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It's absolutely impossible to evaluate this team with Norris as part of it since he hasn't played more than a few minutes. The biggest problem is still the D. They need another big guy who plays at least like Samuelsson is playing this year. If I'm the GM I'm trading whatever flashy forwards I need to to get that. Ideally, trading Norris, but I imagine that's impossible.

Cozens, Quinn, Nylander, Ristolainen, Mitts, and Savoie were all top 10 picks in this era. Not a lot to show for those picks. (Mrtka is a new draftee) Our top 1st and 2nd overall picks Eichel and Reinhart are great but traded away. Dahlin is great, but Power sucks. The only second rd picks to make an impact are JJP (traded away), UPL and Samuelsson. That’s all we have so far for 18 2nd rd picks and UPL stinks as well. Our other 1sts are still developing or made little impact with the Sabres such as Johnson, Zadorov, Östlund, Rosen, Kulich (out with blood clots), Benson, and Helenius. I like some of these players, but none are elite. Our top 2 players outside of Dahlin were both former 1st rd picks acquired in trade in Tage and Tuch. Both are 1st line players, but neither is truly elite. That’s not a lot to show for 15 years of bad play.

Still a lot of under utilized water courses in Canada. NIMBY has been the stumbling block of many generation projects, whether they are Hydro, Wind, Gas, Nuclear, Solar. Everyone wants the power, no one wants the responsibility of dealing with flooding, mercury, birds, aesthetics, greenhouse gases, waste with extremely long half lives etc… Ontario is around 50% nuclear generation and it has been pretty reliable. I know little about these huge data servers but don’t they also perform better and use less power in a cold environment?

Elite talent should have found its way onto this team by drafting top 10 for like 15 years including 2x #1 and 2x #2. The return for some elite talent that left was below elite. As you state, management is the constant through all of this.

I think it's very evident and becoming more clear every game. Not sure why so many were in denial the last 4-5 seasons...maybe all the hype and hope on the youth movement. This team has only one top six CURRENTLY IMHO. TNT and he even needs superior talent along side for that to be true. Sure Benson, Quinn will eventually be at that level eventually, but not now.

Yeah, Östlund is gonna be a good one. He is definitely in the Sabres' future plans.

Balance may have been the deciding factor. For all the floating Tuch did, his line had the highest xGF and their XGA suffered only bc of the egregious giveaway by Tuch leading to a goal by Boldy. The First line with two kids and Tage got dominated when playing against Kaprizov/Yurov/Zuccarella, and their XGF/XGA and Corsi bears that out. But the newly constructed Third line with Doan/Östlund/Tuch seemed to pick up the slack. It seems Minnesotas scouting saw the McLeod line has been high scoring as of late, so they tried to match up defensively to shut them down, and they did for the most part. That lines Corsi was 21%. Abysmal. Curious if Ruff tweaks it with two games of subpar performance and the possibility of Norris coming back into the mix next week. I think this confirms that Östlund can play center at this level, especially if he has two veteran wingers to support him. He probably goes back to Roch when Norris comes back as Taro noted earlier but his play and those silky mitts on the game winner makes me think his development is going well.

Is the power harvested from Niagara Falls maxed out?

amazing accomplishment. w/ 50% teams making the playoffs yearly . thats a 1/1000000000000000000000000 chance

Wide shots get 0xgf because they miss the net. I'd guess the Sabres sh% isn't very good. Xgf% is not accounting for sh% and most models don't account for screens or pre shot movement. It's not a perfect stat but my guess is Buffalo has a sh% issue that theoretically will improve.

Having your so called "best" players like Tage or Dahlin fighting is not the answer...watch Boston...they have guys who can fight and their stars like Pasternak never fight nor does Boston want them to. Guys who are not fighters can get seriously hurt fighting a fighter.

Living up here in Ontario (north of Toronto) I am stuck with watching the Leafs lots and they always bitch about their goaltending whoch is funny cuase in almost every game they are greatly outplayed and outshot yet their goalies keep them in until Leafs score on one of their few shpts. Even now I am watchibg Caps/Islanders and everyone wonders why the Caps are winning but their goalie is keeping them in the game, then Caps score of course. The Sabres get lousey refereeing and even worse goaltending more often then not. Mind you lots of other teams (see Edmionton) have goaltending problems too..we are not alone. Adams is at least trying to find one goalie who can actually be consistant and win us games once in a while like other goalies do for their teams

Goons aren’t the answer. I’m as blood thirsty as the next guy but the Sabres need actual hockey players, like Josh Doan, who can play, hit and fight. Standing up for teammates isn’t foreign or forced for him. It’s what you are taught from juniors on up. Dunne is ok in that regard although his foot speed will always be a handicap. Tuch needs to drop em. Greenway needs to drop em. All the defenseman need to drop em. Maybe not Dahlin due to the minutes he logs and we know Power will get destroyed in any kind of physical confrontation. It’s been proven that goons don’t influence the other teams actions.

They don't have anyone who brings the puck up ice and you're scared. Sure, you're wary of TNT, but you just go and take away his space because he's got reach but not control. He doesn't create space because he's really only a threat to shoot, not to make otherworldly passes or breeze past you. Now... not every team has a player that creates space. But the Sabres really, really need one. And yes -- a goalie would be nice.

Everyone loves a kid line. But when they debuted together in 2005-06 their ages were Vanek-22, Roy-22, Afinogenov-26. Benson-21, Kozak-23, Östlund-22 are babies by comparison. (And they don't have the support of 3 other good lines, an excellent balanced D-corps, and Miller -- and a good coaching staff with Ruff in his prime and still with the fire within.)

Increased share of electricity production from expensive forms of electricity production (solar, wind) is also contributing to increased costs of electricity.

Scoring wise Tuch is a top 10 RW and top 50 of all forwards. Add his PK ability and he is a top line, but not an elite forward. FYI he is the Sabres top scorer (pts wise) and is 50th in the NHL (forwards). Colorado has 2 players in the top 10 and 3 in the top 38. We have a ton of middle 6 forwards and and 2nd pairing D of various quality, such as Power, Byram, Samuelsson, Doan, Benson, Norris, & McLeod. Quality is the issue. Mcleod, for example, is a high end 3rd line center, but a low end 2nd line center. The real issue for the Sabres, besides bad management and goaltending, is the lack of elite talent.

I won't be surprised to see Tage back at wing, but his defensive play won't really be the reason.

We'll find out for sure what Ruff thinks once they're both in the lineup together.

That's amazing. Benson totally would.

Maybe I should start following my local team more closely.

yep and most on here do not want us playing a goon on the 4th line. They really need a fighter as Tage nor Dahlin should be fighting. This elbow was without a doubt 5 and a game...end of story. As long as we do not use anyone who can fight teams will continue to do this kind of crap without worry...

In program management, cost and schedule variance at the 15% mark of a project's timeline are difficult to overcome. So if a project is overrunning at 15%, barring some radical change, the project will end in the red. I think the Thanksgiving benchmark is a similar thing: By November, a team is what it is, and barring a radical change, that's hard to alter. If there's any hope for the Sabres, it lies in the fact that the Sabres to this point have lost more games to injury than most teams. If they can get healthy and stay healthy (looking at you, Josh Norris), maybe they can overcome the slow start.

Never start anyone on the road.

Could that suggest the team has no confidence in UPL so they feel they need to play a much tighter defensive game to limit scoring opportunities because they feel they are going to end up in the back of the net more often?