The next captain of the Sabres will be/should be

[LTS]

3 hours ago, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  since TT, Tuch and Cozens were a big part of the problem last year, why should any of them get a letter?

Were they any more the problem than other parts of the team though?  The team itself was an abject failure last year. You can look at Peterka showing improvement and Benson's play and say they were exceptions sure.. but neither of them are in the running to be captain, of that I am certain.

I honestly would not be surprised if they pulled the Briere/Drury playbook out and alternated Dahlin and Tuch.  But if they were only picking one, I think it's Dahlin.

Tuch is then an A and I think TT gets the other A simply based on seniority.  I could see an argument for Cozens, but he's not yet fully taken over a game like Thompson has.

[Thorner]

10 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

I will sh1t in my hat if the Sabres' next Captain is someone other than Dahlin. 

I appreciate people posting that we can trust Lindy to sort this out. But there's been a lot of business/brand development invested in making Dahlin the Captain. I think that's going to matter.

Is that a "will be" vote? A "should be" vote? Both?

[That Aud Smell]

24 minutes ago, Thorny said:

haha - wait - how??

[Thorner]

3 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

haha - wait - how??

Great flick 

[nfreeman]

1 hour ago, LTS said:

Were they any more the problem than other parts of the team though?  The team itself was an abject failure last year. You can look at Peterka showing improvement and Benson's play and say they were exceptions sure.. but neither of them are in the running to be captain, of that I am certain.

I honestly would not be surprised if they pulled the Briere/Drury playbook out and alternated Dahlin and Tuch.  But if they were only picking one, I think it's Dahlin.

Tuch is then an A and I think TT gets the other A simply based on seniority.  I could see an argument for Cozens, but he's not yet fully taken over a game like Thompson has.

I think you and others here are right about this (and I'm optimistic that each of TT, Cozens and Tuch will bounce back this year) but I guess I don't love it -- it kinda feels like they'd be getting it by default.

I wouldn't mind -- and I'm not sure, but I think Lindy may done something like this previously -- Dahlin getting the C and the As moving around to different guys over the course of the season until someone unquestionably earns it.

[Taro T]

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today.  The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator).  Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night.

They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

[LGR4GM]

58 minutes ago, Taro T said:

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today.  The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator).  Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night.

They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

That's awful. Sorry but the point of being the leader is that you are responsible for standing up in front. This sounds like too many cooks and it won't work. 

[Taro T]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

That's awful. Sorry but the point of being the leader is that you are responsible for standing up in front. This sounds like too many cooks and it won't work. 

It was more of an off hand comment at the end of a long statement pointing out that they're all older and guys that can help on the leadership front such as Zucker (who was specifically mentioned for having won a SC and having played w/ Tuch before) have been brought it.  Specifically mentioned how there is a lot of leadership in the room now.  They both also specifically said there are no excuses this season. 

Post made it seem to have a different flavor than it did hearing it live.  Sorry about that.

[PerreaultForever]

2 hours ago, Taro T said:

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today.  The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator).  Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night.

They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

What? Who? 

This sounds like more clueless indecision. 

[mjd1001]

On 9/12/2024 at 9:08 AM, nfreeman said:

Serious question:  since TT, Tuch and Cozens were a big part of the problem last year, why should any of them get a letter?

I don't have a problem with Tuch or Thompson.  Tage took a step forward taking an additional role penalty killing (and I thought he did a decent job) and I'm personally pretty sure a lot of the drop in his production is due to his injury. The fact he played though it is a minor plus.  Tuch, kinda the same, there is no doubt at the beginning of they year he was playing hurt, he missed time and practices in training camp and in the early season.  Plus his drop in production was partly due to injury and partly due to him having what I think was his career  year the previous year. Plus I think he puts the effort in to be one of the best forcheckers in the league.  I guess with those 2, I don't see a problem with their play.

Cozens, I agree I'm not sure he should get a letter. He may be a 'high energy' player, but I don't think hes a smart player (yet) and he certainly is not someone you rely on in tough situations.

