Pimlach

Jost signing.

All I can say is I hope and pray for the best for her and her family.

Given the Sabres current payroll, and the current state of the team, what would you have signed Cozens for? You can be Adams for a minute. What is your offer?

Up an down? Bottom 6? He is 21. This is his 3rd season, his first season was the Covid shortened season. He plays on the second line with two rookies. When the coach shelters the rookies ice time he plays with the other lines to get him ice time. He has improved every season, in every aspect you can measure. He plays both PP and PK. You want him to get a bridge deal for $3-4M for a few more years? By the time that expires we will have re-signed Dahlin and Power and who knows who. Cozens will ask for $10M+ and then we watch him walk away. If you believe he is going to be a stud 1/2C and potential Selke type player then you sign him now, for less dollars overall and for longer term. There is risk. There is a huge reward.

He has already has passed Girgensons. In 49 games he has 17 goals and 43points, Zemgus never hit that those either of those numbers in a full season. He is doing this while breaking in two rookies on his line. On top of that he is our best faceoff center, our best two way center, he plays on the PP, he plays on the PK, and he is only 21. This is a team friendly deal if there was one.

Sure, he is a star. You said superstar and for me that title is reserved or the likes of McDavid, OV, Crosby, etc. He can get there. That 100% borderline bust data tells me nothing without the backstory. I look at what was asked of him after he was acquired and how he was developed. He needed time in the AHL and instead they played him in the NHL, then when they finally sent him down and it helped him. Then the injury in 19, then Covid the next year. Stats don't tell me enough without the back story. The benefit of hindsight tells us the Sabres were more responsible for his early problems than he was.

Tage was never a bust, let alone a complete bust. He is not yet a superstar either. I look for more longevity before I toss around that label. 2017-18 - First round pick and 26th overall, for St Louis. One of the top prospects for St Louis, played 30 AHL and 41 NHL games. 2018-19 - Packaged in ROR trade to Buffalo. Started the season playing in Buffalo and played 65 games at wing, played 8 more in AHL. This strategy was completely backwards from what it should have been given the Sabres team at the time. Like a few others on this team, he was completely thrown to the wolves by an inept FO and coaching staff. 2019-20 - Hew looked very much improved and much stronger in preseason after a great off-season of hard work. Got injured in his first game and was out the rest of the season. Played 16 AHL games. Lost an entire year. 2020-21 - Covid year, he got Krugererd for awhile. It looked bad for him again and then all of a sudden he showed real signs of life under interim coach DG. 2021-22 - Move to center full time, breakout year under DG. 38 goals (turned 24 during the season) 2022 -2023 Currently top 3 in goals, top 5 in points and selected to All Star team. Now you can like him. He had a challenging start, he really needed more time in the minors, and he had one serious injury. Once he hit 22, people in the know could see the player coming out. DG was the right guy to switch him to center giving him the room to use his skills.

I don't know how Portillo slots ahead of UPL.

Blue pants solve the problem. It breaks up the white pajama look, and it is closer to the original home whites but with the Goathead.

We won't recoup the assets we spent. If we cant extend him next season we won't get what we paid to get him.

Uh, no. They play better on the road because they are not distracted. They live, breathe, and eat hockey when on the road. They get the sense of being a team on the road, that may be lessened at home. When they are home they are doing other things and not thinking of the game all the time. They have more distractions at home. This team is extremely young and this is not uncommon. Sure, every team prefers to play in front of a large enthusiastic crowds. Home or road, its more fun. If this is their problem then pump more noise into the home games.

I sold a home in 2016 and spent about $300 on minor repairs that the Buyer requested be made by a licensed electrician, and maybe another $200 on repairs made by me. That was it, I keep my stuff in good working order always. Some inspectors wont nit pick and kill the sale. When we bought we asked for a few repairs and the Seller balked, my realtor told them they were reasonable requests. For example they had several Anderson double hung windows and the chords were broken. That is not a nitpick. They made the repairs, some were made by a person I wish would have just left it alone.

This really does not need much analysis. We can beat this team if: we play at our best AND we have a hot goalie And they don't play to their normal standard. None of that happened and we need it ALL to happen. The building does not matter.

OK, name the routines that will overcome youthful immaturity. What exactly can he do. Better pep talks? Make them put their phones away 3 hours before game time? no video games in the locker room? what are these routines?

I was interested in buying a house a few years ago. It had a finished lower level, it was an atrium ranch with the back of the house full of windows overlooking a view down a gentle hill to the woods behind the house. A small creek flowed through the wooded area. Beautiful! It turns out the house had foundational problems that were corrected and disclosed. I could not see most of the corrections because the basement was finished and the walls and floors covered. In the unfinished portion of the basement I saw a few wall cracks (looked like minor surface cracks) with what looked like measurement devices (strain gauges) mounted across the thin cracks. I made an offer pending inspections and all the normal stuff. I hired an inspector that was a Civil Engineer and who had a PE license. He found the details on the house prior to his inspection. The foundation was corrected and the property was re-graded and documented in the town records. The history was enough to scare me off. Surprisingly concrete pillar's were installed across the yard and burried under the top level of soil. The pillars were to stop soil movement. The house foundation was pinned in front and on a roller in the back, very elaborate. The gauges were used to monitor and measure movement of the basement walls, most were now under drywall. The work was done over 10 years ago. Records showed the original owner sued the Builder. The Builder made good and bought the house back, fixed it, and eventually transferred ownership to his son. The son was in it for 10 years and was now the Seller. He and his lovely wife made the place beautiful. My inspector was able to explain how the work was done and was impressed by it. However, he found evidence that the basement side wall had moved again - he could see it from the way the siding was bowing in certain spots. He use lasers to make measurements. Most people would never notice it. The forces from the front of the house that caused the soil movement might still be at play, or there is settling that is causing it. Either way, he predicted in time more problems would occur. I walked away. The Seller understood. We looked at few weeks later and the house sold to someone else. Bottom Line. Most inspections are routine and some inspectors are not very good. But sometimes inspections are absolutely critical, especially if you are not a person that understands construction and how to build and fix things. The cost to get this inspection was worth it.

That should not be legal.

It is a combination of young roster, DG, and attendance/atmosphere.

Good move. Dahlin deserves it anyway. For those speculating about Tage over the past few weeks this answers the questions. Injuries are slowing him down.

Sounds like a Gordon Lightfoot song. Like a Gordon Lightfoot song. Or Deep Purple

One post and he figured it out. Get them the dam blue pants.

I don’t know what you don’t understand. Sounds like you got it

I don’t know about light years but we have dues to pay. Getting to the playoffs is an huge hump, especially after 11-12 or whatever it is years, and then getting abused in playoffs is the first step. I sure hope we do that this year. KA should make a move to try to get us in. Look at Brind Amour in the locker room after the game on TNT coverage. He has a team of men.

Thank you Marv

Well. We sure didn’t impress America tonight. But I am happy with the teams overall play at the All Star break. Still very much a work in progress. 9 days off, when they get back they are right there with a legitimate shot at the playoffs. The last time I said that was decades ago.

Single Malt smooths out the losses.