Thorny

Devils down. Islanders down. Wings down. Like I was saying… there’s hope here for like a cutoff at 89 points or something Actually yes, if the Caps lose tonight the current projected cutoff would be 89 points 9–3-2 gets us in the playoffs probably.

It’s not that buffalo doesn’t have some issues that affect them vs some teams but the issue is there’s an astronomical gap between how one measures how much affect those things have, vs our actual output. The Winnipeg Jets are LESS desired of a location and they’ve been in the playoffs MULTIPLE times over the last 13 years. We haven’t made it once. We generally haven’t even come close. It shows you how much of a definitive factor “GM aptitude” is. It made all the difference Yes, there are challenges but there’s a chasm between 13 years missed and the success they have had, as a LESS desired market. It presents an excuse for why winning the cup is hard. It presents an excuse for maybe why we’d see a 3/4 year drought when most teams see only 2/3. But we went to 13. 4 purely in this regime so far. With the amount of variables that go into building a team, our deficiencies in one area relative to only some teams don’t come close to presenting a viable excuse for anything close to what we’ve seen. It’s an infinitesimal portion of it Also imho your comment on Eichel is just wrong. It’s sort of flabbergasting that, still, while being first hand witnesses to the ineptitude for this long, and seeing how these guys have gone on to IMMEDIATE, upper echelon success after leaving, that we STILL can’t grasp the concept that in the NHL it doesn’t matter how good your star player is if you don’t build a team the issue was never that Eichel wasn’t McDavid, the issue was we employed a strategy where we were *counting* on Eichel to be McDavid its wrong on two severe levels: - it’s an incredibly dumb, shot in the dark hope to pin your franchise fate on - even if he was it doesn’t matter if you don’t build a team

I think age is probably a bigger factor. Especially in this case: what good is “experience” if that experience is a net negative under Krueger? If anything Dahlin went backwards For a time, and had to claw it back. I’d take the 3 years in the mile high over 5 in this mess re: development ground

Sabres could probably lose 4 more games and still have a shot. If two of those are in OT that’s 91 points. Washington leads the pack pacing for 90.6 right now There are no “good” teams in the mix 10-2-2 It’s very unlikely we do even that but, again, that we are sitting at 69 freaking points (nice) with a handful of games left and are still realistically alive is a testament to how bad this area of the east is this year

They are a year apart. I don’t see Byram having a greater development runway than Dahlin The appropriate question is: Is Byram this year as good as Dahlin was last year, when Dahlin was the same age. It’s a resounding no

6 teams battling for 8th (Detroit, Washington, NY, Buffalo, Jersey, Pittsburgh) are a combined 25-32-3 over their last 10 games A cool 72 point pace over 82 lol

Another day, another would-be 8th seed laying an egg. Islanders go down again. At the end of the day, they are not a very good hockey team. Sabres will continue to play meaningful games in March despite sitting at 69 points with a month left owing to the extremely flawed nature of every team in the hunt this year. Cutoff could be 90. Could be 89 Still alive

For a while they’ve been constructed in the vein of, “if everything goes right, they are good” You are right, we need to be able to amount to more when things aren’t

I agree

Phil Housley? Fail Hairsley amirite

That’s the one thing about Tage, he’s not really going to cover for himself for his lack of goal scoring with assists: he’s got more of a Matthews output, the Kanye “triple double No assists” type demeanour: I think he has 19 assists this year. Regardless of the team needing 1C production he himself does fine by his contract by providing good 2C production: issue is he’s not even there I assume with health it’s a no brainer tho

I'm a lonely boy I'm a lonely boy Oh, whoa, oh I got a love that keeps me waitin'

The organization, the fanbase needs a playoff berth. It just does. For the culture I increasingly think we need to do it just for the sake of doing it. Mike keeps saying everything is toxic and he both has a point but also, one can’t reasonably expect different given a historical run of ineptitude - - - It’s the appropriate expectation for year 4 just on basics but success in the now is just incredibly important to this team because of how long it’s been without we need to trade some prospects this offseason if we don’t make it this year. I’m sure this gets the usual “for who?” responses but, if you are willing to take a hit on upside for “now” ability, you are confident in your excess being dealt from, and you recognize the “who” question is harder to answer *because* we don’t often see big name prospects moved, it really opens a door it’s my stance anyways

At least Harrington mentions Adams’ poor offseason in defence of supporting the coaching, I’ll give him that

Islanders…devils..penguins all losing or lost. Part of why we need to keep this late season run in perspective is because a big part of the reason it’s a meaningful run at all is because of just how bad the 8 range has been in the East. Cutoff should not be 90 or 91 right now, and yet..

I agree. That’s why I keep saying this was an expectations year not a development year. It wasn’t about learning it was about achieving. If we don’t end up securing a playoff spot, it’s a miss.

The lesson they should take here is to not put yourself into a position where their runway is almost non-existent while attempting the landing to their season

Ya I’d be hesitant to pencil in a 10 gamer. I don’t think we can afford a 50/50 trip. Our best bet is a few more 4 games chunks like we just saw: W-W-W-L W-W-W-L W-W-W-L W-W ..that would get us to 91 points with a strong tiebreaker Islanders are currently as the projected 8 seed projecting for 91

Housley is STILL clinging to that hair..unfortunate

Appropriate move, dubious situation

Beware

Tough result. If you are going to be upset, id lean towards the macro result and not specifically today: we’ve been good of late but even the best teams lose a fair bit and we aren’t one of the best teams. Ottawa did us a reasonable solid, can’t really ask them for more than keeping Islanders to 1 point (story of their season) which keeps things, while quite unlikely, still alive for us Sample size

I withdraw my argument - - - Sabres got away with one there, too many men

It’s not so much purely hype when we are merely 2 results today (2-1 Detroit, 2-1 Islanders) from being a solitary point back. But to your point, as great as the winning is, we haven’t given ourselves the breathing ground to let up down the stretch here, even a little. That’s the tough part