Now, that is all on ice stuff. How much should it matter off-ice or Locker room? I guess a lot and I don't know what goes on there.  But, as above, my personal opinion is Tuch and Thompson were not a 'problem' with this team last year, and to the extent they were it was somewhat injury and expectation related.

[dudacek]

18 hours ago, Taro T said:

Fwiw, they held another B&G I at the Fan Fest today.  The 2 players taking questions were Tuch and Dahlin (and Biron was the moderator).  Based on the way they were talking in the session, am standing by the contention from when this thread was bumped - expect there to be co-captains this season and would not be at all surprised if there are multiple guys (or outside possibly even none) wearing an A along with the captain that isn't wearing a C that night.

They both were talking about how there're a lot of leaders in the room and how neither one of them need to stand in front of the team every single game because of how many leaders there are now in the room that can help them out with it.

Any other interesting nuggets from Fan Fest? I saw pictures of a Lindy/Adams Q&A and another with Benson, Zucker and Power.

Also saw Krebs was actively involved in the festivities, so whatever is going on with his contract, it hasn’t reached the nasty stage yet.

Edited September 15 by dudacek

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, dudacek said:

Any other interesting nuggets from Fan Fest? I saw pictures of a Lindy/Adams Q&A and another with Benson, Zucker and Power.

Also saw Krebs was actively involved in the festivities, so whatever is going on with his contract, it hasn’t reached the nasty stage yet.

Missed most of the Kids Q&A which had Biron moderating McLeod, Byram, and Thompson.  In the B&GI session, Marty had said all 3 said beer was their favorite beverage, so Munich in October could be interesting.  😉 

There wasn't as much meat in the B&GI session as in the past.  A lot of the questions were more geared to how Dahlin and Tuch spent their summers.  Ras spent most of it in Sweden with some time spent working out with teammates in Switzerland.  He's been back in Buffalo for about a month skating with teammates.

Tuch got married and usually starts skating in July but started at the beginning of summer in June this year.

When asked specifically about their off-season training regimens, Ras mentioned he works hard on condiditioning and nutrition as he wants to play every minute of every game.  (So, don't be shocked if he still ends up playing 24-27 minutes each night.)  Tuch talked about how he added pilates to his regimen.

There was a Q about the PP and Ras said he felt a big part of the problem last year was that they were VERY focused on the X & O's and getting to set plays at the expense of letting guys with high hockey IQ's just play.  They knew everybody knew they were working towards getting Thompson the 1 timer, but that was still what they were getting coached to do.  Both made it sound like under Ruff the goal was going to be getting pucks to the net with a lot of variety in how they do that and that they're expecting Tommer to have a bounceback on the PP as they'll be doing so much other stuff that 1 timer will actually open up again.  It also sounds like Tuch could be either the bumper or the net front guy so nothing new on that front.

They expect to do a lot of planning and video work still to get off to a quick start.

Both are expecting Ruff to make the season fun but with expectations that the players will put in full efforts.  And if somebody isn't giving full effort nor doing what is asked of him that there will be consequences in lost ice time.  "You have to earn everything you get."  They expect the practices to be hard but expect the work will pay off in the end which will also make it fun.

There were a few Q's about leadership & accountability.  IMHO, the responses made it sound like they're going to be co-captains.

They both spoke to last year being a learning experience for the young team and how between going through that, being a year older, and bringing in guys with playoff experience that they now understand how much they have to work and not just work but work within a structure.  It isn't enough to just go out and play hard.  There needs to be a purpose within each shift.  Other teams hadn't game planned them 2 years ago but did last year and talent alone won't beat a quality opponent with a focus.  The "structure within the game is something that is so important" you can't just "feel the game" to win.  You need to rely on the team game and not just the skill.

They were asked about goaltending and both raved about UPL (Tuch - "he's already underpaid this coming year;" Ras - "everybody loves him because he works so hard;" etc.) and never mentioned even in passing either of the other 2 goalies.  So, really am personally coming around to the fairly common thought around here that Levi will be starting the year in Ra-cha-cha.

