Archie Lee

I think this is true, and also speaks to the reality that none of those players took what you would really call a "team-friendly" deal at the time of signing. All three could have played out last season without an extension. Had they done so, the deals they got might have been different (certainly Thompson could have got quite a bit more, Cozens likely a little bit more, Samuelsson I think comes in about the same for a long-term extension). In Thompson's and Cozens's cases, the deals now look team-friendly, but given all knowns and unknowns they were fair for the time they were signed.

For what team to claim?

I'm not entirely above getting excited or worried about a pre-season result. But I temper my excitement or worry by reminding myself that by the time we get a game or two into the regular season, the pre-season will be forgotten (if it isn't already). If we had won 7-0 last night only to then drop our first 3 regular season games, I would not be taking solace by reminding myself that we destroyed the Pens in the final pre-season game. Last regular season, before November ended practically every playoff team had at least one loss like the one we had last night. Many playoff teams had multiple such losses in the first 2 months of the season. The Sabres are going to lose games like this. Hockey is more baseball than football. Last night's game is far closer in relevance to a MLB team getting hammered in a split-squad game in mid-March than it is to the Bills' opening season loss to the Jets.

I’m not worried about anything based on 3 pre-season games. But if I were to be worried I would be much more so by our defensive play than the goaltending. We have been outshot in every game thus far and by a total of 111-77. We will need to play better D and give our goalies a chance to be good. Specific to goaltending: - Comrie was fine and gave us a chance to win - Levi was excellent, but probably had the lightest workload - UPL didn’t help himself with the first goal, but that was a fluke in my view; he faced the most difficult shot distribution of the 3. You can’t take away a bad/fluke goal, but other than that goal I thought he was fine. Going into this year I strongly believed that improving our defensive play was as or more important to our improvement as improved goaltending. Through 3 preseason games my view has only been reinforced.

Biro might be perfectly positioned to be the 13th forward. Assuming Olofsson isn’t going anywhere, the top 9 is full. It serves no purpose to have Kulich or Rosen playing 4th line duties. Rousek does not need to clear waivers. Biro can play wing or centre.

No, you're not silly. That is reprehensible behaviour from a coach and frankly should have got him fired from that job, and permanently banned from coaching youth. The intentional humiliation and degradation of people who you lead, particularly young people, should never be acceptable. Thankfully we live in an era now where young people are empowered to speak up about this sort of BS.

My proposal would not be a rule change but would be to eliminate the offside challenge and to try and change the culture with regards to how offsides are viewed. In my new world, Linesmen continue to call offside as they see it; if they see the play as being offside by even the slimmest of margins they blow the play dead. However, the culture change would be to accept that a Linesman declaring a play as onside means that the play is onside and the defending team simply needs to accept this and defend accordingly. Much like teams just accept when an icing is waived off (they might complain if they end up being scored on, but it is generally accepted that sometimes an icing call is close and can go one way or another; offsides should be the same). The one thing the offside challenge has proven is that it is impossible for a human being to sort through multiple players crossing the blueline at high speed and at near the same moment, and clearly identify if the puck crossed the line first. This is so impossible that it is actually pretty clear that when the rule was created it was almost certainly not intended to be something that would be fretted over to any great degree. The intent of the rule is to prevent teams from being egregiously offside and not to have instances where we go to replay and zoom in back and forth in high definition to ascertain if the puck or the skate was over first, in some instances by less than a centimeter. The offside coaches challenge goes against the spirit of the rule in my opinion and doesn't enhance my enjoyment of the game.

I enjoy the Athletic projections. They are meant to generate discussion and I think they do that well. My summary of what they are saying here is: - The model is better at predicting regression than progression - Based on this, they are not anticipating that the Sabres will be better at preventing goals against, but they are anticipating they won't be quite as good as last year at scoring goals. - The net outcome is that they will be 3-5 points lower in their season ending point-total. I don't personally agree. It is easy to see how this could play out, though, particularly if the goaltending does not improve.

It’s difficult to plot out what the Sabres will do with all their players and prospects. I’m sure there is a similar example from the past, but I think it is quite rare that a team had both an NHL roster and a prospect system that are bursting with high-end potential. I don’t know what Zegras is looking for, but let’s say he wants to leave the option for a bigger payday and is wanting Thompson/Cozens money but on a bridge deal. The logic for the Sabres may be: - they have more prospects now then they will have space for over the next 2-4 years - as the team improves on the ice, they won’t be drafting as high and thus the prospect pool will start to age and dwindle If the Sabres want to spread out their long-term prospect depth/pipeline there may be logic to moving 2-3 of their top prospects for a player like Zegras. You then sign Zegras to a bridge deal and then 2 years from now you move him, or a different veteran, for a younger batch of top prospects/picks. There is risk. But then, there is risk in sitting on your prospects as well. At some point, with the number of high-end prospects the Sabres have, they will either need to move prospects for established players or move established players to make room for prospects. I don’t think the Sabres are at a point where they must do something, but the NHL top 9 is arguably near full now.

