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They hosed all 3 western teams (LA, California, and Vancouver). Vancouver played in the Smythe, LA in the Norris, and the Seals in the Adams. Guess they didn't want to hose Minny, KC, nor St. Louis by putting them in an all Pacific division. And they did kind of split the footprint between the 2 conferences. The Adams (Buffalo, TO, Boston, and CA) was with the Norris (Moe-ray-all, Washington, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and LA) in the Wales Conference and the Patrick (NY, NY, Filly, and Atlanta) were with the Smythe (Chicago, St. Louis, Minny, KC, and Vancouver) in the Campbell Conference. So the Wales got the Eastern Great Lakes teams plus Washington, Moe-Ray-All, and Boston and the California teams; the Campbell got the Central TZ teams; teams near Joisey; Atlanta; and Vancouver. Everybody except those 3 were either in the Eastern or Central Time Zones and there were only 4 in even the Central Time Zone. Everybody was East Coast or Great Lakes and NOBODY wanted 3 trips out west. Back then, much like now, the owners really didn't care whether or if their rivals could compete. Heck, if Vegas didn't give $500MM to join and Seattle even more, they'd've been just as successful out of the gate as all the other expansion teams that came before them.

But there was only one backup to worry about last year. As always, it goes back to Adams and the man who hired him and continues to love and employ him despite all evidence showing he still hasn't learned enough to be effective or efficient at his job. I'm sure he's economical. They had a goalie with 500 games played experience ready to provide average backup (tandem) goaltending. And that guy whose career numbers are equal to UPL's best season in which he was excellent for half a season? They waived him immediately upon returning to the States after the Prague games. Adams had an offseason plan to pair the new starter with a veteran. And then he abandoned the plan immediately. It was shown that Luukkonen wasn't at the same level he had been the end of the previous season and Levi wasn't ready. And their defense still included Cozens, Quinn, Power, Muel... etc. and a new system under Ruff. And they went with two inexperienced goalies instead of Reimer. It was the people in charge of personnel who don't understand teambuilding and roster construction... again. If Reimer had been retained and provided his usual .900 goaltending, instead of Levi's numbers in Oct/Nov, and if Ruff had allowed Reimer to split the games instead of just riding UPL forever once Reimer had been re-claimed off of waivers... they probably are 4-5 wins better. And if one of those wins is against Montreal (0-3-1), maybe it's the Sabres sneaking into the playoffs. ----- Fast forward. This season, they might finally get it. Once again, it's a veteran goalie with career numbers better than UPL's career (though not as good as Reimer's). But there's no reason for Lyon not to be a tandem goalie with UPL. Let Lyon play. Send UPL to Rochester for a conditioning assignment. Play Ellis once every 4 games so you see what he can do and you don't burn out Lyon. Get the goaltending right. For once. (then fire Sheevyn anyway.) Ellis should play Monday in MTL and at TOR next weekend, and he should already know when he's going to be in net.

Lyon has been good, but he's never played this much before in his career. They will burn him out or get him injured this way.

Johnson and Bryson have bother been awful. Metsa might be more Kesslering-esque than those two but there's a big defensive hole until we actually see Kesselring.

In the book Ballparks it talks about how baseball owners in the early 1900s would spend their own money to make extravagant palaces for their teams to play in. Sources of pride that were a part of an owners legacy. We’ve since lost the plot in a number of ways.

I haven't watched Detroit yet but Montreal looks pretty good. They have improved from last year. The extensions to upper management have been earned there.

I wonder if Johnson is hurt or sick and it was a better way of dealing with it vs IR. Lets see if he plays with the Amerks this weekend.

It’s Adams thinking he’s being clever sending Johnson down because he’s waiver eligible

I know. I have referred to the Sabres as the Seals many times. Someone in the NHL Front Office had the bright idea to move Seals into the Adams division, which essentially put them in the East Division and the East Conference. As if the travel wasn't hard enough for them, they loaded them up with more games against many of the better teams. Looking back they had cool jerseys but their wacky owner (Charles Finley) made them wear white skates one season. The players hated it.

Wins. Always wins.

Most aren’t. I’m not talking about discussing his strengths and weaknesses - that would obviously fit under discussing based on result. Context is always important here and you can look to the post I specifically quoted as someone who doesn’t leave room for that if the equation is simply “he wasn’t committed to getting better.” Any player “not committed to improving in any way” isn’t someone we would want which renders the discussion on result moot the post I quoted said “hard to say much different” with regard to my statement that it’s unfair to label JJ as a player with no interest in improving the inclination is often to “found money trade acquisition, dude we traded was a stalled-out lost cause anyways”. Defence mechanism. Labelling JJ as weak defensively is fair. Suggesting he had no desire to improve isn’t.

