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Here's a solution. This season, I hope they're better against the rush and better at cycling in the offensive zone. Like... you know, real NHL hockey teams that make the playoffs year-after-year.

I was surprised to read they were over 22% after Christmas. Also surprised that they are 4 for 17 in the preseason.

You're not interested in rationale discussion. Case in point #1 this thread.

I'll never order from the Bills Store Online again. They had to cancel my order because they ran out of stock 1 month after I placed it.

Byram back. Lindy says Samuelsson is feeling good and may be back tomorrow. Power and Benson are close as well and Lindy is clearly expecting them opening net. Greenway on track to resume practice next week. UPL and Kesselring TBD. They are the question marks.

He KINDA says the right things, but from watching how the only significant difference so far between last year's PP and this year's is that Norris wins draws and Cozens and Tage didn't, it looks the same and it's pretty clear that though he kinda knows the right things to say, he doesn't really understand WHY they're the right things. He says he wants "predictability and structure" which on their surface are good things to have. It's good for guys to know that their teammates are going to do certain things or move to certain places when they get the puck in a certain place so that they can move the puck to them quickly. But the predictability is of them dropping the puck back and having Thompson stay glued to his face off dot. They aren't getting predictible (to themselves) on how a guy will break to the net if the play moves this way and might back away to the boards while somebody else sneaks down low so that when the guy with the puck sends it to the guy who's now at the boards, he can send it below the goalline and the original puck carrier who made that 1st pass breaks into the slot looking for a 1 or 2 touch pass for a 1 timer while the goalie is changing his view from below the goal line to back up high. And if the defender is cheating farther out that 1st guy will break towards the net looking for either a 1 timer or a give and go to the 1st guy who also is moving towards the net but on the opposite side forcing the goalie to move if they do run the give and go. THAT's the sort of predictability they need. Not, Power will skate the puck up ice as slow as he possibly can and then throw a 120' pass back to Benson or Quinn between the faceoff dots. But, but, Dahlin didn't drop pass the puck and he scored on an end-to-end play. Doesn't this mean they don't ALWAYS do the drop pass? Yes, yes it does mean they don't always use the 120' (and yes, that's SLIGHTLY hyperbolic, but not by much) drop pass; but Dahlin was foregoing it himself some last year as well when he saw the defenders cheating the drop pass. THAT being successful isn't on coaching, it's on having one of the 3 best D in the league on the roster and letting HIM be unpredictable. He also was excited about getting a PP with one of the 3 best D in the league, and one of the 5 best shooters in the league, along with a guy who's better than average at net front into the middle of the pack. Oh, goody, goody, gumdrops; with some of the best talent in the league on the PP WE'VE COACHED THEM UP TO MIDDLE OF THE PACK! That is so ridiculously pathetic it isn't even humorous. And the PP being awful IMHO goes a long way towards the PK being awful (which goes a long way towards the PP being awful; it's an amplifier) because the PP gets stationary and the PK is stationary (and the PK being stationary is to a large degree good; but they have to understand when and where to attack and they don't do that well at all) so neither figures out how to bring dynacism to the unit. Hey, we need to outwork the PK. No Schlitz, Sherlock. The day you actually let TWO PPers try to win a board battle rather than just watching 1 try to win it; will be a wonderful day in this city and they probably should have a parade for it; because it'll mean you've actually finally twigged onto how to do something rather than just give it lip service. The day they actually have 2 or 3 guys in motion while they control the puck; not just when they're entering the zone or right off the faceoff, will also be a banner day; because again, it'll mean you've actually finally twigged onto how to do something rather than just give it lip service. The fact that he's asking the analytics guys how to do this, though it should be encouraging, likely will backfire because he'll probably understand it about as well as Patrick Roy understood the analytics guys telling him that puck possession was a true key metric to winning games so he'd start having his players move the puck around the zone like it was a Sabres PP and then he wondered why they were at the bottom of the league standings (but we possess the puck); well possession without shots doesn't translate into wins. It't the teams actually shooting and then getting the puck back and winning the possession battles that are winning the games because they're getting rebound chances which are chaotic. We want structure says Appert. Yes, but that structure must be used to generate chaos that you can capitalize on. You've been bottom of the league on PP using your structure. Really not expecting much from the PP overall. Do expect them, simply because of how much talent they can deploy on it for it to get into a groove for a month or so. But don't expect it to last the full year (or even significant portions of it) and do expect overall it to be a problem again. Hoping that take is wrong and even an old RPI guy can learn new tricks; but won't have money on it.

Jeff Skinner might be available. All joking aside, Terry Pegula gave Skinner 8x$9M coming off a 63-point season. That was 11% of the cap at the time. You guys don’t need me to do the math of 11% of a $104M cap. Interesting perspective there.

People drive like crap. 190 has been a parking lot for 3 days with the Canadian truck border issues. So i'm driving straight down Elmwood each morning to drop off my wife for work in downtown Buffalo. . People cutting me off like crazy.

