PalmTreeMafia

This is the final road game before a 7-game, 17-day home stand. A Sabres win and a Pittsburgh regulation loss tonight puts us in a tie for the #8 seed and no more than 5 points behind playoff spots #2-7.

No, it's about the other 15 teams and not the points. That's quite obviously the way the playoffs are decided; there is no point threshold you can reach to assure playoffs. And we also don't have enough data to make a strong conclusion about this threshold. Five seasons under the new Eastern Conference division alignment and playoff format isn't enough. Here are the points for the lowest wildcard team and also the points for the first team to just miss the playoffs: 2013-14: 93 / 90 2014-15: 98 / 96 2015-16: 96 / 93 2016-17: 95 / 94 2017-18: 97 / 96 So you can perhaps say with some degree of confidence that 99 points will get you in and 92 points will keep you out. But these numbers depend a lot on how top-heavy or bottom-heavy the rest of the league is, or how many games are going into OT. Note that the 97-point demarcation you suggested wasn't sufficient in 2015 and may have also been insufficient last year, depending on the win total. I think my point is that we - as Sabres fans interested in the playoffs - need to do both: track the team's progress toward the 90-100 point range, but at the same time follow which teams in the top 8 are potentially collapsing (Montreal?) or which teams in the bottom 7 are quickly rising (Carolina?).

Another way to look at this is that we need any one of the 7 teams above us with 58-62 points to collapse - Wash, Pitt, NYI, Columbus, Boston, Toronto, or Montreal. The most likely team to collapse, in my opinion, is Montreal. They are 5 points ahead of us but have played 2 more games.

It was absolutely painful listening to Marshawn Lynch on the Bill Maher show. I love the guy, but he clearly doesn't belong anywhere near a political show. And come on dude...you need to vote. No excuse for not educating yourself and participating in the democratic process.

A few things wrong with this statement: 1. Who said that any of the 1st round draft picks have to be traded? I'm sure JB can find a couple useful forward rentals for the playoff push without having to sacrifice any major asset. 2. JB can always make trades that convert 1st round draft picks into older prospects further along the development path. This might be the more preferable use of the 1st round resources, no? 3. JB has spoken extensively on the importance of building a "winning culture" in Rochester. Shouldn't that philosophy also be true for the Buffalo squad? We're quickly approaching 4 straight seasons in Eichel's career where the team didn't make the playoffs, the middle 2 of which the team underachieved in a very big way. At what point does a "losing culture" become ingrained in Buffalo, assuming it hasn't already? Patience is a virtue....to a point. Beyond that point, it becomes a cause of failure. I don't know exactly where that point is for JB, but my fear is that he has been looking at this as year 2 of the rebuild and not an inherited year 8 of a rebuild that began with Regier. If the former, then he may be building a roster of Pierre Turgeons - that is to say, individually talented players who collectively never end up winning much of anything bcause they don't know how to do so.

I dont necessarily think talent is the issue. Dahlin, Ristolainen, McCabe, and Pilut is a solid top-4 of the future. Guhle, Laaksonen, Borgen, and Samuelsson are good prospects to help fill out the third line of the future. Bogosian and Nelson are capable stopgaps. I think Phil's coaching is the biggest problem, followed closely by the NHL inexperience of Dahlin and Pilut and the general suckiness of Scandella this season.

Cool philosophy, brah. You're kind of like the Vontae Davis of hockey fans, eh? Here's what I see: Tampa Bay miles away from the rest of the conference, then 7 teams collectively separated by a miniscule 2 points, and then the Sabres 4 points behind those 7 teams with another 68 points to fight for....so let's keep fighting. The long break from hockey will give everyone on that roster time to do some soul searching. Do they want to continue as perennial losers, making it 8 straight years without the playoffs at an organizational level, while watching other franchises around them rise, fall, and rise again? Or are they willing to put the time, effort, and focus needed to make the postseason for what will be the first ever for almost all of these players? Notes for JB: call up Olofsson, Nylander, and Smith again. Get ready to make some trades, preferably for a center or two. And get rid of Scandella, Bay-low, and Sobotka in the process. ***** the draft. Let's win now. Way past tired of watching bad and inconsequential hockey.

Tim Schaller! Now there's a tank era name I had long forgotten.

