IKnowPhysics

***** yeah. I love our threads. Simply gorgeous. To the above, I'll add that Devon Levi could be an out-of-left-field franchise-altering piece of the Reinhart trade.

This a thread to get high on. Only earnest positivity. No negativity, no sarcasm, no backhanded compliments. Pour your hearts out about what you're liking or loving about the Sabres. What are you looking forward to? What elements are you hopeful about? What's driving even the smallest amount of hope? ============================================================================================== For me, from the top down: We have awesome and passionate fans. And while the fanbase is centered in a town that's cool as *****, literally anytime I rock Sabres gear out of town, even very far out of town, I run into more awesome Buffalo fans. We're all over. This will never change, and I can't wait for the fanbase to get rabidly crazy again. We have financially stable ownership that has a sincere interest in winning. We didn't have this for a many, many years, and I don't take that for granted. We have a pretty above average arena (certainly not among the league worst) that's going to get some cool renovations in the next decade. Roster-wise, we've been converting our player assets into futures, and these futures are starting to bear fruit. We have some excellent young players already on the roster in Dahlin, Jokiharju, Cozens, Mittelstadt, Bjork, Olofsson, and even Thompson and Asplund are showing promise again. High-grade talent is on our door step. UPL, Ruotsalainen, Power, Quinn, Peterka, Johnson, Laaksonen, Samuelsson, Bryson are all poised to make impacts in the next couple seasons. We're not anywhere close to being in salary cap hell, which will afford us all sorts of interesting opportunity and flexibility. We've apparently got a new scouting and analytics approach that, if the draft is any indication, could be very aggressive in identifying and acquiring talent. Our group of selections, even beyond the consensus 1OA, was very highly rated. Maybe league-best. I look forward to seeing this in action in the UFA period. This is the GM that landed Taylor Hall, and while Hall didn't work out under Krueger, the UFA signing itself was a swing-for-the-fences player management home run. And it's likely that this management group has likely only gotten smarter since then. We've got a new non-interim coach that has already established himself to be much, much better than our previous coach, as demonstrated in both team performance and critical individual player performance. The systems are better. The player usage is better. And now that the staff has a chance to actually hold a training camp and practices, I'm upbeat about the opportunity they now have to make a bigger positive impact. With regard to a Jack trade, Kevyn Adams seems to be doing the right thing: holding and not lowering the price. Jack is our best and most important player asset. He's going to be a great Sabre or, if that's not in the cards, I'm hopeful that he's going be leveraged for an amount of franchise-transforming future potential that is simply staggering. I love watching hockey, I love playing hockey, and I love our team.

Good idea.

Twenty five years of internet. Yeah, I've seen some pretty awful *****. [holds up twitter blasting the trade return for Reinhart] You see this? All this *****? It's not your fault. Look at me, son. It's not your fault. No, no you don't. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault.

34GP 13G 32A 45P in the Q, leading Shawinigan in assists, points. Good production.

Saginaw Spirit (OHL) 54GP 6G 8A 14P in '19-'20. OHL didn't play '20-'21 due to COVID.

Here's some youtube. Finding good highlights is a little tough. Played through the WJC with a fractured rib. https://www.tsn.ca/team-canada-s-devon-levi-played-through-injury-at-world-junior-championship-1.1580584

Played with Prokhor Poltapov on Krasnaya Armiya Moskva. 50GP 9G 21A 30P, 5th on the team in points. Committed to UNH next year.

Tripling down on MHL players. Bonkers.

*****.

Yep. Imagine firing most of the scouting staff, sending who's left to the WJC, and then going all-in on the tournament standouts.

Also, ***** you Jason Botterill.

It's gotta be this. The only redeeming quality of this trade is that the 1st rounder isn't being reported as conditional or lottery-protected.

Welp, congratulations to Devon Levi, who will now face an unfair and insurmountable amount of criticism.

The new CBA implemented last year took away the ability to make picks conditional on whether or not a player with an expiring contract re-signs with a team. I gotta believe that this is what's gumming up the works, as the value of Reinhart-the-longterm-player vastly outweighs the value of Reinhart-the-one-year-rental, and Buffalo wants to maximize return. Because it's been this long, I wonder if Reinhart and his agent are being included in discussions as part of a sign-and-trade. Getting Reinhart to sign a deal that is both satisfactory to Reinhart and the Panthers would inherently be a slow process, especially if the Panthers' office is busy drafting.

NYR didn't find any buyers for DeAngelo and expectedly bought him out, clearing $4.1M this season and $3.6M next season.

Unfuel the jet.

Hard to tell. From what I've seen over the years, the NHLe factor of the MHL is ~0.166 versus the QMJHL in the ~0.25-0.28 range. MHL is still "the top junior league" in Russia, but I have a feeling the bad teams are worse and the bad players are worse, leading to stat inflation (or it being an easier league to play in). Doesn't mean NHL-worthy gems can't be found. And it's likely the sample sizes are small for the MHL. And NHLe trends tend to get broken by the extremely talented outliers anyways.

#2 in goals and #2 in points in the MHL with 61GP 36G 37A 73P.

For the curious, the plot's vertical axis is individual shot attempts per 60 minutes and the the horizontal axis is pass attempts through to or through dangerous areas per 60 minutes. Could be a result of being the go-to player on a decent team in a weaker MHL league or could be a sign he's an animal with the puck.

Fire the GM that kept making short term bridge deals.

Chad has doubled down that the "third name" he can't confirm is not Lundell.

It's entirely possible that the league wants to announce on-air at the beginning of round two. It'll be leaked before then.

Never forget that Sam is an asset we tanked an entire year for. He's a cornerstone and trading him must better the franchise significantly and with low risk.

Light the torches. We ride at dawn.