The Future's so Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades😎

[Porous Five Hole]

Dahlin and Tage are automatic all-stars. 
 

If the NHL still held a young stars game, all of Power, Quinn, and Peterka would be invited. 
 

There’s loud banter about locking Cozens up long term. 
 

 

The Sabres are 8-3-1 with Mattias Samuelsson in the lineup. They were 3-10 without him.
 

Development is painfully slow and the Sabres are close to the youngest team in the NHL (certainly the youngest if you exclude their backup Anderson). 
 

No one on this team has to wear the failure of the Sabres current league-record missing the playoff streak. Please keep that in mind. 

The Sabres are on pace for their best offensive season since 1992-93. https://t.co/nmh7MOvAbU

And the Sabres have a boatload of cap to spend to keep and acquire. 
 

We all want the playoffs ASAP. And there are messes to clean up (goaltending). But it’s time to stand down on the demands of immediacy. 
 

All of the young guys playing up a role from where they “should” be will pay long-term dividends.  Time to watch the growth and enjoy. 

[PromoTheRobot]

People can't handle this.

[Stoner]

2 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

People can't handle this.

I can handle the tooth.

There was a cool scene after one of the goals... Quinn Peterka Cozens Dahlin and Samuelsson celebrating together.

It could be the future. Who knows.

[Porous Five Hole]

1 minute ago, PASabreFan said:

I can handle the tooth.

There was a cool scene after one of the goals... Quinn Peterka Cozens Dahlin and Samuelsson celebrating together.

It could be the future. Who knows.

I appreciate the observation. I choose to hope. 

[Doohicksie]

It moves every time the Cozens line hits the ice.

4 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

I can handle the tooth.

There was a cool scene after one of the goals... Quinn Peterka Cozens Dahlin and Samuelsson celebrating together.

It could be the future. Who knows.

[Stoner]

1 minute ago, Doohickie said:

It moves every time the Cozens line hits the ice.

Fine. The standings look a little back to the future tho.

[Doohicksie]

Just now, PASabreFan said:

Fine. The standings look a little back to the future tho.

[pi2000]

It's nice to see the young kids playing well.   They have a loooong ways to go tho. 

[Zamboni]

More threads like this instead of the negative Nancy, doom and gloom, everything about the Sabres sucks, nothing will ever get better, past history tells me there is nothing good in the future for this team, all decisions are wrong decisions by the brain trust threads. Is a step in the right direction. A step. 👍🏼
 

Seeing bright spots in the wins is easy. Can you see bright spots in the losses too?  🤔

[Porous Five Hole]

21 minutes ago, Zamboni said:

More threads like this instead of the negative Nancy, doom and gloom, everything about the Sabres sucks, nothing will ever get better, past history tells me there is nothing good in the future for this team, all decisions are wrong decisions by the brain trust threads. Is a step in the right direction. A step. 👍🏼
 

Seeing bright spots in the wins is easy. Can you see bright spots in the losses too?  🤔

I thought about this…am I overreacting to wins over Detroit & SJ and just wearing rose colored glasses? And I’m an optimist by nature.  I will admit that the eight game cooler frustrated me as much as any pessimist.  But as you said, a step is super relevant in a development year. I also see a forward step. A top line and a fun line. A future 1A & 1B defenseman.  It’s a long season, but the sun is bright. 

[Taro T]

12 minutes ago, Porous Five Hole said:

I thought about this…am I overreacting to wins over Detroit & SJ and just wearing rose colored glasses? And I’m an optimist by nature.  I will admit that the eight game cooler frustrated me as much as any pessimist.  But as you said, a step is super relevant in a development year. I also see a forward step. A top line and a fun line. A future 1A & 1B defenseman.  It’s a long season, but the sun is bright. 

For the 1st time in forever, they have 2 legit scoring lines.  They also have the pieces in the system to have a 3rd by middle of next year at a realistic latest.  (Might not come to fruition by then, but very possible it will or even sooner.)

They've had 2 legit lines before, but typically 1 was a 4th line.  This is different, and usually worth the price of admission IMHO YMMV.

[PerreaultForever]

1 hour ago, Taro T said:

For the 1st time in forever, they have 2 legit scoring lines.  They also have the pieces in the system to have a 3rd by middle of next year at a realistic latest.  (Might not come to fruition by then, but very possible it will or even sooner.)

