dudacek

Just read a piece where the Sabres were right down at the bottom of the league. It was an article where they lumped in parking and concessions and ticket prices and I’m pretty sure Buffalo was the second -lowest out of the 32 teams.

Regardless of who you cheer for, Bills Chiefs continues to be the pinnacle of football as athleticism and entertainment. Just a treat to watch. I said the same after 13 seconds. If you can’t appreciate the way they play, you’re not a sports fan.

I think Krebs and Jokiharju have moved into that territory where any mistakes they make are going to be magnified because some fans have become fixated on a certain type of mistake each player makes too often, rather than the whole picture of their games. Krebs’ expected goals for is one thing being overlooked. Jokiharju not being on the ice for a goal against yet (+4) is another. Krebs made the best pass of the game to set up Dahlin in game one. Jokiharju sprang Tuch with a beauty in game 2. People are choosing not to talk about these plays. Instead, they talk about a pass to Krebs’ feet that a forechecking forward pounced on, or Jokiharju not being good enough to cover for Power’s yips. Both players have things to work on. Neither has been bad.

This is what I’ve seen as well, in terms of deployment strategy. Olofsson isn’t getting Tage and Skinner the entries or the turnovers. Mitts is working hard and getting to the right spaces, he just isn’t making plays or connecting with Tuch. Not sure how soon Donnie mixes it up, but his early plan hasn’t worked.

The better team won today. The gap was noticeably closer than it has been. Lots of things that need to be worked on. Don’t think passion was one of them.

I wanna see Mule and Ras give Tkachuk a bit of his own

Brandon Montour played 24 minutes for them in the opener and their bottom pairing is 2 guys who shouldn’t be in the NHL. And without Marchment and Duclair, they are 2 lines up front, not 3. They had 3 guys skate less than 10 minutes in the opener and 3 more less than 12. This is a team with no depth. Their best players remain studs though and they toyed with us last year.

UPL looked like the man. Forward lines looked fast, balanced and deep. Pilut is elite at this level.

Haven’t figured out my own, but this has to be @DarthEbriate’s

If Hasek’s not top 10 there has to be a Euro bias going on. Perreault and Hawerchuk for sure and Lafontaine as well. Housley and Andreychuk are in the Hall of Fame, Martin and Mogilny should be; not sure if any make this list.

The Athletic has started a new project ranking and profiling the NHL’s best players of the modern era, which coincides with expansion. Criteria is anyone who has played 400 NHL games since 1967. https://theathletic.com/3550299/2022/10/14/nhl99-ranking-the-greatest-players-in-modern-nhl-history/ Gretzky has already been crowned #1, they are counting down the rest of the top 100, starting this week with 100 Marc-Andre Fleury, 99 Kris Letang, 98 Guy Lapointe, 97 Henrik Zetterberg and 96 Johnny Bucyk. Im curious which Sabres people think belong on the list and where?

Random observations before reading the thread: The team certainly wasn’t itself to start - a little overwrought maybe? But it got better as the game went on. My patience for the Dunleavy complaints is going to go away in a hurry if I am forced to listen more play by play team’s like Ottawa. No excitement, no insight no humour, no stories - nothing but catering to the pre-existing Ottawa narrative and pretending it wasn’t vanishing before their eyes. The preseason whipping boys, Krebs and Jokiharju, both had solid games and Peterka justified the organization’s faith in him. Power looked like he wasn’t quite ready for the speed tonight and Quinn was overmatched. Tuch made some good plays and Mitts was dialed in and working, but that line had no chemistry at all. Skinner Tage Olofsson were…OK? The first two can do more. I did like a lot of the details in Victor’s game tonight though, how he was doing things beyond being a shooter. Boosh is going to hurt us at times with his aggressiveness, but please don’t change. The dude is a beast. Exactly as advertised and what our group needed. The power play - particularly the first unit - was way out of sync. Our entries were terrible. Dylan Cozens looked real good. I like how he’s going to be an integral part of the PK. Asplund looked good at centre and his line was solid. I’ve been saying we can win some games because our bottom six is going to be better than the opponent’s and that held true tonight. Anderson certainly played like a number one. His ability to read the play continues to be stellar. Pretty even game. Ottawa made more mistakes than we did, but we’re capable of better than we saw tonight. Tougher test Saturday. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