It was a fun game to be at. The people around us were pretty incredulous at the Sabres only having 3 shots through the entire 1st period. Yeah, but after Quinn's "shot" found the back of the net, though they did have chances, Tuch's shot hit the post, the one where Benson was setting a screen went off the side of the net, another really quality chance bounced off the D-man in front, etc., etc.. 2nd period was one of the most fun to watch in a long time. Not sure what the total shots for the period were, but late in the period, the Sabres had taken 18 shots and the Otters 17 in that stanza after only getting 3 and 8 respectively in the 1st. Place was the loudest it'd been in a while too; that there were probably only 10k-11k people in the building made it that much more impressive. The lower bowl was close to full, but there were a fair number of empty seats in the 200's and the 300's had a lot of emply seats at both ends. Thought except for pretty much just standing around trying to play the puck on the Otters PP goal that Power played well. He had a pretty big check in the 1st; and courtesy of the sharp Otter unis that you could barely pick out the #'s of from the nosebleeds much less the names, took a moment to realize it was Cozens he hit. Cozens seemed to take exception to Kulich, he was running him any time the 2 were on the ice together. Timmons has been refreshing to see in the lineup - didn't know we were allowed to have stay at home D-men that don't go running around their own end looking for hits well away from the flow of the game. Thompson and Tuch both seemed much more engaged this game. Maybe they're finally getting their heads out of their bippies. Weird that people were unhappy with Kulich; he started out on the wing on the 4th line and ended up with Benson and Tage. Didn't really see anything noticable either way in his game other than how his linemates changed. Saw Danforth take the puck to the leg on the 1st shiff of the 2nd and him struggle to get around; could've swore he had 1 more shift after that but apparently he didn't come back out for the 3rd. Team was noticably faster than in their previous 2 home games. They need to find a way to still keep that up against the heavier game that the Swamp Cats will play. As pretty much everybody else is, really liking Doan. He seems like he'll be in the mold of a Marcus Foligno; hoping he gets there. McLeod's and Quinn's best games by far of the young season. Hope they can buid on this game. Still not sure why there was no interference call right before the Otter's 3rd goal. Dahlin got knocked to the boards behind the net and his man ended up all by himself in front of Lyon to make it a 2 goal game. That was probably Ruff's best timeout in a long time. Settled them down and before the 3rd was 3 minutes old, they had their 2 goal lead back and the 3 goal lead shortly after the 4 minute mark. Again, fun game to be at. Not sure why nobody wanted to score the 8th goal. Glad the puck finally worked to Kulich. HE wanted it.

And they ripped this guy off the Banana Splits.

Im not sure ik anyone who was like "we didn't want Peterka anyway" and discussing his strengths and weaknesses isn't not wanting him.

Thought RJ played a physical game in the minutes he got last night. Mixed messaging going on.

Detroit is 3-1 and tied for first. Wish we were that crappy. Montreal also 3-1. Ottawa 1-3 last place.

I actually think its the right handed piece. Ryjo and Bryson were both lefties. Ruff said Sammy will be likley playing on Saturday, my guess is he wants a right handed player to compliment that pair. Ruff is very big about right/left on a d pair. Im sure it kills him to have Byram/Dahlin out there together, but this truly is what my guess is the case.

Can’t wait for that Bryson Metsa pairing. What could possibly go wrong?

Not exactly tearing up the AHL. You’ve had this take on him for a bit. I’m glad he has a fan but I don’t see the allure.

Wow. Ruff really didn't like that interference call. Whatever. The kid played the body. Why is this Metsa -- the captain of the Amerks -- instead of Novikov? If you just need a body to sit in the press box, let Geertsen practice as a defenseman (like he did in NJ).

I’m assuming it’s Adams and his high level roster mgmt style

You’d think the fact we only ever trade guys who are fatally flawed and only bring in guys who “play the right way” would eventually result in a better team. Anecdotally, I always seem to hear, after the fact, that guys we trade away are folks we “didn’t want around anyways.” consensus in thread seems to be that Adams “wanted” to sign him but JJ wanted out. Are we thinking Adams felt JJ was reluctant to improvement if he was wanting to sign him? I’m trying to keep the argument straight, so forgive me. From reports we only dealt JJ because he had had enough - why wouldn’t Adams have been exploring a deal previous to that if JJ was someone selfishly only interested in himself and for some reason also not interested in improving himself? we can argue he’s bad for culture because he wanted out (if we ignore the why being of our own doing) but a young player struggling to round out their defensive game doesn’t torpedo their offensive worth and it certainly fits much more snuggly within the common development curve narrative that it does the idea he “wasn’t interested in being a better player” Maybe he’ll never have the aptitude and skill to completely round out him game? I could see that. But I’d deem the tarring and feathering of character we never miss the opportunity to engage in rather egregious.

I'm interested to see how Metsa does. He's undersized, but seems to have the makeup of a very good hockey player. He lead his college team to a National Championship, and I believe he was the captain of that team. I have not seen him play as an Amerk, but would like to hear what people who have seen him play there think. I fully agree that I'd rather have Johnson on the team than Bryson and I highly doubt Bryson would have been claimed on waivers, and I wouldn't be that upset if another team did claim him.

From undrafted to the NHL.