Around the NHL: 2024-2025 Season

[PerreaultForever]

5 hours ago, Archie Lee said:

I’m not sure of the differences in scouting staffs, but under Yzerman, Tampa drafted much better than Detroit has. Also, Yzerman inherited Hedman and Stamkos in Tampa. Dylan Larkin is a good player, but not in the same category as a building block as Stamkos or Hedman. 

they got palm trees too down there. No palm trees in Detroit either. 

[dudacek]

7 hours ago, Thorner said:

 

***** Toronto media bias.

Completely ignoring the Sabres are rolling along better than all the pretenders at 6-4

[Archie Lee]

Columbus currently in WC2, on pace for 86 points. 

A 3-4 point improvement on last year’s 84 point season, might have put us in the playoffs. $6-7 million in unused cap. 10 picks in the coming draft. One of the deeper prospect pools in hockey. Adams makes not one move from the start of the season, with the intent of improving the team now. And all signs are he will get another shot at it. 
 

[Thorner]

Rangers headed to OT after blowing lead 

Habs lose 

Sabres can pull within 7 points after being 15 back, 5 days ago 

[Thorner]

Rangers lose 

[Thorner]

The WC2 line in the east has been at 75 points since last Saturday. It has not moved in a week.

The pace over 82 has now fallen to 85

 

they are literally handing out playoff spots 

the sabres 84 points last year is now one off the projected total 

Edited Sunday at 01:24 AM by Thorner

[PerreaultForever]

On 3/28/2025 at 5:05 PM, dudacek said:

***** Toronto media bias.

Completely ignoring the Sabres are rolling along better than all the pretenders at 6-4

cause they are way way behind and have been out of it for ages. It's not bias, it's rationality. 

[dudacek]

7 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

cause they are way way behind and have been out of it for ages. It's not bias, it's rationality. 

/sarcasm

[DarthEbriate]

The 8th place race is so obnoxiously bad.

UPL missed one game because of a collision injury somewhere near midseason (December, maybe?). But otherwise, if you just let Levi roll in Rochester all season, don't waive Reimer, and replace Levi's games with Reimer's numbers...  you've got at least 3, and maybe as many as 5 more wins right now. The Sabres could be 1 point out of a playoff spot (and have been buyers at the deadline).

[PerreaultForever]

3 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

The 8th place race is so obnoxiously bad.

UPL missed one game because of a collision injury somewhere near midseason (December, maybe?). But otherwise, if you just let Levi roll in Rochester all season, don't waive Reimer, and replace Levi's games with Reimer's numbers...  you've got at least 3, and maybe as many as 5 more wins right now. The Sabres could be 1 point out of a playoff spot (and have been buyers at the deadline).

But, if we were closer and actually in the hunt opposition teams would take us more seriously and we'd have a tougher time of it. We've been winning a bunch of wide open games where teams have been loose and/or uninterested and when given open ice this team usually does well. The exception was the Philly game where they also played loose and open and beat us at our own game. 

I laugh when I read things like "Quinn is heating up" on twitter and sure he is, cause he's not being checked as closely and he has open ice. Give him open ice and yes he has skill. We knew that. The problem is his inability to play through tight checking and physical defense. This happens to this team every single year and every single year it seems to give management this illusion/delusion that we are close, just a little luck is all we need. It's madness. 

[DarthEbriate]

37 minutes ago, PerreaultForever said:

But, if we were closer and actually in the hunt opposition teams would take us more seriously and we'd have a tougher time of it.

Agreed, but all of those Levi-for-Reimer games of which I'm talking were before December 15th (except one where he got the call-up, and could've gotten the callup to sit on the bench instead of start during one of those streaks where UPL wasn't hot and yet Reimer didn't get a start for 3 weeks). That's before all the playoff teams need to start worrying about taking 7th-10th place teams seriously.

[PerreaultForever]

8 hours ago, DarthEbriate said:

Agreed, but all of those Levi-for-Reimer games of which I'm talking were before December 15th (except one where he got the call-up, and could've gotten the callup to sit on the bench instead of start during one of those streaks where UPL wasn't hot and yet Reimer didn't get a start for 3 weeks). That's before all the playoff teams need to start worrying about taking 7th-10th place teams seriously.