They've had 2 legit lines before, but typically 1 was a 4th line.  This is different, and usually worth the price of admission IMHO YMMV.

Did they not have 2 legit lines when Eichel and O'Reilly were here with Kane and Reinhart as well. I think they did. It was different, but I think those lines were "legit" regardless of how that ended. 

The optimism is fine, and I hope the believers have it right, but we aren't really beating the good teams yet. We have a long way to go.

We kind of have half a team, which is better than what we had before. 

[Curt]

2 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

Did they not have 2 legit lines when Eichel and O'Reilly were here with Kane and Reinhart as well. I think they did. It was different, but I think those lines were "legit" regardless of how that ended. 

The optimism is fine, and I hope the believers have it right, but we aren't really beating the good teams yet. We have a long way to go.

We kind of have half a team, which is better than what we had before. 

Did they really have two legit scoring lines?  Or just two good C’s?

Can you name the full lines? They certainly included a couple substandard players.

Those teams could never score and even the top two lines were always minus +/-  lines.

[PickaPecaPickles]

6 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

I can handle the tooth.

There was a cool scene after one of the goals... Quinn Peterka Cozens Dahlin and Samuelsson celebrating together.

It could be the future. Who knows.

This one.

 

[bob_sauve28]

 

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, PickaPecaPickles said:

This one.

 

The thing about this goal is Cozens does a lot of work to get the puck out, Quinn goes flying after him and importantly slows down and sits in that space while the defender keeps going. 

[Sidc3000]

Development seems to be going well which is great. Makes games fun to watch again. The Sabres can only do so much with development. This off season is where we see if Adams can do his actual job.  His first test is to convince Levi to not play his senior year. 
 

this is where Adams makes or breaks this team. 

[bob_sauve28]

48 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

The thing about this goal is Cozens does a lot of work to get the puck out, Quinn goes flying after him and importantly slows down and sits in that space while the defender keeps going. 

He just willed it out. Walked right away from the forecheckers. He used to turn that over, now he just powers forward. That was just an awesome play 

[JohnC]

The broadcast had a graphic that showed our three rookie players in Quinn, JJ and Power, combined, have more points than any rookie group on any team in the league. And watching our guys no one can deny that there is still so much more room to grow. 

[inkman]

9 hours ago, pi2000 said:

It's nice to see the young kids playing well.   They have a loooong ways to go tho. 

They have a long way to go to hit their ceilings, yes.  They are a very functional, entertaining, skilled group of forwards excelling as line 2 on this up and coming team. 

[GASabresIUFAN]

1 hour ago, Sidc3000 said:

Development seems to be going well which is great. Makes games fun to watch again. The Sabres can only do so much with development. This off season is where we see if Adams can do his actual job.  His first test is to convince Levi to not play his senior year. 
 

this is where Adams makes or breaks this team. 

Correct.  A young team with developing players needs to learn how to win.  The GMs job is to get them the tools to help the process.  KO and Z were already here for the forwards, but where is that mentor (who can still play) for the D?

[matter2003]

3rd in the NHL in GPG at 3.8...this team can score with anyone...sad part is they can also let in 5 to just about anyone too.

Sabres are only 1 of 3 teams in the NHL to feature 5 players with 20+ points right now.  The other 2 are Tampa Bay and Vancouver.

Sabres have the most points by rookies in the NHL...

It's exciting times for sure...they need better goaltending, but until then we are going to see a lot of 6-5,6-4, 5-4, 7-6 type of losses...reminding me a lot of the Oiler team from a few years ago that was similar...you knew they were going to score, but you also knew you would likely score more. 

[matter2003]

26 minutes ago, inkman said:

They have a long way to go to hit their ceilings, yes.  They are a very functional, entertaining, skilled group of forwards excelling as line 2 on this up and coming team. 

agree...but the talent at times seems to overwhelm other teams and that is fun to watch and really exciting for what the future holds.

[Pimlach]

Yes, indeed the future is bright.

We talk about the holes on this team ad nauseum, they also have a lot of bright spots and talent - most of it is still growing.  

We don't play Detroit and San Jose every day, and we will see the holes more often than we like but things are progressing s l o w l y.  

[PromoTheRobot]

9 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Fine. The standings look a little back to the future tho.

Thanks to the 8 game losing streak. Otherwise the Sabres have been playing above .625 since last March.