LGR4GM

I keep telling Terry to hire me but he won't return my calls.

I think we should view more as a 3c+ where he can fill in for the 2c due to injury or other shenanigans. Issue is that leaves us without a 1c still as Norris is a 2c and also.. injured... again.

Marchand's first full NHL season was at age 22. He had 41pts. Zach Benson won't be 22 for another 2 seasons and he already hit 30pts. I won't go as far as saying that Benson will be Marchard who is a multiple 30g, 80+ pt forward, but the early returns are fun.

The hearing on this is breathtaking. Gabbard won't even answer basic questions. This administration is corrupt and incompetent to the core. Sycophants one and all with barely and ounce of professionalism between the lot. Gabbard in particular is just so disappointing. She can't even say if she was in the chat, which is something that we already have the answer too.

I just here for a Zach Benson multi-point night.

I mean... he's playing not so good. Maybe they are trying to give him some rest to get him going again. Hope Bernard-Docker plays

Ryan McLeod's rate metrics per 60mins 2023: 0.6g/60, 0.9a/60, 0.8a1/60 2024: 0.9g/60, 1.4a/60, 0.7a1/60 His goals per 60 has gone up but that is partially explained by his sh%. Sam Reinhart is one of the few guys who shoots near 20% just you understand that doing it regularly is rare. We should assume that his goal total will regress unless he shoots more to make up for it. Oddly, his shots per 60 has dropped from 5.5 to 4.3 this year. He should probably have even more goals. Then we have his assists per 60 and that is up by quite a bit. The interesting thing is that it is being driven by a big jump in his secondary assists. he's up from .2 to .7 in terms of a2 (2nd assists) which does not necessarily mean anything bad. It probably has to do with him being a puck transporter who doesn't shoot a bunch. Either way, the assist number are fairly nice to see. Peterka for example has almost the same assist metrics, only being .1 better in both categories. He's only .2 better in terms of g/60. That should put McLeod's season in a bit of context. I think he's potentially coming into his own as a legit 2c type of player that can score, defend, and otherwise tilt the ice towards your teams favor. That said, we do not have enough evidence that this is sustainable. A sh% of 22.1 is certainly not. That said if he shot at his career avg of 14.2 he would have 11g instead of 17 which isn't a small difference. How good can he be with pp2 time and encouraging him to uncork his shot more? Hard to say but at a minimum, you have a higher end 3c with potential for a lot more. Considering he starts in the defensive zone a whopping 64.6% of the time, giving him more o-zone faceoffs could offset some things... but also, it tells us how good he has been defensively overall.

And the Titanic is only 2.4 miles away when you're above it.

The Cozens trade is weird to me because I don't feel ill will towards him and I hope he does well. He just wasn't working in Buffalo.

I'm good with that. His rate metrics show he's a bit better than last year so this could be his level (45ish pts) but I don't think breaking the bank on him is wise. 3 years sounds fine

Cozens was absolutely a problem in Buffalo. You don't tank everyone else you play with, if you're not a problem. I have no issues with Cozens but he wasn't the guy we needed.

McLeod is an nhl player. The Sabres need more of those. I do worry about his sh% but if he makes up for with assists, great. The Sabres issue isn't 5v5 scoring. McLeod is good at what Buffalo isn't good at.

I don't think Trump found the best and brightest. I think he found the loyalist and unscrupulous. In normal times, Hagseth would be fired and a full congressional inquiry launched... but I expect no one will have the guts to call trump or his appointees out.

You're good, was just curious if you were upset at the reporter or Hagseth

And yet you didn't feel this way about Cozens. McLeod isn't a 4th line player, no matter how you spin it or the production you ignore.

Less than the chances Musk pays his legal defense in hopes of copycats

Which part is illegal in your view?

Yea. Schaefer could be better Dahlin... which is basically bigger Makar. Misa could be idk about MacKinnon but he has some of the shooting to be like him. Doesn't mean they will, doesn't mean you draft Misa you get MacKinnon or you take Schaefer and you have Makar. Means they look similar to those players if you go back and look at what they did in the their pre-draft year or there about. What separates Schaefer and Makar is the NHL, Makar is the NHL's top defender.

They could be, idk if they will be. Big difference which you are missing here. Schaefer has Makar's stylistic attacking style with more size, if that translates into a better player remains to be seen. I have not seen anyone say Misa will be better than McDavid. I would highly doubt that. Just keep in mind, whenever anyone starts talking about a prospect in terms of a real NHL player, it's a stylistic comparison and not a "this guy will be this!" sort of thing. If your suggestion here is that Buffalo cannot or should not take Schaefer, it is misplaced. Also, Adams would not have to trade Power, he should if they take Schaefer. He would have all the leverage and lots of offseason time next season to do it. Frankly, your hyperbole is meh.

Cozens spent months not contributing too but he wasn't sent to the 4th line. Maybe Ruff is just ***** at his job. Cozens offense was all over the place and he got prime PP time and prime linemates. In fact, while McLeod was not contributing offensively he was still the same solid defensive player, meanwhile if Cozens isn't contributing offensively he is just awful. Again, Ruff being a bad coach and spending 4 months not giving McLeod more playing time is more an indictment of Ruff and when we compare it to Cozens, who could do no wrong and was gifted opportunities while the team sank, it seems a little hollow. If Cozens is a 2nd line C than at minimum McLeod is a 3rd. You continually talking about him like a 4th line player is truthfully nuts. 4th line players don't put up 17g and 40+ pts. They put up 7g and about 15pts. Krebs is the perfect example of the difference between a 4th line player and McLeod. I actually will not admit his offense has been all over the place. I went and looked it up. From November 20 - December 12 (9 games) McLeod did not record a point. Then he scores a few assists and then has another 4 games where he doesn't score points ending on December 21st. Basically we have a month where McLeod had some scoring woes. Interestingly this is the time of the 13 game losing streak although it doesn't line up perfectly. Outside of that, I would characterize McLeod's points as steady. There are a couple of 3 game stretches but outside of that since January 9th, McLeod has 11g, 13a and 24pts. Maybe he finally settled into the new team or just got better, hard to say but I don't agree his offense has been all over the place. Not anymore than some others. Let's look at Tuch, from Dec 7th to Jan 4th, Tuch only got points in 2 out of 14 games. He had 4 total goals including 1 hat trick. Does that make Alex Tuch a 4th liner? Let's talk about Cozens again, he has 3 games total where he had more than 1 assist and 0 games where he had more than 1 goal. He doesn't have a prolonged period of nothing but he does have a massive stretch of 1a, then 2 games of nothing, 1g, a game with nothing, 1a, a game with nothing. Cozens: 14g, 24a, 69games McLeod: 17g, 25a, 66games I would absolutely give McLeod a 5yr deal because I don't think it would be that expensive. Ryan McLeod is probably a very good 3rd line center or potentially a solid 2nd line center. His sh% is too high and he will regress, so he would need to up his shot totals to compensate. If he gets 20mins a night and pp time, he probably can still be a 20g player.

Can't answer. I think Adams will stay, tweak the fringes of the roster, and not fire any coaches.