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I see Promo is back to making up reasons to hate the fanbase he hates that he is part of again. Sorry, not again. Still. The correct word there is still.

Even so, win tonight and you finish the 1st quarter of the season with 20pts in 20 games. With all the issues, injuries and roster upheaval; thats at very least an ok start. Every 20 games you want 24 pts for a playoff pace. At 20 pts we’d need to average about 25.3 pts a 20 game set. (The 2 remainders are gravy games) At the slightly higher number we still have a solid chance of achieving our goal. Effectively you need to flip 3 losses into 1 win and 2 OTLs.

Ryan Johnson needs to play more before we can assess his performance

While I have zero interest in giving Adams any more time, I do feel ever so slightly bad for him in regards to Kesselring. Unlike Norris, Kesselring wasn’t injury prone in the slightest.

Thanks for the heads up. 🍺

There is a WORLD of difference between "no one lov(ing) it" and "(p)eople hated the waiver pickup of Ellis!" Do you HONESTLY not see that? And THAT contention that "(p)eople hated (it)" is untrue at worst and flat out hyperbolic at best. And actually, there were about 3 people that were really happy about the deal. So, even the "no one loved it" is a bit hyperbolic too. Yes, again people were primarily in the "he has to be better than Georgiev" camp (which turned out to be true unsurprisingly) and "guess this means that UPL might be out for a fairly long time" (which wasn't quite as correct, though it did take a couple of weeks for him to be ready again). And, while SOME used it to dump on Adams, wouldn't even say "MOST (emphasis mine) just used it to dump on Adams." Personally would say that overall the attitude on it was "don't know if it'll work, but it might, and it gets Georgiev out of the picture and lets them follow their plan for Levi of keeping him on the farm this year unless something absolutely catastrophic happens, so cool." And even a few of those "dump on Adams" posts were of the "he should be making way more waiver claims than he does because you never know when you'll find a diamond in the rough and they have a really hard time bringing in guys on the fringes that end up exceeding expectations and actually sticking" nature and not of the "wtf did he claim THIS guy" nature.

Put him on the waiver wire. If he clears, he goes to Rochester. If someone picks him up, his contract is off our books. Win win.

Elliotte Friedman says that because of parity and the closeness in the standings, particularly in the east, that he doesn't think the Thanksgiving date applies this year.

Really? But you still fall behind by the teacher moving on and you not reinforcing the past material by doing the homework. ?? When my older son started high school I went to the early Parent Teacher night to meet his teachers. His English teacher (the class included language and literature) said they probably would not be reading any books, they would watch the movies based on the book instead. I asked about book reports, none of that either - they watched the movie and then do a group discussion. Seemed like lazy teaching to me. I have never seen a movie that covered the story and the details like reading the book. I went to lots of school board meetings, lots of parents teacher conferences. I had a few concerns abouts the curriculum in this AAA rated school. It seemed that the learning how to learn part was not stressed.

I only got ten three pages on. Mostly just completing about Adams. 😂 No one loved it. A few said maybe he's something. Most just used it to dump on Adams.

Not on the 1st 2 pages of the thread announcing he'd been claimed. Didn't bother to reread all 6 pages again, but don't recall any sort of preponderance of posts to that effect. Your memory of that day seems to be coming through a filter. People did complain about the 3 headed goalie monster again later on, but there was no overwhelming concensus that Ellis should be the odd man out. Actually, if there was what could be considered a concensus, would say that UPL being the odd man out was where that was heading. So, again, disagree with the contention that "(p)eople hated the waiver pickup of Ellis!" That simply wasn't the case.

Rochester on NHL Network tonight. Have to flip back and forth with the Sabres game.

People were losing their minds about having 3 goalies again. And some had the usual who-the-****-is-this-guy reaction

I don't care about the standings. Year after year after year, to get to the playoffs you need about 95 points. Worry about playing to that level (or better), the rest of the teams above you will sort themselves out. 85 points by April 1st. Again, it doesn't really matter to me at all where they are in the standings now, who is ahead of them, how far ahead they are...if you can get to 85 points by April 1st. After that you have 7 regular season games left. Sure, I'd love MORE than 85 points, but you will still be 'in it' and close enough that those last games in April will decide your season.

Levi needs to show he can stay consistent. One game he looks good, the next he gives up 6 goals on 20 shots and looks terrible.

super helpful - thanks, @DarthEbriate. kempe appears to be a tick better? tuch's gotta be sitting on 8x$10M. and maybe he'd give the team a bit of relief with something like 8 x $9.875 with a side deal for tuch to be a no-show foreman at some fracking wells. (hey, why should the NBA have all the fun with cap-circumventing side deals?)

The market is set. Tuch is half a year older, but both are 29. Top-line wingers on their team for 5 years running (except at times when TNT isn't at center). Kempe is the slightly better scorer. Since Tuch joined the Sabres, Kempe has played in 38 more games, but otherwise they are close. Kempe has a much higher shot volume (he gets the shots on net, and not rimming around the boards and out of the zone, hey-oh!) https://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/hockey/versus-finder.cgi?request=1&seasons_type=forall&year_min=2022&year_max=2026&player_id1=tuchal01&player_id2=kempead01 Kempe GP 338 145-143-288 +58 PIM 223 PPG 30 SHG 10 GWG 25 1046 SOG point share 34.3 Tuch GP 300 113-146-259 +38 PIM 166 PPG 15 SHG 10 GWG 20 790 SOG ps 28.4

The level that the point is being intentionally misconstrued to solely because of a mention of playoff standings is comically impressive. Take out the mention of where they are in the standings and the point stays the same — they weathered the rash of injuries to the point that they’re still within an arms reach of being in the middle of it. Survive tonight and don’t have a typical Sabres setback, then see what can happen once they have a semblance of a healthy roster coming back in the next few games.

The issue with the standings isn't that they're only 4 points back, it's that every single team in the East currently has a better points percentage than the Sabres. Any team could get hot at any point in time and the Sabres need to be one of the teams to do it soon so they aren't looking up at 7 teams still between them and the final wild card berth with so many head-to-head matchups going to OT. Tampa and Boston are already starting to stack wins where they could get clear of the .500ish mass.

does a rising cap essentially take care of that on the back end? i'm late to this party. kempe's 29 as well? is he way better than tuch? i have no idea. if they're arguably comparable, then the sabres have no leverage. where's darcy and the proverbial wait for the market to set itself?

This is a difficult situation for the franchise. Yes, the playoff drought, fan disaffection, and Tuch being a heart and soul top-6 guy with hometown cred. But also, they're dealing with a 29 year-old player who's going to ask for an 8-year term. I just have no faith in Adams to navigate this properly.

People saying "we're right there" are of course presuming the team's need to stack several 3 and 4 game win streaks and otherwise tread water. Also, the NHL standings around American Thanksgiving are highly predictive of how those standings will look in early April. lol - man this is true too

But, except for 1 year, in the post tank era if we don't talk about them in November we don't get to talk about them at all, at least in terms of making them THIS season. 😉

Why? I thought this was a given since he took practice off yesterday