PerreaultForever

I'm still going to disagree with that. I firmly believe that being part of winning at the lower level would benefit him more than being surrounded by the stink of losing he has gotten here. The team we have is delusional top to bottom. Watched a Tage interview post Colorado and he was talking about all the good things they did and how good they played. THEY LOST. I never hear that on any other team. Having Benson in junior and another Zucker type veteran in his spot would have been the better plan. Lack of veteran leaders is the biggest problem and the idea of a room full of kids growing together is ridiculous.

I disagree. We want all these kids to come in as children and some of them like Benson shows signs of being able but there's more to becoming a pro than just playing, becoming a man even if you like. Sure, you could argue that he won't learn much in junior but would it be so bad to have him dominate in junior? Win a championship maybe? Captain team Canada in the world juniors to maybe not choke? Get bigger and stronger and then be really good and strong and confident when you come into the NHL full time? What have the Sabres achieved keeping Benson on the roster other than burning years off his ELC and showing fans how useless the other guys are in terms of effort. We do not know how to develop young players properly. That is certain.

Oh absolutely. The KA plan was Thompson, Cozens, McLeod. Lafferty/Krebs. Things don't work and players don't play up to their expectations and Ruff juggles and tries everything. There is a bias towards his own guys that is certain, but that's not unique. Most GMs do that. But yes, he'd like you to at least believe he made out okay on it. He did not.

There have been numerous 4th line players as good or better than ours that have been waived over the course of this season. So everything Adams did there was a waste. Zucker is the best and we got him by overpaying him and he will be a fine 3rd line player for a playoff team down the stretch. Adams will try to get a first for him but I doubt he will. I suspect a 2nd so that'll give him a wash on Malentstyn I guess. McLeod is okay but not great. He's definitely not as good as Mitts was if that's the intent, but he is better than Krebs. Thing is, if he does make any big moves it'll probably be Cozens or Byram or someone like that and that'll open up more holes that need filling so next year it'll be all about Helenius or some other kid. So same problems.

Two simple benchmarks. Benson stands out like some extremely able prospect here and on any other team he'd be good, but he'd be just another rookie. Zucker, a third line player on past teams, stands out like he's an allstar here. Everything is relative.

This one is really hard to watch because you can just see they can basically generate zero offense at all. Vegas isn't even breaking a sweat.

For the right offer nobody on this roster should be untradeable. Byram will be traded imo. He's going to want a lot of money and there is no way they can pay Dahlin, Power and Byram with big deals at the same time. Not the way they budget and plan. Now if somebody wants to offer a lot for Power's potential, then by all means move him. He's certainly not worth what he gets right now. What I wouldn't want to see though is moving players out for picks. We've done enough of that already.

It's looking like Ottawa was just riding the Ullmark wave. With him injured they've fallen back to looking, well, basically about the same as the Sabres.

Well ya, that's what I meant. Benson didn't play the last half of the period or thereabouts. Definitely not in the last stretch. I really think Colorado did the challenge to make a statement. They didn't expect to win it they wanted to frenzy up the crowd and their own bench. It worked.

Well yes, I suppose faking injury could be a thing, I'm just saying I've seen whistles for less. This looked like obvious distress and the play had moved away from the goal area already.

Initially, but didn't he sit for the last half of the third?

Trades would be pointless. We need to add veteran leaders. We've needed that for a long time and still do.

In fairness however, it was odd that they did not whistle the play dead for the injured goalie. He was clearly hurt and down and there was quite a bit of time before he scored. I've seen many games where that would be whistled dead long before the wrap around took place. Pretty sure that was the big complaint. The cause of injury was obviously just a hockey play where the D man knocked him towards the goalie. I think Colorado challenged it just to punctuate their complaint. Also weird that Ruff held Benson out after that to protect him from getting killed. I guess that's a good thing, but also what does that say about this team?

and they beat the Bruins who can't score a goal to save their lives on any night. One of the funniest things now is watching Zadorov shoot. I remember watching a playoff game with Vancouver where he rifled one into the net and I though wow, he's developed a cannon with his size behind it and I guess Sweeney saw that too. Trouble is that was his 1 out of 100 shots that actually hit the net. Somebody needs to get that man a pair of glasses. Shoots wild is an understatement. Point to my mentioning this is Sabres have blown another season that has teams falling and opportunities there for the taking as Washington has done.

Well the third period was certainly eventful. Can't say I got bored, that was some major entertainment (although I'm sure Colorado fans think the refs suck). When you look at the impact a veteran like Zucker has you just can't help but think would we be a playoff contender if they'd spent to the cap and added another one? At least I think that. But we need the money for next year I know Kevyn I know.