Doohickie

Do you even Sabre, bro?

Only if they don't want to be here.

The bear commercials were great. I miss the days when they showed the local commercials during the out of market games. And that fish commercial: "We were biting this morning.... we were biting this morning."

Especially special teams. Realistically with better-than-average special teams we're in the playoffs right now.

Muel's problem isn't how much we pay him. It's his ability to stay healthy. I hate that he's spent so much time in IR, but when he's healthy he's fine.

I think Benson is already a good two-way player, and putting him on a very offensively minded line is just good line construction. Let Tage Tage and let Benson cover for him which he's pretty good at already (and Tage is okay backchecking too, just saying having a player like Benson around let's him concentrate on the offense more).

fify

I like the idea of lines 1A, 1B, 1C (or possibly 2A, 2B, 2C depending on how you look at it). At the end of the season we had Benson - Kulich - Tage JJP - McLeod - Quinn Zucker - Krebs - Tuch I think all those lines could be a top scoring line... though whichever one Tage is on is probably going to be the top, top scoring line. My point is that rather than having one line that is clearly the best, balance the skill mix (and to a lesser extent the skill level) to get three lines that an opponent can't contain (maybe one, maybe even two, but not all three). To that end, Benson is the forechecker, the pot stirrer, the physical pest on that line. Out of the other two, I think I'd swap McLeod and Krebs so that on the JJP line, Krebs is that pot stirrer, and then on the other line, Tuch is (although he's more of just a big physical presence than a pot stirrer type). If a coach wanted to balance the top three lines, then yeah, Benson is a top line guy with a specialized role in that line. It matters not if he doesn't score a ton, as long as he's disrupting the opposition defense and enabling the his linemates to score.

Different but similar effect: Both guys are best when they get opponents off their game. Remember all the penalties Skinner drew? That's what I'm talking about. He was more psy-ops though; Benson is more physical distraction, and Benson's game is more consistent. If he can get to the point where he's chipping in 20-25 goals but his linemates are scoring 30-40, he'll be a great first liner.

Nah. Even if he's not scoring big points, he takes the focus off Tage, giving Tage more room to maneuver. When Tage was clicking with Skinner it was a similar dynamic, it's just that Skinner was a more adept scorer. But that will come for Benson.

He's a current top 6 forward already.

I wouldn't sleep on Tage next season. I bet he comes out flying.

Especially his reaction to the question about how was it to come to the "Oh Woe Is Me Buffalo Sabres" and he basically said to stop yer whinin'.

Because then it can’t be used as an excuse at season’s end get out of here with your iron-clad logic It can't be team mandated under the NHLPA contract, can it? They can voluntarily work out on their own but the team can't mandate it?