I'm seeing a lot of "if" all over the internet in Sabres conversations. If Dahlin hadn't missed games, if Quinn had started hotter, if goaltending had been better, if they hadn't gone to Europe, if if if it's if every year. 

The bottom line for me is Ruff didn't make a difference. The team isn't any better than it was last year. 

[Archie Lee]

8 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I'm seeing a lot of "if" all over the internet in Sabres conversations. If Dahlin hadn't missed games, if Quinn had started hotter, if goaltending had been better, if they hadn't gone to Europe, if if if it's if every year. 

The bottom line for me is Ruff didn't make a difference. The team isn't any better than it was last year. 

Anybody paying attention to the last 13-14 years of Ruff’s career, knew there was no reason to think he would make a difference. 

[thewookie1]

9 hours ago, PerreaultForever said:

I'm seeing a lot of "if" all over the internet in Sabres conversations. If Dahlin hadn't missed games, if Quinn had started hotter, if goaltending had been better, if they hadn't gone to Europe, if if if it's if every year. 

The bottom line for me is Ruff didn't make a difference. The team isn't any better than it was last year. 

The one what-if I'll give credence to is the Dahlin one. If Dahlin doesn't reaggravate his back spasms we likely win that first game against Colorado and don't go on a 13 game losing streak. Even just flipping 4 games and making it 4-6-3 instead of 0-10-3 would put us 1 back of the 2WC. Frankly though the whole conference is rather sad seeing as the WC2 in the West has 10 more points than the WC2 in the East. Its also an indictment on the roster for having 1 player be such a lynchpin to wins versus losses

[SwampD]

4 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

The one what-if I'll give credence to is the Dahlin one. If Dahlin doesn't reaggravate his back spasms we likely win that first game against Colorado and don't go on a 13 game losing streak. Even just flipping 4 games and making it 4-6-3 instead of 0-10-3 would put us 1 back of the 2WC. Frankly though the whole conference is rather sad seeing as the WC2 in the West has 10 more points than the WC2 in the East. Its also an indictment on the roster for having 1 player be such a lynchpin to wins versus losses

The point is, you can't have a team so fragile that one guy not playing has that great of an impact.

[thewookie1]

8 minutes ago, SwampD said:

The point is, you can't have a team so fragile that one guy not playing has that great of an impact.

Oh I agree; I was merely saying that if there's one what-if that holds water its regarding Dahlin.

[Brawndo]

 

[Thorner]

Eichel probably the Selke front runner right now, 4th in points, +35 (league lead). Gary Lawless just called him and Barkov the 2 best 2-way centres in the nhl 

Gotta think lady byng is all but guaranteed with only 6 penalty minutes 

he is getting mentioned in the hart convo deservedly so. Top 3 nhl C 

Edited 21 hours ago by Thorner

[PerreaultForever]

12 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

The one what-if I'll give credence to is the Dahlin one. If Dahlin doesn't reaggravate his back spasms we likely win that first game against Colorado and don't go on a 13 game losing streak. Even just flipping 4 games and making it 4-6-3 instead of 0-10-3 would put us 1 back of the 2WC. Frankly though the whole conference is rather sad seeing as the WC2 in the West has 10 more points than the WC2 in the East. Its also an indictment on the roster for having 1 player be such a lynchpin to wins versus losses

Sure but every team in that race has had key players injured at times this year. There is no valid "if" and you won't get me to drink that Kool-Aid. We were not as good as the teams still in it. 

Ottawa has won the which one will make it next year of Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit race that we heard about last year. Montreal and Columbus win the good drafting faster than expected rebuild awards. Rangers and Bruins are crashing below expectations and what happens to either next year is unknown. We are down with Philly in the lots of mistakes and haven't got it right yet class.  

[thewookie1]

4 hours ago, Thorner said:

Eichel probably the Selke front runner right now, 4th in points, +35 (league lead). Gary Lawless just called him and Barkov the 2 best 2-way centres in the nhl 

Gotta think lady byng is all but guaranteed with only 6 penalty minutes 

he is getting mentioned in the hart convo deservedly so. Top 3 nhl C 

And we need this info why exactly?