I can't keep up with all these crazy Scandinavian names in the NHL.

Wouldn't that be something if we find out the Buffalo Bills have been cheating all along this century...

They also cheat a ***** ton. Cheating helps. They've also been collecting 5-6 easy wins every year against two of the most historically incompetent franchises in pro football (Bills and Jets) plus another that has been a joke since Shula and Marino left.

Get a room , you two.

Dave DeGuglielmo? Maybe they already knew he wouldn't take the job in Buffalo. Maybe Bobby Johnson did play a big role in improving the Colts' OL. Maybe he learned a lot there that he can use to help build the OL in Buffalo. Anyway, I'm done with this conversation. I'm not getting worked up over an offensive line coach hire.

Expect? No, we shouldn't expect anything. But Nylander could be one of those players who elevates his game for the pro level. Call him up for a few games and see what happens. What's the worst that occurs? He doesn't score at all and plays terrible defense? Not any different than half of the forwards on this roster.

Huh? The Colts' OL was excellent this year. And I thought he did a good job with Chan Gailey, given the complete lack of talent he had to work with in 2010 and 2011.

The chance of winning any of the 2019 top 3 lottery picks is 3.3% for the 15th worst regular season team. Professional Vegas gamblers would say that the Sabres have significantly better odds of winning a first round playoff series versus any of the Caps, Lightning, Leaves, or Bruins.

Careful there, pal... "My way" isn't the Tim Murray way either. I don't advocate reckless trading and incoherent roster construction. In fact, I don't advocate touching any of our first round draft picks unless the return includes a long-term top-6 forward. We don't have to sell the farm to get what this roster needs to make the playoffs this season: at minimum, 1-2 forward/center rentals who can help slot the rest of our forwards into their more appropriate lineup positions. I think it's very important that our young team gets playoff experience and establishes a winning culture ASAP, and I also find it deeply disturbing how so many of you don't think this is important.

Patience, young man. Patience. Everyone knows that you can't ever expect to finish among the top 50% of hockey teams in a season until half your active roster is filled with lottery picks and the rest with late first rounders. Everything is going according to plan. Get ready for some playoff hockey as early as April 2022! And if the puck bounces our way, we may even run into the new Seattle franchise in the 2022 Stanley Cup finals!

I didn't understand that one either. At least on paper, we have more talent RIGHT NOW than either of those two teams. This is why I'm starting to climb on the "fire Housley" bandwagon.

We'll be out of the final playoff spot in a few minutes.

JB really shouldn't be waiting until the 2020 draft to round out the top 6 forwards. When would a 2020 1st round forward even be ready to play in the NHL?! I think JB needs to have all top 6 forwards on the big roster and ready by this fall. This isn't that big of a demand. The top 3 are already set with the Skinner-Eichel-Reinhart line, so it's really just a second line that needs to be constructed out of Mittelstadt, Nylander, possibly Olofsson, possibly Thompson, any free agents this summer, any of the 2-3 1st round draft picks we have this summer, and any type of creative trade JB can make a la the Skinner deal. Enough is ***** enough with this never-ending rebuild project. Patience isn't necessarily a virtue here anymore. It may be signs of a management, coaching, and ownership group that simply doesn't know how to build a highly competitive hockey team without having to tank for lottery picks every season.

Doubtful. I'm sure everyone will come up with new excuses for why 2019-2020 just quite wasn't the season to break the playoff drought. Youthful inexperience, injuries, the need for just one more lottery pick on the roster to make everything okay...

Agreed. I doubt that any of Scandella, Bogosian, Beaulieu, Nelson, or Hunwick will be on the Sabres roster 1.5 years from now. I also am unsure if one of McCabe or Pilut fits into the long-term plans because of the expansion draft. And it's too early to say anything about Guhle, Laaksonen, Borgen, or Samuelsson...none of which really project as top-pairing NHL material. Ristolainen will be a long-term Sabre, but he's not a good match with Dahlin. So the only long-term glaring hole on defense is this #1 right shot d-man to pair with Dahlin. But the Seattle draft looming in the future puts some near-term constraints on where and how we can find this guy.

It's shaping up to be a 3-man race for 2 wildcard spots between Buffalo, Montreal, and NYI.

I'm normally not the superstitious type, but...get back on the road! We still have over half of a period left!