Ctaeth

will miss ahl all star challenge event. Pretty silly to take it away from the kid, imo

Sabres. The formerly dominant eastern conference nhl teams are on the decline (i.e. bruins, lightning, penguins, etc). I think the bar is lower for the sabres and finding a good quarterback is difficult (jets)

Mixing in vets with your younger players. What a wild concept, maybe the sabres should try this

I would argue that keeping Cozens for another year and NOT shipping him out for something of value is also a huge risk that seems unlikely to work out. If next year he continues his poor play, his value is going to drop like a rock with that contract. Might as well take a shot with him while he still has value. If he goes somewhere and returns to the player he was signed to be... I'm happy for him. But it's getting more and more likely with every passing game that what you see is what you get.

Nice to see him succeeding. Wasn't sure what was going to happen to him down there without Kulich, was kind of a sink or swim situation without him. But it appears it has forced him be more aggressive offensively rather than always deferring to his good buddy. Shows some versatility in his game, can be an assist guy or can score the goals if need be. A bunch of his points have been on the powerplay... could be a decent boost in that regard. It's worth pointing out that the Metsa, who is on an AHL contract I believe, is at 30 points (3 goals, 27 assists) in 41 games with a +10. He has leadership qualities and is the sort that you want to keep around (was a captain on quinnipiac the year they won the national title and is sporting an A with the amerks right now). I said it last year and I think I'll say it again... they should be signing this guy. I know he's a bit older, but he is good depth and he ought to get a shot at some point to show what he's got at the next level.

I feel bad for josh. He has been stepping up in these critical moments and the team ends up coming up short anyways. It's just disappointing. However, I will say that while I am disappointed, I don't feel defeated. We have the rest of JA's career to win a super bowl and I strongly believe that they will do it before he retires. Also, where was Cook on that last Bills offensive drive? Guy was electric the whole game and then suddenly they get away from him when it matters? On the first play of the last drive.. they handed it off to Ty Johnson on first down with the season on the line. I don't have anything against Ty Johnson, but Cook is far and away the more dynamic player and is half the reason the score is so close.

Further proof that this team is less than the sum of its parts

I'm split between rooting for a loss or win at this point vs a western team that i dont care about. Ambivalence it is

I agree that keeping all 3 would likely make us a better team in a vacuum (if you're planning to pair Byram/Dahlin long term). But when you account for money, power play time, etc. I think it might become untenable. To me, it really all depends on what Byram is looking for both contract wise and play wise. We have OP running the second pp unit. If Byram wants a large-ish contract and more power play time, you just simply can't keep both him and Power. Either OP/Byram ought to go. Paying Byram like he is running the PP and is the alpha in the first pair (when he isnt - Dahlin clearly is IMO) would be a luxury. As for those other teams who have high scoring D... I have two responses. 1: are they paying all 3 defensemen 7+ million aav? because I wouldn't be surprised if Byram asks for 7 mill aav. you are then paying 3 defensemen a lot of money (and not all will be used on the pp). if byram's ask is in a more reasonable range, i'm open to keeping him as dahlin's partner (if this is indeed what dahlin wants) 2: who is really driving play there? with colorado and vegas, I'd argue it is their elite forwards (eichel, stone, mackinnon, rantanen, etc.) and their defense is benefitting pointwise from being paired with great forwards.

Need is a strong word, but it's not how a successful team is (usually) built. 1. Defensemen can play a lot more minutes. If you have 2 really solid guys, you can have ~50 minutes of the game with at least one of them in. 2. Defensemen don't score a ton of goals. If you put too much money into offensive defensemen, you're handicapping your offense by not paying another good forward AND your defense (because usually offensive defensemen aren't as good at defense!). 3. Powerplay time. 2 power play units. 3 players vying for 2 spots QBing the pp. Making matters more difficult in this specific case is that they are all LHD...

I've liked his game when I've seen him play. He's definitely not a passive player

Östlund 3 game point streak and points in 4 of last 5. Starting to pick it up since starting slow with one goal in his first however many games

I dislike how the narrative around the Bills win is that mark andrews more/less handed the Bills the win

Bills vs chiefs/refs Sunday @6:30

Will be at the game tonight. Wife bought tickets for me for xmas and I feel obligated to attend.

I'm down with this sentiment

Only 1 punt on the day vs one of the better defenses

Surprised they didn't kick the field goal there, would've made it a two possession game. Glad it worked out

This is not a bad team when we get secondary scoring. I choose the phrase "not bad" because I refuse to call a team that currently sits in last place in the conference "good". But I think with secondary scoring they can at least compete with anyone

Ayyyyyyy, quinn goals. Love to see it. Foot on the throttle boys, game is still early

that remains to be seen. who knows how good savoie is going to be in the nhl? Brett Murray leads the AHL in power play goals and I don't think he's going to be a great NHL player anytime soon. Savoie could be great and make the sabres' management look stupid (they probably are regardless), or he could never live up to the draft position and then the trade was a steal. I'm not going to criticize KA for trading away prospects for NHL players even if they turn out great. We have some many prospects that we currently don't have the capacity on the Sabres' roster to bring all of these young guys up. What?! Devin Cooley is an all-star?! Stop

seems like kind of a personal question

Even if they -by some miracle- get the points for making the playoffs this year, it would absolutely mean that they played well for part of a season. They have done that before and falsely given hope...resulting in little to no changes in the offseason. I don't believe it would significantly change how I view them in the macro... as an inconsistent team that doesn't -currently- have what it takes to succeed in the playoffs. IMO, regardless of how the rest of the season plays out.. they should be changing how they are operating. If they made a run, I would definitely be excited, but I've seen enough from this group to believe they don't have it -without some major changes-. It's probably a moot point anyway.

8th in the east is so far below expectation that all eastern teams are "in the hunt". I'd argue: who cares if they are in the hunt or not? If they somehow manage to miraculously make a run, it would be to 8th place and would still not show the improvement we expected and hoped for. For Pete's sake, they lost 13 in a row. No decent team does that. Changes should be incoming regardless of how the remainder of the season turns out