A bunch of other stuff about favorite restaurants and golf courses.  But that's the meat of it.

Nothing terribly earth shaking.  The slam of Ellis (without naming him specifically) was mildly unexpected.  The slam of no plan / system last year was not unexpected.  No mention of Levi at all was mildly unexpected, but Ruff had responded pretty much the same way a couple of months ago, so it was only mildly unexpected.  And again, sounded like we're going to have co-captains.  Will know if that was an accurate read in a few weeks at the latest.

Didn't end up seeing any of the other player interviews on the main stage outside nor in the rink.  Those were (or at least seemed to be ) on kind of going on a bit of an unstructured schedule unlike the stuff you were supposed to need tix for.  Overall, most of the fan fest is geared towards kids (as it should be).

And, realiizing there are single game seats on sale, so some seats are officially not available for seasons, but even with just looking at seats available for quarter season packages there are well less than 2,000 seats available and maybe even less than 1,000.  (Which puts the STH base (in equivalents) somewhere a bit above 12,000 seats.  (Which is getting close to the old 14,000 sth seat cutoff.  Expect they'd have a full STH base had they not spit the bit last year.  As much as people want to consider Buffalo just a football town, it really is a hockey town too.  They just need a team that is actually putting in a real effort to demonstrate it.)

Edited September 15 by Taro T

[Stoner]

Love that beer, bros! Just make sure Dahls gets the keys!

[Stoner]

[Weave]

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

“Why you touching me, boomer?”

[mjd1001]

Captain: Dahlin.  A's: Tuch and Thompson

If its anything different than that, I'd be surprised.

The only 2 other 'top players' that are likely to be here for a while would be Cozens and Power, and I don't see either of them as captain or assistant material now. Samuelsson I would put in this group also but can you play 65+ games in a single season first?

Plus, you give an "A" to Tuch. Hes only under contact for this season and next. Hopefully you get him re-signed. But if for some reason you don't, that opens up a spot for someone else (Maybe Cozens or Power, Quinn) to move into in 2 years IF its open.

Edited September 17 by mjd1001

[Stoner]

23 minutes ago, mjd1001 said:

Captain: Dahlin.  A's: Tuch and Thompson

If its anything different than that, I'd be surprised.

The only 2 other 'top players' that are likely to be here for a while would be Cozens and Power, and I don't see either of them as captain or assistant material now. Samuelsson I would put in this group also but can you play 65+ games in a single season first?

Plus, you give an "A" to Tuch. Hes only under contact for this season and next. Hopefully you get him re-signed. But if for some reason you don't, that opens up a spot for someone else (Maybe Cozens or Power, Quinn) to move into in 2 years IF its open.

It could also make Tuch a bridge captain. Dallers to dewnuts Lindy doesn't see a legit long term captain in this bunch.

Yes, I will die on this hill.

Also it's the eve of camp. Who's the captain?

Is there at least a curl of steam from the new dynamically fastened roof?

[WhenWillItEnd66]

• No brainer.... Dahlin or Tuch.... Whomever does not get it gets an A along with Thompson.

[Thorner]

On 3/27/2024 at 7:17 PM, Thorny said:

Dollars to donuts playoffs were the rightful expectation but even if that wasn’t one’s personal expectation, to say it was “unreasonable” to expect that is just a bridge too far. I wouldn’t even say it’s unreasonable to NOT expect playoffs this year, if that’s one’s own personal timeline. 

 

On 5/23/2024 at 1:10 PM, Thorny said:

dollars to donuts it flows through them and Levi. If these 2 first overall picks aren’t creating two lockdown, possession dominant pairs we are up the creek anyways. Having a 3rd overall pick there on pair two failsafes even further unless the Byram we’ve seen is Bowen in perpetuity 

 

On 7/12/2024 at 8:44 PM, Thorny said:

dollars to donuts someone WILL be hurt: we aren’t really even moving benson or Quinn to L3 we are simply now an injury away from the top 6 player necessarily being a questionable Zucker. Or Krebs, instead of that player being in the top 6 now.

