that there was the potential to play football after the regular season ended. In hindsight, the Hall signing was an overpay - but in that exact moment, in that market, it was a fair market deal for very recent MVP. Hall likely signed to play with Eichel, something we don't exactly have now - so that hurts our chances; none of our forwards are currently on the level that would have a top tier talent salivating to play with. I am not privy to all the talk going on in the league, but I imagine there is some skepticism about where a middle six guy fits in. I would suspect Jeff Skinner's talent is more highly respected in the league than on this board and they gave up the McDavid Consolation Prize to get Tuch. JJP, Quinner, and Cozzie are pretty much bona fide second liners, and they are essentially paying Tage/Cozens too much for them not to be the #1/#2 centers. So when we discuss "middle six" we really mean 3rd liner. At that point, you are now trying to convince a 3rd liner that playing 3rd line in Buffalo is better than elsewhere. Not impossible, but a tough sell. Overall, the Williams signing was an overpay for the Bills, but there were a few seasons in there where he looked like a bargain.

I am a basic bish, so definitely seeing Metallica this summer in Chicago. Wife and I also have tickets to see the Violent Femmes play an outdoor show with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra - that one is at a festival (?) grounds north of the city that hosts 3-4 concerts a week. The fun part is getting lawn seats and bringing a full picnic and bar cart to the show 🙂 Covid times - really just a year or so of no social obligations more than fear of infection, etc - really did a number on my social stamina. Before I was going out between 2 and 4 nights a week with friends and probably a show (big or small) every other week on average. Now, eating dinner on the couch and watching Netflix/Hulu/Prime sounds just as appealing, lol. edit: I have seen Metallica 15+ times already, and will continue to see their shows until they retire. Such a great live show with intense energy!

My motivations are purely selfish - it has been much doom and even more gloom here (and rightfully so), but I am an optimistic and playful person by nature so I look for chances to have fun.

As a recovering "concave chest" sufferer, I can confirm that developing a slight semblance of chest muscles did nothing to help my hockey game. Although, that is likely 99% attributed to my general lack of physical prowess at anything other than video games and drinking whiskey - lol.

Dang ... I even tried real hard to exempt you as being the source of my current state of being triggered 🙂 Many credits (people are saying all the credit, really) was given to you for focusing more on the message than the pic, itself. I believe it was those whomst doth piled on after thou that hadst changed the meaning of the Lore of The Chill Bros. If I accidentally implied otherwise, my humblest apologies!

All this misplaced machismo about upper body constitution of hockey players, I submit as exhibit A, the best hockey player on the planet right now: For players looking to do fast quick motions with their stick, muscle mass can actually be a hinderance. Weight training (generally) trains your slow twitch muscles which would likely be seen as a detriment to the insanely fast motions these guys need to perform. Sidney Crosby is 5'-11" and 200 lb. Why is he so hard to play against? Is it is 24" biceps (shoutout to all my Hulkamaniacs out there!), no. It is his tree trunk legs and insane core strength. I am trying to limit my searches of shirtless men (all people, really) on my work computer, but I feel confident Sid is not a beast, either. At 5'-10" and 5'-11", respectively, if Benson and Crosby were standing more than a foot apart in the same room, you would have a hard time telling who is taller. My theory is that many of the Sabres players have never been properly coached (or they just refuse to do it?) on how to play with proper positioning, leverage, and angles (PLA ... can I get that as a trademarked thingy?). Connor Clifton is 5'-11" and 175 lbs (on wiki, anyway) and he knows how to hit. My corollary is that Sabre-Spacers see the lack of proper PLA and think they are "too small" or "too weak".

