Thorner

What is weightless, can be seen by the naked eye, and if put in a barrel, will make the barrel lighter? (1 “awesome” emoji the stakes)

23 to 23? Headed for a runoff ala warlock and Warner bros

Wanna see the best street busker of all time? Well, here:

Oh oh wait damn I should have gone with a different Sam Jackson movie can I get a redo: “I’ve HAD it, with these muthaf*ckin Sabes, on the same muthaf*ckin pair!”

“The sharks are getting smarter”

Lies! All your account sabrebase now belong to us

“What if I told you...”

They all think I’m hiding in the shadows ..but I *am* the shadows

The top 5 Sabres, imo, that would be selected by way of overall impact, as it stands, TODAY, if the goal was to win a game, TODAY: 1 Dahlin 2 Thompson 3 Samuelsson 4 Cozens 5 Quinn

Pretty much. Another reason why Tage’s breakthrough is more astounding, re: perspective is the age at which they are drafted relative to the NFL. Tage’s 26th overall isn’t really comparable to JA’s 7th overall - even a late first in the NHL is basically a crapshoot, first round nfl draftees are *expected* to be contributors, nm top 10 picks nm top QB picks. Thompson was a “maybe” who progressed to “very unlikely” before proceeding to “undeniable”. The bills drafted Allen *expecting* him to be a starter, regardless of what twitter said Both Thompson and Allen have a crazy rise from “real player” to “among the best in their league” but just playing in the league at all was much more of a question with Tage and became a greater question, by the year, for several years post draft

Cozens, Skinner, Thompson, Dahlin, Jokiharju and Samuelsson would be 6 guys Adams has clearly identified from the group of 15 mainstays from before he was here as part of the future team. Adams appears to have added another, I dunno I’ll give him credit for 5 guys here he appears to have added, to that 6: Peterka, Quinn, Tuch, Power, one of Krebs/Jost (it’s hard to say if both, neither, or 1 will be in a significant role LT so I split the difference. That’s 11 guys, out of a target 20. 7 forwards 4 defensemen ...but, it’s important to remember, as this is the the biggest thing, the half of that 11, that were players Adams “kept”, and properly identified, combined with the half of the 11 he added himself, appear to fill in the top 6 and top 4. This, in short, is why it’s now “go time”. The other 9 spots, apart from goalie (ULLMARK, haha I said it again, I live in the past - a bad fan), are presumably much easier to find than the first 11. Find: 5 bottom six forwards, 2 bottom pair D, 2 goalies Girgs, Asplund, Olofsson, Okposo, Mittelstadt, Hinostroza, lesser of Krebs/Jost present 7 options for those 5 players, upgrade depending on goal as necessary. Depth D is an issue, after a great looking top 4, I’m not sure I see any of the depth D we have being here for long. Maybe Lyubushkin or Clague. Area of need this offseason. Goalie. Ya maybe Comrie one day is a backup. Area of need this offseason

Regier (1): Girgensons Murray (4): Asplund, Okposo, Olofsson, Fitzgerald Botterill (10): Cozens, Mittelstadt, Skinner, Thompson, Bryson, Dahlin, Jokiharju, Pilut, Samuelsson, Luukkonen Adams (11): Hinostroza, Jost, Krebs, Peterka, Quinn, Tuch, Clague, Lyubushkin, Power, Anderson, Comrie

Who the Pegulas didn’t even want to fire. Face it, the Pegulas really do “know a little something the fans don’t”. They know more about hockey than us all Combined, probably

Thank you so much for saying this

At least they took care to replace him with a right shot. It’s like they didn’t like Laaksonen’s shot at a depth RD role so bumped the process forward a bit to this guy

Would love to get @Ducky‘s thoughts on the Jets so far successful, I’d argue somewhat surprising season thus far, and how it pertains to the idea in the offseason they seemed headed for a rebuild. Has that shifted? Just a retool now? Or do you expect the bottom to fall out? Imo it’s tough to fully rebuild in this sorta situation because Hellebuyck basically provides them a get into the playoffs free card whenever he has an “on” season

By JA’s second year in the league he was better than a 2-1 TD/INT rate at 20-9, by his 3rd year he was 37-10 td-to-pick throwing for 4500 yards. Some of the JA narrative was sullied by the twitter convo that lambasted the pick from day 1, erroneously because he didn’t mesh well with the advanced stats, and they clung to that bias fir a long time. Lots of the more traditional metrics were always in his favour. In Tage’s 5th post draft year, he had 14 points. In Allen’s 3rd season, he was an mvp candidate

Whoops, thanks for the correction Still comes to the same thing for me, and I’ll say it again: it’s not as much about the snap shot in time from when they were drafted (though clearly JA still went in a different, higher tier - he was drafted with the *expectation* of being a starting QB, no?), it’s the context that includes the rest of their paths travelled since their drafts

I agree with everything you are saying tbh. It’s just the coin analogy that doesn’t work for me, because it implies they are equal in value and.. I mean Dahlin is Dahlin. Samuelsson is a great, and valuable, piece. He makes Dahlin better. Still not Dahlin.

Even Jonathan Cheechoo started his 2 year explosion at age 23, during his second year in the league (and then promptly dropped off)

I think Thompson’s rise was crazier. Hasek, (the best Sabres player I’ve ever seen, and the greatest GT of all time), was putting up good numbers from his first season in Buffalo Thompson’s rise is so crazy that people shouldn’t even bother uttering his name in reference to guys like Casey. He won’t rise to Hasek levels but again the key distinction with Tage is how little he had shown for as long as he did. To have his numbers escalate to the level they did, so suddenly, when all the numbers beforehand suggested “wash out” (his elite prospects page is awesome) is something I’m not sure we’ve ever seen, league wide.

Agree with your first paragraph. We were poor without Samuelsson, that’s true, but not only was the sample size small, the logic doesn’t exactly suggest we’d be any better without Dahlin, considering his impacts relative to Sammy, we’d probably be worse. We just aren’t using that as an argument for Dahlin right now cause he has stayed healthy. That’s circumstantial, no? Id be much more inclined to call into question Samuelsson’s durability going forward, as it pertains to value, before questioning if the Sabres wouldn’t suffer greatly w/o Rasmus for some random reason. We shouldn’t forget how much of a plus Dahlin’s durability adds to his side of the ledger, re: value Not sure man there’s a couple different things being added together here haha. - - - im happy with the team

Does this really have to be another Eichel thing? I don’t think Tuch would have the points he does if he wasn’t playing with the guy 3rd in league scoring. Regardless, let’s for sake of argument call offensive production this year a “wash”. Cause at this point, statistically it is. I’m glad you acknowledged how good Eichel has been defensively this year because we are only getting Eichel like production from Tuch if you are talking offensive output specifically, and aren’t using production as analogous to “impact”, as, when accounting for the entire game, their defensive impacts aren’t close.

It’s Thompson by FAR Allen was a top 5 pick - who rose to prominence pretty quickly, on schedule, after being picked. Thompson, several years after being drafted, looked on his way out of the league. Allen’s story is still an eye-opener but that just speaks to the absurdity of Thompson’s rise. You will never see a Sabre do that again in your lifetime