All Activity

https://www.nhl.com/news/vegas-golden-knights-dallas-stars-favorites-to-win-stanley-cup-nhl-writers-say No one has Sabres making playoffs... seems about right... need to prove it.

Personally, I think the truth is someplace in between. When I watch Montreal, yes, they play fast, but they seem to not have much of a 'half court' game in the offensive zone. Whether on the PP, or just setting up in the offensive zone, their skill doesn't seem to be that high in terms of cycling the puck and generating good scoring chances. Off the rush they are OK, but their entire forward group just doesn't mesh in terms of playmaking once they establish the offensive zone.

Sincere apologies to any Quinn fans out there (I'm being serious, I am rooting for him and hope he plays better) but I'm not sure having Quinn on the wing with a young guy who played very well at times last year is best for Kulich: -In a very limited, and preseason, of them playing together: Most of their metrics were close, meaning Kulich with Quinn vs Kulich without Quinn. The only one big difference is even strength, Kulich and Quinn together didn't score any goals. When Kulich was out there WITHOUT Quinn, there were 2 goals for, 0 allowed. But going back to last year: -They played a pretty good number of minutes together. 161 minutes. When Kulich played with Quinn vs without him, Quinn brought down Kulich's Corsi (slightly), brought down his Fenwick % (52 to 47), brought down his shots for by a LOT (54% to 43%), brought down his expected goals % by a lot (52 to 44), and ES Kulich was a positive player without Quinn (+6) and a negative player with him (-4). As far as scoring, combine the very few minutes of the preseason with last year and you get this: -The team scored 40 goals in 618 minutes with Kulich on the ice WITHOUT Quinn (1 goal every 15.45 minutes) even strength. -The team scored 3 goals in 182 minutes with Kulich on the ice WITH Quinn (1 goal every 60+ minutes) And yes, those goals without Quinn were in large part to being WITH Tage, which helps the numbers. But even without Tage or Quinn (with Kulich having a variety collection of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th line wingers with him), the scoring is 1 goal every 25 minutes. I guess all of the above is my long way of saying I don't like the looks of putting Quinn with Kulich right now...but I understand Quinn has to play with someone, I just am hoping he steps up his play quite a bit from what he did the last 2 seasons.

Before the calendar flipped into October, thought the rumors that the Sabres would carry 3 goalies even should UPL be healthy could be true. But Georgiev has since shown that he simply isn't good enough to be in the NHL anymore except on an emergency basis. Expect that Bryson has been pencilled in as the pressbox D-man since he was re-signed and haven't seen anything to change that opinion. Expect that with Kesselring out, Johnson gets in the lineup on opening night. Won't even hazard a guess as to what's going to happen with the last 2-3 F's.

One thing that, IMHO, gets overlooked in Pegula's actions regarding the Sabres (or more accurately, non-actions, post-Covid) is the heart attack/stroke that Kim suffered. Personally, expect that affected his outlook tremendously. Covid showed him that his illiquid assests could lose tremendous value literally almost overnight given the wrong circumstances. And Kim's health showed him, in a bad way, that you never know what tomorrow's going to bring. I wonder just how much of his unwillingness to spend wastefully (for lack of a better word) on coaches and FO staff that are no longer working for him is due to holding out the hope that some medical team is going to have a breakthrough in brain recovery and the treatment they develop is going to cost way beyond what any of us here wasting time on a Sunday reading and posting to a message board dedicated to an irrelevant team in a semi-obscure sport when the weather is absolutely glorious in WNY could afford to come up with. It would make sense that he's concerned about cashflow when it's possible (not likely, but possible) that a ton of cash could bring back the version of his wife that he fell in love with and made so many plans with. Just throwing out a potential reason why his perspective on how he wants to run things might've changed. But IF that is the reason things have changed, don't know how we ever get past February 2 as it all seems to be a feedback loop. Maybe everything coaching-wise starts over next year as there are no contracts to buy out? Maybe Leone has such a special season in Ra-cha-cha he supplants Appert as heir-apparent? There must be a way to get to February 3; just not seeing that path right now.

How is it naive to say that the mission of the franchise is to win a championship? What was and remains naive is Terry's belief that he can be the POHO of achieving that mission without hiring good hockey people and letting them decide how best to do it. On second thought, scratch the "remains." It pretty clearly is no longer the mission of the franchise.

