Thorny

I’d honestly be shocked if we led the league in goals and missed. One of those will break They just can’t willingly forgo a significant G upgrade to spare his feelings, tho

I think you are about right

You gotta stop trying to catch me in a contradiction - - - im not alternating the base of my argument, I was playing under the “seems to be” lingo you introduced, under the prism of good faith. “Seems” isn’t “is”. Dylan indeed needs to continue to bear this out. But didn’t you see the part in my post where I said exactly that? That Cozens needs to complete the season this year? “Tbh, IF Cozens holds up” is what I said. But if your target was “seems to be”, we should make note of what it accurately is, under the context you’ve chosen

Honestly I don’t think Murray trading a 1st hurts, or hinders his argument. There’s a ton of context at play: notably, that Adams moves *in general* speak to aptitude, whereas Murray’s moves did not. Murray didn’t perform well then get burned when he tried to deal a pick for a player. The *majority* of his moves reflected poor aptitude. That is to say, Murray’s dealing of a first failed more because of his poor evaluation, and poor decision making ie WHEN to make the trade (which I things goes with your point), than it did because it’s no bueno full stop to trade a first for a goalie. The time wasn’t last offseason, again to your point, but I trust Adams to deal a 1st to supplement the position going forward. It’s just a completely different situation to Murray, now (again, to your point, I think)

Yup. And old habits seem to die hard because Cozens’ production isn’t being called out often enough for what it is: production that of a 1st liner. KA won. It’s over. The “development year” lingo I so despise was the correct play: this year identified the core, and not by default (the key point). It was the correct strategy, in hindsight, because it was clearly useful in identifying said core - I can’t argue it wasn’t worth approaching the season this way, when it had produced so much valuable, workable information. Congratulations, Kevyn Adams. Congratulations, fellow Sabres fans. Our GM is certifiably competent, he has, I believe now to a certainty, come up with a no-bones-about-it, *good* plan. This offseason we start the trial of whether or not he’s just a good GM, full stop. Does he get this team to the next level, the one half the league’s teams makes: the playoffs. If he passes that test, we can see if he’s got what it takes to be a great one. For now, I’m confident in saying: we have a GM. We don’t have a Tim Botterill.

No lol But I think we all know what would (or wouldn’t) happen, if we could

Exactly what I was saying, though ^ Crosby was a double digits guy who took less to... remain double digits. He already got his big deal. The types of guys we are talking about re: discounts right now, the Dylan Cozens etc are not analogous comparisons

And it’s a key point though. He didn’t take a team discount. The Sabres won the day with a shrewd evaluation. Make no mistake, if this business was all sunshine and daisies, maybe Adams since he wants players to want to be here and values the culture so much, allows Tage to renegotiate here instead of probably playing out a deal that frankly greatly underpays the man for his services. Tage is already on track to lose out on at least *20-30 million* in “deserved” pay over the course of his deal. We are frankly stealing from him. So do we see Adams giving him the raise he deserves? Lol, right? And make no mistake, with the trend of playing for expected performance rather than past, it’s unlikely Tage makes up ground on deal 2. The Sabres aren’t going to do Tage a solid here, neither should we expect the players to do so. The Sabres absolutely cannot and I’d argue will not use this excellent work from Adams as a lever to undercut the values of his other guys. Tantamount to a “gotcha” - “you all now need to take extravagantly team favourable deals.” The Sabres savings with Tage are benefit enough. We can appreciate the significant flexibility having an all-star locked up to a 2nd liner’s deal provides without expecting this sort of lucky value to be transmitted among the new deals for other players. That’s not to say we won’t see discounts: the exact process that led to Adams identifying Tage early presumably leads to future savvy evaluations. That is to say: ppl may be right that the Tage deal might mean future good value deals: but not because they’ll be “granted” to KA because he discovered some sort of contract anchor loophole. But rather, because the processes that are evidently leading to the revelation that he’s a good GM are likely to carry forward Disagree. Cozens right now is producing as a 1C. So he “seems to be” a 1C. Isn’t he still getting better? Dahlin won’t be below 10. Dude is pacing for 100 as a franchise D!

These are players that already banked oodles and oodles of cash. Crosby is a 10 million dollar play. Any idea how much he makes in endorsements? This isn’t a Dylan Cozens taking a 25% shave off his first shot at a big deal im sorry and I say this from a spot of trying to help: people are out to lunch on this. Please prepare yourself for players to sign for much closer to market value than anything construed as a solid to their corporate bosses

Agree, and it should also be noted that Tage didn’t “take a discount”, presenting an example for others to follow. He went with job security - a reasonable strategy. But it would be disingenuous to suggest he willingly chose to forgo more elsewhere - he just went with the less risky play.

Even a situation like Tampa, the gold standard of “players buy in at a discount” set the “limit” at the Kucherov 9.5. A superstar # when signed, not to mention the tax discount being in Tampa. The Buffalo Sabres of western NY won’t get away, in 2022, with a “don’t peak behind the Skinner curtain, 7.5 mil TNT-proof” ceiling. If Dahlin does us a massive solid, he comes in at 10 flat and maybe, with generous, love to be here unity among players, THAT sets somewhat of a ceiling

Exactly - it’s on Tage for signing early. If other players wait, you can’t expect them to take massive discounts on their value. Dahlin is well, well beyond the 7 mil value now. Tbh, if Cozens holds up, his market value is also beyond 7. He’ll be younger, and coming off a better season than Tage did when he signed his deal. It’s not 2006 anymore - 7 million is not a star player. Tage is closer to being underpaid by *100%* than he is to “good money but not excessive”. He’s being paid like a good second line C and he’s playing like a franchise C.

Why? Why would people need to pretend Tage is being accurately paid? It’s a massive elephant in the room - I don’t think the real world works like that where context can just be willfully ignored. If Thompson’s deal is going to artificially sink all his teammates new deals I’m not sure how popular he’ll be in the room or the GM for that matter. It would seem almost a trick. Get one guy locked up severely under value and expect all the rest to play ball by that number? Jut can’t see it honestly

Agree with you in general, but considering the .500 mark is one we haven’t eclipsed in 11 years, since 2012, to me it’s a mark worth making note of. Tbh, I’m hoping that expectation can shift in season but not quite ready to bump the goal for this year beyond 82 points quite yet. It won’t fly. Skinner already makes more, for 1. The Sabres don’t get the game shark cheat code of “ha! Now we never need to pay anyone first line numbers!” because they got a ridiculous steal in Tage. 7 whatever is too low a realistic ceiling. Maybe if he was sitting at 9/10 like other guys we’ve seen where some sort of “ceiling” was attempted Dahlin alone is already at 10 or more

Honestly this is exactly the vibe I was feeling that you’ve now put into words haha. It’s the alliteration I think. edit - re: my point on alliteration. Might have helped if there was even one alliterative horse in the ‘16 field but alas, no. Whoops. Well, whatever.

^ add him to the drug test list

Wait Thompson’s second you mean?

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