The contract extension? Not sure if I'm reading your post correctly, but the opposite was true if you listened to Donnie and Adams. Donnie said he didn't really want the distraction, but sure, I'll sign, this is where I want to be. Adams said extending Donnie was something he wanted and stressed with Pegula as part of his own extension. As soon as his was signed, he approached Donnie. Now, I believe their contract lengths match. I think his expectation is simply to "get better." They remain focused on the process rather than the results, which they believe will come if they stick to the process. He's saying winning tonight isn't the highest priority. It's not the same thing, and he's not implying it is. he knows the plan is focused on being great in the future rather than good now.

I actually like the fact he’s been handed a leadership role on his line. Hope he runs with it. He’s looked ready. Tonight they’ll be playing mostly against guys like Pinto, Motte, Kastelic, Watson, Holden and Brannstrom, so I sure as heck hope not. Asplund and Tage will be seeing a lot of Norris and Stutzle. And this kind of deployment will be the case more nights than not.

Not about Dahlin in particular (Coaching certainly was an issue with his development IMO), but I am of an opinion that ups and downs are inevitable with new players and rather than stunting development, they are necessary for development. I don’t think you need to avoid ups and downs if you are developing players, you need to ensure they happen in appropriate amounts and leverage them for improvement. I’d rather Quinn and Power make their mistakes now rather than later in order to accelerate their development. It’s the USNDP method that has proven to be extraordinarily successful. Thread topic maybe?

I’ve said it a few times: Power has the skill set to become an absolutely elite penalty killer; his poise and reads will eventually be elite and his range unmatched.

Throwing him to the wolves again against the team that usually put up 6 or 7 against us last year 😉

So ready to feel some of that again.

I’m pretty sure my first post was something like “It’s a gamble, but I take that bet” so I don’t think you and I are too far apart on this. But I haven’t really noticed too many people finding it absurd to 2nd-guess the deal? More like “it’s not nearly as absurd as it appears on the surface.” The risk is mitigated early by the cheap 1/3 buyout, and later on by the fact that it’s only $4 million, rather than some huge percentage of the cap. But I think a big part of the reaction is what we saw in the expectations thread: most people who watch the Sabres aren’t projecting Mattias Samuelsson to be a top 4 shutdown defenceman, they believe that is what he is already. And it’s not particularly hard to imagine him at least staying there.

I haven’t run the numbers, but the idea of locking up a second-pairing defenceman from the time he’s 23 until he’s 30 makes as much sense to me as locking up a 1st line forward under the same circumstances. Players matching that description rarely flame out and are always in demand around the league. The idea of paying $4 million for that player is a no-brainer. So the only real question from the Sabres side is whether or not Mattias actually is or will be a $4 million player over the duration of that contract. Do you believe that what we saw last year was real? If so, good contract. *** This is sorta the Tage Thompson deal rationale all over again. If a Cozens deal is cooking as well, it is clear the Sabres have chosen to go all-in early on talent you believe in as a way to get ahead the salary cap. Sort of the same philosophy they have on roster development. I wonder what the analytics team has learned from crunching the numbers.

Here’s another long-term thought: You know Power and Dahlin will likely be pricey. Does this effectively put a drag on salaries for our bottom four over the next few years, then enable us to sign a better 4D in the back half of the deal, because our 3D is relatively cheap?

This is an underrated reason for wanting to keep Jokiharju with Power. Bryson/Joker just seems like a bad idea.

You can't preach what the Sabres have been preaching without putting your money where your mouth is and rewarding the people who exemplify it. Cozens next?

You can't preach what the Sabres have been preaching without putting your money where your mouth is and rewarding the people who exemplify it.

Adams' plan continues to manifest: identifying and locking up the "right" players is clearly part of it. Related — heard interviews recently where both Dahlin and Tuch, unprompted, singled out Mule as a great player people don't know about yet; the players know.