They are down to 28 in camp with a roster looking something like this (17 forwards, 8 D, 3 goalies): Line #1 Benson Norris Thompson Line #2 Zucker McLeod Tuch Line #3 Quinn Kulich Doan Expected to be in the opening night lineup: Krebs/Danforth First pair: Byram Dahlin Expected to be in the opening night lineup: Power/Timmins/Samuelsson Questionable for opening night due to injury: Luukkonen, Kesselring, Greenway Still to be confirmed: Which of Lyon/Georgiev won the battle to be #2 and will both make the roster if UPL is ready? Did both Bryson and Johnson make the final roster? Which one will start if Kesselring is out? Who makes team out of Geertsen, Dunne or Kozak? Did any pass Malenstyn as the 12th forward opening night? Will any of them still be here once Greenway is healthy? What is the deal with Carson Meyer and why is he still on the roster?

Aka the Judas cow. There tends to be 1 cow that leads the rest of the herd and that would be the one that gets the bell. Thing is, when it's time to go to the slaughter house, that cow is still in the lead.

Not a lie; more like a naive thing to say before the realities of NHL ownership presented themselves.

The players on the AHL team are older and more experienced than the younger players in the juniors. Even our young prospects, such as Helenius and Östlund, can help in guiding Mrtka through the rigors of the higher league. The coaching and the facilities are definitely better in Rochester. If the young defenesman ends up struggling too much, then send him down. Again, let his play determine how he should be handled. What's wrong with that? There is no one way to handle all young players/prospects. Why be so adamant about following the standard approach when sometimes it isn't the most suitable approach for a particular player. If there is an exception to the rule, then have enough flexibility to adjust.

Sorry for missing the draft. Had something come up last minute that had to be dealt with. But will not be an absentee owner. Good luck all.

Norris looked very good. Thought he and Thompson weren't meshing particularly well in the 1st game, but they worked better together after that. Wasn't sold on having Norris play with Tage, but if they have a playmaker with them that guy is going to get a lot of assists. Benson makes a ton of sense there, but even Krebs looked good there (going against mostly AHLers, admittedly). Have said elsewhere, if Krebs can work there, would like to see Benson play with McLeod and Tuch so the Sabres could have a borderline elite 2 way line (similar to what the Drury line gave them back in the day). His faceoff wins alone, should he stay healthy, should be enough to vault the PP up to top 22. He's good in his own end and gets to places where he can get good shots off. He's pretty much as billed. The big question is, as nearly everyone else has mentioned, can he stay healthy. If he can, this is Adams 1st true "win" of a trade.

He’ll be up in the rafters eating hotdogs in bubble wrap sorry to disappoint.

Wood be absolutely hilarious if the Atlantic ended up like the evolving wild prediction

Posted about this elsewhere, but the discrepancy between the hockey math nerds and the hockey talking heads is striking when it comes to the Sabres.

Please show the folks here Power's defense analytics.

No goaltending, no playoffs.

AI Rick with robot players. Can't wait.

I think Montreal will have big problems in defensive zon, both on pk and 5v5. Players like Dvorak, Armia and Heineman are not flashy, but they did a dirty job that also should be done by someone. Habs will realize that pretty fast imo.

I'd guess their forwards and depth defense don't grade out that well.

It seems like a lot of these surveys really under rate the Montreal Canadiens. It would not shock me to see them win the division. Hutson is a year older, They added Dobson, and Demidov looks like the next Patrick Kane. They are the fastest team in the East and the goaltending is decent and has some depth. What am I missing?

Never thought I’d see the day where US citizens, veterans even, are okay with the federal government, using armed goons, and throwing people, some American citizens, in jail with no warrant. You can spin it any way you want and say the violence is from the left. It’s ridiculous. These aren’t trained police officers who have had a background check. These are thugs bringing and welcoming the violence. And with that, I’m truly done with this echo chamber. Trump Uber Alles!

financial bubbles generally take some time to pop.

You are on to something. I had dinner with a troubled 35 year old man. He asked me a question on calculating a simple formula and rather than hear the explanation he stopped me and said never mind, he would just ask Chat Gpt. He wanted the final answer without knowing why it’s the answer. He was impressed that my answer was the same as Chat Gpt but saw no value in understanding why. Several other topics came up and he for asked advice, but then became disagreeable and told me to forget it, he would ask Chat GPT. I told him AI is not the tool for this kind of advice, the answer is not in a formula. He smirked and placated me. Later, he got political and told me things about a few current events that I never considered. He smuggly proclaimed I should get news from internet sources and podcasts and everything on TV news is a lie. He may be correct on the TV media, I don’t know. It seems to me that social media and AI can easily create confusion and division.