Curt

Bishop is finished playing. He is on LTIR. He is physically unable to play. He was going to work with the Stars as a coach but I believe the NHL said he couldn’t because he was technically still under contract with another NHL team.

I think it worked out great for Peterson. He went somewhere where he got a chance to play. Got a guaranteed $15M contract. Pretty nice for a player who looks like maybe he isn’t anything more than a fringe NHL backup.

Power is 20, but your point stands.

One Example: 2019-20 NJ Devils had 8 players who were in their first 3 NHL seasons, including both of their top 6 C’s and their starting goalie. Similar to what Buffalo has going on right now. Another: The 2016-17 Maple Leafs had 7 such players. Another: The 2016-17 Hurricanes had 10 such players. For comparison: The Sabres look like they have 8 guys in their first 3 NHL seasons who will play half the season or more for the Sabres.

Definitely not in this post. Though I still don’t understand what it is that I’m so optimistic about? I don’t think think I’ve expressed much optimism recently regarding the Sabres.

I really really like Beniers. I wanted the Sabres to draft him. I think he will cool down a bit though. He is shooting an unsustainable 23%, and the Kraken actually get outshot when he is on the ice. He is just on a heater right now, with 12 pts in the past 6 games. Before that he went 6 games without recording a point. Great player, but so is Power. Jury is still out.

Why is he so bad? His numbers look pretty good.

I see a lot of people complaining about the current course that the team is taking (building for future instead of an all out effort to win immediately). Saying how they are sick of it, and that it’s more of the same from the past 12 years. I honestly don’t see it that way. What Adams has done the past two seasons is a distinct departure from what was done before. I was sick of them doing a ***** job of trying to fill roster holes year after year and failing miserably due to incompetence. That’s not what they are doing right now. It seems that a lot of people have no interest in examining what the Sabres are trying to do, or how it’s different from years past. They just don’t give a ***** and refuse to give a ***** until the team makes the playoffs. I can’t really blame anyone, but I think it’s leading to a fair amount of misplaced frustration and unrealistic expectations for those people.

I’m sorry, but what in this post was optimistic? I didn’t say that anything was good or bad. It was simply a comment on what I believe that the team is doing and my opinion that they need to make a decision on whether some of these guys are going to stick around.

They led 4-1 and then they played like crap. They got outplayed. IMO

Previous game they were outplayed and won, so maybe it evens out……..?

Also, if you claim him off waivers, you can’t assign him to the AHL. You need to keep him in the NHL by rule.

How soon is “too soon” to give up on Mitts? He is the same age now that Thompson was when he broke out, and there are unique reasons that Thompson broke out so late. That’s an outlier. Most forwards are at or near their peak at 24. I think he’ll get the rest of this season, but I’m personally not optimistic.

I don’t see how anything that you wrote here is in response to my post that you quoted. Did you quote the right post that you intended to?

Yeah, my point was just that I think we’ve seen enough of some of these guys to know. I don’t fully agree with your assessment but that’s kind of a different matter. Yeah, they have the rest of the season (or at least until trade deadline) to play with things and see if they can get any of those guys going.

I’m kind of already looking at what they will need to do beyond this season. I’m pretty confident that Mitts will be here for the rest of the season, unless he is part of a Chychrun deal or something like that, which I think is pretty unlikely anyway. I’m basically assuming that they will keep everyone around until the trade deadline at least. But if things continue as they have so far and we finish with roughly the following: Tage 75+ points, Tuch/Skinner/Cozens all 60+ points, Peterka/Quinn both 40+ points, Dahlin 70+ points, Power 35+, Samuelsson playing well, maybe Jokiharju playing decent too; then I don’t think it is justifiably to go into next season with Mitts, Olofsson, Krebs, Asplund, and Savoie all penciled into the bottom 6. They will need some players who fill those roles more appropriately. If the top half of the forward and defense groups look ready to rock, it would be very disappointing to let the bottom half sink them.

I understand what you are saying, but I don’t count seasons or years in number of games. Olofsson is 27 and in his 5th season of NA pro hockey. Mittelstadt is 24 and in his 5th season of NA pro hockey. Asplund turns 25 on Saturday and is in his 5th season of NA pro hockey. Krebs is only 21 and it’s only his 2nd season of NA pro hockey. I believe he has a good amount of rope left. Regarding the other 3, how long do we need to wait to evaluate them? Do we need to wait until they are 28 years old before we make a decision on whether or not they are any good? I think I’ve seen enough to decide.

Yeah, the change in player usage is definitely something to monitor. I think that they are determined to find out/decide what they have in a few of their players (Mitts, Asplund, Olofsson, maybe Krebs etc). These guys have 4-5 years of NA pro experience and Sabres are going to need to decide whether they are going to be part of the team going forward or if they will be moved out in favor of either younger players coming up, or role player/s coming in from outside.

All what picks? All these picks from the past two years? All those players that aren’t close to sniffing the NHL yet? It’s only two drafts where they have had a lot of picks. From 2017-2020, the Sabres did not have that many draft picks. Also, Murray, and Botterill to an extent, did not do too well drafting with the picks they did make. From the start I thought that the Sabres would end up with mid-80’s points, and I still believe that they will. Once we saw the roster, the playoffs were very unlikely. I understand what they are doing this season.

I didn’t say anything about turning a corner, having hope, or progress. I was just pointing out that if all you care about is wins, then you should be happy because they won last night. I don’t think they have turned a corner, in fact I have not liked a lot of what I’ve seen the past 2 games, and it really has nothing to do with their record.

They won yesterday. Results.

You are fine. I just thought you might have some specific media in mind. I’m not denying that Eichel improved a great deal defensively during his time as a Sabre. It’s just that he started off actively quite bad his first couple seasons, and improved to be about average maybe. No where close to Selke worthy. IMPO.

This is not what I had in mind when I wrote this at the beginning of the 3rd period.

Who are these people in the know who are pumping up Eichel’s defensive contributions? I saw one tweet of a fan survey or something that had Eichel as a top-10 Selke guy. Is there more than that? I don’t really count his coaches, as they are not exactly unbiased.

F’n right Cozens. Great back check.