We have room for TWO top 6 additions, and Quinn, and Benson 

And Kovalchuk 

Benson is a better all round 200 foot player than Tuch right now? Thompson? I don’t think so 

Neither is Jack Quinn. Don’t they actually have to commit the body of work? 

Thompson and Tuch are our best forwards 

 

On 9/5/2024 at 11:12 AM, Thorny said:

but dollars to donuts, when the boss goes to Kevyn and says, “can we win without that salary?” he’s getting nothing but an affirmative answer. Adams isn’t dumb. He’s a good politician.

The scenario is *mutually beneficial*. “You save me money now, the expectations stay low. Youngest team in da league. Youngest team in da leagueeeeeee!”

Byram made us YOUNGER, he made us CHEAPER, and he made us WORSE RIGHT NOW. This checks…all the boxes 

 

On 9/7/2024 at 8:05 AM, Thorny said:

Honestly doesn’t even need to be anything that nefarious. Dollars to donuts Adams is just blowing smoke anyways, if he did say something like that. It doesn’t sound substantially different than last year:

“We have to embrace expectations,” general manager Kevyn Adams said Wednesday as the Sabres opened training camp. “I look at pressure as a privilege.”

Under pressure to make the playoffs for the first time in 13 seasons, the Sabres have set higher expectations for themselves.*

Granted, the coach definitely paid the price. But I’m not convinced Terry considers Adams in particular amendable to the result to the tune of a potential firing, as long as things don’t get embarrassingly bad. If they are in the hunt to be in the hunt, I don’t SUSPECT Adams job would be on line. But that’s just a guess. 

Friedman’s “could be consequences” MIGHT hold weight, but “no excuses” is status quo jargon imo

- - - 

*https://www.wivb.com/sports/buffalo-sabres/sabres-windows-open-right-now-gm-kevyn-adams-says/amp/

 

38 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

It could also make Tuch a bridge captain. Dallers to dewnuts Lindy doesn't see a legit long term captain in this bunch.

Yes, I will die on this hill.

Also it's the eve of camp. Who's the captain?

Is there at least a curl of steam from the new dynamically fastened roof?

Welcome to the wiserhood 

[Stoner]

So here's an inside look behind the amazing creative genius who churns out one epic comment after another.

I was going to write that I see Lindy as a disruptive figure who will not care about the brohood on the team. I was going to write he won't give a flying f if they all go to Ras' house for fat pannies.

I stopped at fan pannies. It's been so long I wasn't sure that's what Modo's xmas pancakes were called. So I googled it. As I looked at the result with befuddlement, I heard a distant voice.

Sir...

Again but louder... SIR.

The fella working at the Tim Horton's drivethrough, perched above me with a perfect view of my phone, really wanted me to take my coffee and split.

His very likely glimpse into a creative genius' process:

Edited September 17 by PASabreFan

[DarthEbriate]

1 hour ago, Thorny said:

Welcome to the wiserhood 

Donuts don't work on me. Only money!

[Thorner]

10 minutes ago, DarthEbriate said:

Donuts don't work on me. Only money!

Donuts WILL do fine 

[Stoner]

Lindy chooses, right?

Was there a time the players voted?

[Taro T]

2 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Lindy chooses, right?

Was there a time the players voted?

Yes, Ruff will select the captain(s).

 

Honestly not sure that the players have ever had final say in who the captain is.  It wasn't the players that took the C off Schoenfeld and gave it to Gare.

[Porous Five Hole]

1 minute ago, Taro T said:

Yes, Ruff will select the captain(s).

 

Honestly not sure that the players have ever had final say in who the captain is.  It wasn't the players that took the C off Schoenfeld and gave it to Gare.

I could be wrong, but I seem to remember a player vote the year Rivet was made captain.