Thorner

The Sabres capitalizing / being at the forefront of increased league wide scoring is a trend that honestly does conjure memories of 2005

Gotta capitalize at the chance to get to .500 next game

Sabres average margin of victory: 3.46 (frankly this is insane imo) average margin of defeat: 2.06 So when they win, they win by a lot, and when they lose, they keep it closer Additionally, we only have 2 wins by a goal, and 5 losses by one goal If I’m not mistaken, this is not a dissimilar trend to one the bills were on re close games

Post this a third time and we’ll be drug testing you

Peterka was twirling his stick before the puck crossed the line lol

And plenty of times they’ve run up scores. And also are close to the lead in empty net goals. And yes they just plain score a lot more than one thing can be true

30 points in 29 games for Cozens, ya? I understand scoring is up but point a game still point a game. If he keeps that up, that’s 1C numbers combined with his good 2 way play

Way better than their record in those dastardly whites I believe

Bump

Funnily enough, this is kinda why we lead the league in goals yet are below .500 - they are definitely front-runners

Edit - they will not have a win when scoring 3 lol

They actually haven’t won when scoring 3 or less. So still on track for a breaker Olofsson looks better away from Casey Quinn made a really nice pass for apple Cozens another good game

I like all this and especially the bold. Maybe it was rocky for a bit but after these last two, trying years, our viewpoints are aligning right up now for next season, and going forward it seems

Please see edit

So what’s your expectation for next season? Or, more to the point, what do you feel their expectation should be?

Ya, no. It’s the plan’s 3rd year next year. It’s time to win. If they aren’t actually winning games by the third year, said plan is lacking. You cannot tell me with the forwards we have the expectation for next year shouldn’t be playoffs. Half the teams make it. It’s time for that to be the goal. You are absolutely correct it should be results driven. This year, our result is pacing to be the same as last. Improvement is required - - - Im not saying they HAVE to make it, there’s a distinction there. I can live with not making it if that’s the goal and they fall short. But they need to internally be preaching playoffs not outwardly preaching development year, like they’ve been reasonably honest in communicating this year. We might not make it, if it’s the goal, but if it’s not the goal we DEFINITELY won’t. All I said is that if they enter into the year again with oodles of cap space and again preaching development as the priority focus, it won’t fly for this fan. Regardless, from all outside reports, Adams has realized it’s time to supplement now

Bumbles Badly is such a good nickname

There’s that thread thats lying in its title, ya Granted, the stat I mentioned includes “3”, it entails 3 or less goals. Which is why it’s so crazy imo, you should win games occasionally when scoring 3.

As long as he gets back in and gets a good, definitive run of games this season, for better or worse. He plays well, and proves he can at least be a back-up, great. He plays poorly or mediocre, we can look to improve this offseason. Absolute worst would be him never getting into enough action this year for Adams to feel like he was properly evaluated ie pencilling Comrie in for an evaluation year next season. They need to be much more certain heading into next season on the state of their goaltending, assuming playoffs are the goal

Daredevil....ya Though Colin Farrell was un ironically great in that Loved the town. You are right, he’s a great director

Honestly, this. “Development year” in a GM’s 4th would probably break me.

Biggest thing is changing the Conn Smythe trophy to someone else in light of the comments he directed at Herb Carnegie ”In 1938, Carnegie caught the eye of Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe, who allegedly said that he would take Carnegie “tomorrow” if he could “turn him white.” According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, another version of the story has Smythe saying he would pay $10,000 to anyone who could turn Carnegie white.” https://www.sportsnet.ca/longform/inside-fight-get-herb-carnegie-hockey-hall-fame/ Not saying we need to erase Smythe from the history books - but naming the most important trophy in hockey, for an individual, after him is a pretty big “Why?!” to me.

Sabres are 0-11-1 when scoring 3 or less goals this season. What a wild stat. It’s super positive in a way because there’s clear runway for improvement, but also a massive indictment on the goaltending approach

Marek today was talking about the work Sakic did in Colorado, how he inherited a lot of the high end talent there, but his work was in manipulating the group into what it is, buoyed by savvy, moneyball-esque free agent pickups. He said one of Sakic’s biggest things was that you should never turn down the opportunity to improve your team, no matter how small, considering the difference between winning and losing at this level can be razor thin. Reminded me of the work Adams is doing, to a large extent. Not claiming Reilly, for example, seems to fly in the face of the “anything to improve” thing, but the reconfiguration of the asset base into a worthy sum of its parts sounds like what he’s doing/attempting.

Is that She-Ra?