And, as is common with most lore, much of the original meaning has been lost. If I recall, your original point was not just pool-side chillaxin', but caption (from Tage, not Cozzie) about a big $7M contract. While certainly less offensive than him throwing around "phat stax of cash" lounging on the hood of some mega sports car, I think the perception of a potential "I've made it" attitude was an originally valid point to of discussion. The only part that has ever bothered me (and not from @That Aud Smell's Lore's origin story) is the implications or outright statements that these athletes are not allowed to enjoy their union negotiated down time. It would, however, be a bit uncouth to post "vacay" picks while the playoffs are still ongoing. I am a GenX / Millennial cusper, so perhaps there is some "generational differences" at work here?

I think the "disdain" is for the absolute bonkers idea that a young man taking a poolside vacay pic during the frickin' offseason makes him too much of a "good vibes" "chill bro" to be a captain. It is just plain silly. Silly, I tell you! A quick search of google images will turn up a relaxing vacay pic of pretty much every "worthy" captain out there. If someone were to say "I don't think Cozzie deserves the 'C' because his play is still a touch inconsistent for my tastes.", that is a respectable reason. Not, gee - he sure seems to have a good time on his insta-tok or he doesn't look like an NFL linebacker when he takes his shirt off (yeah, that last one is for the "he needs to eat 30 chicken breasts a day and put on 15 lbs of pure shredded muscle by next year" crowd)

Rando thought - and apologies if someone has already said it somewhere else ... is it at all possible that the players were also talking about internal locker room leadership when they talked about someone pushing them harder? KO was gone - maybe they were saying "gee, he sure was a swell guy, but what we really needed was a real arse-kicker to flip tables during intermissions if we were not crushing the opponent"? I dunno, just some musings.

You can consider me de-baffled on your original point. 🙂 And I was not so much directing at you, just using your post as a launch point for the discussion. I still find it odd how generally (not just you) there is more sentiment of disappointment around what Benson did versus what Quinner or Peterks did the year before. I suspect it is because the season was so disappointing (an 18-yr old throwing in 30 points on a playoff team sounds better than doing it for some middling organization stumbling through the dark valley of no playoffs) and typically if an 18 year old makes an NHL team, it is because they are McDavid/Eichel/Bedard and they are scoring like first line players. I think if the Sabres had been solidly in a WC spot all year and made the playoffs, Benson's season would have been seen as an indication of how strong the lineup was (dang, they did that AND had an 18 yr old) instead of the glaring weakness it was. ("It" being the fact an 18 yr old could crack the roster, not any slight on his tenacious play, dogged determination, or satisfactory point output). The concept of Benson making the team being far worse than his actual play.

It would be amazing if Benny could throw in 25+ goals next year, but if he continues his strong play and ups his numbers even modestly (10-15 more points?), I'd still be thrilled. If he wants to put up 100 points, I won't complain either! 🤣

No notes.

This sorta baffles me ... he was nearly as productive (11-19-30 in 71 games) as Quinn (14-23-37 in 75) Peterka (12-20-32 in 77) when he was 18 while they were 20/21 and people (not everyone, I know) had trouble hiding their boners after the Quinn/Peterka rookie years ...

I have a co-worker in Portland (also originally from Buffalo). He went to game 2 in the series and said it was very noticeable each and every time Our Boy Savoie was on the ice. He said even the Portland crowd buzzed a little when he was out there. Look out, Rochester! We got another one for ya!

I was thinking camp and then The Roc ...

I hope he can come in with his skill and add some of Benson's dogged determination - that would be super nice.

This 'Guy' sure looks like a member of the Chill Bros Club: "Most righteous new contract, fellow Chill Broski!"

They are tied with Vancouver at "three years behind" the Loaves. Great thing about that stat, it will likely remain at three years until the Sabres win a cup, lol

I sort of get this, while I also don't. I haven't seen any evidence that giving Skinny 9 million pegula bucks prevented the Sabres from doing anything. This season would probably be the first where if he is not "earning" his $9M that we could say "coulda spent that money elsewhere." ahem ... casey. (the absurd concept of someone doing almost anything that is actually *worth* $9M is probably a very lonely thread all on its own).