Yes, it's about healthcare, healthcare for illegal immigrants. You don't have to believe me, believe the democrats themselves. Vice President Vance breaks it down like he's talking to a six year old. It's easy to find what the Democrats are asking for, I may have even posted it upthread.

Of course they do. Absolutely right. This relates to team structure as well, and the constant turnover of personnel and young personnel leads to failures in a system where players need to be covering for the D when they rush deep. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. The main thing however, and it's been a thing for a long time, is losing board battles. All too often they play perimeter possession and if they lose the puck they don't battle to get it back effectively and the other team gets to zone exit quickly and there are Sabres caught behind the play. They just don't fight for the puck and every year there's at least 3 or 4 discussions of "soft' that come up. Off season talks about getting tougher but it never seems to happen.

Oh yeah, it all feeds on itself. But even going back to that 91 point season that seems a lifetime ago even though it was only 3 years ago, they weren't good on the cycle. They scored on rushes and for about 6-7 weeks they also scored when Tage dropped bombs on the PP. But that got figured out by other teams and so down the stretch they were back to just scoring on the rush. They didn't do a good job on the cycle even in that season that Granato had them focusing primarily on offense figuring he'd teach them defense later. Well, when looking back on it, it wasn't just D he didn't teach them; he didn't teach them much offensively either, and the same guys that were here back then (except Ellis who's still a coach, just not on the bench) are still here trying to finally figure out how to teach them to play defense and how to work a functional cycle. Do realize that for whatever reason ownership doesn't want to punt the failed coaches (at least not unless a golden child is available to replace any of them; and how a golden child is defined is anyones guess) but how much money is getting thrown away in lost ticket sales, lost merchandise sales, lost concession sales, and lost playoff revenue. That has to dwarf whatever these guys still have left to earn this last year of their deals. And agree, they've been very bad against the rush in the past; and if the last non-ENG of last night is any indication, they're still going to be bad against it. EDIT: Sorry @dudacek, didn't mean to go negative in the Hopium thread.

No one on here is interested in intelligent, rational discussions with someone who's views don't perfectly align with thier own. Case in point, the Big Beautiful Bill thread. No one had an interest in reading it and discussing the pros and cons. Case in point #2, any time there's a response to something I post, regardless of subject or content, certain posters can't help themselves from injecting Trump or MAGA. Case in point #3, when I called out K-9 for his obvious hypocrisy, he said, "sue me", and then put me on ignore. Case in point #4, almost every post of mine is met with a laughing emoji from Demoted. LGR just up and quit. You don't post much. Who's left?

Cleveland lost. Time to be a Jays fan.

I think I will stick to stretches and PT.

Who?

Just as "expenses" are probably more than just player and employee salaries and benefits (advertising, travel, taxes, rent, etc.), I assume "revenue" is more than just ticket sales and TV broadcasting revenue. Things like merchandising, sponsorships, food sales, etc. It woul dbe really interesting to see all of the expenses and all of the revenues.

Great topic... just disgusted... Sabres are the NHL version of the NY Jests.

The topic was Sabres toal payroll and I mentioned that the gutted the entire organization since Covid and the departure of Botts, and upon the arrival of Adams. True enough, the entire 14 years of Pegula hockey has been a shambles. Adams traded Reinhart and Eichel, lost Montour, Ullmark and McCabe - all of that hurt the product on the ice. Paying Muel, Cozens, and Power and consistently icing very young teams far under the cap - that hurt. Peterka wanting out is another sign of problems. If this year is another bust then there will be more "Peterka's" wanting out.

His muscle tissue was weak before he was drafted.

His was just a finger though, but hey, I'm here to offer options.

Hits and physicality are not the same thing. They guys you mentioned knew how to muscle someone out of the crease or get their bodies in people’s way. Power Ole’s people as they skate by and has no idea how to move someone out of the crease.

If the PP we saw yesterday was the reworked version Appert and Ventura should be fired immediately. It was the same old same old; pass the puck to Tage for a one timer.

Seth Appert talks about how he reworked the power play, with the help of Sam Ventura https://www.nhl.com/sabres/news/buffalo-sabres-training-camp-power-play-seth-appert

God you've becoming annoying. Truly condescending in annoying carrying water in every thread for this team. I'll spell it out for you then. I don't give a ***** on this earth if billionaire Terry Pegula makes a dime off the Sabres. His product is boring, middling, and awful. Now when you come back with "well don't watch then!" Don't worry ppl don't and the revenue reflects that. Just obnoxious. Thxs for mansplanning that a hockey team doesn't just have to pay the 90 million in player contracts. Liger, the guy on this stupid website with the most posts would never have guessed coaches, gms, scouts, maintenance ppl etc... work for the Sabres because I'm too ***** stupid. Edit: if Terry Pegula is spending 200 million a year on this team, then he's not getting his money's worth and neither are we.