Thorner

Probably gotta try and find a way to use that Stone money somehow this season so I agree a trade is imminent. One of the best teams in the league and winners of 5 straight since the break - no good sitting on the 9 mil if Stone can’t play. Dude does seem to always get hurt. Shame as he’s one of their central figures if not THE central figure there Another saving grace is making the playoffs all but 1 year and sitting first in the West right now, but what do I know.

This isn’t what I’m talking about though. I already said I think GMs factor in position pretty early ie sooner allow for it to be the deciding factor Im talking about the frequent refrain you see that we/teams must select the guy with the most talent, full stop, calls for “BPA!” and then the contrasting “what would we ever do though if we had a great F in Beniers! Could you imagine?” I mean ya, I can imagine. Can you not plausibly have seen Adams himself identify Beniers as the best player there? Would we have been doomed if we did? If you tout BPA, presumably that person would be ok with the situation where we’d need to swing a deal. You’d have to think those situations would arise under the strategy

Damn too bad, shoulda gone the other way: that charts indicating Power is as good as Karlsson right now indicate there’s a problem with the charts

Would be looking to swing a trade. That’s why they say BPA, right? Beniers is NOT better or significantly better imo cause as people are saying points aren’t everything, but if he WAS, we would have had to take him, right? thats the core principle of bpa theoretically we’d trust our GM to make a prospect trade if necessary. That’s the theory of bpa, anyways, which I always find interesting. Personally I think teams factor in position more than they say, regardless of what they say, due to the potential difficulty of finding deals

Ya, if Dahlin is the guy getting more points he’s almost always going to be the guy getting more votes. regardless, the thought of 2/3 on the ballot being Sabres is wild intriguing

No, but each province has its own holiday today here in Manitoba it’s Louis Riel (lol) day

Eichel and Dahlin draft hype? Coulda woulda shoulda

I’m not sure it’s much of a novelty as much as the stat is literally saying we’ve been better in the games we’ve played than the other teams fighting for 8th. What it’s saying is that the most significant reason we are not literally in 8th is simply because we’ve played less games, ie something beyond our control I don’t know how it can be construed as getting hopes up, it’s just a fact It’s not even an underlying metric

iM tRyInG tO rEAD aBoUT lEvI wUt iS wItH aLl tHE uPl tAlK?!!11111

Yes, Hasek would have a great sv% with this team are you joking?

Who’s tweet is this? Probably soaked in irony given Dahlin’s rookie season was better and the author probably among those who lambasted him a couple years later Do you think he gets a nomination?

We’ll have to start calling them “Backs“ instead of defensemen

When you catch The Dark Knight on tv randomly. Channel isn’t changing.

Adams should do it for a “ favour”. the only true currency in the shady underground world of nhl GMing

Nothing against Dahlin I’m just not sure he’d make a good forward

I love Dahlin as much as anyone but even I think the bolded is probably a bridge too far

Most other sports* don’t play a rinky dink OT where the game bears little resemblance to that played within the other 60 mins. Regulation wins need to be elevated as a tie breaker as they are. *Baseball now too I suppose

Morrissey held pointless, Dahlin remains 3 points clear of 3rd in D scoring race. Karlsson probably uncatchable. The McDavid of D this year but with better hair

Sorry that wouldn’t load on my phone, do you have a photo reference from this century?

Just wanted to bring this over. Acknowledged the fact he’s improved above, getting to around .910 is substantial. Still, I’ve mentioned this before - I disagree with the connotation that a goalie playing average or in his case at 19th, slightly below average starter I guess, is “doing his job”. It’s something people specifically do with goalies: would we be saying the offence was “doing its job” if it was 19th? If our entire team was ranked 19th, would it collectively be “doing its job”? we are about 19th now, actually. It’s been good, but that’s relative, right? In the hypothetical world where we stay 19th forever I wouldn’t say it’s “mission accomplished” (Dubya) “we’ve done our job”. So I’ll key on the “I’m not sure he’s the answer“ thing: as welcome as the improvement is, and it’s to his credit certainly, yes I think we need improvement, so if he doesn’t continue to, I’d look for it elsewhere

I’m pretty comfortable saying he’d be our best goalie

If his save % wasn’t sub .900 there’d be fewer “key moments” b/c we’d be ahead by more. ”saves at key moments” is the definition of a cherry picked stat. A save prevents 1 goal regardless of when the shot is taken: and we know it’s not a case of UPL giving up a few in Sabres’ laughers. For the most part it’s more like we’ve been overcoming UPL and his 4 goal let-up, and he’s been “making the key save” to prevent #5. Yes, but he could have made that save earlier. Edit: it looks like lately his sv % numbers have improved to around league average. You’d want better as that’s basically ~ playoff cut-off line level but it’s tolerable. Still, my argument stays the same - his sv% is reflective of better performance (to your point). But “saves at key times” is still not a good reflector

I feel like it’s usually pretty spotty but every once in a while you see a Gaborik/Hossa/Neal type gem that really moves mountains. It can happen, no reason we can’t be that team: once we are trying to go from contender to THE contender. We aren’t in a position as a bubble team for that to happen imo. Short of adding Hellebuyck

I’m about 18 games from sitting back and putting my feet up. If, a mere 18 games from today, we are sitting, hypothetically, in the same relative position: I‘m hanging a banner. Shoot me: I don’t care. That’s called meaningful games in March. It’s a playoff chase. It’d be the first 82-game season in a f*cking age that was......*actually 82 games* as an entertainment product. Who knows how expectations change or don’t moving forward but for the time being, I’d be pretty damn satisfied to realize I wasn’t completely full of sh*t for the last decade in saying I just wanted an NHL hockey team back - that’s it. It’s been way too long. Don’t worry Sabres, we kept the lights on for ya. I missed you dearly.