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I'll set aside the National Hokey League and NHL Rigged talk before saying: I am so impressed with what Edmonton did in coming back in that game after it appeared that they'd had their doors blown off and were going to lose by 5, 6, or more. More impressive still? The Oilers did what they did in a game where they could not get McDavid away from Barkov. Just incredible. We need 7 games of this!

Series tied 2-2. I love it. Great to see the Oiler's battle back. May the best team win.

Sounds like you had money on the game. NHL officiating has been and always will be a disaster. No way should any one call be scrutinized, the entire system blows. The NHL doesn’t know WTF it wants to do with officiating. Sometimes they say they’ll let the players police themselves, other times they call penalties when a player touches an opponent with their stick. Until the NHL figures out how they actually want the games called, I won’t bother to even think about it. Garage league with beer league ideology and former minor league players with axes to grind, calling penalties on the teams that never gave them a chance. Bush league nonsense.

Bryson's games played by season in his career: 38, 73, 59, 36, 48. He's currently the 7D, which plays a ton more than 15 games per season barring incredible team health. (This team employs Samuelsson.)

I'm not interested in stats as justification for chaining ourselves to players who don't get it done when it counts. We've been playing that game for like 20 years on this site. How many massive losing streaks have Tage Thompson's Sabres experienced? What's Tage bringing to this team when he's getting shoved off the puck in the corners despite being 6 foot 6? Guess the Sabres shouldn't have traded Pierre Turgeon either. Anyone still showing up is a fool anyway.

McLeod is best cast as a 3C. But I'd say he wasn't in over his head when temporarily elevated (caveat: in the regular season, on this roster). He was solid backfilling for TNT on the California trip and I'd argue he should have been the 2C in terms of ice time from November onwards, while moving Cozens down the lineup/to wing, rather than sending McLeod down the lineup (between Malenstyn/Lafferty/NAK where he surprisingly scored no goals for awhile). Ruff should have realized that way before the trade deadline -- he did and commented on the poor center play of TNT/Cozens -- but there was Cozens still playing center in the starting lineup the entire time (except one game 11/1). Per the bold, based on the duplicity of Dahlin/Power/Byram, Byram may be a better player than McLeod, but McLeod has a role on the team that no one else currently fills. Byram can't get to play his preferred role because of two #1 picks (one of whom carries everyone, the other who... Byram may be better than, but won't be given a chance to show).

lol Morrissey is a fraud - - - 6th is really good tbh considering the tire fire the sabres are. Conjures Eichel 8th in mvp voting vibes and we’ve seen what happens when guys like JE and Sam Reinhart blossom on good teams. My guess is Dahlin would have been nominated if we made the playoffs

Beyond the actual experience of it, how anyone could doubt that they literally need the berth as a functional building block to BUILDING said future is well beyond me

Most of “we” anyway.

There is no future until they ice a winning team, finally you have it backwards The idea that a single playoff berth, when we haven’t had one in a decade and a half, is meaningless is truly absurd logic Like, absurd of the highest order. devoid of logic? What words are strong enough, here? HOW THOROUGHLY do we need to prove how special making the playoffs is? We never f*cking make it lol. “One meaningless berth”. One meaningless lottery win. ay caramba

We are past the point where moving prospects stings.

I stand corrected, he won this one

The sound of truthi-ness. Helenius seems like he might be our top prospect right now. But he’s still a big unknown. There is value in moving an unknown for a known quantity, especially when success has been so hard to find. It would have to be for a substantial player, but moving even our top prospects needs to be on the table right now.

McLeod made them better than they would have been with Savoie

Ryan McLeod might be a better player than Matt Savoie right now, but in no way did McLeod make the Sabres a better team. And now the Sabres are up against the cap and McLeod is going to demand a contract that he probably won't be capable of living up to as a 3C, or be forced to play over his head as a 2C, while the Sabres move out better players to keep him. Nothing Adams does is right and the team is doomed to fail so long as he remains.

It’s because trades aren’t a zero sum game. Trades are also a means to an end, not a valuable metric in and of themselves. if winning trades is a thing, yes the blues won the trade because the trade facilitated their goal. Two teams can win a trade, 2 teams can lose. A good example of a trade both teams lost is Byram Mittelstadt To your point, the sabres have already lost the ROR deal: that’s another thing people don’t tabulate properly - time isn’t a negligible competent in trades lol. Our goal when trading ROR wasn’t to get a guy who was better in 5 years. The trade torpedoed an entire regime and set the team back years If you can analyze that swap as a “win”, it’s a pyrrhic victory at best but in reality with an awareness for context, it can only be construed as a colossal error

I also haven’t read a strong argument that he’s won any trades, ftr

Dealing who?

I don't want to trade Helenius for Rakell either. But I have to point out that Dylan Cozens, Jack Quinn and Owen Power were far better prospects than any player currently in the Buffalo pipeline. In terms how they rank as prospects — which is not proof of how they will be as players — Helenius and Östlund are similar to where Peyton Krebs was 2 or 3 years after he was selected.

Conservatives doing victory laps is par for the course with these traitors. MAGA. Scum.

Who won the Mitts-Byram trade is strange hill to die on. The Sabres as a team did not improve in the standings, they regressed. Colorado had another post season that disappointed them, but that Sabres fans would absolutely love to experience. It looks to me like Byram is the better player of the two. That’s my opinion based on comparing two players on different teams that play different positions. As @LGR4GM stated, it appears Byram has more value today than Mitts had (he was traded for 3rd line player Charlie Coyle), supporting the notion that Byram is the better player. Did the trade improve the Sabres? That answer unfortunately is NO. The Sabres finished lower in the standings with 5 fewer points, but certainly there were other factors at play as well. Where Byram would fit was always a question. Did we hurt our center spline by removing Mitts was also a question. Mitts clearly did not cut it as a 2C in Colorado, and while Byram was effective when playing with Dahlin (as all other Sabres defensemen were) he did not much bring otherwise. He (and others) did not step up when Dahlin was hurt which is when it was needed most. A big team need is still there - a solid and steady defense first player at RHD to compliment Power or Dahlin. Adams, always late to the party, said himself that he wasn’t sure how to use Byram. A big consideration, since Mitts is a center, is to evaluate the play of the Sabres centers. Lindy most definitely considered the center spline to be a weak spot on the team. There was much line shuffling because of the center play. Cozens folded under the weight of the “A” and the 2C role and was moved out. Even after bringing in McLeod in a separate deal, who was good, the center spline was an area of concern and it still is. Getting the better player is nice. Now they have to somehow leverage that to improve the roster. At some point this was to about improving the team, and not “winning trades”.

So he's not another undersized finesse player? Who knew? Who. Knew.

Agreed - bring me a superstar and every prospect is available.

My worst fear is that Jeff Skinner, Evander Kane, Jake McCabe, Nic DesLauriers, and Hudson Fasching all end up with their name on the Stanley Cup while Sheevyn is still the leader of the Hockey Ops department with the Sabres and is the one direct conduit to ownership and churns thorough GMs who listen to the master for eternity.

I don't like moving helenius because he actually profiles as a middle-six center. Seeing the scarcity and difficulty acquiring two-way centers makes it tough to want to move him.