Thorny

Dahlin might really screw around and end the year as a minus player. Would have been simply unfathomable as recently as a couple weeks ago. They urgently need to pull up here cause this nosedive is quickly getting dangerously beyond late season peter out

Dahlin gets his 50th assist - - - Honestly, when he got his 49th, I did not expect the Sabres to be this far back in the race when 50 came

Agree - and not only just because we are still measuring how much progress we’ve made. But also because this team has by their own admission made “vibes” and chemistry a huge portion of their focus and I can’t imagine a complete crash as we are seeing bodes well on that front. Not when “want to be here” is central messaging. “Here” can’t be a gong show

Yikes Granato yikes sabres

GM needs to assume heavy bias on both sides, and weigh the macro statistics take with the macro eye test take to an equal degree

Thompson with even one more signature Tage night w/4 points or so would go a long way to making 100 likely. Dahlin SHOULD hit 50 assists, might hit 70 points

One of these days Dahlin and Thompson will go off again and all will be right with the world

I’m more than familiar with your well-documented stances on it and the implications of what you meant by “not building a team around him.” Your first comment you came swinging in with was “Eichel never won nothin”, now you step back from it and do the “yeesh”/under attack thing. No dice lol

But if he doesn’t make the playoffs next year, it’s going slower than you thought, right?

And he’s their best player. Leads a first place team in goals, points, points per game, and, at a career best +20, leads that category as well. Also easily leads in even strength points, and has taken only 4 PIMs all year funny how he’s perfectly capable of being the best player on a really good playoff team with a proper surrounding build you guys are really just gonna continue on with this instead of letting it go and taking the L. Let it go. Eichel is perfectly capable. It just wasn’t capable of working HERE, anymore Hate him. But he’s not an unwinnable cancer, never was, and he wasn’t the reason we didn’t win

Looks like Quinn Hughes mixed with Carey Price

I’ve been waiting for Dahlin to get his 50th assist for a month

Exactly

@Xzy89cwhat don’t you like about my post and the others?

There is no chance we could ever build up enough deterrent to prevent that type of play multiple times throughout an 82 game grind. It’s not THAT shot that functionality ended his norris push. No more than it truly being a straw that breaks the camels back the meaning of that saying isn’t about the strength of a twig it’s about the cumulative effect of all those twigs to Dahlin’s back over 82 that all “go to guys” face and until we have MORE go to guys Dahlin will face a disproportionate amount

This lends some caution to the idea it’s purely a KA thing, no? Like, it wasn’t just “free cap space!”, the actual tangible dollars mattered?

A tangible goal is Dahlin not going 8 games without points. We generally win when he contributes points and doesn’t when he does not. Not running him into the ground minutes wise should greatly aid, and that means defensive additions and assuredly not rookies.

Nah, we need a system that priorities our strengths and players good enough to offset the weaknesses relative to the weaknesses of other teams The Boston comment is wild. They are, assuredly, significantly more talented, “apt” (whatever word you wanna use) than Buffalo. It’s not even close. All around ability is also ability. Goaltending is also part of the roster. You basically said outright that there’s no difference in talent, and that the difference between a 21st place team and the greatest regular season of all time is system. That’s wild.

Biggest straw man going in Sabresland right now, here, Twitter, or otherwise “Even prime hasek” the absolute gall to suggest the best goalie of all time wouldn’t improve (substantially) on guys putting up “nearly average” numbers. It’s honestly hilarious, the amount I’ve seen people tweet: “look, our goalies are almost average, what about the rest?” WHY is goalies the only thing we’d be ok with being “almost average.” My word in heaven. It’s like, “could hasek replicate his numbers EXACTLY with a poor D? No? HAH! I guess we don’t need improvement in goal at all!” It just makes zero sense. An utterly terrible straw man. it’s like “good being the enemy of great” as Creed. Worse than even the band.

^ It is admittedly a weird thing re perception Talking labelling here, when you get labelled a good “defensive Defenceman“, that means you have to be TWO things: 1) good on defence 2) poor on offence but just because samuelsson is a good defensive Defenceman, just because defending is HIS speciality, it doesn’t mean it’s better than Dahlin’s. Dahlin isn’t an “offensive Defenceman” complete with all the accompanying connotations. He’s just a great Defenceman

A few reliable, stay at home types, but real NHLers, that coach would be unafraid to ice unlike Bryson and co would go along way to preserving our minute eaters on D. A goalie add would go a long way towards addressing the D acumen of the F purely through the highly scientific principle: “no harm, no foul” - - - Add in a sprinkle of defensive growth, but still setting the forwards loose on O and providing a fail safe in net probably represents a more feasible correction strategy than finding more defensive, and good scoring, forwards.

Interestingly, we have 4 players at +10, leading the team. 3 of them are defensemen. Considering that’s half the top 6, and the half much harder to find, there’s a non negligible chance it’ll be easier to fix the D of our D than the D of our F

I suppose starting 5-6 rookies would be an explicit message to the fans, in and of itself

It’s true, I’ve been mentioning how Dahlin’s numbers have taken a big hit due to lack of D depth catching up to him - it’s not as extreme with Thompson but it’s still taking a toll at this time. At once what looked like a certainty, Tage will need to score 13 points in his last 13 to reach the 100 point mark. Currently in 10th in league scoring, still good for a tie with Jack’s placement on said list in 19-20