mjd1001

Not sure if this was posted yet or not, but I just got an email from the Sabres with an offer for free tickets to a preseason game. It said it was based on the email I gave when voting for the goal song. There is a code to redeem apparently in the email.

I guess that's the lesson I could take from preseason, this might be just testing outlines and getting a feel for them. I would like to see Norris play with Tuch. Norris has speed, and Tuch is... In my opinion... One of the best forcheckers in the league with decent speed himself. I'm not sure who would be on the other side of that line... Maybe some kind of guy who's not afraid to go into the corners and do the dirty work and is decent in his own zone... Maybe even Doan? So many possibilities I think could be interesting... I just hope they don't end up slotting the lines like this is a video game or fantasy hockey.

Yeah, I'm not denying that Kulich might have some growing to do in his game, and there's a possibility he could take a step back. I'm just saying that I would start there and then make changes if necessary after you see it works or doesn't work. Maybe the coaching staff thinks a key to this team's success is getting good on the power play... And you want Thompson and Norris to play together to develop chemistry that will translate to the power play? I don't know. I'm supposed to be working now so I don't have time at the moment... But I think an interesting project might be to look at Norris's numbers in Ottawa. Who is he the most and least productive with? Where were his analytics good versus bad? Basically, to find out what type of player in Ottawa he played the best with versus not so well.

If Norris is not a play driver, all the more reason I don't want him with Paige. He's a scorer, I don't want him taking any shots away from tage. I'm starting with Kulich. I posted this a few weeks ago but him and tage together were an elite goal scoring combination. Not for a game. Not for a week, but for a quarter of a season they played together. They had better numbers as a combo than Matthews and marner did for the season. Their numbers were even slightly better than McDavid and Draisatl playing together. Now I don't expect them for a full season to necessarily be better than those guys. But if they were that good.... And 20+ games is a decent sample size, I want to try it again and at least see how it goes. If it doesn't work after a while then make a change. But I cannot fathom why they don't want to to keep that combo going after how they played last year. At times they dominated play and their analytics were off the charts.

Which is why I'm leaning toward Norris not being on the same line with tage. Tage doesn't need him. Tage creates his own scoring chances and puts his own scoring chances away. He's one of the best in the league at that. If Norris has talent, let Norris's talent Help guys on other lines. In short, other guys need Norris a lot more than Tage does. I'm not saying to put tage out there with a couple ahl-ers, but put him out there with a guy like Benson who will do the dirty work and will help keep the puck out of the defensive zone. Benson does not have anywhere close to a good shot. It doesn't matter if he's out there with tage, he can do everything else on the ice but tage is going to get in position and take the shots.

I'd hope even if he was 'good enough' to crack the top 6 (I'm not sure if I'm even there) that you wouldn't have him on the roster this year. I'm not worried about him being 'good enough' this year. I want him to be VERY good in 3-4 years. Yes, you can develop at the NHL level, yes, he can have side sessions after practice with development coaches. But I think he'd learn more playing a lot more minutes and still dealing with development coaches, just not at the NHL level.

Even last year when he didn't play well, I thought Samuelson was one of the better penalty killers on the team. At his best... He has the potential to be a great penalty killer. He's not overly aggressive which can be good on the PK.. his size and reach covers a lot of ground and he doesn't get out of position too often. If he can just stay healthy and improves a little bit to be a decent third pair guy... But you can get him to be a very good to Great penalty killer... He's well worth his contract then.

That thought makes it even worse for me. I'm not a music guy. I rarely have music on in the house, and 90% of the time in the car the radio is either off or its talk radio. I've been to a total of about 5 concerts in the last 20 years of my life, and 3 of them were the BPO. But that doesn't mean I hate music at all, I kinda like most types of popular music. If a song is decent, I favor mostly rock, but there are some pop songs I like too, classic and more modern alternative I can deal with some songs....and not a lot of country but even some country. I listened again to the swords of 1000 men song, and I just don't get it. If you took all the Sabres goal songs of the last few years, including when the players got to pick their own, I really think this one would be at the bottom of the list for me. I really REALLY hope anything else gets it but that.

I wouldn't even say overdone, I think its an awful song.

I'm not sure. We have internet through them so I never thought whether it was required or not.

Look at the plan with Spectrum where they let you pick 10 channels. You get all the basics (the local channels and some basic cable stuff) and then you get to 'choose' 15 other premium channels. MSG is one of the choices so you can get Sabres games. I think its called "Spectrum choice" Last year, it was the absolute cheapest way for us to get the Sabres games. I know its bout $40-$50 less per month than their 'regular' plan.

