Thorny

Sabres would destroy them

Byram is so so bad away from Dahlin FIRE ADAMS already yeesh

Sabres are 19th in even strength goal differential this year 5 V 5 is way too narrow and pidgeonholed to matter for much of anything on its own: as we can see borne out in the results Good even strength team is a myth, and using 5 V 5 is less relevant - - - people use a narrowed “5 V 5”, sometimes even just “5 V 5 gf” to claim the issues are purely special teams or even that the forwards are ok: it doesn’t work like that. There are more forms of even strength and there’s more to the game than offence even strength goal differential for Adams: ‘25: 19th ’24: 17th ‘23: 19th ‘22: below 25th (had to pay for more) ‘21: below 25th …this is supposed to be our calling card? We are 5 years in people. Below average even strength play. This is why we miss the playoffs: we pretend a stat that has us sitting around mid-pack once means enough to make large generalizations about what we need and willingly choose as narrow a focus as possible so as to paint a brighter picture

👀

Thank god for Monday night raw

Detroit and Ottawa are both going to miss the playoffs and we’ll have to hear about how it’s not that bad cause they also suck

The team is subject to emotional roller coasters both ways that manifest in play owing to the fact we are a young team and young teams are rife with growing pains this is often the natural order of things and is ok if it’s a means to building a team: but we are the youngest every year. It’s not a means to an end: we are simply young by choice

I’d be listening. And I’m not a blow it up guy - we just need some substantial tweaking

Alex Tuch said they’ve come a long way

Bless you. Not snark

Type of game we battle back and hear about turning points

Adams heard he was getting some praise for the Greenway acquisition at that one deadline so he’s running it back

If only the culture that arises around a franchise that willingly ingrains the idea of winning not being the priority was imminently predictable years ago..

“The new 4th line!”

Exactly. I’ll keep saying it: “winning trades” is the province of rebuilding teams. “Winning games” is the province of good teams. Adams makes some good trades but clearly, as you point out, not by the prism of the construction of the whole. We are supposed to be measuring by results now, right? Evaluate trades (and lack there of) relative to the affect they had on winning or lack there of. Not purely through the context of asset comparison.

I’d say the 2011 team was pretty darn average, and playoff bound

The team averaged 76 points per season over Adams’ first 4 seasons The Sabres are pacing for, checks notes….*76 points* this season. Do we think, maybe, we are a 76 point team under Adams?

6 playoff misses to give before we miss 20 straight I miss the days of the Sabres being a mediocre hockey team

It looks like Power’s mistake at first (and he certainly doesn’t play it well) but only because Byram’s play was so unfathomably bad you can’t see him at first sitting around playing Pokémon in the corner for reasons best known to himself

Agree. To me it’s the Lemieux / Sid goal that generally go back and forth for the 2 spot. Few really consider the McDavid goal on that level - for whatever reason this board seems to be a bit of an outlier And yea, Binnington was lights out when the needed it. Saved their bacon

Eichel finished 8th in mvp voting at 23. Of course he was dominant that season. The fact he was just entering his prime when we dealt him explains why that wasn’t an every year thing with him. I honestly don’t know why I keep mentioning that season and development, no one cares to remember it it must be fun to just jump around from argument to argument whenever it suits one best. We have to be patient with 21 and 22 year olds.. unless it’s Jack, he was simply never dominant - - - What’s downright lunacy is lamenting the fact we “missed out” on McDavid rather than lamenting we wasted the asset we did get that was MORE THAN CAPABLE of being the best player on a cup team. What more can you ask for? Imagine being more annoyed we didn’t get the better guy, as if that matters one iota, when we proved ridiculously incapable of building around a player who, again, any team would kill to have because they can be your central player on a cup team you are disappointed our failure wasn’t a notch worse? Ok

I don’t really understand this website. I feel like I’d have to argue that water is a liquid Ok. 2010 goal is irrelevant even though it quite literally always tops the Canada wide polls. I think that’s now 452 posters that have disagreed with me, claiming the “4 nations” goal is quite comparable to Henderson, and the goal from the Olympics quite meaningless. I do digress.

I’m not, that’s what has me placing the goal as high as I am tbh, as manufactured as a lot of that controversy was. I think I just ranked it 5th - not bad for a tournament that was a non entity almost no matter who you asked, 2 weeks ago

You are focusing too much on USA specifically. Canada was coming off a loss in 2006 in Turin, we had to re-prove against everyone. Canada won the most recent best on best headed into 4 nations look, if this was the biggest goal ever for you - all power to you. It was great, the tournament was really fun. Me thinks we are starting to conflate the 4 nations coming in well ahead of expectations with being the Olympics. Maybe the 4 nations becomes the premiere tournament one day, but it has a long ways to go. It may never be played again. Again, it was only 4 teams. That alone gives the Olympics a level of prestige let’s see in 15 years if it’s still being talked about as the biggest ever

You can call it bigger than Hendersons if you want, too: you’d still be wrong. You are in the vast, VAST minority. Crosby’s is considered bigger, but you don’t agree personally. That’s ok! you literally can’t find polling online that doesn’t have the Sid goal vastly ahead