Selecting a qualified running mate from a particular demographic in order to shore up support in a particular area, is not really tokenism though. Biden, Kaine, Pence and Harris all have backgrounds that legitimately qualify them for the Vice Presidency. I think it’s fair to have opinions on whether they were the best available candidates, but none were solely a perfunctory or symbolic selection.

Wondering if people have a sleeper pick to make the NHL roster this year. A player who rarely if ever gets mentioned as being in the mix for an NHL roster spot. My sleeper pick is Brandon Biro. He was having a point per game season in Rochester when he was injured. Had he been healthy he might have been the call-up rather than Rousek. He plays wing and centre. He’s in the same age range as Rousek, Murray and Weissbach. I think he pushes hard for the 13th forward position.

I don’t see a relegation system working in North America. It just isn’t part of our culture. The NHL is going to continue expanding. In my lifetime it has gone from 6-32 teams. There is no reason to think it won’t continue to grow. As the league has grown though, it has caused me to re-think my approach to championship expectations. Winning a Stanley Cup today is more difficult than at any time in history and it will only become a greater accomplishment as time goes. I have accepted that I will not likely see the Sabres lift that trophy and have chosen to embrace the journey rather than spend my days dreaming about a destination that likely won’t be reached. What I would like to see in the NHL is a more full-throated celebration of winning the conference championships. In MLB, teams behave like they ended WW2 when they secure a wild card position. I don’t want the NHL to become quite like that, but I would very much like to see Conference Champs hoist the respective conference trophies over their heads, parade them around the ice, take the huge team picture, have the champagne and celebrate winning these as though they mean something. Winning a conference today is a greater accomplishment than it was to win the Stanley Cup for much of my lifetime. As the league grows in size, it is time for a new approach to celebrating accomplishments on the way to the Cup.

This would not bother me. It is inevitable as the cap rises that some star players will want shorter deals. If Dahlin extends for 5 years, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to be here or that he is gone at the end of the deal. It means he is here for at least 6 more years and if things go as hoped he will re-up down the road. Nothing here to worry about in my view.

This is what I think. The Sabres org has never been as down on Joker as much of the fanbase is. Also, they didn’t target two right shot D-men just to move one of them or Joker to the left-side. Further, D-pairings are nebulous. Penalties, injuries, in-game performance and the score of the game will dictate how many minutes each player gets and who they play with. You might start a game with 3 balanced pairings, but that is rarely how the game will play-out.

Pronman ranking Levi where he did means he projects him to have an NHL career as a tandem goalie. I think he is low on Levi, but I’m not sure it is the insult many are reading it as.

I think the Matthew’s deal is fine for the Leafs. Instead of an initial 8 year deal, they get him for 9 years with the cap hit going up 14% in year 6. He will be a UFA when he is 30, meaning the Leafs have him through his prime. We will see if Matthews starts a trend here. I still predict Dahlin will sign for 7-8 years at just under 10 million per. But I won’t panic if he extends for 4-5 years.

Re: Bouchard, I’m not sure they are comparable. Bouchard was the 10th O/A pick and didn’t become a regular until his D4 season. Also, the Oilers and Bouchard would have much preferred a longer term deal, but the Oilers’ cap situation makes it impossible. Power was 1st O/A, and was impactful in the NHL by D2, and the Sabres don’t have any cap issues that would prevent a longer term deal. If Power is bridged I would expect the AAV to come in slightly higher than the Dahlin bridge deal.

I'm no scientist. I think the evidence, as I understand it, supports that there is life on other planets in the universe. It's basically math. It's both extraordinary and not extraordinary at the same time. Not unlike the reality of how we all exist as individuals. There are billions of us on the planet earth. Yet, as individuals we are all extreme long-shots. Change almost any moment in the life of your biological mother and father prior to your conception and you don't exist; now multiply that by all that needed to go right for your parents to be conceived, your 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, etc. The same math kind of applies to life within the universe I think. It's extraordinary that life begins and evolves in any one place, but there are 100's of billions of stars in our galaxy alone. That life exists elsewhere would not be extraordinary. As for aliens traveling to earth, this seems highly unlikely to me. I'm older. It seems to me we are going through a moment similar to the 60's and 70's where distrust in government institutions has led to people drawing unlikely conclusions from things that may be unexplained but are not unexplainable. Also, as a Canadian, there is no widespread conspiracy theory/belief that I am aware of that involves the Canadian government hiding secrets on alien visitations from the public. Why do these aliens focus so much of their time and effort on visiting the USA?

