Thorny

Boogeyman. Even Arizona had to be pried out over decades - - - Regardless, you’ve ignored the fundamental aspect of my argument which is the disingenuousness of the stance. “Be happy with a bad team or else”. no thanks If you don’t think Promo isn’t continuously putting the onus on the fans, the fact they “aren’t showing up”, you aren’t familiar with his postings heck, ask him yourself

Sabres aren’t leaving Buffalo. “Be happy with a bad team or else” is a boogeyman It’s sort of the Last Desperate Argument of the “it’s actually ok we’ve been historically bad under this putrid owner for a generation” side of things. “At least we have a team at all, right? Don’t rock the boat, it could be worse. Stay in line, eyes to the ground.”

It very well could. And rest assured the fact it took Adams far too long to field a playoff team will fall by the wayside of “I told you so! He’s a genius!” when that happy day comes

The Poltapov timeline

Live look at GMKA:

No real teams proactively ensure they have the cap space to retain their whole roster by ensuring said roster doesn’t amount to anything. Sheesh

The argument seems to be: “If we build this roster in a way this season where it actually has a good chance of making the playoffs it will be a little tricky to keep that playoff team together to a man going forward, so instead, DON’T put the team in a position to make the playoffs.” Genius lol problem solved!

You are on notice

Tage is a physical freak. It does matter.

^ ^ !

So his goal in signing in Buffalo would be our willingness to launder him into a prospect by shipping him to contender at the deadline? “Giordano is likely to join a club on a one-year deal worth around or under $1 million. While the preference is to sign on with a contending team right out of the gate, according to Winter, the veteran blueliner is open to joining a rebuilding club as a mentor with the notion of being moved to a Stanley Cup contender ahead of the trade deadline.” lol

Sabalenka would not be denied

So what odds are people giving this team right now, what are we thinking? I feel like I settle in somewhere around thinking playoffs are about 35% likely. Could get that up to 50/50 pretty quickly with a fast start

He just had a kid, right? Weren’t people around here putting out the idea Thompson’s season he just played may have suffered for similar, life based reasons? Maybe he doesn’t like the idea of a prove it deal right now

Agree. - - - Krebs doesn’t have leverage, except for the fact he can point towards our ambundance of unused cap space and make the argument he shouldn’t be “squeezed” Ie we can easily afford him. I’m far from a Krebs guy, but imagine listening to phoney baloney KA endlessly tout “want to be here” and then watching a clear overpay to someone like Zucker from outside the org. I’m not saying I agree with him but he can probably see as well as anyone we are an internal cap team not operating like an nhl team that wants to win. Is Krebs behaviour sort of odd? Sure. Unusual behaviour begets unusual behaviour

Tide goes in, tide goes out. Can’t explain that.

Honestly doesn’t even need to be anything that nefarious. Dollars to donuts Adams is just blowing smoke anyways, if he did say something like that. It doesn’t sound substantially different than last year: “We have to embrace expectations,” general manager Kevyn Adams said Wednesday as the Sabres opened training camp. “I look at pressure as a privilege.” Under pressure to make the playoffs for the first time in 13 seasons, the Sabres have set higher expectations for themselves.* Granted, the coach definitely paid the price. But I’m not convinced Terry considers Adams in particular amendable to the result to the tune of a potential firing, as long as things don’t get embarrassingly bad. If they are in the hunt to be in the hunt, I don’t SUSPECT Adams job would be on line. But that’s just a guess. Friedman’s “could be consequences” MIGHT hold weight, but “no excuses” is status quo jargon imo - - - *https://www.wivb.com/sports/buffalo-sabres/sabres-windows-open-right-now-gm-kevyn-adams-says/amp/

Agree. Their primary goals appear to be different

It’s far less concerning on its face than the lack of spending is. Teams that don’t spend to or near the cap also lose hockey games I’d be pretty surprised if anyone sought to make a “there’s no internal cap” argument, which is really the only handcuff that matters right now. Assuredly the proof is in the pudding by now, indisputably, as the Sabres have demonstrably spent less and continue to, even while proclaiming winning is the goal knowing full well teams that make the playoffs don’t have the cap space we do. The goal isn’t winning: it’s winning while spending less. And that, frankly, is exceptionally insulting to a fanbase waiting on 14 years. There’s no way to spin it: it’s the reality we are in as fans of this franchise

It’s true. At the end of the day, the rest is superfluous if Byram just ends up good. It’s ultimately ok if we are deeper at D than at F if we have 3 all stars on D. We’ve had worse problems. File it under good problems. All that window dressing stuff is just interesting right now because generally you’d be looking to factors like that as a counterpoint/mitigating factor to the obvious talent/output. But without that being demonstrably there last season with Bowen, the “oh and he SHOOTS LEFT, too!” stuff is essentially piling on. If Byram is good, the trade is fine

Matthew Fairburn of the athletic: The priority isn’t winning. I’m sorry. Byram has assuredly not played affectively on his off hand. His numbers there are atrocious

We should vote on new names. I vote for Camp Krusty

It’s a good point. They even mentioned, as this team always does, that they had a pidgeonholed role in mind for Bowen upon arrival: that of Dahlin’s partner. It should be noted, considering Byram’s quite poor work on his off hand (not all D can do it) that it was necessarily placing Dahlin on the right. Which, I am fine with, if it needs to come to that, but I’m not sure I would have actively sought a trade that might make it necessary: as good as Dahlin is on the right, there was an excellent deep dive last offseason that demonstrated he’s better on the left. Even if just by a little

The thing about Power and Byram is that Power was better than him last year. So I’d definitely say the likelihood Casey adequately “backfills” two centres he performed better than is greater than the likelihood Byram can capably backfill a player he performed worse than. Wild, I know. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Byram elevate his game going forward, but certainly not to the extent I expect Power to. The gap between Power and Byram should only grow imo. But I’m pretty high on OP

And the counter to that counter would be that forwards on average drive play in todays game far more substantially than D men - - - I don’t see the Vegas model at all. I see a bit of Nashville