NHL preseason vs NFL preseason? I'll take NHL preseason 100% of the time over the NFL. Even when I was a big NFL fan, when I 'liked' it more than hockey, I always dreaded their preseason games. Soooooo boring.

It's only preseason, but NHL preseason to me is more enjoyable than most other sports. It'll be something tangible to watch and discuss.

I sure need more than 28 points out of him if he is going to be on a first line. Just by luck touching the puck he should get more. BUT, if he is on the first line and only gets 40-50, I won't be TOO upset if the entire line is doing well. I'm not as worried about the point totals of each player on the line, vs how the line performs as a whole.

Any Sabres powerplay that doesn't have the name "Cozens" on it sounds really good to me (until they go 3 games without a PP goal at least).

Agreed. 2 years ago he was a top 10 goalie, and for the 2nd half the the year probably the 2nd best guy in the league. Last year he was a lost cause. WHEN he returns healthy, I think its equally probably he returns to either form.

I'm not big into baseball anymore. As a little kid I liked the Blue Jays (got to go see some games in person) but as I got to be an older kid, teenager, and into my 20s, I became a Yankees fan simply because they were on TV so much. I really don't care at all about the Yankees anymore, and I think part of that is they just don't seem that likeable, the players or the team in general, for the last decade or so. For those that are really big Yankee fans, do you seem like the teams in recent years have just been less 'likeable' (for lack of better word), or as big time fans are you able to see through that?

With regard to online ordering: Amazon. Ordered a case of soup from them that no local stores carry anymore. Came in 2 weeks ago, wrong flavor. Checked the order, we ordered the right item, they shipped the wrong item. So, asked for a replacment/correct item. 2 days ago it came in. Same wrong item. When they ship something wrong, do some sort of cycle count in your warehouse already to make sure items are slotted correctly. This is getting annoying.

I don't DISLIKE Byram, its just I need to see him take another step up. Forget about taking over a game, I just don't ever really see him using his talent to even take over a single shift all that often. Thats the eye test. As far as results/analytics go, he had a chance to be the #1 guy back there when Dahlin was out and he wasn't that good and the team was awful. His analytics...when he is NOT with Dahlin they are actually pretty bad (below 50% in most major categories). WITH Dahlin they are better, but EVERYONE's are better with Dahlin. I mean, I kinda do like Bryam for his visible skill, I just want him to step up a bit more and make more use of it. I just don't think we have seen him take advantage of all the skill he has yet.

Agreed on the last point especially. We know versions of the saying "Can toughness be taught" or "you can't teach toughness". But you know what you CAN teach? You can teach a guy with his height and his size and his reach to position himself better to take away lanes, to use that reach to push the puck away from opposing players better than you could with a guy who needs to take an extra step or two to get there because he has less reach size. We've had 'big-ish' guys supposedly with talent who were physical and hit (Bogo, Risto) that had awful positioning and didn't use their size strategically and they weren't good. On the other hand, here on the Sabres you also had 'big-ish' guys that didn't hit, but used their size and reach and positioned themself well and ended up being pretty darn good in their own zone because of HOW they used their size (Schmelik and Tallinder) Power is taller and has a bette reach than all of those guys, and arguably more upside offensive talent. If/when he learns how to position himself, how to take angles, how to make the 'smart' play in the defensive zone, he could/should be better than any of them.

For all the talk about Power, I am more confident in Power than I am in Byram right now. To me it seems as if Bryam is closer to his ceiling, and that ceiling is a very skilled guy who underperforms that 'raw skill' and the end result is a slightly above average D-man at best. With Power, I still think, and expect, he will be better than that over time.

Well, we all know this and its been posted in other threads...but to the topic, why they may not be good? Day ONE of camp. Tuch nursing an injury. And UPL. and Greenway. Already.

As per my above post, I don't either, but the contract may or may not look that bad by the end of it if the cap does what they think it will. For example, lets say he got 8 years at 9m per year. That is a lot, and toward the end of the deal when Tuch is 36-37 its likely to look bad. I don't think its outrageous to say the cap might/should be at least $140m in 8-9 years from now (considering they are estimating it at 113.5 in just 2 years) Well, last years cap was $88m I think? A $9m deal when the cap is $140m is the same percentage of the cap as $5.6m was last year. That wouldn't be that bad. I know a lot of assumptions there, but you pay in the back end of a deal to get the guy signed up front.

I'd love a shorter term deal from the Sabres point of view. If he went long term and got $8.5m per year (maybe more), with the cap going up so much that won't look that bad in a few years. But at the same time, I'd rather have the short term deal to take someone to 33-34 years old and then re-evaulate from there.

I really hope that Thompson and Norris aren't on the same line from day one of camp. If it ends up that way fine, but try some different combinations first.