[Thorner]

48 minutes ago, thewookie1 said:

And we need this info why exactly?

 

On 3/27/2025 at 5:54 PM, thewookie1 said:

What exactly happened to Mitts, he seemed to be trending up through our trade and into this season and then he aggressively dove back to being a complete liability 

And you need that info why exactly? 

[Thorner]

On 1/11/2025 at 1:24 AM, thewookie1 said:

***** Detroit is taking their hot streak turn, 6 Ws in a row.

And we need that info why exactly? 

On 12/20/2024 at 8:02 PM, thewookie1 said:

I think Lehner has gone nuts 😞 

 

 

 And we need this info why exactly? 

[thewookie1]

1 hour ago, Thorner said:

And we need that info why exactly? 

Seriously this is how you want to respond? You're going to grab a bunch of old quotes and ask the same thing? As for the Lehner thing, I was genuinely concerned about his mental health and was curious about how everyone else saw it.

Honestly, why would anyone on this board want to hear about Eichel having success anywhere else? It's like getting a constant reminder of your ex and how their doing; I, and many others here, don't give a flying ***** Eichel is doing anything good. You perpetual insistence on bringing Eichel up at every turn is nothing short of obsessive; he wasn't even mentioned on this thread for quite some time and yet you always feel the need to re-insert him into the conversation like some mustache twirling villain with a vendetta against the rest of the forum. If you need to lather praise on Eichel so bad, go find a VGK forum and do it there. If this was merely to talk about future Selke hopefuls then Barkov & Eichel shouldn't have been the lone mentioned players but we all know you just like to stick our faces in the mud anytime you can in regards to Eichel.

Edited 14 hours ago by thewookie1

[Thorner]

5 hours ago, thewookie1 said:

Seriously this is how you want to respond? You're going to grab a bunch of old quotes and ask the same thing? As for the Lehner thing, I was genuinely concerned about his mental health and was curious about how everyone else saw it.

Honestly, why would anyone on this board want to hear about Eichel having success anywhere else? It's like getting a constant reminder of your ex and how their doing; I, and many others here, don't give a flying ***** Eichel is doing anything good. You perpetual insistence on bringing Eichel up at every turn is nothing short of obsessive; he wasn't even mentioned on this thread for quite some time and yet you always feel the need to re-insert him into the conversation like some mustache twirling villain with a vendetta against the rest of the forum. If you need to lather praise on Eichel so bad, go find a VGK forum and do it there. If this was merely to talk about future Selke hopefuls then Barkov & Eichel shouldn't have been the lone mentioned players but we all know you just like to stick our faces in the mud anytime you can in regards to Eichel.

Are you seriously kidding me? 

It’s the AROUND THE NHL THREAD, my lord

OF COURSE I’m supposed to post those stats 

“seriously, this is how you want to respond”. What are you freaking talking about? I was pointing out how you did LITERALLY the exact same thing. You just don’t like *mine* cause you want to literally pick and choose who we talk about based on who hurts your little feelings - you are comparing hearing about him to hearing about an ex? Are you that afraid to hear about people doing well? That hurts you? 

I’m not saying your post about Lehner was bad. Why would I be? My point was that you are posting about nhl players not on the current team. OF COURSE you think I’m positing it negatively: cause you are completely projecting. I wasn’t posting stats maliciously at all. You can only assume that, eh?  

This place is becoming bizarro world 

You are crying at me like a child. Calling me “obsessive” because I bring him up occasionally? Find my last Eichel post in the thread 

you said it yourself: “why would anyone want to hear about” 

you are literally trying to dictate what we talk about 

And to resort to personal attacks? “Obsessive”? “Villain”??? “Vendetta against the board”???? “Go find a Vegas forum”???

Edited 9 hours ago by Thorner

[Thorner]

On 11/29/2024 at 10:58 PM, Thorner said:

Always maintained around here that Eichel’s best asset was his playmaking.. it’s nice to see him really lean into it - leads league in assists this year 

I provided an update last November 

one sentence 

That was my last one

… LIKE A VILLAIN TWIRLING A MUSTACHE

 

- - - 

 

this place sucks 

Edited 9 hours ago by Thorner