It’s too early to predict. Last year we got our first look at the elite “I’m a man now” game that Dahlin can play. We are a year or two away from seeing that with Power. Re: Samuelsson, I think it is possible that he is our 3rd pairing left shot D this year, likely paired with Johnson. I don’t think we targeted right shot D as UFAs with the goal of keeping Joker and Boosh out of the lineup. I think the underlying numbers showed the reality of the Sammy/Dahlin pairing was not quite what the perception was. Add in that Samuelsson has yet to show he can stay healthy and I think reducing his minutes is something they want to do in 23-24. Also, I could be wrong.

This is possible, but not likely in my view. Barring a trade or injury, Olofsson is likely part of the opening night line-up and will be given an opportunity to play himself in or out of a consistent role. I think they would have preferred to trade him earlier in the off-season, but there is just no market for wingers in the NHL (which, by the way, should be a cautionary tale about the value of our smaller, unproven, not-guaranteed to play centre in the NHL, forward prospects). By the time Quinn is ready to return, other injuries will have occurred. Olofsson will, I think, get a solid opportunity to keep himself consistently in the line-up. I think they try to capitalize on his contract year status; 30 goals is not unrealistic. It's very possible that 6 months from now we look back and laugh at how we fans were generally so ready to just move on from Olofsson.

The team was one of the highest scoring teams in hockey last season and still missed the playoffs. The reason they missed is because they gave up too many goals. The head coach has been absolutely clear in his statements that the goal was to create an offensive identity for the team and for its individual players, and to eventually introduce tighter defensive concepts as part of a progression. Despite of this fact (our coach basically telling us that this was the plan), it is still the case that certain players have become emblematic of the team’s shortcomings. The 3 players who we have primarily singled out are UPL, Jokiharju and Olofsson. Granato and the assistants are all back. Therefore, to get better defensively we must remove defensive liabilities. I think the team will be better defensively when there is a team commitment to doing so. I do think that happens this year and that the 3 players I mention will be just fine. I’m not making a prediction, but I suspect a healthy Olofsson plays a middle 6 role for us all year (someone will be injured by the time Quinn comes back). 20+ goals is likely and 30 is a possibility.

Turgeon was the guy for me. I am similar to him in age and he and Mogilny were really the only two star players of my actual age-group. I also have a soft-spot for players whose shortcomings, fair or unfair, end up being symbolic of the team's failings. There is no going back and there is no knowing what would have happened under different circumstances (the Butterfly Effect and all that), but Housley/(Hawerchuk), Andreychuk, Turgeon and Hasek are hall of famers. Mogilny should be. Benoit Hogue and Uwe Krupp were better hockey players at that point in their careers than Randy Wood and Randy Hillier. Mike Ramsey still had a little mileage. As much as I love Lafontaine and recognize his injuries were unforeseeable, we were barely .500 with him and ultimately won nothing. I always thought the trading of Turgeon was an over reaction and shortsighted.

VO was 7th among forwards in time on ice last year. His corsi/fenwick stats were similar to players like Peterka, Cozens, Jost. There were stretches of time last year, despite what some will say, where he was one of our better forwards. He has weaknesses in his game and there are stretches where he can be a liability. It is clear the team knows this and indications are that VO understands this and is committed to trying to improve in those areas and, by extension, become a more consistent player. Whether he can at 27-28 is a fair question. I thought he would be traded this offseason. I'm not going to be upset though if we start the season with a 28 goal scorer who is a good teammate and in his contract year, in our middle-six. I would not be shocked if VO ends up as the 13th forward many nights. Likewise I would not be shocked if he plays with Cozens and Mitts and scores 35. Also, I'm fine with starting the year with any two of Levi, Comrie and UPL as our goalies.

I would love to add a true top 4 D to partner with Power. I don’t think it is critical though. Last year we started with Bryson and Fitz in the 6-7 roles. If we add another D that pushes Bryson to 8-9 (behind the new guy, Stillman and maybe Clague and even Johnson) then I think our depth is quite a bit better from a year ago. Add in incremental development still coming for Dahlin, Power, Samuelsson and (IMO) Joker, and I’m ok with adding a depth defender. Mikkola is my prediction.

I’m in the “it’s ok to be patient” quadrant of the fanbase. That said, I get excited about potential moves and opportunities for roster enhancement. The Quinn injury is terrible. I feel for the kid. But, some contending teams use situations like this as opportunities for roster enhancement. A roster space just opened up. We can give it back to OV, who the coaching staff did not trust down the stretch. We can give it to the best youngster in camp, knowing they might be overwhelmed at times (like Quinn and JJ last year). Or, we can go out and add a veteran who makes the team better. If we add, we can do so knowing that more injuries are likely and when Quinn is ready in January there will be others likely on injury reserve. I suspect we won’t add. But Max Domi, as an example, might make us a better team.